The 7 Cs to Build a Winning Team in Business,
Sports & Life.
Coach Mike Smith lead a remarkable turnaround at the Atlanta Falcons around in 2008 and in his book with Jon Gordon, Smith outlines the 7 C’s for building a winning team.
Culture:
- Organizations with sustained cultures have sustained success
- Culture drives expectations and beliefs:
- Expectations and beliefs drive behaviors
- Behaviors drive habits
- Habits create the future
- Know what you stand for – put it into process
- Focus on the Root, not the fruit
- Built it up and down – everyone creates culture
- Live it, value it, reinforce it and fight for it
“Culture is defined and created from the top down, but it comes to life from the bottom up.”
Contagious:
- Make a decision to be positively contagious.
- Leadership is a transfer of belief – share a powerful vision and mission with your team
- Fill your team with positively contagious team members
- Remove energy vampires
- Adopt a no complaining policy
“There is never a bad day, only bad moments.”
Consistent:
- Be the same leader whether you are winning or losing
- It’s not okay to be moody – people don’t know what to expect and lose trust in you
- Consistently remove any seeds of complacency
- Commit to consistent improvement
- Be humble – life-long learner; headlines become fish wrap
- Be hungry – push yourself and your team to be great
“To build a winning team, you want to be consistent in your attitude, effort, and actions.”
Communicate:
- Communication begins the relationship developing process – relationships are key to winning teams
- Voids in communication are filled with negativity
- Take the temperature – listen and learn from your team
- Reiterate and reinforce your critical messages – make sure the leaders are sharing the same messages
- Communication fosters collaboration
“What we think matters. Our words are powerful”
Connect:
- Creating a connected team is one of the most important things you do – Team beats talent
- Use team-building exercises to build relationships
- Hero, Hardship & Highlight
- Defining Moment
- If you really knew me, you would know this about me
- Create opportunities to connect outside the building
- Connection is a continuous process
“The connection you create today will be the bond that strengthens your team tomorrow.”
Commit:
- Not just involved – your commitment has to be greater than anyone else’s in the organization
- It’s not about you, it’s about the team – commit to them
- Focus on making your team better
- Lose your ego and own the problems
- The ultimate commitment is sacrifice
“A team feels a leader’s commitment when the leader takes the time to serve them.”
Care:
- A leader who cares builds a team who cares
- Make caring a strategy
- Value team members as individuals
- Develop and share a caring trademark
“To build a winning team it’s essential to build a culture of caring.”
Coaching:
- True leaders don’t create followers…
- They create more leaders
- Coach with optimism and positivity
- Help people become the best versions of themselves
- Ask people to share their goals and help them get there
“Want to create sustainable success? Focus on the root, not the fruit.”
Character:
- Don’t just settle for talent without character
- Character drives talent to greatness
- Leaders are developer of characters as well as talent
“The character you possess during the drought is what your team will remember during the harvest.”
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