You Win in The Locker Room First.

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.”