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As we explore the 16 things high-performing organizations do differently, I’ll share Yaeger’s perspective followed by my own opinions and observations of teamwork—a core value—at NASA.

 

Pillar One:  Targeting Purpose

1. Great Teams Understand Their “Why”

Great Teams are connected to a greater purpose and constantly remind their players and employees that they are involved in something larger than themselves and their individual goals.

Great Teams in sports remind their players on a daily basis of the significance of their history: the important things the team has done and for whom they have been done.

Managing partner and chairman Bill DeWitt of the 2006 and 2011 World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals explains, “The Cardinal Way is excellence throughout all aspects of an organization. It’s making sure that everyone from top to bottom is on the same page, and our goals and objectives continue to be at the forefront of Major League Baseball.” This includes engaging new recruits in a culture of high character and developing players by stressing fundamentals of play and sportsmanship.

Kevin Eastman, who has coached both the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Clippers, has unique knowledge of what it’s like to build a winning culture.  He’s done it with teams that have a great tradition as well as one with a lackluster tradition.  “Culture must be reminded every day,” Eastman said. “The history gives us a starting point to learn from the past, produce in the present, and prepare for the future.” But what if you’re leading a team or organization like the Clippers, who lack such a storied tradition? Eastman says that team leadership has to emphasize to its players that they have the opportunity to do something new, to establish that winning culture and create “a legend for future generations.”

“Bad history or no history—frame it,” said Eastman. “Frame it to your advantage. If you have a great record of success, stress it. If you don’t, tell your team that they get to go out and make it. Whatever it is, use your history to create energy for your team.”

While most companies tout the importance of corporate culture and have made it a talking point, few have actually made a priority of shaping that culture around a shared purpose. Instead of a “why” to motivate and unite team members, these companies have only a set of performance goals and targets—not enough to motivate a team to greatness.

If a good team desires to become a Great Team, it must consistently communicate its “why.”  May your team discover your “why.”

NASA has always been an organization of purpose.  Our current vision is to discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.  NASA inspires the world with our exploration of new frontiers, our discovery of new knowledge, and our development of new technology. Our work benefits Americans and all humanity. Since NASA’s inception in 1958 to present day, the Agency’s history is written with each unique scientific and technological achievement. We have landed people on the Moon, visited every planet in the solar system, touched the Sun, and solved some of the core mysteries of our home planet.

Most recently, the Administration charged NASA with reaching the Moon within 5 years.  It’s not hard for our organization to understand and connect with our “why.”

 

Pillar Two:  Effective Management

2. Great Teams Have and Develop Great Leaders

Great Teams sustain success by placing a high value on leadership.  And while every team and business has a leader, many organizations lack a culture of leadership development within the ranks. Great Teams that sustain success place a high value on developing leadership. Promoting such a culture leads to consistent behaviors and better habits and ultimately increases that team’s chances of winning.

Hall of Fame Basketball Coach John Wooden said late in his life, “Another very important part of leadership is to make those under your supervision feel that you care for them—not just for the job they are doing for you.”

To reach his players on a very subtle yet powerful level, Coach Wooden coined inspiring leadership phrases that were easy to remember and apply, such as, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” Other favorites of his were, “Be quick, but don’t hurry,” as well as, “Winning takes talent; to repeat takes character,” and, “You have not taught until they have learned.”

This is a strong emphasis at NASA.  In fact, on Wednesday, April 10, I’ll be delivering a talk at the Top Talent Summit in Vancouver, entitled, “Growing Out of This World Leaders:  A Perspective from NASA.”  My talk focuses on NASA’s philosophy and model for leadership development; how succession development works at NASA; the key role mentoring and networking play; and our current areas of emphasis, including inclusive leadership and leaders as coaches.

 

3. Great Teams Allow Culture to Shape Recruiting

Great Teams realize that fit is more important than credentials, and that success ultimately depends on the right kind of personnel.

According to the Harvard Business Review, A-caliber players are four times as productive as average employees—a universal truth seen across industries. Tech-giant Apple reports that A-level developers are nine times more productive than the average programmer. Top sales representatives deliver eight times more revenue than the average rep. In the operating room, high-performing transplant surgeons have a success rate six times higher than the average transplant surgeon.  But how do you distinguish A-caliber players from the rest of the talented field of recruits? The answer: look for unique qualifiers that correspond to your team culture.

The Great Teams—such as the Boise State Broncos, the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels, the Duke Blue Devils, Zappos, and Target—have mastered recruiting to their cultures, and any organization seeking similar success must look within before blindly searching for the perfect candidate.

By identifying the drivers of success or improvement within the organization, a team can be well on its way to creating a great recruiting strategy.

At NASA, recruiting is about sifting through a variety of interested candidates and sorting based on the best talent for the team.  For our most prestigious positions—our Astronauts—we collect opinions and feedback from everyone who interacts with them throughout the process—including the receptionists and nurses.  That’s because our culture is all about teamwork—and every team member is valuable.  Therefore, we have screened out highly-qualified candidates who did not treat support staff well in the process.  We have found that there are plenty of candidates available who have the talent and who can fit our culture best!

 

4. Great Teams Create and Maintain Depth

Great Teams build a deep bench at all levels of the organization.

Jerry West, the Laker legend whose silhouette is the one used in the NBA logo, said that building depth is “crucially important” to long-term success. “If you don’t have someone on your team that’s a capable replacement, then you’re going to have a hole in the picture of your puzzle,” said West, who would go on to be the team’s general manager for many years after his playing days were over.

Great Teams know that success is the culmination of persistent communication, consistent performance, and pursuit of long-term goals—through winning seasons or losing ones. A good team can ultimately become a Great Team if it develops talent and leadership at the right pace.

Depth matters. Having a backup plan to replace essential personnel and develop others for future opportunities allows space for success on all fronts.

This is a great leadership principle.  When I stepped in to the HR Director role at the Johnson Space Center in 2015, I started preparing successors on day one.  Just three years later, a new opportunity became available for me to lead HR from a different role at NASA.  Both the Center Director and the Chief Human Capital Officer were comfortable with two different candidates we prepared for the JSC HR Director role.  That was one of my proudest moments as a leader, and I had a new opportunity as a result and the organization I left behind was in even better hands for the future!

 

5. Great Teams Have a Road Map

Leaders of Great Teams build for the future with comprehensive plans.

Long before he won ten NCAA men’s basketball titles with his UCLA Bruins, Coach John Wooden developed his famous Pyramid of Success as a visual to instruct his players on how to win on the court and in life. The “blocks” of Wooden’s pyramid were important attributes a winning player and a winning person must exemplify. The foundational bottom row included industriousness, friendship, loyalty, cooperation, and enthusiasm—key characteristics that everyone must embody. Stacked on top of these basics were upper-tier qualities such as self-control, initiative, skill, confidence, and poise. Wooden told his players to adopt each quality into their characters as they worked toward competitive greatness, which is the block at the top of the pyramid. Competitive greatness, in Coach Wooden’s mind, was reached when you were able to “be at your best when your best is needed.”

A Great Team outlines expectations for all members of an organization and for the organization as a whole. This clear-cut set of objectives—a road map—enables the organization to set benchmarks and goals and ultimately to lay the foundation for its own success.

Though business is presently booming, CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a future where Facebook is a global leader in the next technological revolution—and he has a three-, five-, and ten-year road map to get there. “We’re going to prepare for the future by investing aggressively in it,” Zuckerberg said, as quoted in an article for Business Insider.

One of NASA’s strengths is in Strategic Planning.  We have long-range plans for the organization—just as Zuckerberg described for Facebook.  Additionally, we work to make expectations clear.  For the Executives I lead, we discuss expectations around Results; Leading People; Leading Change; Business Acumen; and Building Coalitions.  We make sure we have a shared understanding of both near-term and long-term expectations for our organization’s success.

 

6. Great Teams Promote Camaraderie and a Sense of Collective Direction

Members of Great Teams develop a sense of responsibility through fellowship.

Colonel Bernie Banks, department head for West Point’s Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, describes the practice of intentionally developing a collective direction and camaraderie in a team as colaperation. This coined term covers the entire process of fostering a cooperative environment, soliciting buy-ins from team members, “having a clear vision of where you are trying to take people,” and “establishing a coalition to move forward.” “Colaperation is cooperation and collaboration together,” said Banks. “So you are trying to foster [not only] a cooperative environment, but also one where people are openly collaborating. I find that high-performance organizations really foster this notion of colaperation; you are going to push me and I am going to push you, but we are doing it together.”

“Organizations with multiple departments should desire to push themselves to be the best that they can,” said Banks. “Clearly, others are going to compete in a certain sense, but never in a way that will not reflect a sincere desire to cooperate with peers.”

Michael Lee Stallard, president of E Pluribus Partners and world expert on corporate camaraderie, says that Great Teams are inevitably “connection cultures.”  He explains, “A leader can create a connection culture by sharing vision, value, and voice. When that leader communicates an inspiring vision and lives it, values others and gives them a voice, they feel connected. If all three are recognized, then the byproduct is a great organizational culture.”

At the Johnson Space Center, it’s easier to build community and camaraderie because people live and work in the same community.  To build the Agency HR team is more of a challenge with dispersed HR professionals across the country.  We are taking different steps—including development of a shared mission, vision, and values to bring the team together…and we bring the community together frequently in a virtual on-screen environment.

 

Pillar Three: Activating Efficiency

7. Great Teams Manage Dysfunction, Friction, and Strong Personalities

Great Teams know how to succeed despite adversity and friction.

In any industry or sport, some degree of internal conflict is inevitable. Personality differences are amplified when individuals work long hours alongside one another and rivalry is encouraged within an organization.

Too often, office drama reduces team productivity, collaboration, and morale. It can also be expensive. Internal friction is one of the greatest expense items for companies. According to the CPP Global Human Capital Report, 25 percent of employees were so upset by the idea of facing a workplace conflict that they called in sick or were absent from work. Additionally, 10 percent of those surveyed reported that a project failed as a result of negative conflict, and more than a third said negative conflict resulted in someone leaving the company. Employees in American businesses said they spent 2.8 hours per week dealing with conflict, which amounts to $359 billion in paid hours, an indication that conflict is eating American organizations up from the inside.

According to the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, leaders commonly manage—or mismanage—conflict in one of five ways:

1. Competing: Some rely on their rank and title, debating fiercely if necessary, to force their way through workplace friction.
2. Accommodating: Others try to “play nice,” giving in to even unreasonable demands to keep the peace.
3. Avoiding: Some fail at addressing conflict because they’d rather pretend it isn’t happening and hope it will settle itself.
4. Compromising: Still others try for a middle ground.
5. Collaborating: Great Teams set a standard above the rest by choosing the fifth option. This means they do their best to listen actively, consider all points of view, and stress the common purpose and shared values of the organization.

In my leadership talks at NASA, I encourage leaders to resolve conflict directly.  This starts with the leader using her or his most powerful leadership tool—a mirror—to ask what she or he did to contribute to the conflict.  What could be done differently to improve the situation?  Yaeger’s point is that teams also help to self-manage this dysfunction.

 

8. Great Teams Build a Mentoring Culture

Great Teams encourage everyone to teach and learn every day.

They understand how powerful the synergy can be between veterans and recruits, especially when both mentors and mentees have clearly defined responsibilities to make the relationship successful.

In any sport, two of a coach’s most important responsibilities are fostering learning and developing talent.  Jeff Van Gundy, ESPN analyst and former head coach for the New York Knicks and Houston Rockets, has developed some of the most dynamic NBA players in the league and, thanks to his experiences, has come up with what he calls the “two knucklehead theory.” Van Gundy’s premise is that a professional team will almost always have at least one knucklehead in the group—someone who naturally ruffles everyone else’s feathers. According to Van Gundy, you can have one knucklehead, but you can’t have two. Two knuckleheads will battle one another or, worse, combine forces and create a bigger problem for the team. When you have only one knucklehead, that guy can’t go anywhere to throw his tantrums. Eventually he’ll have to fall in line with the makeup of the roster.

Like the most successful teams in sports, many of the high-performing organizations in business make mentoring a priority. In a recent study, the American Society for Training and Development reported that 71 percent of Fortune 500 companies surveyed offered a corporate mentorship program to build and equip tomorrow’s leaders. The ASTD researchers also discovered that 75 percent of corporate executives credit their rise in leadership directly to their relationships with mentors.

Here are several steps leaders can take to create an effective, high-performing culture of mentorship:

1. Be intentional about setting up mentoring relationships. This may mean setting up a formal program or simply matching up recruits with veterans or professionals with similar skill sets.
2. Train employees at all levels to recognize every moment as a mentoring moment.
3. Encourage team members at all levels to ask for mentoring opportunities. Many mentoring relationships never begin because no one is willing to risk rejection. If possible, management should initiate by extending those invitations to its talent.
4. Foster a team-first mentality throughout the company, and engage team members at all levels with the purpose of their work. Workers who are focused on helping the team reach its goals will be more likely to make the sacrifices necessary to bring everyone up to speed. Remember that “team first” applies to everyone—including the mentors.
5. Avoid penalizing them by making a mentorship just another assigned task piled up on top of all the others. Build in time for mentorship and try to offer other benefits beyond good feelings.
6. Combat jealousy and fear of mentoring by making roles and outcomes clear at the outset. Avoid the kind of “I trained them, but now they’ve taken my job” scenarios that team members may rightly fear. Remind everyone that what goes around comes around.

Leaders should remember their beginnings, not just their current positions of prominence. Then they must reciprocate the help they received along the way by reaching out to the next wave of leaders.

Mentoring—both formal and informal—have been part of NASA’s development philosophy and practice for many years.  Several years ago, we partnered with LucasFilms to leverage the Yoda brand for our mentoring program: Your Opportunity to Develop Another (YODA).  After several years of that program, we recognized that it didn’t leave room for two-way or reverse mentoring relationships.  So, we moved away from that branding.  And I have personally benefitted greatly from my reverse mentoring relationships.

One question I like to ask leaders that I will pose here, “Who is on your Mount Rushmore of Mentors?”  

 

9. Great Teams Adjust Quickly to Leadership Transitions

Great Teams endure change and keep their established cultures intact.

Successors are encouraged maintain as much communication with the outgoing leader as possible and also build a balanced network of connections with people who both liked and disliked the outgoing leader. Doing so can dissolve a faction.

The Build-A-Bear organization’s management identified five behavior-based actions that they, as leaders, could do to ease the discomfort of change:

1. Be visibly passionate about the vision; keep frustrations private.
2. Reiterate the long-term vision and specific goals as often as possible.
3. Monitor the corporate mind-set regularly and informally. Ask questions and listen. “Management by walking around” (MBWA) is an excellent way to do this. (For a humorous different take on MBWA, check out my 2014 Opposite Day Post, where I coined the acronym MBSAD!)
4. Identify progress and negativity quickly. Reward progress and make changes where negativity persists.
5. Frequently remind the organization that it is being asked to act differently in order to achieve different results.

Try to have a transition plan in place before it becomes necessary. Leadership changes are unavoidable, and it’s only wise to prepare in advance.

Outgoing leaders can lessen the difficulty of a leadership phase-out by setting strict departure dates, building a transition plan (if one is not already in place), and constructing a best-practices document for their successors.

I’ve seen this work well and not work so well at NASA.  Sometimes, NASA leaders are so passionate about and committed to organization success that they have a hard time letting go to a successor.  However, I’ve seen other cases where successors were prepared and then ultimately took the team and organization to new heights.  The latter organizations certainly sustain stronger performance over time.

 

10. Great Teams Adapt and Embrace Change

Great Teams understand that past results might not guarantee future success.

Charles Darwin has been quoted as saying, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive, but those who can best manage change.”

Beach volleyball champions Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings are shining examples of athletes who have mastered the art of adjusting to change. Over the span of eight years—starting with their first tour championship in 2001 and ending with their second gold medal in the 2008 Olympics—they displayed stunning streaks of dominance.  By 2011, when the two decided to come back for a third run at a gold medal, many things had changed. Aside from surgery and childbirth, both athletes were now in their thirties.

Working with the sports psychologist forced both players to look at how they worked together; May-Treanor tended to be more laid back in her approach, and Walsh Jennings was more anxious, particularly when the team struggled. Instead of letting those qualities grate on each other as the team tried to find its way, they learned how to play off each other’s mental cues.

Walsh Jennings and May-Treanor went on to have a career-defining streak at the London Games—thirty-two consecutive sets, all without a loss. Eventually, the duo defeated fellow Americans Jen Kessy and April Ross to win the gold medal once again. Their victory sent a powerful message to the sports world that the greatest winners aren’t defined by age or circumstance but by mental toughness and willingness to embrace change in order to be successful.

Misty May-Treanor summarized it perfectly when she said, “When you are on a team, you have to be willing to completely sacrifice for the good of the team. Kerri and I knew that something had to change for us to stay on top. She wanted to engage a mental strength coach. I wasn’t big on the idea, but I was big on the team—and the idea of winning. We grew together and became mentally tougher. That’s why we won London.”

Any team desiring to be great must develop the mental edge required to master change. Ultimately, that’s what makes the most innovative and undeniably successful teams great.

Our NASA Human Resources organization is in the midst of a significant transformation, designed to reduce costs and improve effectiveness as we move from a decentralized HR model to a functionally-aligned organization.  This is a significant change for us, as we pivot from a more than 50 year-old model at NASA.  We recognize as Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa frequently said, “We must be lean, agile, and adaptive to change.”

 

11. Great Teams Run Successful Huddles

Great Teams understand that handling meetings is an important part of achieving greatness.

According to a pair of recent studies by Steven Rogelberg, Chancellor’s Professor and professor of management at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 37 percent of meetings begin late by an average of fifteen minutes. The studies—which surveyed 480 workers—also found that meeting delays disrupted creativity and hurt job performance. The researchers noted that in organizations that lacked consequences for employee lateness to meetings—which is usually the case—the lateness only increased over time.

Here are ten ways Great Teams can ensure great meetings:

1. Begin and end meetings on time.
2. Schedule meetings wisely.
3. Begin with a shared or pre-read agenda—and stick to it.
4. Engage employees with strong, emotion-driving content.
5. Make the meeting’s objective clear from the beginning.
6. Don’t waste time with off-topic discussion.
7. Allot enough time for necessary discussion points.
8. Calculate the cost of all in the meeting and make the appointment count.
9. Tailor the meetings for all participants.
10. End the meeting by reviewing objectives met or decisions made.

Most organizations at NASA have not mastered this key to organization success.  As a leader, I recognize that meetings will often run to the time allotted to them, so I try to intentionally cancel meetings or end meetings early when objectives are completed.  In fact, I probably don’t convene enough meetings, as demonstrated by feedback I received in November from my team.  Team meetings are such an important indicator of team culture.

 

Pillar Four: Mutual Direction

12. Great Teams Improve Through Scouting

Great Teams evaluate themselves and their competition to gain a competitive advantage.

The Great Teams in sports and business keep themselves keenly aware of their teams’ potentials and limitations by aggressively studying their own performances and tendencies. Such meticulous self-analysis can reveal potential flaws in even the most airtight of game plans.

In his widely cited book, General Management, J. Kroon writes about “environmental scanning,” which he defines as “the study of social, political and technological trends which influence a business, an industry and even a total market.”

In the corporate world, the SWOT analysis is a user-friendly, widely accepted tool that helps an organization evaluate itself internally. The acronym stands for:

• Strengths: factors that give an edge for the company over its competitors
• Weaknesses: factors that can be harmful if used against the firm by its competitors
• Opportunities: favorable situations which can bring a competitive advantage
• Threats: unfavorable situations which can negatively affect the business

Leaders who utilize the SWOT understand that they can directly manage their internal strengths and weaknesses and capitalize on favorable conditions in the marketplace, but must anticipate—and react appropriately to—outside threats.

Benchmarking, like the SWOT analysis, is one of a leader’s strongest resources in identifying how the company’s products, practices, and services measure up against competitors. The goal of benchmarking is to evaluate whether internal processes are above or below external industry standards.

Scouting—both internal and external—is a consistent learning tool that all teams should adopt and reinforce. Good scouting keeps a team continually aware of its potential, the capabilities of its opponents, and the need to develop aggressive championship strategies.

Several years ago, I worked for a leader who wanted NASA to erase the “not invented here” mentality.  He pushed all of his leaders to benchmark with others and bring new ideas to the organization.  I’ve carried that forward in my own leadership.  In NASA HR, we compare ourselves with the best organizations in private industry.  To that end, I’ve asked each of our HR Directors to conduct benchmarking with industry greats to bring new ideas to our team.  We’ve reached out to Google, Facebook, Apple, and others, as we learn from the best in the business.

 

13. Great Teams See Value Others Miss

Great Teams use analytics to think outside the box.  Analytics is defined as “the method of logical analysis.”

Big data is a hot topic in the worlds of sports and business because the collection of metrics, analytics, and information can reveal a potential advantage or disadvantage.

De La Salle High School and Coach Ladouceur—the football team and coach featured in the 2014 movie When The Game Stands Tall—used team commitment cards.  Coach Lad explains, “The idea behind the commitment cards was that I wanted my players to be responsible to each other and understand that their contributions impact the team as a whole. For many of them—for a lot of people, actually—making a commitment to your teammate is completely outside-the-box thinking. The beauty of football is that you have so many guys. But one or two can destroy the entire team if they aren’t pulling their weight. I wanted my players to understand that if they were going to be a member of any team, then they would have to stay accountable to each another, on and off the field.”

Self-scouting fit into the overall culture of De La Salle High, where visitors would not find any championship trophy displays or all-time record listings of the Spartan’s incredible accomplishments. “We didn’t really care about visual acknowledgments of achievement,” Coach Lad said, “because it was secondary to the humility and commitment of personal excellence that our team stood for.”

Big data drives accurate decision making. Statisticians understand the importance of informed business decisions, and data analysis can help encourage an organization toward—or dissuade it from—taking a course of action.

Predictive statistics can be highly profitable. Businesses that utilize statistics are more profitable because their collected data can be mined for all sorts of valuable information—such as improving and maximizing transactions.

Anson Dorrance, head coach for the highly successful University of North Carolina women’s soccer team, said, “One of the best things about having data drive performance is when you are sitting in a player conference with the players across your desk and they’re looking at their practice performance data. Just seeing their own performance displayed before them is a motivator to improve.”

Any team desiring to be great should not ignore the value of analytics.

NASA is working to leverage analytics in support organizations the way data drives technical decision-making for our engineers and scientists.  NASA is a high-performing organization technically with data analytics, but still maturing in our mission support organizations.

 

14. Great Teams Win in Critical Situations

Great Teams thrive and win in high-pressure circumstances.  A Great Team wins in those moments because it has figured out effective ways to finish strong.

When the competition is neck and neck and victory is on the line, Great Teams refuse to shrink from the challenge.  Their sense of calm and confidence, like all habits of Great Teams, is driven by culture as well as personality and training. It is carefully developed in an organization’s huddles, meetings, and practices.

No matter what, don’t quit.

For Great Teams, finishing strong and performing under pressure requires inspiration, confidence, and guidance from a focused leader. And great leaders motivate their employees to push through a tough time by helping them realize their jobs are meaningful.

During a crisis, a team should emphasize three levers: culture (which brings a team closer together), training, and true incentives that elevate its members and inspire performance. According to a study by the Florida State University Sales Institute, Great Teams who use all three of these levers have an amazing 100 percent success rate when completing objectives during a critical moment.

NASA always pulls together in times of crisis.  Nearly 18 months ago, the Houston area was significantly impacted by Hurricane Harvey.  The NASA team pulled together and helped team members clean up their homes and ensure good living conditions.  It was a family-like atmosphere between NASA employees—some of whom hadn’t even met the co-workers they were helping.  It was definitely a winning attitude and winning actions demonstrated by a team that knows how to win.

 

15. Great Teams Speak a Different Language

Great Teams speak success into existence.

Successful leaders do not berate or chide team members but seek ways to positively articulate objectives and expectations. They have better coaching conversations, ask better questions, and drive results.

“As a leader it is so important to be precise with your language,” Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll said. “We don’t like synonyms around here. We say whatever it is it is. We want to keep the message clear for the players so they can own it. It doesn’t matter if we have good ideas; they have to be able to utilize them. So we try to be real specific with our language and knowing the power of talk—the positives and the negatives of self talk too. If you’re unclear, they have unclear thoughts.”

Coach Carroll made the point that he’s never met a professional who wanted to make a mistake—drop a pass, miss a tackle, or fumble the ball. So yelling over a mistake accomplishes nothing. But in that moment, a player is at the most important part of the learning curve. Great leaders take advantage of that moment—and a player’s willingness to be taught—to speak a different coaching language.

“We encourage all Cast Members to be leaders in their area,” wrote Jeff James, vice president and general manager of the Disney Institute, in a blog for the company. “We believe that a leader is someone who makes an impact regardless of his or her title. To implement change, you must reward and recognize individuals when they do something right.”

Great Teams see constructive criticism as opportunities to reinforce culture.  Consider these language lessons:

• Be an example for others to follow. Leaders must be living examples of the change they wish to see in their teams.
• Ask the right questions. Instead of asking, “Why do you keep messing up?” be a leader who says, “What can we do to help you meet your next deadline?” or “How can we make your job more manageable?” Use effective verbal praise.
• Focus on strengths. Great Team uses precious time to identify the strengths of its team members and to focus on improving those strengths. Words of affirmation are powerful because they highlight a positive characteristic of another person in a clear and definite manner.
• Affirm character. Great Team leaders observe their teams, note strong examples of character, and celebrate them accordingly, then use the process as research for future success.
• Know how and where to affirm. Great Teams use communication like game plans—strategically and creatively. Communication should be personal, specific, and within an appropriate context.
• Language matters. A shift in communication can be an important cornerstone in a company’s culture. Great Teams see the value of speaking a different language, setting them apart from competitors.

How you treat mistakes and failure is a significant factor in building a culture of innovation.  NASA had to pivot from a “Failure is Not an Option” mindset that permeated the organization in areas where astronauts lives were not at risk.  Remember, this attitude was key in keeping our astronauts alive from the Apollo 13 mission, but do we need that same attitude in research and development?  So, NASA created the “Lean Forward/Fail Smart” Award, which recognizes a dare to try, perseverance, learning, and collaboration or sharing of lessons learned with others.

 

16. Great Teams Avoid the Pitfalls of Success

Great Teams seek to sustain success by resisting complacency and distractions.

Even a Great Team can be its own worst enemy, especially once it becomes a Great Team.  The sports and business greats know that as difficult as winning is, winning repeatedly is more challenging by a factor of ten.

Complacency is perhaps the most common pitfall. A hard-fought victory or successful season can make even the most dedicated organizations drop their guards or spend just a little too much time patting themselves on their collective backs. Over-celebration can easily consume the mood of an entire organization, stifle improvement efforts, rot work ethic, and create laziness.

Bobby Bowden, successful football coach at Florida State said, “You win and win and win, and then pressure continues to build. But I know one thing: it’s easier to get to the top than it is to stay there.”

In a survey by global management consulting firm Bain & Company, 91 percent of the top twelve hundred senior executives of the world’s highest-performing companies reported that culture is an important component of success—and sustenance. Another Bain study found that 81 percent of corporate executives agreed that an organization without a winning culture will never surpass mediocrity.

Southwest Airlines, the world’s largest low-cost airline, leads a competitive marketplace by remaining true to its number one value: organizational culture. The organization ranks its employees first, customers second, and shareholders third. This unorthodox ranking ensures that Southwest always knows who drives the company and to whom they are in service. And it has led the company to repeated success.

“The lesson to me was that no matter how big you are, you need to remain humble,” Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly said to me in an interview. “It pays to be hungry, and you should never lose your competitive edge, because there is always somebody out there trying to knock you off.”

Southwest regularly competes with a number of smaller carriers in a hunt for the airline’s business. In light of this competition, Kelly tries to reinforce the spirit of humility throughout his entire organization. “We have to remain as humble as we were in the 1980s because in the next thirty years, we may find ourselves facing a more formidable competitor,” he said. “Those that are modest today could be tomorrow’s dominant carrier if we are not careful.”

Southwest has developed into a company known for its diversity, customer service, affordability, fun, and respect. By focusing on culture building, Southwest has maintained a dominant lead over direct competitors United Airlines, Delta, JetBlue, and Spirit.  Southwest Airlines is a Great Team because its culture, its relentless pursuit of customer satisfaction, and its investment in its employees consistently place it leagues ahead of the competition. (Check out my 2015 post on the book Lead with Luvor my 2014 summary of The Southwest Airlines Way.)

The teams that sustain success make daily commitments to improve themselves and the company rather than rest on their laurels. Their leaders are culturally intelligent, and they restlessly search to find inspiration in the opportunities of tomorrow. They understand that what brought success won’t keep it.

Leaders should set aside time after an epic win to discuss new ventures, strategies, and improvements while the previous season or quarter is still fresh in everyone’s minds.

Maintaining championship or industry-leading momentum requires experienced leadership, cultural drivers, and clear communication of the end goal and how to get there.  Always strive to remember the pitfalls of success—and don’t let them derail your Great Team!

I recall in my early days at NASA, I often heard leaders describe their organization as “the best.”  Then, I had the opportunity to complete a development assignment outside of NASA—at the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.  They were a very talented, successful HR Department, but they described themselves as a “high-performing organization.”  I resonated with that mindset and as a leader have tried to instill it in teams and organizations I lead. 

When you believe you’re the “best” or at the top of your game, you leave little room for learning and improvement.  When you are a “high-performing organization,” you give a nod to your success and effectiveness and retain that hunger to learn more and get better.  That’s where benchmarking—and learning from other high-performing organizations—comes in.  Continue to learn, grow, and improve…to sustain your standing as a Great Team!