Understanding How Your Talent Affects Your Culture
I grew
up playing baseball and continued playing all the way through college and
beyond. I have been on a number of
teams, each of them having their unique personalities and different cultures. I still play baseball today and have learned
a few things about how to build a winning team and what is most important to
the players on that team.For a number of years I played for a team that wasn’t very good. New players would come every year, but we really never seemed to improve. I don’t know that we ever made the playoffs. As I got older and realized that I probably wouldn’t be able to play baseball forever I began to get a little frustrated with the fact that we never won.
So I left and went to another team.
The team that I went to was winning and had players that were extremely good. Most had played college and some had even played in the pros. So needless to say I was extremely excited about the prospect of being on a winning team. We went on to win back to back championships.
But something seemed strange to me.
When we won our championships I was expecting everyone on the team to start throwing their gloves up in the air and begin jumping around. That didn’t happen. Instead everyone was pretty calm. We gave each other high fives and hugged each other, but there was no big celebration. Honestly it felt oddly normal.
After looking back on it and reflecting on my prior experiences with the team that didn’t win, I realized that it wasn’t really about winning the Championship. Yeah, it was nice that we did win. But what was most important was that I could rely on my team every game to go out there and give it their best. They were very talented and there was no doubt in my mind that we could go out there and win every game we played.
What is your team’s talent level?
When we start to look at our teams in our organizations, there are different ways of measuring success. There are performance goals, efficiency, awards, sales, etc. But one area that we often overlook is talent development and what the talent level of our organization is. It is a hard thing to measure but something that I find to be one of the most important.
So if we go back to baseball for a second. In any given game there is going to be someone who is struggling. Your all star player may just not be hitting the ball that game. Everyone else on the team understands this and knows that they will have to pick up the slack. This doesn’t always translate to the work environment though, often times we are not working as a team. We don’t hold the belief that the guy sitting next to us will be there to give it everything he has. We begin to resent those who don’t perform rather than pick up the slack.
Teams that don’t operate as teams can be one of the most harmful things to your culture. But a lot of this has to do with you as the leader. If you don’t build a team that can work together as a team you are going to miss the playoffs every year.
We see it in sports all of the time, there is a low market team that can afford only one all-star player. He gets frustrated because the team isn’t as good as he is, they miss the playoffs. Meanwhile there are other teams that hardly have an all-star on their team but they will make the playoffs every year because they know how to work together. And then there are the teams that can buy their way into the playoffs. They buy up all of the talent and because everyone is at the same level they are able to perform at a high level.
As you build your team for success you have to begin to take a look at what the talent level of your team is. I have found that it is best to get your entire team as close to the same level as you can. No all-stars, no under performers. With this team, everyone knows how to work together. They understand that they can rely on one another. They will pick up the slack for one another because they know that it will be reciprocated. At the end of the day this team will feel the most accomplished because they were able to do something together as a team and perform at a very high level.
When you create a team that feels good about working with one another they will get more pride out of what they can do as a team rather than the metrics they are able to reach. You will get your metrics, don’t worry, but we don’t necessarily have to think that in order to reach an efficiency metric that the solution is to move faster. Maybe your team just needs to work better together. Raising the median talent level of your organization may get you better results.
If your goal is to win the Championship you may want to step back and look at what is really important to you team. Chances are if you were to win that championship right now your team wouldn’t be all that excited because of what they would have to go through to get there. But by reassessing our talent level we can build a team that finds more accomplishment in working together as a team than winning the actual Championship. Ultimately this team will go on to do greater things than you could ever believe.
So I left and went to another team.
The team that I went to was winning and had players that were extremely good. Most had played college and some had even played in the pros. So needless to say I was extremely excited about the prospect of being on a winning team. We went on to win back to back championships.
But something seemed strange to me.
When we won our championships I was expecting everyone on the team to start throwing their gloves up in the air and begin jumping around. That didn’t happen. Instead everyone was pretty calm. We gave each other high fives and hugged each other, but there was no big celebration. Honestly it felt oddly normal.
After looking back on it and reflecting on my prior experiences with the team that didn’t win, I realized that it wasn’t really about winning the Championship. Yeah, it was nice that we did win. But what was most important was that I could rely on my team every game to go out there and give it their best. They were very talented and there was no doubt in my mind that we could go out there and win every game we played.
What is your team’s talent level?
When we start to look at our teams in our organizations, there are different ways of measuring success. There are performance goals, efficiency, awards, sales, etc. But one area that we often overlook is talent development and what the talent level of our organization is. It is a hard thing to measure but something that I find to be one of the most important.
So if we go back to baseball for a second. In any given game there is going to be someone who is struggling. Your all star player may just not be hitting the ball that game. Everyone else on the team understands this and knows that they will have to pick up the slack. This doesn’t always translate to the work environment though, often times we are not working as a team. We don’t hold the belief that the guy sitting next to us will be there to give it everything he has. We begin to resent those who don’t perform rather than pick up the slack.
Teams that don’t operate as teams can be one of the most harmful things to your culture. But a lot of this has to do with you as the leader. If you don’t build a team that can work together as a team you are going to miss the playoffs every year.
We see it in sports all of the time, there is a low market team that can afford only one all-star player. He gets frustrated because the team isn’t as good as he is, they miss the playoffs. Meanwhile there are other teams that hardly have an all-star on their team but they will make the playoffs every year because they know how to work together. And then there are the teams that can buy their way into the playoffs. They buy up all of the talent and because everyone is at the same level they are able to perform at a high level.
As you build your team for success you have to begin to take a look at what the talent level of your team is. I have found that it is best to get your entire team as close to the same level as you can. No all-stars, no under performers. With this team, everyone knows how to work together. They understand that they can rely on one another. They will pick up the slack for one another because they know that it will be reciprocated. At the end of the day this team will feel the most accomplished because they were able to do something together as a team and perform at a very high level.
When you create a team that feels good about working with one another they will get more pride out of what they can do as a team rather than the metrics they are able to reach. You will get your metrics, don’t worry, but we don’t necessarily have to think that in order to reach an efficiency metric that the solution is to move faster. Maybe your team just needs to work better together. Raising the median talent level of your organization may get you better results.
If your goal is to win the Championship you may want to step back and look at what is really important to you team. Chances are if you were to win that championship right now your team wouldn’t be all that excited because of what they would have to go through to get there. But by reassessing our talent level we can build a team that finds more accomplishment in working together as a team than winning the actual Championship. Ultimately this team will go on to do greater things than you could ever believe.