"Let Him Conquer the World" - Lessons From Coaching Athletes With Learning Disabilities (2nd in a Two-Part Series)

On January 23rd, 2013, an eighth-grader, Owen Groesser, on the Van Hoosen Middle School's basketball team in Rochester Hills, Michigan scored two three-pointers in his team's 35 - 26 win over another school.  Owen's game performance went viral on Twitter and made ESPN's SportCenter's Top 10 Plays a day later.

If you're not already familiar with this story, you may ask, "So what's remarkable about a high school player making a couple of three's?"  In fact, "the stat line read: MIN PLAYED: 2  3FGA: 4  3FGM: 2 PF: 0  TP: 6. Not bad for a basketball player but hardly Lebron-esque."

Did I mention that Owen has Down Syndrome?

While this story has run its course in terms of recency, it offers some excellent insights on the importance of talent development.  This is the second in a two-part series on lessons that businesses and other organizations, such as nonprofits, should consider as they seek to be excellent.  The first post of this series is titled "The Power of Reinforcing Strategic Choices with Repetitive Symbolic Acts." 

We are overdue in shifting the conversation from "talent management" to "talent development."  Some may view talent management as "an organization's commitment to recruit, retain, and develop the most talented and superior employees available in the job market."  This implies that talent management should be focused on "the most talented and superior employees."  What about those not recognized as "the most most talented and superior?"  Do organizations risk losing something by focusing on those not evaluated to be in the top performance tier?  That answer is a definitive yes.

While some are good at identifying talent, no one has a lock on identifying top talent even with the emergence of human resource algorithms.  In keeping with the basketball theme of this two-part series, one example is the emergence of unheralded Jeremy Lin with the New York Knicks during the 2012 basketball season.  Another more current example is the Gulf Coast University basketball team who just became the first 15th seed to reach the Sweet 16 of the 2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

While there is something to be said for growing top talent, talent development should also focus on providing an environment for people who may not be recognized as "top talent" to not just succeed, but to bring out their best when opportunities are presented to them.

What makes Owen Groesser's story even better is that he "missed his next two shots before making another 3-pointer on his way to finishing with six points."  This is far from being a story about raining successive three-pointers in a basketball game.  Peel back the layers a bit and you'll find that it's really a story about providing the environment and opportunities that enable ordinary people to achieve great things.

After the game, Owen's mother talked about how she and her husband raised Owen.  "We just took the attitude of 'Let him conquer the world if he can.'  We'll expose him to whatever we feel is appropriate and if he succeeds, awesome. If not, then we'll be there to catch him."

What an awesome statement!  It reflects the aspirations and challenges that parents have in caring for their children.  It also reflects the talent development ethos (the guiding beliefs or ideals) that managers and leaders should have.

As leaders and managers, we should aspire for our employees to achieve great things.  Tweak Ms. Groesser's statement a little to apply to the people in your organization: "We took the attitude of 'Let them conquer the world.'  We'll expose them to whatever we feel is appropriate and if they succeed, awesome. If not, then we'll be there to catch them."

We need to provide not just positive environments but also empowering networks for our people.  This is one of our most significant responsibilities.  Owen didn't just benefit from the mechanics of shooting a basketball. He benefited from a nurturing network provided by his family, coach, team, and school that encouraged him to stretch himself, to take chances, to dare to do great things.

Likewise, we also need to know our employees' strengths and weaknesses.  Design and undertake actions that will stretch them, reinforce their strengths, and strengthen their weaknesses.  Owen's coach, Jeff Howell, clearly recognized the importance of Owen's differences and the attitude Owen brought to the school's basketball team - a great reflection of the "Hire for attitude, train for aptitude" mantra.  He made sure that Owen was an integral part of the team.  He even designed a play for Owen, appropriately called "The Owen," that played to Owen's strengths and was run when Owen entered the game.  It accounted for his first basket.

We sometimes tend to focus on those who are extraordinarily talented.  However, Owen's story is one about how someone "some may consider unordinary was given an ordinary chance and, together, became something extraordinary."  While we often talk about diversity in terms of racial and ethnic differences, it's important to recognize that diversity also refers to different backgrounds, experiences, viewpoints, and abilities. 

It's clear from Owen's fans at this game that the students at Van Hoosen Middle School and his teammates had already learned the value of not just appreciating but leveraging Owen's diversity and talents well before this game.  Owen's game performance reinforced those values.

What this learning and richness and its ripple effects will mean to Owen and his fellow students in future years should not be underestimated.  The people at Van Hoosen are richer because of the diversity that Owen brought to his basketball team and the support network that enabled him to drill those three-pointers.  "What Owen has given back in return is far more valuable in a time when the country needs stories like this."  In one of my favorite Wall Street Journal stories about the value of diversity, Robert Menschel, a senior director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. stated:  "You don't learn anything from ... sameness."

If you want to see the value and joy of diverse abilities in action, you don't need to travel to Rochester Hills, Michigan.  Find out where there are Special Olympics events in your local area and go watch these athletes in action.  Better yet, volunteer to coach or help officiate any number of Special Olympics sports in your area.  You'll be richer for it and may even learn something that you can apply to your workplace.

  
Challenge your people.  Know their strengths and weaknesses.  Just like Owen's parents, coach, and school did, focus on talent development (vs. management), set them up for success (recognizing that they "[they] can't do epic by [themselves]") and give them their shots - yes, shots. Plural. 

The Power of Reinforcing Strategic Choices With Symbolic Repetitive Acts - Lessons From Coaching Athletes with Learning Disabilities (1st in a Two-Part Series)

This is the story of how a group of athletes evolved from a group of players into a cohesive team; a team that just won the 2013 Special Olympics Virginia Division III basketball championship, and how symbolic acts and strategic choices , e.g. emphasizing the pass over the dribble, helped them be excellent.  It is the first of two posts that present lessons businesses and other organizations, such as nonprofits, should consider as they seek to be excellent.

I've been honored and privileged to have coached Special Olympics basketball for five years.  While our athletes have varying degrees of learning disabilities, the one thing they all have is heart.  They yearn to challenge themselves.  They don't just compete for the love of sport, they also compete to win against competitive opponents; just like other athletes, they compete to be excellent.  Winning represents a triumph over the challenges that our athletes face on a daily basis.  Eunice Shriver Kennedy (one of my heroes) recognized the importance of providing opportunities for those with learning disabilities not just to participate in competitive sports, but to also win, to be excellent.  Per the Special Olympics athlete's oath:

"Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."

Being excellent in a team sport like basketball, especially with athletes who have learning disabilities, involves understanding and channeling a different set of dynamics than those dynamics involved in an individual sport like track and field.  Excellence at the team level is represented by being able to successfully  respond to dynamic challenges, not as individuals, but as a unified body.

In November 2012, we held our first practice.  Just like the beginning of any team's sport season, our aspirations were high.  Our end-of-season goal was to be selected to compete in and win the state championship in our division.  Our team name is the Eagles.  In previous years, for team huddles, we would form a small circle, put our hands on top of each other, and yell "Eagles!"  This year we made some slight but symbolic changes to that routine.  In the team circle, our players each raised one arm above their head and stretched that arm towards the middle of the team circle with their forefingers extended so that our  fingers all touched.  Our shout out became "One Eagle!"  This was meant to remind each of us that, to get to our goal, we'd have to stretch ourselves to a greater height and that we'd get there by playing as one connected team, one Eagle.

We also strongly emphasized passing over dribbling the basketball.  It was clear that dribbling was not going to be one of our team strengths so we worked on rapidly moving the ball down the court by passing it to each other.  That was a strategic decision.  We chose to focus our limited practice time on the pass and not so much on dribbling the ball.  Strategy is about making choices; what you're going to do and what you're not going to do.  We made a choice and committed to that action.  Our objective was not to be excellent at everything but to be excellent in some very specific fundamentals.

While we had a couple of players who were fast on their feet, as a team, we were not especially fast.  So we developed a scheme of play that accentuated our strengths.  As I stated before, our players have heart, lots of heart.  This was ably demonstrated by a tenacious defense.  When another team had the ball, they went after it, swatting the ball away from an opponent and if presented with the opportunity, stealing the ball from an opponent's hands.

In reflecting on our season, the strategic decision we made to commit to a game that emphasized the pass over the dribble enabled our players to become a unified team.  Just as "One Eagle!" symbolically connected us, every pass had the effect of reinforcing that symbolic act and connecting our players via virtual lines across a 94' x 50' court.  They learned to not only accurately pass the ball to each other but also to proactively move to get open for a teammate's pass to them.  In effect, they began to sense and respond to each other based on what was happening on the court; they became linked to each other by their passes.  When you're watching athletes at the high school, college, and professional levels to this, it's a great sight.  When you're watching athletes with learning disabilities fluidly do this, it's poetry in motion - almost magical.  I'd love to be able to state that every pass was accurate and resulted in two or three points but we also had our share of errant passes.  Those failed passes served as teaching points to steel our players' resolve to become better, to become an excellent team.

Prior to our gold medal game, one of our players came up to me on the court.  "We've got this, coach," he said.  Without any prompting from my assistant coach or myself, the players formed a huddle, arms extended high, fingers touching.  After a couple of moments, "One Eagle!" reverberated across the court.  Our evolution continued to gather steam.

That momentum culminated in what was, for me, the best moment of this year's championship season.  With just under two minutes left to play in the game, one of our players, whom I'll call "B" and had not scored in the championship tournament, told me that he wanted to make a basket.  I called a timeout and told our players to get the ball to B.  With about 30 seconds left, B broke free from his defender and positioned himself under the basket.  One of his teammates saw him moving to get open and expertly bounce passed him the ball.  Looking like a scene lifted straight from the McDonald's Larry Bird - Michael Jordan commercial, B made a perfect off the backboard, through the net basket.  B pumped his first in exultation and his teammates jumped up and down in celebration.  The game clock hadn't yet expired and the gold medals were to come later, but they knew what they had accomplished together - they had become an excellent team.

A Culture of Innovation or Learning - Which Do We Need More?

Do organizations want to establish a culture of innovation or a culture of learning?  Put another way, is it more meaningful and realistic for an executive to ask his or her people, "What have we innovated this week?" or "What have we learned; what insights have we gained this week?"

It's very easy to get caught up in the buzz surrounding innovation.  After all, who doesn't want to be innovative?  A Google search of the term "culture of innovation" yields about 3.4 million hits while a search of "culture of learning" yields about 1.3 million hits.  This provides some perspective on what the current emphasis is.

Yet, while innovation (a change in the way people do things because of a new product or service accompanied by the significant adoption of that new or changed product or service) is by definition, an outcome, an organization's culture is not an outcome.  Instead, it is a performance enabler and many would say, the most important enabler.  The values reflected in an organization's culture enable outcomes like innovation.

Therefore, the meaningful question is:  What core cultural values should an organization that values innovation emphasize?

There are three cultural pre-conditions / values for innovation.  These are critical thinking, discovery, and learning.

Critical thinking is not just about questioning the status quo.  It's about reframing the situation and imagining the possibilities through deeper and more probing questions to achieve those possibilities.  Phil McKinney (@philmckinney), former vice president and chief technology officer for Hewlett-Packard's personal systems group wrote:  "There are many ways to generate new input, but the most effective is to learn to ask the kinds of questions that can lead you to a real discovery. This is true both of the kinds of questions you ask other people, and the ones you pose to yourself."

Critical thinking skills that drive the right questions can be a differentiator in today's business environment.

• What's the change / impact that we want to achieve?
• What can be improved to achieve this impact?
• How can it be improved?
• Is a change likely to resonate with one customer or market segment more than others?  Why?
• What improvements have been previously attempted?   Can those efforts be leveraged?  Why did those efforts fall short?
• What are the risks with this change?
• What are critical success factors for this change to succeed?
• Are those factors within our control and can risk be effectively mitigated?
• If not within our control, how can we effectively mitigate risks?
• Who's likely to embrace such a change?
• Who's likely to challenge it?

These are just some examples.  Most importantly, critical thinking recognizes that there are consequences and implications associated with actions and seeks to proactively determine what those are and what additional actions might be needed - within reason.

Discovery via experimentation, research, and reflection is the linchpin that connects critical thinking and learning.  Questions posed during the critical thinking process should be addressed by structuring experiments or pilot projects to discover what the possible answers and insights are.  There is a rigor that should be applied to the conduct of experiments.

• What insights are sought as a result of the experiment or pilot?
• What's the current performance baseline?
• What people and processes should be involved in the experiment?
• Who are the stakeholders who will be interested in this experiment?
• What is each stakeholder's involvement?
• What resources are needed?
• What data is needed?  Is the data accurate?
• What conditions should be replicated?
• What are the hypotheses?
• How will these hypotheses be validated or invalidated?
• Is there a common agreed upon definition of success and failure between the key stakeholders?

These questions are presented because it's important to recognize that valuing and emphasizing a culture of learning requires investment and the commitment of resources.  Such a culture recognizes that there are also likely to be failures.  Most importantly, failures and successes need to be accompanied by learning.  Celebrate and value learning, whether it be from failures or successes. The learning that results from experiments and pilots can be a risk mitigator in the actual product or service roll-out or implementation.

Apple is often referred to as a successful innovating company.  It's worth remembering that Apple also had some notable failures such as the "first commercial PC [named Lisa] to use a graphical interface and then-cutting-edge concepts such as preemptive multitasking" but with a $10,000 price tag, "Lisa was slow, ungainly, and amazingly expensive."  The Apple Newton had an "ungainly size, woeful battery life, and hard-to-read screen."  Nevertheless, Steve Jobs ensured that Apple learned from these failures to produce the Macintosh personal computer and the iPhone.

Peter Sims (@petersims), the author of "Little Bets:  How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries," in addressing the importance of discovery to innovation, wrote:  "Leaders, managers and collaborators ... must to be willing to learn from mistakes. Affordable risks should be encouraged, and small failures celebrated - these are the mark of learning organizations. Otherwise, risk aversion will lead to stagnation and decline."

Discovery can also result from querying front-line employees and customers, conducting customer and market research, monitoring social media platforms, analyzing data, and putting one's self in the role of a customer purchasing products and/or services from one's company.  Although these are some examples of discovery actions that may be conducted separate from experiments, it is critical to track, coordinate their execution with other discovery initiatives (Are there elements common to more than one discovery initiative?), and share knowledge gained from these actions.  The worst kind of discovery is that which is siloed and whose results are not shared.

Another important but often-times undervalued means of discovery is the knowledge that can come from being part of relationship-based formal and informal networks that provide an opportunity for reflection and exposure to ideas and information that one might not necessarily learn outside of these networks.  Reading books, journals, and newspapers about what others have done and are doing can also provide an opportunity for reflection and discovery.

Steven Johnson's (@stevenbjohnson) book, "Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation" has great examples of people who who valued discovery and leveraged the insights of others in the development of their innovations.

Per Bill Gates' (@BillGates) review of Steve Johnson's book:  "In the 1870s, a French doctor, Stephane Tarnier, saw incubators for chicken hatchlings at the Paris Zoo and hired the zoo’s poultry-raiser to build incubator boxes for premature newborns at his hospital. Other hospitals at the time were using devices to keep babies warm, but Tarnier was the first to conduct research showing how incubators significantly reduced the infant mortality rate, leading to their widespread use in Paris and beyond."  The impact of this 1870s discovery has had a huge ripple effect in the years since.

Adam Hartung (@adam_hartung), a Forbes columnist, CIO magazine columnist, and the Editor of the International Journal of Innovation Science, in the wake of Neil Armstrong's passing, wrote an excellent column about the importance of discovery via the NASA space program.  He cites a number of NASA innovations "that have driven economic growth" and created ripple effects.  These include the microwave oven, frozen food, water filtration, high powered batteries, and scratch resistant lenses.  When President Kennedy articulated the goal "of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth," we did not foresee these innovations.  Yet, as Adam writes:  "The journey of discovery unleashes opportunities which create their own benefits – for society, and for our economy." 

Taking what has been learned, extracting insights, and determining what decisions, actions, and adaptations should be taken may be the most challenging step that accompanies the establishment of a learning culture.  Decisions, actions, and adaptations may require changes in a product or service line, lines of business, associated profit centers, and intra- and/or inter-enterprise relationships, to cite a few.  Another challenge is recognizing and accounting for biases that may exist that can affect the actions decided upon.  Nevertheless, the application of critical thinking, discovery, and learning in getting to this step provides leaders with a solid basis for making informed insight-driven decisions.

Leaders recognize the importance of innovation.  This is not enough.  Recognize, value, and institutionalize the pre-conditions for its success to have organizations be seen as innovative market leaders and influencers.  Look no further than to Steve Jobs for the importance of learning.  "After creating great products that only reached the few, he returned, learned and adapted his vast creative talents to create whole new product categories, distribution models, creative platforms and customer experiences that have positively impacted the lives of millions."

Don't just celebrate success.  Take the harder steps to learn from success as well as failure and build a culture of learning to be truly innovative.  Teaching an organization to learn how to learn can result in an important legacy with meaningful ripple effects.

Strong Leadership Makes Core Competencies Work

Daniel Rasmus posted an intriguing article on Fast Company, "How Clinging To Core Competencies Is Breaking Your Organization’s Heart."

The focus on an "organization's heart" and its "emotional infrastructure" is good but an emphasis on core competencies does not break that "organization's heart."  Instead, a lack of leadership will do that.

A leader's two most important qualities are authenticity ("Walk the talk") & credibility ("Do the do" / be competent).  If leaders profess to care about their employees but don't back that up via their actions, that's what breaks hearts.  If leaders don't know how to take care of their employees, that breaks hearts.

Likewise, strong leadership makes core competencies work, not just by leveraging knowledge and skills but by inspiring people to understand, see, and believe in the impact of their work.  Per Daniel's post, "passion and dedication creates value as much as seamless execution."

A focus on core competencies does not necessarily result in organizations "becom[ing] less able to adapt." A core competency's value should be evaluated not just on its execution but also its market value.  Assessing its market value should be driven by two questions:  1) Does it resonate with customers?  2) Are there market changes that can impact this competency?

If the answer to the second question is yes, then possible adaptation and change issues should be addressed.  Successful adaptation cannot be accomplished without knowing what to adapt to and how to to adapt.  This requires knowledge and learning.  Speaking of core competencies, learning to adapt one of the new ones.  This is a leader imperative and responsibility - especially now given the increasing speed and frequency of changes in market dynamics.

Daniel's point that "emotional infrastructure is the binding element that keeps an organization together in times of challenge, and facilitates celebration in times of plenty" is excellent.  An organization's "emotional infrastructure" can either enable or degrade its performance.  It also doesn't happen by itself.  Leaders create that infrastructure - for better or worse.

Marketing differentiating core competencies supported by a positive emotional infrastructure creates a compelling value proposition. 

Effective Risk Management Prepares Businesses and Organizations for Difference-Making Rescue Management

This post reflects my comments to a Forbes.com article, Risk Management vs Rescue Management by Steve Denning, a columnist whose posts I very much enjoy reading.  Steve's columns are thought-provoking and usually challenge conventional thinking and ways of doing things.

Steve's post is influenced by a NewYorker.com post, Failure and Rescue, by Atul Gawande.  Mr. Gawande states:  "The difference between triumph and defeat ... isn’t about willingness to take risks. It’s about mastery of rescue."

While "mastery of the rescue" can be "the difference between triumph and defeat," this issue is not about the "willingness to take risks."  People in all walks of life take risks everyday; it's called living.  Instead, private, public, and non-government organizations should focus on their preparedness for dealing with risks when they happen.  "Mastery of the rescue" is a direct reflection of risk preparedness.

A risk management plan is only the beginning.  As a former Army officer who exercised contingency plans on a regular basis and a consultant who has helped organizations develop risk management and associated contingency plans, I recognize that the the real value of such plans is in exercising the actions called for in these plans, including contingency plan operational rehearsals.  There are other factors such as organizational leadership, processes, knowledge, and training that also impact risk and the effectiveness of any risk mitigation strategy.

Rescue management and risk management are very much linked.  They should not be viewed from a perspective of one "versus" the other.  Risk management is the act of preparing for rescue management. 

The University of Michigan study, Variation in Hospital Mortality Associated with Inpatient Surgery, cited by Mr. Gawande, includes a number of factors contributing to "low surgical mortality."  These include "multiple complex processes, including the timely administration of antibiotics in patients with sepsis, the rapid transfer of a patient to an intensive care unit (ICU), and the availability of interventional cardiologists during an acute myocardial infarction. ... A system of daily rounds with a certified intensivist [a physician who specializes in the care of critically ill patients] was associated with a reduction in in-hospital mortality by a factor of three and an increased nurse-to-patient ratio was associated with a halving of in-hospital mortality. ... Intra-operative checklists have become an increasingly promising and popular approach for reducing risks of complications." 

The hospitals that have adopted and institutionalized these actions recognize that effective rescue management is only possible if there's effective risk management reflected in risk mitigation actions that are exercised on a daily basis.  Therein, is the key to effective risk management - the institutionalization of processes and activities designed to create a culture that mitigates risks that are part of its business processes and enables effective and efficient rescue actions when things go wrong. 

The failures in the BP oil disaster cited in Mr. Denning's post, "failure to recognize a problem, "adopting the wrong plan," and "failure to implement even the rescue properly," have their roots in a lack of knowledge, poor decision-making, inadequate training, and ineffective contingency operation plans per testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives in February 2011.  In effect, the personnel on the BP oil drilling platform, Deepwater Horizon, were not prepared for events that took place on April 20, 2010. 

Strong leadership could have prevented these failures.  Leadership is the most important risk mitigator as pointed out by Colonel Eric Kail in his HBR post, "Lessons From the Military: Your Risk is My Risk, Too."  COL Kail makes the excellent point that as a leader, "you can't become someone in 30 seconds that you haven't practiced being for the last 30 days. ... You also can't be everywhere all the time, so you need to know that other leaders in your organization are making decisions that support your intent regarding acceptable risk."  The U.S. Navy's Blue Angels pilots in the picture for this post know by virtue of their training, knowledge, and procedures what acceptable risk is.  Knowing that acceptable risk mitigates the need for rescue management. 

One of the best examples of the value of leadership, training, and established processes (all risk mitigators) in enabling effective rescue actions when things go wrong were the actions that Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and his flight crew took to safely land US Airways Flight 1549 and its passengers in the Hudson River on March 15, 2009.

“It wasn’t heroism that brought Flight 1549 down safely. It was rigorous training that’s inbred in the U.S. aviation system. Pilots have to fly for years before they can command an airliner, and even experienced pilots must routinely train in simulators and pass ‘check rides’  at least once a year under the supervision of Federal Aviation Administration inspectors. … ‘In simulator training, we’re doing nothing but flying in all sorts of emergencies.’”

Actual rescue management operations provide an excellent opportunity for the organization to learn, enhance its risk management knowledge base, and have people better prepared to deal with the next challenge.  Rescue management participants should be debriefed and lessons learned identified, validated, disseminated, and made available for others to access.  Knowledge gained from this activity may necessitate changes to training, processes, and operations and potentially influence innovations to existing portfolios of products and/or services.  Do not limit the applicability of lessons learned to the same function or industry; look for non-linear applicability as well.  This post began with a focus on hospital care and moved to aviation safety.  It's fitting then to provide a link to an excellent lessons learned report, "What Went Right - Lessons for the Intensivist From the Crew of US Airways Flight 1549."  This report shows the applicability of effective aviation risk management that can "can help intensivists ... remain as focused and prepared for any emergency as the crew of Flight 1549."

In an interview, Captain Sullenberger stated:  "One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience: education and training. And on January 15 the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal."

Organizations should view their risk management actions in the same way - deposits "to **prepare** for the possibility" of things going wrong."  That's only way difference-making rescue management will happen.

It's More Than the Xs and Os: How's Your Team Chemistry on 'Game Day?'

There was a great scene in the NFL Network's "Bill Belichik - A Football Life" last night that captured Bill Belichik's understanding of team effectiveness that makes him a great football coach and leader.

He's showing game video to his players and instead of focusing on the Xs and Os, he points to specific video clips that show how his players' lack of on-the-field team esprit indicates a team that's "not good enough to play that way."

Jimmy Toscano captured this excerpt in his review, "Film on Belichick gives fans a look under the hood."

"'There's nothing wrong -- in fact you should be excited when you make a play,' Belichick said in a team meeting prior to their Week 1 win against the Buffalo Bills. 'Hell, look at all the work you put into it all the time you spent in practice . . . you should be excited about it, and your teammates should be excited, too.'

"Cue the footage of them not being excited. 

"'Nice play, Ty [Warren],' Belichick said while watching the footage of a play in a one-sided loss to San Diego in the previous season. 'Can't even see one guy saying good hit. Walk back to the huddle and it looks like, 'God, we don't even care.'"

How many times have we seen scenes of coaches using game video to analyze their offensive and defensive plays or an opponent's plays?  Here we have a coach who clearly understands one of the fundamental tenets of coaching and leadership:  The effectiveness of the Xs and Os is only as good as the team members' "game day" team chemistry and resilience.  He uses video to drive this point home.

"Then, a shot of the [Patriots] celebrating after a TD during a drubbing of the Denver Broncos on an Oct. 20, 2008 Monday Night Football game in Denver.  'Do you think we were ready to play against Denver last year, Monday night?' he said of the game, which the Patriots won, 41-7. 'It's so obvious, it's so visible.'  As a downtrodden Broncos player was shown on the screen, Belichick said, 'It's going to be a long night [for Denver].'" 

Perhaps other coaches do this as well, but it was revealing and insightful to see Coach Belichik do this.  How's the chemistry of your team on "game day?"

Lastly, loved this excerpt from the NYTimes review of "A Football Life:"

"An alien force must have invaded Belichick to get him to allow NFL Films to follow him through the 2009 season. That would seem like giving the filmmaker Michael Moore the O.K. to hang out at the National Security Agency."

Part 2 of "A Football Life" will be shown next week.  I'll be watching.

Learn and Adapt - The New Business Imperatives

My comments to Forrester's "Voice Of The Customer Programs Need Better Understanding, Not Just Better Analytics" by Andrew McInnes (@apmcinnes) prompted this post about the importance of Learn and Adapt - the new imperatives for business, government, and NGOs.

What's the basis for stating that these are "imperatives?"  For starters:

General Petraeus: 'Learn and Adapt' Replaces 'Hearts and Minds' in Afghanistan's COIN strategy

You Have To Lean and Adapt to Use the Power of Social Media

In Cybersecurity, It's "Learn and Adapt"

In The End of Social Media 1.0, Brian Solis (@briansolis) wrote:

"Listening, learning and adapting is where the real value of social media will show its true colors. Listening leads to a more informed business. Engagement unlocks empathy and innovation. But it is action and adaptation that leads to relevance. And, it never ends."

There are three key points in this excerpt:
1.  Listening and learning, with few exceptions, are prerequisites for action and, properly applied, can make the action more meaningful and therefore, more valuable.
2.  Action and adaptation lead to relevance.  Relevance is based on the trust and performance that accompany action and adaptation.  In an increasingly dynamic marketplace, relevant organizations will be those that enhance their credibility by quickly adapting to market changes by either driving or anticipating those changes and improving performance and the customer experience.
3.  Change is a constant and therefore, learning and adaptation are the new imperatives, ones that will also be constant.

Learn and adapt are essentially an update of the continuous improvement principle.  Today, information and communication technologies (ICT), with the increasing availability of data and information, are driving business and program initiatives using social media, social innovation, and co-creation, to name a few.  There are excellent opportunities for organizational learning on a scale that would not have been possible three - four years ago.  Given the increasing emphasis on innovation, organizations also need to learn how to recognize and leverage breakthrough ideas that may emerge from small discoveries as Peter Sims (@petersims)wrote about in "Little Bets."  A well communicated and visible emphasis, exemplified through leadership actions, on learning and innnovation can also serve to attract strong candidates and retain valued employees.

Continuous improvement's emphasis is on "incremental, continuous steps rather than giant leaps."  Organizations need to recognize when incremental improvement may not be enough.  Stories abound of competitors leapfrogging their rivals such as Apple over RIM and Nokia, Facebook over MySpace, Netflix over Blockbuster, and Target and Walmart over Sears and KMart.  Adaptation may require significant changes in the way the organization does business.

How does this impact Forrester's Voice of the Customer (VOC) cycle that has four major activities: Listen, Interpret, React, and Monitor?  There needs to be a "Learn and Adapt" activity between "Monitor and Listen."

"React" or "Engage" is what the organization does based on its interpretation of the "Voice of the Customer."

"Monitor" or "Assess" is where the organization assesses the customer's and market's reaction / feedback to what it has done and / or its engagement.

"Learn and Adapt" is perhaps the most important activity in this cycle. It enables the organization to learn, apply, and adapt to knowledge gained from the "Monitor" activity. Without this organizational learning and adaptation (as necessary), there cannot be any meaningful performance improvement. 

There are two key VOC learning opportunities for the organization; the first being "Interpret." The "Interpret" activity can be viewed as establishing initial hypotheses with supporting actions ("React" or "Engage"). "Learn and Adapt" is the second learning opportunity that serves to validate those hypotheses based on information collected from the "Monitor" or "Assess" activity. It is here where information becomes knowledge. That knowledge should drive any organization adaptation actions that may be necessary.  The cycle then repeats itself with "Listen."

"Learn and Adapt" may also be the most challenging of these VOC activities. Adaptation may involve changes that range from incremental process improvements to real innovation.  The challenge of adaptive changes should not be underestimated. An excerpt from Why We Crave Creativity but Reject Creative Ideas, based on research to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal, Psychological Science, articulates this challenge very well:

"Uncertainty drives the search for and generation of creative ideas, but 'uncertainty also makes us less able to recognize creativity, perhaps when we need it most' ... 'Revealing the existence and nature of a bias against creativity can help explain why people might reject creative ideas and stifle scientific advancements, even in the face of strong intentions to the contrary. ... The field of creativity may need to shift its current focus from identifying how to generate more creative ideas to identify how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity [and adapt to changes that may accompany this creativity].'"

Challenges are not just restricted to responding to marketplace dynamics.  They also include accepting creativity and corresponding changes within the organization.  Dennis Stauffer (@DennisStauffer), in Innovation Case Study:  Sliced Bread, wrote:

"Winning acceptance of any new idea is far from automatic. Those who are in a position to enable or obstruct an innovation often stand in the way, sometimes predicting dire consequences, even when the end-user is destined to embrace it. ... When we’re tempted to think of some new idea as, 'The greatest thing since sliced bread,' we should realize that that thing we’re referring to may in fact be not only the greatest ‘convenience' for consumers, but also the greatest 'challenge' for us, and the greatest perceived 'threat' by others."

The Learn and Adapt imperatives are not "nice to have" tenets.  They are an effective way for businesses, government organizations, and NGOs to address today's and future challenges to enhance customer responsiveness in the face of constant change.  Organizations can recognize the challenges inherent in learning and adapting to market dynamics by making these imperatives part of their culture.

Action- and engagement-based learning builds on the data and information learned through assessments. That learning is the foundation for effective adaptation.