Creating a Winners Mind Set

When developing a winning culture one of the primary goals should be to get the team to take responsibility for it’s performance. Losing teams rationalize the reasons why they lose. We don’t have a great fan base, our facilities are subpar, the coaches don’t know what they are doing, we need better players. The list goes on and on and on! They emanate from top to bottom and from the bottom to the top.

At the onset, it is up to the head coach or CEO to set the tone for every team function or event. He or She has to cast the vision and be the center point of the energy source which will make it a reality. You set the standard! You are light upon the hill! Only the person in charge can establish the culture of winning.

Great teams have a synergy of accountability which permeates throughout the organization. The standards are set high and everyone is held responsible for falling short. But the really successful teams develop a bottom up mentality. It is no surprise that the best teams have superb player leadership.

I was fortunate enough to coach on a couple of Super Bowl winning teams that were led by arguably two of the finest team leaders the game has ever known, Peyton Manning from the 2006 Indianapolis Colts and Ray Lewis on the 2012 Baltimore Ravens. Although the teams were led by brilliant head coaches, Tony Dungy and John Harbaugh, the tone of practice, decorum in meeting rooms, the ethos of the locker rooms was enforced effectively by Peyton and Ray.

I remember Coach Dungy telling us a story about a staff meeting with Coach Chuck Knoll, the legendary head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was during training camp and they were going over the previous nights bed check report. The coach responsible for bed check that evening told Coach Knoll that a couple of young guys were late. Coach Knoll noted the names and said, “Joe will handle it and I’m certain it won’t happen again.” Coach Knoll was not referring to the strength coach, another assistant coach or some administrator responsible for discipline. He was referring to a veteran player on the team, Joe Greene.

There was a great book written by Captain D Michael Abrashoff entitled ‘It’s Your Ship.’ The book documents the unbelievable turn around of a low performing ship to one of the best in the Navy. The following bullet points from the book illustrate my point.