All leaders have the same problem. This matters to you because to get what you want in life, at some point you’re going to have to lead. That’s what successful people do in some way, shape or form.
The problem is that you have a team, a group, and they all have personalities. They, like us, are all robots. They want to do things their way because it suits them, and they think their way is better.
When you have a team that’s on the same page despite their individual robotics, you have a group primed for success. If not, you get mediocrity or worse.
I have an example that really brought this home for me. I have a place in San Diego, so I’ve grown an affinity for the football Chargers. They got a new coach year before last, Mike McCoy, and ended up doing well in a tough division even though they really actually weren’t that great of a team talent-wise.
At the end of his first season, McCoy was asked, “When you took over, how did you get the team to start performing so well?”
What was so profound for me about his answer was that I heard the exact same thing in basketball on the exact same day. Another first-year coach was talking about his new success.
He and the Charger’s coach gave the exact same answer, so I thought, “This must be important.”
The answer was: “I came from a system, and I installed a system that they’re not used to. The reason we’re doing better now is not only that the system works, but everyone’s following the system. A lot of coaches have systems, but the players won’t play the system, so you have a losing team.”
They key is not just to have a system that works. The key is to have the players “buy into the system.”
In other words, successful coaches are great salespeople.
You have to give your team a vision of how change is actually going to be fun and exciting because it’s been proven to work–as long as everyone commits to it.
They get to be part of a process that will turn the tide from mediocrity (and those not-so-joy-joy feelings that go along with knowing you can do and be better) to tangible, noticeable success.
You hear it all the time in sports: nothing squashes minor squabbles and drama amongst a team better than success.
But most importantly, you’ve got to show proof that the system works.
McCoy was a coordinator on the Denver Broncos the year before he joined the Chargers. That year, the Broncos went to the Super Bowl.
It wasn’t hard for him to sell the fact that the Broncos went to the Super Bowl–the one thing every NFL player wants–and the Chargers didn’t.
He didn’t say, “Do you want to play the system?” He said, “Do you want to go to the Super Bowl?” They say, “Yes,” and he says, “Good. This system takes people to the Super Bowl.”
Not a hard sell at that point.
What needs to happen next, though, is to make the system very simple to understand, which makes the buying-in that much easier. Make it very, very easy, and one tiny thing that they do that’s within the system.
Show them the benefits of the system. Have them learn the habit of using the system, even just one tiny part of it.
The basketball coach said he showed his team that in his system, when you’re in the best position you pass the ball off to the right, and that player passes off to the corner, and then the corner player passes back off to the original passer, who now has a clearer path to the basket than before that first pass. Going two more steps moves the opposing player and opens up the lane to a much greater extent.
So that’s what his team practiced 100 times. They became perfect at it. They only drove the ball to the basket after it’s gone to the third corner player and the lane is open.
You’re dealing with habits here. You are the leader. You must lead a process of having people change their habits and buy into the system.
You’ve got to show its effectiveness by:
1. Making the system super-easy to buy into (does this not apply to your customers as well?).
2. Making the system super-simple to learn.
3. Repeat Repeat Repeat … practice changing the habit.
This goes for athletics, personal habits, group habits, or your business.
Without a system in place, you’ll never have a self-sustaining business, and without proof of success and practice, your group won’t use an otherwise potentially good system.
