Leadership Thought #475 – 3 Key Factors That Lead To Employee Success
Most leaders have an uneven record of accomplishment when it comes to ensuring employee success.
The wonderful thing about my job is that I can find inspiration everywhere, from all walks of life and fields of practice. It is often cliché that leadership development professionals lean on sports and military examples (at least my male colleagues do), but there is a reason we do this; it works. Recently, I was watching the ESPN program “A Football Life,” and the episode focused on Jimmy Johnson, a former coach of the Miami Dolphins, Dallas Cowboys, and University of Miami Hurricanes. Whether you like him or not, it is indisputable that he has achieved significant success as both a football coach and player. To my knowledge, Jimmy is the only person to have won a National NCAA championship as both a player and a coach and won multiple Super Bowls. For a long time, he has been a media personality and is excelling in that role as well. The guy clearly knows how to be successful.
The segment conversation that stuck out for me was the one he had with Bill Belichick, another extraordinarily successful coach. They spoke about player decisions and management. It was impressive to see how much Belichick, a football genius in his own right, valued Johnson’s opinion. Jimmy stated that in his experience, three things make a successful player: 1) natural ability/talent; 2) intelligence; and 3) work ethic. When all three of these factors converge, you know you’ve made a good decision in drafting or acquiring the individual.
When it comes to natural ability, it is either present or not. Many people dream of playing at the highest levels, but only a small number have the physical gifts to make it happen. In football, physical attributes such as size, speed, and strength often determine success. For those of us who have played the sport, it is clear when someone’s natural talents set them apart from the rest. We also know other people who loved the game but, due to physical limitations, had minimal chances of even making their high school team. Jimmy said that his hardest conversations often involved having to tell someone intelligent and hardworking that they wouldn’t succeed at the professional level because their natural ability just wasn’t there. Often, the margin of difference is extremely narrow.
Intelligence is believed to be genetic, although just because you have it doesn’t mean you use it well. While few of us would ever qualify as a genius, there are differences at a basic level when it comes to a person’s ability to grasp new knowledge and apply it effectively. I’ve seen physically gifted athletes struggle with the most fundamental play concepts. As you rise through the athletic ranks, the schemes get even more complicated to grasp. In professional sports, there are usually brilliant coaches trying to outthink other smart coaches. It often comes down to planning, quick thinking, and managing the small details as to who wins. Obviously, a professional athlete must be able to understand how to implement a coach’s game plan into their individual positions. Additionally, they often need to be aware of what their fellow players are doing in the same play and work in concert with them. I am paraphrasing him, but Johnson said he told his coaches to “hit him in the head with a brick if he ever pursued a player who wasn’t intelligent again,” because he had been burned so many times before.
Unlike the first two, work ethic is not something you are born with. It is a sign of how badly you want something. There are many gifted and talented athletes who simply aren’t motivated enough to put in the work to be successful. It’s hard to stand out from other high achievers, and the one who wants it more will win. Johnson has said that Hall of Famer Michael Irvin was always the first to arrive and the last to leave practice because he wanted to win. When you read biographies of other great athletes, this is most often the case. Ability without effort usually leads to mediocrity.
You may be wondering how this information applies to your organization. Think about it. Where have most of your employee headaches come from? Most likely, this is because you initially hired and/or promoted the wrong person. Their native abilities were a bad fit for the job. They couldn’t grow sufficiently to match their responsibilities. And they were unwilling to put in the requisite effort to achieve success. The first two are on us. The last one is on them and us for tolerating it.
When you know you’ve made a great hire, why does this happen? Because the role was a natural fit with their gifts/talents. They were able to understand, learn, and grow with the position. And, they worked hard to excel at what they were doing. All of this is a lot less complicated than it seems. We complicate it! Jimmy Johnson was smart enough to figure it out, and the results speak for themselves. How about you?
