Super Bowl

Practice and preparation

/ Jonathan Sachs

Last week I wrote about the Washington Nationals historic run to win the World Series. Continuing on the sports theme this week, football can teach us a lot about the value of practice and preparation.

Unlike baseball’s grueling 162 game schedule, the NFL plays just 16 regular season games over 17 weeks in their season. Therefore most of the work of a football team is practice and preparation for each game. Coaches and players study film from previous games, practices, meet together, and strategize for their opponents, often around the clock.

Football coaches teach us about the value of organized practice and preparation, which we can apply to the practice of leadership. Over the summer, I read Belichick: The Making of the Greatest Football Coach of All Time by Ian O’Connor. Of the many excellent examples and anecdotes in the book, O’Connor wrote about a now famous play in the final minutes that helped the Patriots win Super Bowl XLIX (49) against the Seattle Seahawks.

In the play, Malcolm Butler intercepted Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson’s pass at the Patriots goal line. The Patriots coaches had the team run this play several times in practice, where Butler played it incorrectly. In the big game though, Butler got it right and helped seal the win for the Patriots. Here’s the story from the coaches:

(If you are having problems viewing the video, you can click here for it)

Practice and preparation can make a world of difference. At work, I have developed a couple of systems to aid in making sure I am prepared. For example, I always print out my calendar for the upcoming week. I highlight in the color blue all the scheduled events that require preparation. I put copies of the documents I need for those meetings in a folder whose front cover is my highlighted weekly agenda.

I know I feel the most confident in presentations that I have practiced and tested with different audiences. I will take bits and pieces of new ideas and test them out in smaller settings before adding them to larger presentations to make sure that they work with an audience. I will also practice the final presentation repeatedly (usually practicing in front of my patient wife, Sheryl) to feel confident that I know the order and timing of everything when the time for the big presentation arrives.

What are your systems for practice and preparation? I would like to hear more about them and include them in a future blog post. Please share them with me here.

KEY TAKEAWAY: The practice and preparation involved in football teaches lessons for leaders in business as well. Often times leaders develop systems to prepare and practice for opportunities ahead to stay at the top of their games. 

Is it cool to be negative?

/ Jonathan Sachs

On February 4th 2019, I woke up to a social media blitz of posts that were mostly variations on the same theme: “Worst Super Bowl ever” and “Worst Super Bowl halftime show ever”. In case you are living under a rock, Super Bowl LIII (53) pitted the young, high-scoring Los Angeles Rams offense against the dynastic New England Patriots. The Patriots won their 6th championship of the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era by a score of 13-3.

The low-scoring affair was panned as “boring”. If you ask people, watching the Patriots win their 6th championship in 9 appearances, was a painfully dull affair. Coupled with the game itself, the half time show was criticized for a lackluster performance by the topless and heavily tattooed Adam Levine, lead singer of the band Maroon 5.

Embed from Getty Images

This is just one instance that I have seen lately of collective negativity on social media. Lately, I have noticed it more and it is contagious.

The more I have been exposed to sources of negativity, the more I found myself being more critical and negative at work. Colleagues would ask me for my opinion on one thing or another and I often heard myself expressing a negative perspective with a message like, “that will never work” or “that will never happen”. In my own experience, I try to avoid people who tend to have a negative outlook because I find it to be de-energizing. But with negativity being so pervasive on social media, I had to ask: Is it cool to be negative? Why do we reward negative behavior?

In my research, I found an article in the Harvard Business Review by Dr. Eileen Chou, a professor at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia entitled, Why We’re Drawn to Leaders Who Emphasize the Negative. In her article, Chou presented studies that show that people are drawn to negative rhetoric more than they are to positive, citing human psychology and social hierarchy as an explanation. For example, she hypothesizes that negative leaders seem more independent, so we are more likely to follow them.

However, she concludes that human fondness of negativity in leaders may not last in the long run. Perceptions of leaders can change over time and someone who is simply negative about everything may seem unreasonable.

I remember interacting with someone very early in my career who was consistently negative about new ideas. It was my first exposure to the strong tide of, “We tried that once and it didn’t work” and “But we’ve always done it this way”. At the time, I remember respectfully responding, “I am not interested in the 10,000 ways something will not work, but I am interested in the 1 way it can”.

I still believe in that sentiment. I believe that anything can be solved with the right team working on it for the right reasons. However, the pull of negativity is psychologically strong and we are increasingly surrounded by it on social media. We have to accept it as a tactic that online influencers will sometimes use to build up their brand and followers.

Since society is moving us towards negativity, it is up to us to act:

First to be aware of it.

Second, we should understand and filter it. Understanding it entails deciding whether it is a genuine perspective or just click-bait negativity. If it is a genuine perspective, we should ask for more detail to learn about it. We should challenge our assumptions as to whether someone is a negative person, or is expressing constructive criticism or caution because the latter who are important to hear. Over-optimism can lead to group-think and that be damaging too. If the remarks are click-bait negativity, filter it by ignoring it and moving on.

Third and finally, for major business decisions, leaders should always be scenario planning for the multiple outcomes using tools like the Implications wheel.

Glorifying the negative can have damaging effects on organizations and societies. Practicing reflection and self-awareness can go a long way. Even something as simple as saying, “I am not sure” rather than defaulting to a negative point of view can be empowering. Staying positive may be tough, but it is an important leadership trait and hallmark to keep the energy and motivation up in your team.

KEY TAKEAWAY: Staying positive is difficult and being attracted to negativity is rooted in human psychology. Through awareness, understanding, filtering, and scenario planning, we can hear constructive criticism, take caution, and understand negative outcomes in a helpful context.