I rarely stay up past 9 p.m. on weekdays. Yes, I’m old, and I’m fully ready to admit it. This past Thursday night, the NFL season kicked off with the Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers hosting the Dallas Cowboys. The match-up was intriguing enough for me to break my 9 p.m. rule, so I stayed up and watched the first half of the game.
I’m so glad I did, but for reasons I never suspected. About halfway through the first quarter, the announcers shared a story that blew my mind. A football team has 22 starters, 11 on offense and 11 on defense. The Buccaneers are the first team in 30 years to bring back every single starter, all 22 of them, back for the following year after winning the Super Bowl. In this day and age of free agency, ME-first attitudes, people chasing money, and always wanting more, this accomplishment is remarkable.
As with everything I’m exposed to, I try to learn from these examples and how they relate to our organization. We have a Super Bowl team. This is obvious. Some of the greatest people I have ever had the chance to work with. How can we continue to have our team come back to us year after year when other teams out there are throwing more money at them, recruiting them hard?
The answer to this question lies in the rest of the story told by the game announcers. They mentioned that many of the 22 starters were approached and courted by other NFL teams. Similar to our super bowl team recognizing all the other opportunities out there and Im sure are being courted and recruited
When the starters were interviewed by the media and asked the simple question of “why did you decide to come back to the Buccaneers? With other NFL teams offering you more money and promises of other accolades, what prevented you from leaving?
The answers were simple and powerful. Many returning starters cited the leadership of the quarterback Tom Brady and the Head Coach Bruce Arians. These returning starters talked about how the leaders within the organization really showed compassion and interest for the team. These leaders were truly vested in the players and tried everything to help them become the best they could be.
The returning players cited the culture of the organization. They talked about how open and transparent communication was. How their opinions were always heard by the leaders of the team. The players cited that they felt appreciated and recognized internally by coaches on the team. So many parallels here to learn from.
Brady and Arians get it. They have “cracked the code.” Don’t think they got it from the start. Arain and his team of assistant coaches have been at more jobs where they were fired and where they failed than they care to admit. As recently as a few years ago, Arians #1 defensive coach was fired as the head coach of the Jets. The good news is it seems like they have finally figured it out.
So what needs to be figured out? What is the code?
How can we have an organization where the super bowl team members want to continue to come to work and continue to bring their best?
Perhaps we as leaders need to let go of our paradigm. What if what we thought was the right way, simply isnt? Let go of what we think our teams want and be open to what lessons like Coach Arians and many many other servant leaders are trying to teach us.
Many decades ago, Dr. Frederick Herzberg did a ton of research in behavior motivation. Basically, how do we get the best out of our teams? Dr. Herzberg basically broke down behavior motivational factors into 2 categories:
Satisfiers. Factors people need to perform their job at a minimum level. These factors include a fair wage/compensation, safe working conditions, other basic safety and hygienic needs.
You may recognize these factors from our discussions on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. These factors make up the two base levels of the hierarchy.
#1 lesson to learn here is that once a basic satisfier need is meet, simply adding more to it is not a way to generate enthusiasm and motivation towards a job. An example is adding money to someone’s compensation.
Motivators. Factors people need to feel stimulated to put out more energy, more effort, and be enthusiastic about their job. Motivating factors are recognition for a job well done, praise, appreciation, growth opportunities, challenging and meaningful work. The more motivators involved, the more people will be stimulated to give more.
You may recognize these motivating factors from the higher levels of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs but more importantly I hope you recognize them as details from our discussions on Servant Leadership and the eight principles of Agape Love.
- Patience
- Kindness
- Humility
- Respectfulness
- Forgiveness
- Selflessness
- Honesty
- Commitment
More evidence on how clueless most of us are about what motivates our teams.
Looking at a majority of polls and surveys of both leaders/owners/managers and also employees and team members over the last 100 years, it’s remarkable what the data says and how we don’t want to listen to it.
When asked the simple question . . .
What do employees want from work?
Managers/Owners/Leaders answer with the top three factors:
- Money
- Promotion
- Job Security
When employees are asked this same exact question, the top three factors are:
- Being appreciated for a job well done
- Feeling “IN” on things
- A boss/leader that is is compassionate
- Feeling moved by the purpose of the company
Lesson here? Act as a servant leader. Give your teams what they need. Meet their basic needs first and then go above and beyond to meet their higher level needs.
There you have it. Seems obvious. Like you have heard me say a dozen times . . . .These servant leadership principles are self-evident. They are simple to understand, just not easy to install into our daily lives.
Living out these servant leadership principles happens via behavior change, habit development and ultimately character development. More strategies to develop character coming soon 🙂
