The Losing Locker Room

The use of sports metaphors in business is a common and established practice. And it’s natural in the parallel contexts of competitive teams vying against one another for supremacy.

Though the metaphor can be taken too far, there are in fact a number of appropriate analogies where businesspeople can get operational ideas and lessons from the sports world.

Managers can learn from coaches how to bounce back from defeat, how to stay on top, how to maximize limited resources, and how best to communicate with their teams, to name just four.

In that light, what can we learn from coaches as to the appropriate leadership communications in the context of failure? Suppose your operation loses a major client due to fumbled service. Or your fourth quarter results mean your unit didn’t make its annual budget.

Maybe your “superstar” sales team didn’t hit its numbers, or a competitor’s new product rollout caught you off-guard and they overtook your market share lead. Sure, the competition was tough. It usually is. Perhaps you faced a weak market, or a struggling economy.

If you’re the one in charge, what’s the right message to your people, through what means, and when?

Football may provide some valuable insights for this challenge.

The National Football League holds its playoffs in January, on the way to the Super Bowl in early February. The playoffs start with 16 teams and end with one champion. What about the 15 other teams? How does a losing coach deal with that, and what does he say to his team after a disappointing defeat abruptly ends their once promising season?

On the heels of an embarrassing rout in the first round of the NFL playoffs, I wondered about the locker room atmosphere of my favorite team, the New England Patriots. More to the point, what did Coach Bill Belichick (left) tell his team after an unexpected lop-sided loss to the underdog Baltimore Ravens?

This is the same team that won three Super Bowls in the past 10 years. Even in those years when they didn’t go all the way, they've always been highly competitive.

What a losing coach may say to the media after the loss can reveal some of his attitude and approach in the locker room. After his team’s second-round 34-3 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys coach Wade Phillips said that it felt "like an elevator falling all the way from the top."

That simile is accurate and revealing. As a team, the Cowboys had an on-and-off season this year. But at the end, they rode the elevator nearly to the top, only to get routed in the divisional playoff game.

It’s a cliché to hear “you have nothing to be ashamed of,” and other such attempts at encouragement and solace. So what’s the most constructive thing a coach or business leader can say to the team? What words and messages will salve wounded egos and encourage recommitment to the longer term?

The losing locker room is not the time or location for blame placing or recriminations. Instead, effective coaches recall the good work that had been done that season, the effort that got the team as far as it did. They cite the outstanding individual performances, but don’t dwell on the errors and miscues of the loss. They save that for later, for the one-on-one private conversations that must take place between the coach and those players that need encouragement and corrective guidance.

The loser’s locker room immediately after the loss is the time and place for finding the good on which you can build a foundation and begin motivating the team for future greatness. The immediacy of the moment right after the loss is the right time and place to deliver such messages.

The team whose coach is able to comfort and encourage his dispirited players is the team that’s more likely to return to the playoffs again next year with players that quickly regain their self-confidence and sense of excellence.

My guess is that Bill Belichick excels at this challenge. Reticent and cranky in his post-game press conferences, this is a leader who, behind the scenes, quietly encourages and motivates his players year after year. It shows, too, in the Patriots’ post-season record. In his 10 seasons as the Patriots’ head coach, the team has appeared in the Super Bowl four times, won three, and missed the playoffs only twice.

That’s a record any business manager should envy.

The Boss Goes Undercover

Waste Management is a well-respected company that provides garbage handling, recycling, landfill management, and related services to customers and municipalities in 47 states. It employs about 45,000 people, with reported revenues of $13.3 billion in 2008.

Its president and chief operating officer, Lawrence O’Donnell, III, or “Larry,” as he prefers, is about to become the next TV reality show star. Brace yourself for “Undercover Boss,” to premiere the night of Feb. 7 on CBS after the Super Bowl, featuring Larry’s experiences on the front lines of Waste Management.

As the title suggests, the company’s leader assumed a fake identity to join his employees in their daily grind so he can see what life is really like in the trenches.

Larry goes without shaving for a couple days and works undercover as “Randy,” tackling a range of tasks alongside his own employees, who, of course, are not in on the deception. In one instance, the unknowing employee is his temporary boss, who actually fires "Randy."

Larry/Randy gets to clean portable toilets, chase and pick up loose litter at a windy landfill, sort recyclables, and ride on the back of a garbage truck on its daily route.

If you guessed that this is like most reality shows, you’re right. The unknowing employees were surprised when they learned Randy’s true identity. He (especially) and they have something akin to an epiphany because of the experience. Larry got a new view of the world from the business end of a garbage truck, apparently a cathartic experience for him. “I didn’t think I’d be having these kinds of emotional issues riding on the back of a garbage truck,” he weeps in a typical reality TV tight shot.

“I’ve got to change the way I go about my own job,” he said, as he shed his green jumpsuit and returned to suit and tie. Larry went back to revisit the people he had previously worked with. It’s a series of Candid Camera moments – complete with gasps and shrieks. Naturally, he solved their problems and even promotes one of them.

One woman had griped about an absurd rule that forced employees to punch-in exactly on the half-hour. Rule changed. Another woman he worked with was putting in long hours and doing several jobs, yet struggling to pay her mortgage. Larry promoted her to salaried manager with a big pay increase and bonus eligibility. “All my hard work has been noticed,” she says tearfully. Problem solved. Mortgage paid.

“I now have a whole new appreciation of the impact some of my decisions can have on you folks,” the newly chastened president tells his employees.

If you venture onto the Waste Management web site, you might see it promoting the show. I’m not sure how long they’ll want to do that. They may come to realize the downside.

I can see how Larry (and the other senior executives) would be excited by all this attention, but I wonder how employees not involved in the show feel. Surely they, too, have a raft of issues that could be quickly addressed if Larry spent time with them. So will this be a win-win for the company in the long run? Only if Larry and other senior executives make it their regular routine to visit the front lines.

Believe me, I'm not knocking the idea of senior level people getting out in the field among employees and experiencing first-hand what their people do every day. (See an earlier entry here, Communicate with your Employees - Doctor's Orders.) I’d like to think that this show will encourage other bosses to do the same. It's always going to be a great learning experience – for both sides of the equation.

The benefits that senior executives derive from getting out on the front lines with their employees are immeasurable. Unfortunately, it is a rarity today. The higher a person gets in the organization, it seems, the less likely it is that she/he has the time to indulge in such luxuries – at least, that’s what most of them say.

I say it most certainly is not a luxury. It's part of the job. But I nearly always get pushback. They’re too busy, I am told. Their calendars are filled months in advance with important meetings and numerous other obligations. It’s difficult to argue such a point with a guy who sits atop a Fortune 500 company with all the attendant constituencies. But I do some pushing back myself. Make the time, I tell them. It’s your job.

Too many senior executives are more attuned to the interests of Wall Street, nursing their company’s image (and stock price), and so spend far more time with analysts than with their own employees. They also spend a lot of time in meetings with one another in the executive suite. Big mistake.

Becoming better attuned to what’s going on in your own organization will do far more for your company’s image (and revenues and stock price) than all the coddling of analysts you could possible muster.