There’s a phrase that sums it up fairly well: “What goes around comes around.” I believe that word of what Paul Brown had done to me (and probably others) when I was attempting to leave Cincinnati got around the league and ultimately hurt the Bengals in a variety of predictable ways. After all, how eager would you be to join an organization that might not look after your interests, that might betray your loyalty?
Conversely, I know for a fact that many talented players and coaches—individuals who eventually helped us win NFC conference championships and Super Bowls, such as quarterback Steve Young, Wendell Tyler, Jack “Hacksaw” Reynolds, Paul Hackett (later head coach of USC), and others—
sought
to join San Francisco in large measure because they knew their career aspirations would be addressed and respected.
While they were with us, we expected them to give us everything they had, but in turn, we gave them our recognition that they had the right to advance their own careers. Word got around that the 49ers treated people right.
In your own professional activities, remember that a reputation for fair play—treating people right—can be a big part of a potential employee’s decision to join you or a current and valued employee’s desire to remain. It can infuse your team with strength in creating a self-image that transcends a sense of being in a band of mercenaries. It can matter more than money.
When it comes to deciding how you treat people, exploitation, expedience, and self-interest are a formula for creating a team of individuals who will soon be looking to join another team. I learned many great lessons from Paul Brown, but “treating people right” was not among them. That lesson was one I learned from Tommy Prothro.
Nine Steps for a Healthy Heart
People matter most—more than equipment, investors, inventions, momentum, or
X
’s and
O
’s. People are at the heart of achieving organizational greatness. Too often aggressive leaders forget the human part of the equation—the most important part. Let me suggest nine steps you can take that involve treating people right, for having a healthy heart in your organization:
1.
Afford each person the same respect, support, and fair treatment you would expect if your roles were reversed.
Deal with people individually, not as objects who are part of a herd—that’s the critical factor.
2.
Leadership involves many people, each with their own need for role identity within the organization.
Find what a person does best, utilize and emphasize it, and steer clear of his or her weaknesses.
3.
Demonstrate a pronounced commitment to employees
by providing a work environment that enables them to achieve their maximum potential and productivity.
4.
Acknowledge the uniqueness of each employee
and the need he or she has for a reasonable degree of job security and self-actualization. You don’t own him or her.
5.
The most talented personnel often are very independent minded.
This requires that you carefully consider how you relate to and communicate with this type of individual. Creative people usually bring a passion to seeing their ideas put into play as quickly as possible. They must be helped to understand that not every idea is appropriate and that coming up with a new concept is just the start of a process that includes evaluation, comparisons, practicability, and more. But be careful not to quash an idea-friendly environment in your organization.
6.
While at times a divergence may exist between the good of the group and the good of the individual
,
in a best-case scenario the group’s and the individual’s “good” should be the same.
When this is not the case, you are well served to explain the reasons behind the divergence to the person who feels badly treated—for example, when he or she is passed over for promotion. (For me, occasionally a player wanted to play one position when, in fact, he was better suited to another. I attempted to explain this to the individual whose goal was being denied. You may have an individual who similarly needs direction to play to his or her strength within your organization. And you may have to explain how this benefits the goal of the team.)
7.
People are most comfortable with how they are being treated when their duties are laid out in specific detail
and their performance can be gauged by specific metrics. The key is to document—clarify—those expectations. In my initial year at San Francisco, our starting quarterback, Steve DeBerg, was outstanding in many areas. The category that he came up short in, however, was critical—throwing interceptions at important junctures. It cost him his job because it was right there on paper, a quantifiable statistic that verified what I already knew. In a very easily seen way, he could be shown where he was underperforming.
8.
It is critical that employee expectation levels be reasonable, attainable, and high.
While you should exhibit flexibility in the work environment to accommodate the needs of employees, you should be inflexible with regard to your
expectations
of their performance.
9.
Establish a protocol for how members of the organization interact with one another.
This is essential to preventing compartmentalization and “turf protection.” Let them know their first priority is to do their job; their second priority is to facilitate others in doing their jobs.
Seriously, Don’t Be Too Serious
There’s not a lot of room for joking around in the midst of competitive challenges, whether on the football field or in the marketplace. Humor is often a sign of being removed from the focus and commitment necessary to do the job well—a casual attitude about a serious endeavor.
But a leader also runs the risk of pushing so hard, with deadly solemnity and grim-faced determination, that he or she creates an oppressive and performance-limiting workplace. You need to recognize when it’s time to lighten up and let some of the steam—pressure—vent. This requires the ability to gauge when and how it is appropriate to utilize humor.
We encountered that kind of situation in the week prior to playing in our first Super Bowl. The incredible experience was brand new to all of us, but I was especially concerned that our young players would be adversely affected by the media gauntlet and fan frenzy, not to mention the requirement that they perform at their absolute best. It could be crushing, and in fact, oddsmakers generally give an edge in the Super Bowl to a team that has been there before—experienced the near-trauma of the week’s media circus and ultimate-game pressure. (In this instance, neither team had appeared in a Super Bowl before.)
I arrived in Detroit several days before the rest of the team to do interviews and participate in league meetings. My plan was to meet the players when they arrived at our hotel after their bus trip in from the Detroit airport. Consequently, I was looking for something for our guys that would crack the tension, something where they could just enjoy one another in the incredible hype they would encounter immediately after stepping off the buses in front of the hotel.
I had about thirty minutes before they arrived and came up with this idea: I would put on a bellhop’s uniform and cap—disguise myself—and help the players with their bags as they got off the bus. I paid a bellhop thirty bucks to let me wear his outfit and stood on the curb as the first San Francisco 49ers bus pulled up right in front of me. My disguise was effective because crowding behind me on the sidewalk were hundreds of fans, friends, reporters, and photographers who distracted the players as they got off the bus.
As team members stepped to the sidewalk I kept my head kind of looking down at their luggage so they couldn’t see who it was—their head coach handling their bags. The whole point, of course, was to break the heat of the experience and remind them, “Hey, we’re still
us
.” I wanted to let them know that it was okay to be comfortable and even enjoy what was going on, that they didn’t have to go into some hyper level of tension and stress because it was the Super Bowl.
My disguise worked so well that Joe Montana actually got into a tug-of-war with me over his duffel bag. He was trying to keep me from taking it when suddenly he saw who the “bellhop” was—his head coach. The whole team started breaking up and joking with one another—a big shift for the positive in team attitude. They saw the guy in charge—me—having a little fun. It gave them an important message: Don’t get all worked up and stressed out by everything. Stay loose.
The little stunt went to my understanding that in a crucible of pressure a safety valve is valuable, something that will release tension. And I could see that the pressure immediately reduced in the 49ers as they got off the buses.
The same kind of opportunities exist for you if you’re alert and recognize that puncturing pressure with
appropriate
humor can be beneficial under the weight of deadlines and other stress producers.
A more outlandish situation occurred a week later on the way to the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, where we would play in Super Bowl XVI. We traveled in two buses, and I was on the second one with Montana and half of the team. The first bus made it to the Silverdome without a problem. Our bus got caught in a massive traffic jam caused by a motorcade for Vice President George Bush. It was made worse by a snowstorm that had hit a few hours earlier. At one point, it looked like we might be thirty minutes late for our own Super Bowl game.
It would have been easy to sit in silence and stew, to let the extreme pressure go even higher. Instead, I intentionally made some lighter comments and a few jokes, including my announcement over the bus’s loudspeaker that the game had started without us using just the players of the first bus: “May I have your attention, please. This just in from the Silverdome: ‘Early in the first quarter, San Francisco is trailing Cincinnati 7-0. 49ers trainer Chico Norton is calling the plays.” This loosened people up, and the energy returned to something approaching a “normal” level of enthusiasm and eagerness to go into battle. We arrived at the Silverdome just ninety minutes before the kickoff.
I certainly am not suggesting that a joke or lighter comment is why we won that game. But I know for certain that tightening of nerves in an atmosphere of increasing uncertainty and anxiety is counterproductive. I defused or changed it to something more productive because I knew that humor, used in the right way at the right time, could provide that valuable safety valve. (By the way, after nearly being late for the Super Bowl because he was on the second bus, Joe started taking a taxi to the stadium for all future road games. That way he could leave much earlier and guarantee that he wouldn’t miss the opening snap.)
Does pressure improve performance? Yes, up to a point, but let me suggest the following: Regardless of context, those who are able to perform best are those who are best able to
remove
tension, anxiety, and fear from their minds. There’s a phrase for it: “being in the zone.” And, there is no tension, anxiety, or fear in the zone, whether on the football field, in the conference room, or in a multitude of situations where you are called on to really produce.
You want your team to push hard, to feel as if they will come up short without total effort. But total effort doesn’t mean total anxiety. I believe optimum creativity and high performance—a sales presentation, for example, or a complex pass play from Joe Montana to Jerry Rice—are most likely to succeed when the individual or group has an attitude that is seemingly a paradox; specifically, both relaxed
and
intense. That’s when things really happen. Here’s an example that many people still don’t believe is true.
In Super Bowl XXIII the 49ers took possession of the ball late in the fourth quarter—with less than three minutes left—on our own eight-yard line. We needed to drive the length of the field and score a touchdown to win the ballgame. A single mistake along the way could cost us the Super Bowl. This is about as much situational pressure as exists in NFL football.
As our offense huddled in the end zone to hear Joe Montana call the first play, they noticed his head turn; something had caught his eye. “Hey,” he said to his teammates huddled with him, “isn’t that John Candy, the comedian, standing over there by the exit in the stands?” Everybody looked up, and sure enough, it was Candy. Then they turned back into the huddle and got back to business.
How was it possible for Joe (and his teammates) to be comfortable—relaxed but intense and focused—in the middle of that cauldron? With all due respect to Joe and his teammates, that’s what a leader tries to teach—how to be in the zone.
Wisely applied humor—even something as silly as putting on a bellhop’s uniform—can be a useful device in allowing your team, staff, or organization to get past anxiety and into the zone. Don’t overdo it, but don’t underestimate its effectiveness.
The Last Word on Getting in the Last Word
I have been accused of being overly sensitive to criticism—thin-skinned. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen too many examples of so-called experts and critics who didn’t have much of a clue. Unfortunately, what they say or write becomes part of the public record and is subsequently perceived as fact. This can really hurt when it’s hogwash.
Here’s an example. A Seattle sports writer published a book that singled me out as “a most stupid coach.” He gave as evidence a game against the Seahawks in which the 49ers had executed a series of well-crafted running plays to get inside Seattle’s ten-yard line. I then called three
passing
plays in an attempt to score. We failed. The writer suggested this was the work of a coaching moron.
What this “expert” didn’t recognize was that while Seattle had a much weaker team, they did have one outstanding asset: the NFL’s best goal-line defense against the run. You just couldn’t expect to score on the ground against the Seahawks inside the ten-yard line. So we went to the air. Again and again and again.