Mindset
“You can not merely expect culture to be a natural occurrence; it has to be taught and made part of your everyday routine.” Mike Krzyzewski
There are many books and opinions about building team and business culture, and how great leaders can manifest great culture through their choices, modeling, and decision-making.
These are all valuable resources and concepts to ponder while building your culture.
But, the unsaid fabric of culture in a team environment is stewarded and protected by the support staff who create the roots for great culture to grow.
Misunderstood and undervalued, year after year great teams and great cultures thrive when their support staff work behind the scenes quietly defining the room through their everyday routines.
The mistake made by many in human performance who join a new team is to define the success of their work through their accomplishments or contributions.
“I was hired to be the X, and as the X, I am responsible for the Y, and I need to do Y very well.” This is the typical narrative of new staff members on a team. How can I show everyone I am a team player by doing my job well?
They inject themselves into the environment and attempt to prove their worth and value through the expression of their skills and knowledge delivery.
They work hard, no doubt, but they often miss the mark. Instead of contributing to the perpetuation of culture, they create microfractures in it.
The hardest thing about working in a sports team environment is realizing that sometimes 70-80% of what you do will have nothing to do with the delivery of your technical acumen, and everything to do with your contribution to the calmness and consistency of the everyday stuff that needs to be done to keep a team running.
Often boring, rarely appreciated, and mostly unrecognized until it is missing or done wrong.
When I worked in the NHL for much of my career on the road, even though I had been hired as a therapist and performance coach, I helped the equipment staff by setting up and collecting the sticks.
Every time a game ended, I collected the sticks as the players exited the ice, systematically bagging them so that they would be easily re-set at the next destination.
Then, when arriving at the next practice or game rink, I would pull all the sticks out and align them on a wall in order of number, ensuring each and every player would be able to go to that wall and know exactly where their stick was when they reached for it.
Many of the players never knew I did this duty. They weren’t there when I pulled the sticks out and set them up. They knew their sticks would be in the same place, ready when needed.
I was rarely if ever thanked by anyone for doing it. Occasionally the lead equipment manager would say a quick thank you. Their thanks in my estimation, was their trust that I would always get it done and done right.
The everyday routine would remain steady.
Being a part of a team culture means doing your work, and the teamwork, and the extra work every day without compromise, and without expectation.
If someone shows gratitude, show appreciation for that gratitude and continue consistently delivering.
On great teams, gratitude is shown not through pleases and thank you’s, but through trust and confidence in you.
The fact that a multi-million dollar player knows you will do right by him or her, and they give you their trust is an exceptional expression of thankfulness.
When a coach, whose job is on the line every day based simply on wins and losses, gives you his or her consent to do your thing, that’s his or her thanks.
Trust is an implicit thank you.
If you expect, even for a second, to be thanked or recognized for what you do in the room of a team, you are automatically on the wrong side of the culture equation.
All that being said, if you are a coach, or an athlete, or a manager, or a leader, recognize that your culture begins and ends with your support staff. They are the unsaid fabric of your team culture. They are the stewards of its relentless consistency.
Take the time to thank them now and then, and recognize the stuff they do beyond their scope, and on your behalf. It goes a long way.
Culture is formed, not in the loudness of the illuminated statements we make, but in the quiet darkness of the day-to-day.
The great oak tree rises and grows at the behest of the earth in which it rests.
