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Lead to Win: Lessons from a Chicago Cubs’ World Series Champ

I’m a die hard Chicago Cubs fan. As much as I love all Chicago sports, baseball is what I grew up watching. I am by no means the longest living Cubs fan, not even close! However, I, like many others, grew up watching them lose a lot, hanging onto every inch of hope that they might just win it all one day. So, when they finally did it this year, I was literally ecstatic. I cried; I admit it; I have no shame about it.

The thing about this current Cubs team though that makes me such a proud fan is its leadership. Being a leadership and HR fanatic myself, its one of the first things I notice in teams. The Chicago Cubs has a lot of great leaders from Theo Epstein to Jed Hoyer to the Ricketts family. However, I am consistently impressed by the great Joe Maddon.

So, here’s what I’ve learned about how to “lead to win” from Joe, manager of the World Series’ Champs, the Chicago Cubs. I’ve titled each lesson after my favorites of Joe’s “Maddonisms.”

“That’s outcome bias.”

Joe often responds with this statement when the media questions a decision he made, claiming that the opposite decision or a different decision could have had a better outcome. In leadership, we often play it safe and if something goes wrong, we constantly waste time questioning “what if” scenarios, attempting to breakdown what went wrong. There is a false assumption that another decision or action would have resulted in a different outcome, when in reality, no one really knows. It could have been the same outcome either way.

The lesson is that just because one decision or risk does not work out, it doesn’t mean that we need to play it safe the next time. We must keep taking chances and pushing boundaries.

“Do simple better.”

Joe is questioned a lot for his way of leading and managing the Cubs. He cancels batting practices and doesn’t hold team meetings. Instead, he believes that he has adults and professionals on his team and thus, he should treat them as such. Therefore, he puts his trust in his team and doesn’t micromanage them. Guess what? They chose to practice anyway and took the World Series in style, coming back from 3-1 games down to win it all. He also prides himself in having one-on-one conversations rather than team meetings.

The lesson for leaders is to stop overcomplicating our roles. If we do the simple things better, we will already have better results. One piece of advice from Joe is to not micromanage every detail of how employees should do their jobs. Be clear with expectations and let them achieve the results on their own. The other relevant lesson is that when someone isn’t performing, have a real, honest conversation with that person rather than holding a team meeting every time to reset expectations in a passive-aggressive manner where everyone feels like they did something wrong but aren’t really sure.

“Don’t ever permit the pressure to exceed the pleasure.”

This is my favorite maddonism! Every Cubs fan knows about the team’s themed road trips. This year, they did eccentric suits day and a pajama party day. Joe also throws little parties in the clubhouse like when he brought zoo animals in for spring training or brought in a mariachi band to serenade his team before a game. The lesson here is to have fun with our teams and let them have fun with each other. Fun brings people together and takes the pressure off.

This maddonism also gets to the heart of success which is that people who love what they do will achieve the best results. Why? It’s not likely that people love doing something they are not good at. People with real passions live and breathe whatever it is that they are passionate about. Leaders hire A players and let those A players enjoy what they do because the pleasure of what we do everyday should exceed the pressure we are under.

What stands out for you and what might you try doing with your teams? I’ve been pondering the “no team meetings” idea. Here’s to the Chicago Cubs, to Joe Maddon, to leadership and to all of you winning with your teams!


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Plan a fun but productive in-service day

I feel like I’ve planned hundreds of in-service days but the truth is that it never gets any easier. It only gets harder every time especially if it’s with the same team. I don’t want them to be bored so I need to make sure that every time I plan one, it is going to add value to their work, their careers or their lives.

Let’s take a step back. What do I even mean by an in-service day? This could mean a lot of things. When I talk about an in-service day, I’m referring to a day set aside at least a few times per year where a team gets together, preferably off-site (not at work), to reflect, reenergize and strategize. There are so many reasons why having in-service days is so important:

  1. It’s time to do team building, for us to get to know each other better and for us to work better together.
  2. It’s time to recharge and get excited about our work again, or maybe more excited than we were before.
  3. It’s time to engage in some reflection, remember why we do what we do (mission and vision) and get refocused on our core values.
  4. It’s time to plan for the future (strategy) without interruptions from our day-to-day work in the office.
  5. It’s time to learn and grow as individuals and as a team, to gain new knowledge and skills and to make improvements to products, services or processes.
  6. It’s a time to clarify expectations and get everyone on the same page.

So, how do I plan a fun and productive in-service day? It’s just like planning any event. It takes committing time to it and depending on the goal, some resources.

Venue and Food

It’s important to pick a venue away from work. If an organization has a big budget, these in-service days could be more extravagant but it can also be done for a very low cost. I plan most of mine at free venues like the local library, park district or village hall.

Be sure to serve breakfast, lunch and snacks. Depending on the agenda, these days can feel very long. If budget is tight, do it potluck style and have everyone bring in their favorite things to share.

Agenda and Presenters

Prepare an agenda and communicate it ahead of time. Determine estimated times for each topic as well as presenters or facilitators. Give the presenters and facilitators ample time to prepare their content and return it to be organized appropriately.

Be sure the agenda includes a good mix of fun activities and productive discussions and that these are alternating on the agenda throughout the day. If all the fun happens in the morning, the audience will be bored by lunch time.

Technology

Of course, ensure that all technology works appropriately. Confirm that a laptop, projector and all cords are available for use.

Be sure to incorporate technology into the day too, when possible. This can be in the form of polls, quizzes or games on a mobile phone, videos or interactive iPad activities. Don’t set “no cell phone” rules, please! It’s almost 2017! Use their phones to your advantage to engage them!

Learning and Activities

Plan learning opportunities and activities into the day. There should always be some sort of professional development to help the team gain new insights, knowledge, skills or experiences.

Be sure that learning opportunities are interactive, not one-way. Don’t lecture!

Celebrate

Don’t forget to celebrate! Not only is it a long day but if it is productive as planned, the team deserves some down time. Take them out for a happy hour. Informal team building is just as good as formal team building!

Be sure to thank the team for their participation and engagement throughout the day.

It’s planning time! Dive in and plan a first or next in-service day to increase employee engagement and team building.


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Create a Sense of Place for Your Team

A sense of place is actually a fairly common phrase used in geography, landscape design and interior design. It refers to the idea of creating something special and unique where people feel that they belong, perhaps to something greater than themselves. I think of really well planned parks where the design really took into consideration the people who would visit them – meeting places, comfortable spaces to sit, greenery and gardens, convenient walking paths, options for activities and other necessary concepts to create a feeling for visitors that they belong there.

Let’s apply this concept to the workplace. Creating a sense of place for your team does not have to be expensive. It can be but it does not have to be. There are so many ways to make employees feel like they are part of something when they’re at work, like they have a sense of belonging. They should feel meaning when they go to work every day. There is a lot that can play into a sense of place. You don’t have to have all of them to be successful but as many as you can incorporate into your workplace will be beneficial.

Efficiency

Efficiency in this sense is not about how fast you can get a task done. It’s about what makes sense for people at work. Are your workspaces designed so that employees can get to and from their offices with ease? Are they able to move within your organization in a manner that makes sense and does not require a lot of thought? For example, I think of an office space where on one level, there’s a food court in the middle and meetings spaces surrounding it. Then, on the second level, offices surround a community area with games and a patio out to a Zen garden. The two floors are open to each other and you can get to any single point easily and everything is placed logically. It’s easy to grab a bite to eat or a coffee right before or after a meeting when people usually need one of the two. It’s easy to take a break from office work by just stepping outside your door to play a game with a coworker or take a walk in a relaxing atmosphere, the garden.

Life

Workplaces often lack life, green life that is. Studies show that plants, flowers and vegetation can increase energy and focus and lead to a longer life. Purchase plants for your employees’ offices and build a garden together. There are so many benefits to a community garden:

  • It falls into our category of adding life into the workplace so it can increase productivity by helping your employees focus more.
  • It gives people something meaningful to do when they just need a break.
  • It builds on teamwork and can really bring people together for a common cause.
  • It is a great perk for employees to be able to take home food from the garden.
  • It encourages employees to cook for each other and share their recipes.
  • It allows for great conversation in a much safer and comfortable environment, rather than at the water cooler.

Options

People don’t like feeling stuck and if you’re trying to create a sense of belonging, you don’t want them to feel stuck. Build options into your workplace

  • for where people do their work – offices, open spaces, think pods, couches, etc.
  • for where people have their meetings – conference rooms, lunch meeting spaces, cafes and fun rooms (exercise balls, stress balls, basketball hoops).
  • for where people can take a break – gardens, food courts, coffee shops, game rooms or quiet rooms.
  • for where people can collaborate – training rooms, rooms with smartboards, computer labs and project rooms.

Connectedness

So, it’s great to have work spaces that make sense. What about the human side? Create a sense of place for employees by creating a culture of connectedness. Don’t just build a team; build a community. A community is a group of peers who trust each other, have found commonality despite their differences and feel a bond. They not only work well together but they do everything well together. A great recent example of this is the Chicago Cubs team. Whether you’re a fan or not, you can’t deny the sense of place that Joe Maddon has created for his team. They laugh together, play together, work together, win together and lose together. You never hear the players blame each other for losses or take all the credit for wins. If you watch them in the dugout during games, they are genuinely having fun at work. They’re never as serious as the other team. They goof around with their fans and with each other. They have become something larger, greater and better than themselves.

Celebration

Celebration is not just about throwing a party after a big accomplishment or telling people good job after they complete a project. Celebration is constant, genuine and 360-degrees. If celebration is truly a part of your culture, you sometimes celebrate for no particular reason. Don’t just do payday treats and birthday parties. Those are expected and can feel forced or disingenuous. Some things you can do include surprising your team with treats on totally random days, dropping off little anonymous gifts on their desks before or after they are at work and throwing a thank you party out of nowhere (not when anything important is going on). I’ve done these things for my team and it has paid off ten-fold as they now celebrate constantly. They have fun and do great work. It’s hard to believe sometimes that it’s possible to have both but when you do, it is quite amazing!

Purpose

Give people meaning, not just in the work that they do everyday but at work in general. If people don’t know why they go to work everyday or why they do what they do, you’ve lost the battle. Don’t be confused though. Meaning and purpose looks very different than reason. A good reason to go to work is to get paid. A good purpose for going to work is to serve your team and better the lives of your customers, patients or clients. To really have purpose, your team has to believe in everything: their work, their team, the values of the organization, the people they serve, the physical space they work in, the technology they work with, the product and service they are delivering and the leadership they have supporting them.

Remember these six pillars of creating a sense of place as you look to make positive changes to your teams, organizations and cultures. From my sense of place to yours!


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Right isn’t always easy

Doing the right thing often means doing the difficult thing. If it was a piece of cake, we would all be doing it. As our work became faster paced and our to-do lists became never-ending, did we forget about ethics in the workplace? Did those values we post around our walls just become blurry pieces of decoration?

We continue to see a lack of ethics training for both front-line staff and leadership. Many of these programs were cut from organizations’ budgets during a recession and have not made an appearance since. We need to invest our resources back into these programs if we want our employees to do the right things.

It goes beyond just ethics training though. It also means having difficult conversations, embracing accountability and developing a culture where people feel comfortable doing the right things.

When we build culture and programs around ethics, morals and values, there are many things to take into consideration. The most common mistake is that organizations focus only on the technical concepts like what’s illegal – sexual harassment training, anti-theft policies and information security protocols.

Helping people to do the right thing requires supporting them to speak up when something is wrong, conduct difficult conversations with others who may not be compliant, and incorporate values into team cultures. Once there is a culture of accountability and ownership, employees will be living out the values of the organization.

Getting companies to do the right thing isn’t always easy. It takes time, energy and genuine buy-in at all levels. But it’s worth it.


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Opportunities are the key to value-based loyalty

If you’ve been keeping up on recent studies and news, you’ll know that the world of work is changing dramatically. Once upon a time, loyalty was a mutual desire for employees and organizations. Employees wanted to just stay with their organizations until retirement, slowly working their way up the corporate ladder. Human Resources (HR) departments revolved their initiatives – recognition programs, benefits, perks, etc. – around keeping employees around for the long-run (e.g., years of service parties and gifts).

Things are picking up fast though. All over the internet, you’ll now find advice from thought leaders and career experts telling you not to stay in a job too long. The specific advice varies but experts say that most people are now staying in jobs for only two to five years. Some are only staying in their organizations for that long.

So, should the goal of leadership and organizations still be to keep people around longer? Not necessarily, but loyalty should still be a goal. Loyalty does not always equate to staying with an organization for a long period of time. Loyalty can mean that even when an employee leaves your organization, they rave about it. They send their best coworkers, friends and acquaintances to work for your organization. They recommend you with sincerity and passion. They might even return one day if the right opportunity presents itself in your organization.

Organizations need to focus on providing opportunities for people. Opportunities include much more than promotion into a management position:

  • Lateral transfers allow employees to learn new skills and do a new job.
  • Promotional opportunities don’t always have to be into management. Create senior level positions for employees who excel at what they do and want to continue doing it at a higher level.
  • Sending employees to conferences allows them to expand their knowledge and network with other professionals.
  • Sending employees back to school to get a new degree shows your investment in their future.
  • Giving employees special projects that challenge and mean something to them will help them grow and help the organization grow.
  • Providing specialized and meaningful training for employees helps them gain confidence in doing their jobs better.

These are just a few examples of how to provide opportunities within your organization to great employees. The idea is to focus on helping employees achieve their personal career goals. Leaders often fear that if they offer these opportunities, employees will leave the organization. This is totally possible but it is not what management should be focusing on. As I mentioned, it’s the new reality that employees will be switching jobs and companies more often. Your goal should not be to keep employees around longer but to grow them and gain their loyalty.

You won’t always have the right job for the right employees at the right time. They may leave but if you don’t offer them opportunities to learn and grow while they are with you, you may be closing the door on them so that they never come back. That’s where leaders and organizations fail: not maintaining an alumni network.

Some of the opportunities I mentioned allow employees to network with other professionals. Leverage the relationships they build at these events. They may be meeting amazing people who are willing and ready to take their places once they leave your organization. Make sure you give them a reason to recommend your organization and your leaders to other great professionals. As times change, we need to change our definition of loyalty from a time commitment to a value commitment. To maintain loyalty that means something more than time, we must provide employees opportunities and play a role in their professional growth and success.


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Too little too late: Losing your star performers

They’re the most loyal employees you have. They’re your hardest workers. They understand both quality and quantity, producing the best results and the most results. They’re always willing to learn and teach. They represent your organization with pride. They’re coworkers love them; your customers love them; you love them. They’re your star performers.

But, why would you wait until they have one foot out the door to get them to stay? So many leaders and organizations make this very mistake all too often. Specifically, I see leaders and organizations overlook five specific areas.

1. Training and Development
This starts with hiring practices. It is a misconception that many recruiters and hiring managers have that just because you hire someone who is extremely qualified, it means that they will require less training and development. This is far from true. If anything, they might have different needs when it comes to the areas in which they need further development. Richard Branson says it best: “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

That’s what development is all about: growing our people, helping them improve their current skills and develop new ones. One of the most heartbreaking stories I heard was from an exceptional coworker about why she left a company. She said she begged the company to pay for her to take a class and they kept putting it off, year after year that she would ask. Finally, she saved enough money to pay for it herself. When she put in her notice, they asked her why she was leaving and she said, “On several occasions spanning several years, I gave this organization the opportunity to invest in me. I wasn’t asking to go back to school for a degree or to attend an outrageous number of conferences each year. I asked to have one class paid for so I could learn one new skill. The organization told me that it could not afford it. So, I invested in myself and now, I can’t afford to offer up my new skill to an organization that wasn’t willing to invest in me.”

2. Career Growth
Career growth can mean many things. It can mean simply investing in training and development of your staff. It can also mean providing new opportunities for people, whether it’s a lateral movement or upward movement within the organization.

Give people a chance especially if you already know their potential. Some organizations make it impossible for their employees to move up internally which is why they have high turnover and onboarding becomes the busiest process in the organization.

3. Meaningful Recognition
Problem? Yes. The problem here is that organizations assume that people like to be recognized the same way, which is not true. Some people enjoy being the center of attention while others prefer a more subtle form of recognition.

What does this mean for leaders? It means that leaders need to get to know their employees. It sounds like a daunting task but it’s worth the investment. If you customize and personalize your recognition programs and decisions, your staff will feel truly appreciated and special. If there’s only one or two generic ways of recognizing people, the recognition loses its meaning and value.

4. Playing Favorites
Misconception: rewarding your star performers equals playing favorites. This happens the most probably during performance review time. Managers give everyone the same rating because they don’t want to have tough conversations and because they don’t want staff to think they’re playing favorites.

High performers hate this! They feel like their time, hard work and results are for nothing when their lower performing peers are receiving the same review rating and/or raise and not expected to improve performance. If they’re not recognized for being better, they’ll either stop being a star performer or they’ll leave, neither of which are good for an organization.

5. Salary
While many believe this is the number one reason why people leave organizations, it is not. However, it still is important. The biggest mistake I see leaders make is throw money at their star performers as they’re heading out the door. If your employees have already accepted another job offer and are giving you two weeks notice, it’s probably not the most ideal time to offer them a raise. If you truly value them, you would have given them a fair raise a long time ago.

The most embarrassing thing about watching leaders do this is that they either look so desperate because they’re essentially begging the employee not to leave or they look silly because they actually believe it’s going to work. It usually doesn’t.

Attaining star performers is an opportunity. Retaining them is a privilege earned by grasping the opportunity to do everything in your power to provide them the best possible work environment in which to thrive. Lesson learned? Don’t fall into the trap of losing your best employees because you did too little too late.

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The power of learning to unlearn

There has been a lot of change in a small period of time in the workplace. Organizations are constantly making changes to keep up with competitors or become the next best thing. Even in industries that used to be steady and stable like healthcare and education, we’ve seen layoffs, closings and mergers in the past few years.

Through all this change, I’ve seen a vast array of struggles and coping methods. The most interesting to me, however, is watching people try to unlearn things. That’s right, unlearn. The beauty is that those who were able to do it survived some of the greatest changes in organizations.

Often times, people going through change have a hard time accepting new ideas, new work and new people and that’s to be expected. The problem I see is not so much that they cannot learn new things or that they don’t want to but more so that they have a difficult time letting go of the way things used to be – a problem with unlearning what they’ve known for years or maybe decades.

While most people struggle with change, I’ve seen a common theme in those who overcome their struggles and it’s the ability to unlearn things. They are able to make connections between what was, what is and what could or should be. They know how to evaluate the differences and determine whether a change is good or bad. Then, they unlearn what they knew previously if they think the new way is better.

The magic is in unlearning because they aren’t committed to believing that what they used to know is necessarily the right and only way. They can hear the reasons for change, understand it and thus, embrace it – if it’s a good change, of course. These are not easy things to do because it’s natural to gravitate towards the things we are comfortable with rather than unlearning them.

If we all focused on the power of learning to unlearn things when we are dealing with a lot of change, we may be able to better see the benefits of the change. How have you struggled with unlearning and how did you overcome that struggle?


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Accountability without support does not work

As an HR professional, I could not agree more that we need to hold employees accountable for their performance. In fact, I find that leaders don’t do this enough. However, the biggest problem I see leaders make when it comes to accountability, besides the fact that they don’t do it enough, is that they try to hold people accountable without ever providing the proper training or support.

If your team is not meeting expectations or you’re not meeting your numbers for the month, why not start by asking what you can do? Too many leaders look first to blame their staff – they’re not working hard enough, they’re not competent enough, they don’t care about their work enough. Well, sometimes, it might be because they have not received enough resources, guidance, technology or training.

Next time your team falls short, don’t look for blame but instead, look for areas where you can help. If you don’t know where the problem is or how to help them, ask. Ask for feedback from the staff. They usually know exactly where they need help and what would help them do their jobs better.

Leaders should take ownership in improving and developing their teams to be successful. Once you do that, then you can set clear expectations and hold people accountable. Only when you have done everything in your power to make your team successful can you realistically hold them accountable for performance.

Invest the time in your people and it’ll pay off. Not only will you develop a strong team that way but you’ll boost morale. People will want to work for you and do their best every day because you invested in them and believe in them.

Once you’ve done everything to make your team successful, you can hold them accountable. As a leader, you have the power to give employees encouragement, tools/resources and independence to do their work, make decisions and succeed. If you don’t give people the tools to do their job effectively/efficiently, you can’t expect fast/accurate results.


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Growth doesn’t always happen through upward movement

That’s right, growth doesn’t always happen through upward movement. In fact, To grow, sometimes you have to move laterally or maybe even downwards. Sometimes, you also have to standstill for a while because there’s more to learn where you are.

I’ve seen Directors move back to a staff-level position before becoming VPs of large organizations. It’s not always about the title or hierarchy; sometimes, a job or department or even an organization just is not a good fit and that’s okay. Moving to a lower position in a department or organization that allows for more growth is better than staying at a higher position where there is no growth or learning.

So, what do you do if you want to grow? Growth is about learning, grasping new opportunities and finding ways to improve yourself. When it comes to career growth, here are three tips I’ve learned from experience:

  • Get yourself a mentor. Find someone who can guide you in the right direction. Having a mentor in your organization can truly be one of the best things for your career. Your mentor does not have to be your boss or even someone from your department, for that matter. For me, I was able to find my mentor in a VP that I rarely work with directly but has grown herself in a way that I admire. Plus she’s willing to put in the time and effort to help and advise me, and that’s the first characteristic of a great mentor.
  • Develop a “can-do” attitude. Attitude goes a long way these days. It doesn’t matter what industry, job or organization you work in, the workplace is becoming a busier place everyday. Technology and society have made it possible to do more with less. Sometimes, it can feel like everyone is “too busy” or that nothing is “their job.” If you’re willing to do whatever it takes for the team, no matter how big or how small, you will build stronger relationships that will help you grow your career. In such an individualistic society, it can be refreshing to have a collectivist mindset.
  • Push yourself out of your comfort zone and try new things. Don’t just stay in a job because you know how to do it. If you’re not being challenged, you’re probably not in a job that is going to help advance your career. If you’re looking for new job opportunities, don’t just look for ones that are directly aligned with your experiences or your degree. If there’s a great opportunity to learn something different, whether it’s a whole new job or just a new project/assignment, take it and diversify your skills. Trying new things, gaining different skills and taking every opportunity to learn will help you build your value proposition.

If you’re scared of doing any of the things listed, ask for guidance. If you don’t have someone to ask, go online. For example, LinkedIn Groups and Twitter chats are great places to connect with fellow professionals that are ready and willing to give you great advice on how to learn and grow.


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