While watching some of the NFL Draft last week, I was reminded of several topics I discussed in my book, The Leadership Playbook.
- “If there was a draft every year for our position, would we keep our job?”
- “In sports, every day is recruiting-day. Teams are constantly looking to build their bench”.
- “Coaches don’t hire the best players and let them do their jobs; rather they hire the best players and make them better!”
I wanted to discuss these three lessons with you today because as you know by now, I am the guy that always finds a life lesson in the random world around. Grab some coffee, and let’s discuss three business lessons or principles can we apply to us in the business world as inspired by the NFL draft.
If there was a draft every year for our position, would we keep our job?
Think about this for a minute. If we had to try out for our job every year, would we still be hired in our position? Let’s suppose this happened, there would be two categories of people competing to actively replace you in your job. One of them would be a person like us with years of experience and a proven track record. The others are some college grad hot shots, that are smart, talented, and willingly to do the same job for less money. If this was our life, would we get to renew our contract and keep our jobs?
What if we planned, prepared, and executed with this sense of urgency and commitment? What if no matter how good we are or how much success we achieved, we constantly sought ways to expand our knowledge and skills? I challenge each of us and our staff to treat our jobs like an NFL player in that we prepare every week as though we have the Drafts the following week. It’s important we remember that it is necessary we have the knowledge or skills to continue to validate our position.
In sports every day is recruiting-day. Teams are constantly looking to build their bench.
Now this one doesn’t just apply to the NFL, but rather all sports teams. In my book, Serve Up, Coach Down, and The Leadership Playbook, I allude to sports references in that if a player is not good for the team, they:
- Are not team players,
- Are negative and project well beyond a 10-foot radius,
- Or produce lackluster results,
they will trade or cut that player.
In business we don’t say it out loud, but we believe a bad body is better than no body. We believe this not because we like bad performers or enjoy being around those with bad attitudes. Rather, we believe that we don’t have someone to take their spot. Instead, we mistakenly believe that good employees are hard to find and when we do find them, they take a long time to train. Given our flawed outlook, we tend to keep a bad performer over having no one temporarily in the role until we find the right fit.
What’s the lesson? First, stop relying on job postings and waiting for the next superstar to walk into our office. Go out and find them; spend two hours a week proactively looking for new talent. Second, don’t wait until you need someone to start recruiting for candidates. Before you’ve got a job opening, keep an eye out every day. If we found a way to interview two new candidates every week, can you imagine the talent we could add to our already successful team? We really would deserve that Heisman Trophy.
Final Thoughts the NFL Drafts versus Our Business
Again, when we look at the first-round draft picks of the NFL Drafts, we only see the best of the best college athletes in the country. Do you think the coaches that draft these players say, “I hire great people, so go out there and figure out how to do your job and bring home a win each time”. Yeah, they wouldn’t even make a comment like that as a joke. In business, we should learn from this approach to constantly improve ourselves AND coach our teams for success.
See ya next week!
