State of the Workforce Gallup Study: Medicine to Make America Great Again

This past week I've been reading another great book on leadership. It's called Eleven Rings, by Phil Jackson. Subtitled The Soul of Success, Jackson has earned the right to speak about what it takes to produce successful teams. His first Championship Ring was as a player. The next ten were earned by applying an underlying philosophy that incorporated insights from experience as well as an eclectic mix of spiritual disciplines including Buddhism, Christianity, Chinese philosophy and Lakota Sioux. 

In chapter one he references a book that I was introduced to in late 2016, Tribal Leadership, by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright. Jackson succinctly lays out the five stages of organizations, including sports organizations and other kinds of businesses.

Stage 1 is characterized by despair, hostility and a collective belief that "life sucks." It's pretty much the nature of street gangs, Jackson explains.

Stage 2 is characterized by apathy, people who see themselves as victims. They are a little better than stage one because they aren't saying "life sucks" but rather, "My life sucks." Meaning, this toxic situation I am in at this moment in time is not good.

Stage 3 is comprised of people who believe themselves great. "If only everyone else on the team were as motivated and talented as me." Winning is everything, except its a personal notch in the gun, and not a team thing.

Stage 4 is dedicated to tribal pride and the overriding conviction that "we're great and they're not," meaning the competition. This works if the foe is big enough and our tribe can see themselves as heroes in this battle against a Goliath.

Stage 5 though is the rare kind of company you dream of being part of, characterized by innocent wonder and the pervasive sense that life is great. Jackson points to the 1995-1998 Bulls as a premiere example of this kind of tribe.

Before you say, "Yes, but he had Michael Jordan," you need to see how he changed Jordan from being a "me" player to a team player.

All this to say that too many companies in America are mired in Stage 2 cultures, hence the widespread popularity of comics like Dilbert and TV shows like The Office. If we really want to make America great again, we won't find the answer on a November ballot. According to the Gallup organization's latest State of the Workplace report, it has to start in the workplace.

The first stat that hits you in the face – because it's on page one --is that only 33% of American workers are engaged in what they are doing. This compares to 70% engaged in the world's best organizations.

Equally disconcerting is the stat that 51% of all workers, according to Gallup, are actively looking for other work.

Considering these realities, it’s clear why people in the U.S. continue to drop out of the labor force in alarming numbers. In some cases, they can’t find a job or the right job, and in other cases, they can’t find a job that pays enough to justify incurring other costs that sometimes go along with working, such as child care, transportation or therapy due to mental duress.

The Gallup report estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. $483 billion to $605 billion each year in lost productivity.

A majority of employees (60%) say they want to work at a job that utilizes the skills they do best. What's missing for many if not most workers is a sense of purpose beyond the paycheck. This is especially important for millennials who want their lives, including their work, to have meaning.

Times have changed and the workforce has changed, but many workplaces have not been adapting to these changes, according to Gallup findings. (p. 7) " The key to an organization’s growth has been and always will be its workforce."

The most unsettling pattern in this study of 195,000+ workers was that employees are not confident about their company's leadership, as these stats reveal.

• 22% of employees strongly agree the leadership of their organization has a clear direction for the organization.
• 15% of employees strongly agree the leadership of their organization makes them enthusiastic about the future.
• 13% of employees strongly agree the leadership of their organization communicates effectively with the rest of the organization.

The report, which you can download here, is near 200 pages.

What Phil Jackson's book explains is that we don't win by being an organization made up solely of Michael Jordans-level talent. Jordan was a rare individual well outside the talent pool bell curve. The power of the team comes together when each member of the team is engaged, while recognizing the value of the other members on the team.

The biggest lesson Michael Jordan and other superstars must learn is how to trust the others on the team so they can work together for maximum effectiveness. Jackson helped Michael "see the light" on how his self-reliance hindered realization of the team's highest capabilities.

All this to say both Eleven Rings and Gallup's State of the Workforce report are good reads.

What Will It Take For the Cleveland Browns to Ever Win Another Game?

My card from when Browns last won championship.

It's hard being a Cleveland Browns fan these days. Even though I moved away from Cleveland more than 50 years ago I still carry those loyalties in my heart... to the Browns and the Indians. It's hard to imagine diverting my loyalties elsewhere, so I continue to watch the scores and follow the standings. And if you're like me, there's little evidence of hope that we'll ever have a championship football team again.

Not only have the Browns lost every game they've played this year, they lost the last six games of their season last year. We're now on a 19 game losing streak with no end in sight.

I have a few friends and acquaintances back in Cleveland so I asked one of them how they were taking it this year.

Seeing these players laughing on the side line when they are losing just blows my mind. To me it just seems like a fraternity of dudes getting overpaid that care only about their paycheck.

Players are getting soft. No more blood and guts. Now its precautions and time off. Plus I’m sick of astro-turf. Mud and blood are a winning combination.

I CAN’T CARE MORE THAN THE PLAYERS. I’VE TRIED AND I’M TIRED OF IT.

As a Clevelander, you see what the Cavs and Indians did and you fall in love with it. The passion and drive to give everything for the sake of the team.

The NFL's Ten Worst Teams

If the Browns fail to win a game this season, they will have achieved the ignominious distinction of being listed here in the NFL's ten worst teams ever. The very top of that list is the 1974 Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a record of 0-14. I'm sure it wasn't much fun being on that team. The team was shut out five times and quarterback Steve Spurrier threw only 7 touchdowns all year. When coach John McKay was asked about the execution of the offense he quipped, "I'm in favor of it."

The 1990 New England Patriots weren't much better, losing fifteen games in a 16-game season. The 1973 Houston Oilers were 1-13 as were the 1971 Bills. The '73 Oilers not only had a dismal offense, their defense gave up 447 points.

The 1981 and 1991 Colts weren't much better. But guess what? Even though they set a record in 1991 for fewest points in a 16-game season, there were silver linings on that cloudy season. One year later this team had a winning record! In 1992 they were 9-7.

A look at NFL history reveals that even the worst teams have eventually reach first. How do they achieve this?

Mike Ditka's Story

Ditka by artist Jen Dietrich

Sometime around the year 2000 I had a chance to hear Mike Ditka speak at a conference. His aim was to teach principles of success for small business owners and he did this by means of stories, the most memorable being the story of his first year coaching the Chicago Bears.

I don't believe Mike Ditka had been a head coach before taking the helm of the 1985 Chicago Bears. He had, however, been an assistant with one of the great coaches of all time, the Dallas Cowboy's Tom Landry. In addition to being a 5X Pro Bowl caliber tight end, he also had experience in the the playoffs and knew the special pressures of performing under pressure in the big games.

After retiring as a player he was given the opportunity to coach under head coach Landry, which taught him many new facets of what leadership is all about. And in 1985 he was given the opportunity to become head coach of the Chicago Bears, the team he began his NFL career with more than 25 years earlier.

Mike Ditka had this to say about his first day on the job, the first day of training camp. I can't recall if he'd placed a placard on the wall by the door or simply suggested it be visualized there, but his first statement to the teams was something to this effect: "The only reason I'm here is because I believe we can win the Super Bowl."

Ditka knew the talent that was sitting in that room. Walter Peyton, Jim McMahon, "Refrigerator" Perry and the rest. When he made his opening remark, many players in the room joshed it up and said, "Hey cool, we're gonna win the Super Bowl." They laughed like it was something fun and funny. But Peyton, McMahon and Perry didn't laugh. They had had this same dream many times before. They slowly lifted their heads and looked square into the eyes of Coach Ditka, searching his face to see if this was just a pep talk or something he seriously believed.

During the weeks of training camp Coach Ditka successfully traded off all the players that laughed and made a joke of his opening remarks. He wasn't kidding around. It wasn't just optimistic self-talk to pep up team morale. By the season's end, the players on this team all had their dreams fulfilled and were privileged to own the Super Bowl rings many other players only dream about.

When I read my friend's comment about Browns players laughing on the sidelines while the team was racking up such a pathetic record, this Ditka story came to mind.

* * * *
Earlier this year a friend shared with me a book about how great organizations differ from other teams. The book is called Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization. The authors compare different corporate cultures so as to identify what makes some companies or "tribes" confident and others self-defeating? I look at how the Browns have been playing and I can't help but wonder what's going through their heads as they prepare for their next game? In the NFL every team has talent, so how do you create an atmosphere of confidence in which your team enters the arena with absolute confidence that this day is yours? What are the dynamics that produce dynasties?

Vince Lombardi once used to say, "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." What will it take for the Browns players to believe again?