“If they want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries”
- Bill Parcells
One of the most popular messages in leadership today is to stop worrying so much about the outcome and concentrate on the process. Develop good habits, establish expectations, build the right systems, and trust that the results will follow. I agree with much of that thinking because, throughout my coaching career, I have believed that preparation is the foundation of performance. You don't consistently win championships without first developing the habits necessary to compete for them.
But I think we're overlooking something important in this conversation. Before you put all your faith in the process, you'd better know who's responsible for delivering it and what they're actually teaching. You can have a great plan and a leader who knows exactly what needs to be done, but if the people responsible for carrying that message throughout the organization don't believe in it, you've got a problem before you ever get started.
The Leader Establishes the Philosophy. Who Delivers the Message?
Every organization has a culture, whether the leader deliberately builds it or simply allows it to develop. It determines what people expect, what they're willing to accept, and how they go about their work. The challenge isn't always establishing the right philosophy. It's making sure that philosophy is being carried out by the people who supervise the work every day.
Think about it. A CEO can't stand beside every department manager, a factory manager can't supervise every production line, and a head football coach can't be present for every conversation that influences an athlete's development. That's why you have people in leadership positions throughout the organization. Their job is to reinforce the expectations and direction established by the person responsible for the results.
But what happens when those people have their own ideas about how things should be done? The CEO talks about accountability while department managers continue making excuses. The head coach emphasizes preparation while the people working directly with the athletes accept shortcuts. Before long, you've got different departments operating under different expectations, and the culture you thought you were building isn't the culture people are actually experiencing.
Changing the Leader Doesn't Automatically Change the Culture
I've seen enough coaching changes over the years to understand that hiring a new head coach doesn't automatically mean you're going to have a different football program. Usually, the previous coach was fired because the team wasn't winning enough games, the culture had deteriorated, or management believed a different approach was needed.
Here's where I've always questioned the thinking behind some of those decisions. The head coach gets fired, but the general manager remains, along with many of the people responsible for supporting the previous program. The strength and conditioning staff, athletic trainers, medical personnel, player personnel department, and equipment staff may all stay in place. Now you're asking a new head coach to establish a different culture while working with many of the same people who helped deliver the old one.
I'm not suggesting everyone associated with the previous administration needs to go. I've worked with some outstanding people who could adapt to a different philosophy and become valuable members of a new staff. But I've also seen people who were so committed to the way things had always been done that they had no interest in changing.
What people outside coaching often don't understand is how much influence those departments have over the athletes. The head coach isn't standing beside every player for eight hours a day. The strength coach, athletic trainers, medical personnel, and other staff members spend enormous amounts of time with them, and those conversations influence what the athletes believe about preparation, accountability, and expectations.
An athlete might hear one message in the team meeting, another in the weight room, and something completely different in the training room. Each department has its own responsibilities and expertise, and those professional responsibilities need to be respected. But when the people responsible for preparing the athletes aren't working toward the same objective, you've got a program pulling in different directions.
And eventually, the athletes are going to follow the message they hear most often, not necessarily the one delivered by the head coach.
Responsibility Without Authority Is a Losing Proposition
This is where I believe many organizations make a serious mistake when hiring a new leader. They want someone to change the culture, improve performance, and produce better results, but they aren't willing to give that person enough control over the people responsible for making those changes happen.
In professional football, a general manager may survive the firing of a head coach and then hire the replacement. But the new coach may be required to retain certain department heads or staff members who have longstanding relationships with the front office. Some of those individuals may be excellent at their jobs, while others may be more interested in protecting their relationship with management than supporting the new coach.
In coaching circles, we've got a name for some of those people. We call them moles, individuals whose loyalty is to someone above the head coach rather than the person responsible for leading the football team. They don't necessarily have to openly challenge the coach to create problems. Sometimes all it takes is a different message being delivered behind closed doors.
Unfortunately, some coaches are so hungry to become a head coach that they'll accept those conditions because they believe their personality and leadership ability can overcome them. They've worked their entire careers for that opportunity, and the title becomes more important than understanding what they're walking into.
I've always believed you need to know what you're getting into before you take the job. You can be a tremendous leader, but if you don't have enough authority over the people influencing your players, you're going to spend a great deal of your time fighting battles that have nothing to do with preparing your team to win.
And when the results don't meet expectations, the head coach is usually the one who gets fired while many of the people surrounding him remain in place. The organization hires another coach, makes another announcement about changing the culture, and starts the same process all over again.
This Problem Isn't Limited to Football
The same thing happens in businesses every day. A manufacturing company hires a new plant manager to improve productivity and accountability, but the shift supervisors continue accepting the same shortcuts that contributed to the original problems. The new manager explains what needs to change, while the people supervising the production floor continue doing things the way they've always done them.
A financial institution can hire a new executive with a different approach to customer service and performance, but if the department managers continue to reward the same behaviors and protect the same people, how much has really changed? Employees will pay far more attention to what their immediate supervisors expect than to what an executive says during a company meeting.
I've always found it interesting how quickly organizations blame the person at the top when the results don't improve, yet seldom take a serious look at the people responsible for carrying out that leader's decisions. Sometimes the problem isn't that the new leader has the wrong philosophy. It's that the organization never gave that philosophy a fair opportunity to succeed.
The Process Is Only as Good as the People Delivering It
This brings me back to the emphasis on process over outcome. I believe in preparation, consistent habits, and doing what's necessary to give yourself the best chance of succeeding. But simply following a process doesn't mean you're doing the right things, and it certainly doesn't guarantee you're moving in the right direction.
Two football programs can have similar practice schedules, weight room programs, technology, and preparation methods while producing completely different results. The difference may be in what the coaches are teaching, what they're willing to accept, and how they hold people accountable. The same thing happens in business, where two organizations can use similar systems and procedures but develop completely different cultures.
If the CEO expects accountability while department managers continually protect poor performers, the process isn't accomplishing what it was designed to do. If a head coach expects demanding preparation while position coaches excuse poor effort, the process may look good on paper, but the message being delivered is completely different.
We can become so focused on whether people are following the process that we forget to ask whether the process is actually accomplishing its purpose. I've always believed that what you're teaching and who's teaching it are just as important as the system you've developed.
Different Perspectives Are Valuable. Competing Philosophies Are Dangerous.
Throughout my career, I wanted to surround myself with people who knew things I didn't know and weren't afraid to tell me when they thought I was wrong. I never wanted a staff full of people who agreed with everything I said because there wouldn't have been much reason to hire them in the first place.
Before making a decision, I wanted different opinions, questions, and people willing to challenge the way we were thinking. That's how you learn and improve. But once we'd discussed the options and established our direction, I expected everyone to support the decision and do their part to make it work.
There's a big difference between disagreeing with a decision during a staff meeting and continuing to teach your own philosophy after the decision has been made. You don't have to believe every decision your boss makes is the one you would have made, but if you're responsible for leading people, you have an obligation to support the direction the organization has chosen.
If you can't do that, then you're probably working for the wrong organization. And if you're the person responsible for the results, you shouldn't be expected to keep someone in a leadership position who continually works against what you're trying to accomplish.
Culture Is Established When the Leader Isn't in the Room
I believe one of the most important conversations a person can have before accepting a leadership position is about how much authority they'll actually have. Can you select the people responsible for carrying out your philosophy? Can you evaluate the people already in place and make changes if necessary? And if someone continually undermines the direction you're trying to establish, will you have the authority to do something about it?
Those questions are every bit as important as salary, contract length, or job security. I'm not suggesting a leader needs unlimited control over every decision in an organization, but you can't expect someone to take responsibility for the results while denying them meaningful influence over the people who carry out the needs of the person in charge.
The real test of your culture isn't what happens when the CEO walks through a department or the head coach enters the weight room. It's what happens when they aren't there. Are the same expectations being reinforced? Are people still being held accountable? Or does the message change depending on who's supervising the work?
You can stand in front of your organization and communicate your philosophy a thousand times, but if the people responsible for carrying that message don't believe in it, they'll eventually replace it with something they do believe.
The leader may control the microphone at the company meeting, but someone else controls the conversations that follow.
CoachC Insight
Throughout my career, I learned that building a successful organization requires more than having a good philosophy and convincing people that it’s the right direction. I needed people around me who understood what we were trying to accomplish, believed in what we were teaching, and were willing to carry that message into every part of the program.
That didn't mean everyone had to think like me. Some of the best people I worked with challenged my thinking and helped me become a better coach. But there's a big difference between challenging an idea to improve the organization and continuing to promote a different philosophy once the direction has been established.
I believe too many organizations underestimate the influence of the people who work between the person at the top and those actually doing the job. They're the ones reinforcing expectations, making daily decisions, and determining what people are willing to accept. If those individuals aren't committed to the direction you're trying to establish, changing the person at the top may accomplish very little.
We spend a lot of time talking about trusting the process, but I believe we need to spend more time examining who's delivering it. When an organization hires someone to change its culture, it needs to give that person a fair opportunity to make the changes necessary to succeed.
You can't hold someone accountable for changing a culture while allowing someone else to control the message. If you're serious about changing the direction of an organization, you had better be willing to examine the people responsible for delivering that direction.
Teachable Reminders
Changing the person at the top doesn't automatically change the culture throughout an organization.
The people supervising daily work often have more influence over the culture than the person delivering the message at the top.
You can't hold a leader responsible for results without giving them meaningful authority over the people responsible for producing those results.
Different opinions make organizations better, but competing philosophies can pull them apart.
Following a process doesn't mean the process is producing the results you intended.
The real test of culture is what happens when the leader isn't in the room.
Application Questions
· Are the people responsible for supervising daily work reinforcing the philosophy you're trying to establish?
· Do your department leaders genuinely support the direction of the organization, or are they still protecting the way things have always been done?
· If you were hired to change an organization's culture, would you have enough authority to make the personnel changes necessary to succeed?
· Are you evaluating what people are actually teaching and reinforcing, or simply checking whether they're following the process?
· If your organization continues producing disappointing results under different leaders, have you examined whether the problem might be the people and structure surrounding those leaders?
