In our quick-fix, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately society we have a nasty tendency to choose short-term solutions to problems that may improve our quarterly earnings report but ignore the underlying problems within the company. One of the biggest underlying problems in many companies is the culture within the company, but since this is hard to change it rarely gets addressed in a meaningful way.
Most of the short-term strategies companies use to approach their problems focus on the “masters of the universe” – the people with titles like “CEO” or “top producer.” The expectation seems to be that since the people at the top set the tone of the company if they are happy and/or productive, the rest of the workforce will follow suit.
Corporate cultures vary widely by company and industry and are very insider-oriented, so it can be difficult for those not in the culture to understand its problems. Fortunately for those of us in the Washington, D.C. metro area we have an excellent example of a terrible corporate culture and the problems such as culture can create for an organization.
I’m talking, of course, about the Washington Redskins football team.
Whether you bleed burgundy and gold or prefer blue and white, whether you think the name should be changed or not, there’s one thing I think almost all of us can agree on: the Redskins are a very, very poorly-managed organization. And, since they are an organization whose every action is covered publicly and in detail by the local and national news media, they provide a prime example of the consequences of bad corporate culture.
Sally Jenkins wrote a good column in the Washington Post recently addressing some of the obvious problems with the Redskins’ corporate culture. She interviewed a consultant, Jon Katzenbach, about what could be done to change such a culture. He told her that “in every organization there are critical informal leaders further down the chain who, if they’re properly empowered and energized, can help create a turnaround. They may not have the most exalted titles or salaries, either. They are ‘people respected not for their position but for who they are and the kind of interactions they have with their peers.’” Let me give you an example of the impact these kinds of people can have on an organization.
When I began my football career at Virginia Tech in the 1970s I arrived as a celebrated recruit but found myself unceremoniously relegated to the “Meat Squad.” Our sole function was mimicking Tech’s next opponent’s offense during practices while the Tech defense pummeled us again and again. We were the bottom of the barrel, lower even than the third-string players. I never could quite decide if they called it the “Meat Squad” because of what we looked like at the end of a long practice or because we were chewed up by the older, more-experienced first-team defense day after day.
After about two weeks of dreading and enduring this relentless grind we found ourselves running an option play that completely fooled the defense and led to a touchdown. The defensive players were then punished by our coaches and forced to run multiple wind sprints. We tried the play again after the sprints and the defense was fooled again: our quarterback ran for a touchdown and this time gave it a little high-step for effect. The coaches made the defenders run more sprints, so by the time we lined up for the third attempt they were fighting mad.
Our quarterback dropped back to throw and released the pass, but a full two seconds after it left his hand he was steamrolled by our ferocious outside linebacker and knocked unconscious.
Everybody on the Meat Squad was shocked that this had happened but too afraid to try and do anything about it. We stood there for a minute, looking at each other and at our quarterback on the ground. All of a sudden we heard a bunch of noise behind us and turned around to see a full-blown fight going on – fists flying, wrestling on the ground, everything – between the graduate assistant who served as coach of the Meat Squad and the outside linebacker.
The other coaches broke up the fight and we ultimately returned to practice. Once I got over the shock of the whole thing it actually made me feel kind of good. Not about the quarterback getting hurt, but because as low as those of us on the Meat Squad were, we had a coach who thought we were worth fighting for. That day we learned that our coach had our backs, even against other members of his own team.
From that day forward our group fought harder, hustled more and challenged that defense every play. We wanted to do well for the coach who fought for us. That defense went on to become one of the very best in the country that year, and I think us guys on the Meat Squad deserve a little bit of credit for helping them get there.
What about the coach? His name was Bruce Arians, and he is currently the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals and was recently voted “Coach of the Year” of the National Football League for the second time in three years, an unprecedented achievement.
Have a great weekend,
Ro
