tl;dr: What can we learn from a team that won no games about leadership? Apparently a lot.

Ok, it’s probably not fair to title this post the way I did because the story ends with a winning team.

In Unexpected leadership lessons from America’s worst high school hockey team, John Bacon explains how he took a team that was 0-22-3 the year before he took over to one of the best teams in the entire country.

I thought the lessons were really solid.

• Make sure you’re the dumbest guy in the room.
  Hire people who are smarter than you and listen to them.

“So remember, don’t be afraid to be the dumbest person in the room. In fact, make it your goal.

• Make it special to join your team
  If anyone can be on the team, it doesn’t feel elite. Think the SEALs or a highly selective school. I feel like I’ve done a respectable job of this in the past, but can always do better.

The best way to make it special is to make it hard.

• Be impatient with behavior, but patient with results.
  I actually quoted this the other day when I was trying to help guide someone through a situation. They were doing the right things, just not getting where they needed to be.
  
  My CEO at Gtmhub, Ivan, said to me when I started…”Never throw your team under the bus and have infinite patience with them.” It’s served me well. Even if I haven’t nailed the infinite patience part.
• Water all your plants, then watch who grows.
  Take care of everyone and recognize that some will take longer than others to bloom.
• Create Layers of Leadership
  It’s near impossible to grow an organization without this. I’ve done this well…and I’ve done this poorly.

On bad teams, nobody leads. On good teams, leaders lead. On great teams, everybody leads.”

Jon Cooper, coach of Tampa Bay Lightning.

The end of the article connects back to a theme we’ve been exploring and, in part, what’s driving the “The Great Resignation”…and why OKRs as a methodology are going to help organizations that commit to it.

This is why I don’t believe that people today are lazy, or sloppy, or selfish. They want discipline. They want direction. They want to be challenged. They want a sense of mission, purpose, and belonging. And they want to lead—so let them. If you give them these things, they will give you everything.

The more I sit in the CMO seat, the more I realize it’s not really about marketing. It’s about marketing leadership.

The good news for me…I have a lot of room to grow and learn….even from a hockey team that won nothing…then won everything.