The Silver Tsunami

What coaching football has taught me                 I remember looking out at my team of seven- & eight-year-olds the first night we huddled after practice and wondered what in the world I had just signed up for. Until that reality check, I had been admittedly, envisioning famous movie scenes of football glory.  I had thoughts of Coach Yoast’s sideline speech from Remember the Titans and the Clear Eyes Anthem from Friday Night Lights. I had completely overlooked the hard work, patience and dedication it took to coach a team of children. Much less, the despair that came with losing, which was inevitable in the game of football. As I zipped the orange practice cones into my duffel, I realized that I was going to have to muster some courage to give this thing a fighting try. For the sake of those boys, if anything.   Now, I can see how much of what I learned as a coach actually also applies in the business world. Coaching, like leading a business, is often associated with a whole lot of glory and not a lot of actual hard work, sweat and tears.   Most of the moments of coaching are hard ones. Teaching kids requires mind-numbing repetition, breaking concepts down to their simplest forms, dedication, and tons of patience as their attention spans seem to be getting shorter and shorter these days. I won’t say it went well all the time, but it had its glory moments. Even small ones, mostly small ones.   Like the time one of the boys had never tackled a dummy before. Each time it was his turn to do so, he would run up but then freeze in fear. It wasn’t until I demonstrated tackling the dummy that he found the courage to do the same. That night I went home feeling like I had just won something. I had helped a player overcome a paralyzing fear. That meant something to me. That was a glory moment, making all the hard stuff worth it. Just like running a business.   Here’s a couple things I learned coaching that helped me better understand how to lead my business:   You can’t just sit on the sidelines: The game requires 100% of your attention all the time. From the sidelines, you have to be constantly strategizing, calling new plays, and maintaining cool under pressure. I had to learn to control my emotions as I watched my team triumph and fail knowing that I couldn’t do the work for them. Instead, I had to teach them how to do it. I couldn’t explain concepts just once and then hope they got it. I had to get in the dirt to show them, then watch them do it, explain it again, and watch again, until I knew they knew what they were doing and could execute plays with confidence. Leaders teach their team how to execute business strategies the same way. It usually looks like getting in the dirt and pushing that tackle dummy around for awhile until the team finally gets it. There’s no such thing as explaining something once and then watching from the sideline.   Lead from the front: You have to position yourself as the leader,  the one your team looks to and trusts. Your team needs you to be the one who knows how to get the job done, to make the large strategic decisions, to see what’s coming and plan for it, and to take responsibility when things go well and when they don’t. Kids on a football team look to the coach. The coach knows what to do, how to do it and how to win. Without a coach, the team is chaos, running around like wild animals on the field. That won’t win any games. If a leader sits at their desk all day, is generally disengaged or absent from the innerworkings of the team, doesn’t take responsibility, and doesn’t develop trust with their team, then the team is chaos, running around being unproductive. That won’t lead to success.   Understand its hard work: Playing football is hard work. No one shows up to games, having never practiced and expects to win. Business is similar. No one wakes up each morning and simply succeeds. There are practices in the driving rain, and there are practices in the beautiful sunshine. There are plays that get perfectly executed and there are plays that just stink. The point is that the team works together, learns together and commits to the hard work together. When things don’t work out, no one leaves or walks off the field. Instead, they get to work, to be better, stronger and faster.   Working together as a team: Lastly, it’s the team mentality that’s a real winner. It’s not really about winning although it still kinda is, of course. But the true beauty comes when teammates begin to work together as a team. That means they anticipate each other’s movements, they figure out how to help one another, they each take turns scoring touchdowns, they celebrate wins together and band together after loses, knowing there will be more wins on the horizon. The true glory for a coach is not the score, it’s the team working together.   Coaching football, like leading a business, is not for everyone. Some people, like me, find themselves staring down into the expectant faces of their team and realize they had no idea what they signed up for. And if they had known ahead of time, they wouldn’t have signed up. I have to say though, like coaching, leading a business is worth it. At the end of the day, the rewards are far greater than the challenges.

Be a Visionary   My Dad started CCB from our kitchen table one night during dinner. At the time, he was serving as a church board member and had learned that the church couldn’t afford software. He was working in the field of technology and was appalled at this. He told the board members he would hunt down some kind of deal, thinking there certainly had to be a company out there that was discounting its rates for churches. He quickly discovered there wasn’t. This birthed the idea of CCB, a technology company that serves more non-profits than for-profits at prices that people can afford.   My Dad was a Visionary from the beginning. He had lots of great ideas. Sometimes only one out of ten of them was any good but in this case one was enough. From the launch at the kitchen table, the company quickly grew, despite most people telling my Dad that it was a bad idea. My Mom always supported him, as did I, and here we are today, having served over 40,000 customers.   Something that my Dad always asked was, “What if?” What if churches didn’t have to pay full price for their software? What if there was a technology company that gave discounts to non-profits? What if the World Wide Web really takes off? This was back in 1991, thank goodness he saw the future in that one.   From my Dad’s example and from a great book called Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman, I have learned a little about what it takes to be a great Visionary. After all, Visionaries are the ones who are leading the company, inspiring vision, and bringing everyone else along on the journey forward to new and greater heights.   Here’s how they do it. Buckle up, here we go:   Visionaries think with innovation: Visionaries are the ones who have the ideas that disrupt systems. Think Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. They are the ones who want to change a system or throw a wrench in the spoke of the wheel to see what happens. They take risks and they’re not afraid.   Visionaries are Curious: When problems arise or current solutions fail, Visionaries don’t walk away or give up, instead they ask a question, learn and come up with solutions.  Their curiosity can lead to the making of great things. They never accept the response, “we can’t.” Instead, they are always asking, “Why can’t we?”   Visionaries are Open-minded: When something is different or new, they don’t reel back in fear, instead they lean in with that curiosity. Visionaries don’t cling to their own ideas like a life raft on the Atlantic, no, they swim out in the open water to find what’s new, exciting and different. They want to learn things they don’t already know so that it can help them continue to grow and change.   Visionaries Embrace Change: They know that they can’t stay in the same spot. At CCB, we say, “If you’re standing still then you’re going backwards.” Change creates growth. Good Visionaries model adaptability for their team, showing them that change is important and good and not scary and bad.   Visionaries have a Growth Mindset: Growth needs to be the goal. New ideas help create new initiatives and keep the business moving forward. I remember when the Cloud first came out and a lot of people were uncertain about it. I realized that we needed to embrace the Cloud, so we started training our clients on it. Now it’s a necessity.   Visionaries Collaborate: Visionaries collaborate with others inside the company and outside. A Visionary needs to recognize that other people are needed to execute their ideas and to continue to spark them. Inside the company, Visionaries need someone who can think through the logistics and patiently navigate the day-to-day operations. Outside, they need people who have good ideas and are doing things differently, this help keep the creative ideas flowing.   It's one thing to be a Visionary and to NOT be good at any of these. Sometimes Visionaries just spout one idea after another or race headfirst in a million directions, leaving their teams alone, frustrated and confused. If they let their passions and ideas get the best of them too often, they can be easily swayed back and forth without making any real progress. That’s why it’s important to commit to being a good Visionary. From there, success is guaranteed.    ###   This blog post is based on the IOL Podcast Episode #156: Be the Visionary. Listen to the episode for a few more tips and a lot more jokes.