One of the greatest achievements a manager can pull off is keeping employees motivated. And probably the most important ingredient of success for any company that wants to reach the top is getting its workers to close ranks and all pull together towards a goal.
When the moment comes when moving forward is essential to make things work, when difficulties appear and the company starts to face adversity, motivation is everything.
Lee Iacocca knew this: he came to have more than 11,000 employees under his command when Ford was enjoying its best years for sales and profits. Iacocca himself tells in his autobiography (Iacocca: An Autobiography, published in Spanish as Autobiografía de un triunfador) how, at one point, he asked Vince Lombardi, the legendary American football coach, what the recipe was for a motivated, successful team.
What ingredients turned a team into a winner?
Lombardi’s answer holds as true for business as it does for sport.
You have to teach the members of the team the basic rules.
For a player to know how to move in his position, he first has to learn the fundamentals of the game. Then you have to keep him in line, which means discipline. The men have to play as a unit, not as a bunch of individuals. There is no room for prima donnas on a successful team.
“But there have always been plenty of coaches who, even with an excellent and disciplined squad, never managed to succeed,” Lombardi says. “If you set out to build an unbeatable team, you have to make camaraderie reign, and every player has to be fully committed to his teammates. Each player has to look out for the teammate fighting at his side and think to himself: ‘If I don’t block that guy, my teammate could end up with broken legs.'”
See also: 10 thoughts and quotes from Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich
If you manage to give a company’s employees the same team feeling you see in successful professional teams, your company is very likely to go far.
See also: The best motivational speeches from the movies
The difference between mediocrity and excellence is how much these guys care about one another.
Most people call this “team spirit”, and it is something winning teams have. The moment the players are imbued with this special attitude towards their teammates, you realise you have managed to build a team with the ingredients needed to achieve victory.
It doesn’t matter what your company does. Whether it has five workers or thousands, the product is not made by one person alone, nor is it sold by one person alone. Before the sale there has been a chain of jobs that look individual but have been built as a team, each with its own role.
If, after the salesperson closes a sale, customer service or the complaints department fails, the salesperson’s work and future sales can suffer. If, after an engineer comes up with an idea, nobody pays attention to the details in manufacturing, we would be damaging the original idea of the engineer or creative. Business works exactly like a team in the world of sport, and understanding this can make the difference between failure, success and runaway success.
Here is Lombardi again:
“Every time a player goes out onto the field, he has to give himself completely, from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. Every inch of his body takes part in the game. Some players play with their heads, and of course you can’t be the best if you don’t have enough grey matter, but it’s even better to play with your heart. If you’re lucky enough to have a player who combines both qualities, I promise you he will never go unnoticed on the field.”
See also: Two motivational movie speeches with the keys to success
Featured image: CBS Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
.jpg){kind=link}