Bode Miller and Team - Contrary Ideas
Did you follow the Olympics? I followed the games because the American ski team anticipated big-medal results. The pundits foretold their individual star could bring home a record five gold medals. Unfortunately for the US Ski Team, their superstar was Bode (pronounced bo-dee) Miller.
The Limits of Talent
According to the authors of a May 2004 Harvard Business Review article, The Risky Business of Hiring Stars, "most of us have an inherent faith in talent and genius." I am curious to know, at what point does talent and genius become a drag on organizational success?
By any standard, Bode Miller has gobs of talent. He has won World Cup gold and Olympic silver. No one doubts his talent. "The Zen master of vertical ... He doesn't ski safe, doesn't ski with grace, but goes balls-out and is exciting to watch," said Outside Magazine. No one doubts he is exciting. Extreme sportsters love him. No one doubts he is hip. He is the face of American skiing. No one doubts his fame. But, as a businessman and coach, I ask:
Since Miller and the team failed to meet expectations, how useful was Miller's bundle of doubtless individual qualities to team success?
What You Value is What You Get
The problem for the US Ski Team was the executives valued talent more than being a team player. That is easy to do when there is no way to assist a teammate during individual races. Yet, there are more aspects of good teamwork than helping someone directly execute their primary task. For instance, there is supportive behavior, helping with strategy and analysis of performance. There is cohesion behavior that contributes to camaraderie and helps maintain the mental zone of high confidence and strong execution. There is respect for the contributions of everyone who makes solo performance possible.
During the Alpine race season Miller travels in his RV, and did so at the Olympics. But, more than during the regular season, the competition is to represent a nation as part of a larger entity, the team. Not staying in the team hotel may seem trivial. It is a big point about how a talented team member, perhaps the most talented team member, sees himself as individual first and foremost, and teammate, if at all, grudgingly.
As businesspeople, if we pay too much attention to talent, we may end up with departments full of people skilled in their functional areas (like marketing, sales and engineering) with no proven skill in or desire for working with others to achieve shared ends.
Individualism is great. Let everyone be clear about what they want to achieve and go for it with gusto. On a team, individualism must give way to communitarianism, the blending of personal and group needs and goals. Why did the US Ski Team accept less than that? Because they were afraid the team would be weaker without Bode Miller. Did they consider it might be weaker with him?
"I look for objective results by my own standards," Miller said after another poor showing in an Olympic race. And with that perspective, I skied the way I wanted to today. It was a good run."
Except that it wasn't.
The Obligations of Membership
Team members must respect team values and overtly drive for team success. If Miller did not want to honor those obligations, he could have stayed off the team. The instant Miller joined the team, he agreed to those obligations. Then his responsibility ceased to be only about his performance; it was also to help the others succeed. Importantly, one reason it was easy for him to perform selfishly is that team leadership was weak. Leadership did not support and protect the team; it supported one member of it.
Maybe all Miller's bluster is just Bode protecting Bode. It does not take a Nobel Prize in psychiatry to figure out me-me-me is often about not feeling okay with we-we-we. As businesspeople we don't have the time or skill to psychoanalyze the people we invite into our teams. So, we should look for evidence of how they behaved (a.k.a. worked) with other people in their previous jobs. We should learn, via voice-to-voice or face-to-face examples specifically what behaviors they used to achieve results. What behaviors proved they valued team success? Search for evidence of We-First and Me-First behavior and ask a dozen questions about it. If you are sitting with a me-me-me woman, cut her loose. You will protect your organization and show respect for the other team members, no matter how technically skilled she is.
If Only
If Bode Miller had earned five gold medals observers would have praised his style, attitude and mastery. Yet, I am convinced they would not say, and never will, that the man was interested in more than himself.
Being a teammate does not require we morph into a "company guy."It does not mean we have to passively acquiesce to the will of the collective with no regard for what we want to achieve individually. Being part of a team does, however, require we blend our values and behaviors with those of our teammates, and what everyone together chooses as team values and norms of behavior.
As counterintuitive as it seems, individual stars, be they salespeople, board members or shortstops on your Sunday softball team, no matter how brilliant, may hinder success.
As if to add an outsized exclamation point himself, after his final run in which he did not finish, Bode Miller summed up his 2006 Olympic contribution thus: "It's been an awesome two weeks. I got to party and socialize on an Olympic level."
Miller's values-revealing comment leaves me wondering at what point accepting eccentricities and individual style becomes pandering that weakens a team.
In the end, Bode Miller's Olympic performance reproves the adage, there is no I in team. Indeed, there is no Bode in team, either.
To talk about strengthening your team or enhancing your team leadership, give me a call at (619) 688-1202 or email me at David@ActivatePotential.com.
The Limits of Talent
According to the authors of a May 2004 Harvard Business Review article, The Risky Business of Hiring Stars, "most of us have an inherent faith in talent and genius." I am curious to know, at what point does talent and genius become a drag on organizational success?
By any standard, Bode Miller has gobs of talent. He has won World Cup gold and Olympic silver. No one doubts his talent. "The Zen master of vertical ... He doesn't ski safe, doesn't ski with grace, but goes balls-out and is exciting to watch," said Outside Magazine. No one doubts he is exciting. Extreme sportsters love him. No one doubts he is hip. He is the face of American skiing. No one doubts his fame. But, as a businessman and coach, I ask:
Since Miller and the team failed to meet expectations, how useful was Miller's bundle of doubtless individual qualities to team success?
What You Value is What You Get
The problem for the US Ski Team was the executives valued talent more than being a team player. That is easy to do when there is no way to assist a teammate during individual races. Yet, there are more aspects of good teamwork than helping someone directly execute their primary task. For instance, there is supportive behavior, helping with strategy and analysis of performance. There is cohesion behavior that contributes to camaraderie and helps maintain the mental zone of high confidence and strong execution. There is respect for the contributions of everyone who makes solo performance possible.
During the Alpine race season Miller travels in his RV, and did so at the Olympics. But, more than during the regular season, the competition is to represent a nation as part of a larger entity, the team. Not staying in the team hotel may seem trivial. It is a big point about how a talented team member, perhaps the most talented team member, sees himself as individual first and foremost, and teammate, if at all, grudgingly.
As businesspeople, if we pay too much attention to talent, we may end up with departments full of people skilled in their functional areas (like marketing, sales and engineering) with no proven skill in or desire for working with others to achieve shared ends.
Individualism is great. Let everyone be clear about what they want to achieve and go for it with gusto. On a team, individualism must give way to communitarianism, the blending of personal and group needs and goals. Why did the US Ski Team accept less than that? Because they were afraid the team would be weaker without Bode Miller. Did they consider it might be weaker with him?
"I look for objective results by my own standards," Miller said after another poor showing in an Olympic race. And with that perspective, I skied the way I wanted to today. It was a good run."
Except that it wasn't.
The Obligations of Membership
Team members must respect team values and overtly drive for team success. If Miller did not want to honor those obligations, he could have stayed off the team. The instant Miller joined the team, he agreed to those obligations. Then his responsibility ceased to be only about his performance; it was also to help the others succeed. Importantly, one reason it was easy for him to perform selfishly is that team leadership was weak. Leadership did not support and protect the team; it supported one member of it.
Maybe all Miller's bluster is just Bode protecting Bode. It does not take a Nobel Prize in psychiatry to figure out me-me-me is often about not feeling okay with we-we-we. As businesspeople we don't have the time or skill to psychoanalyze the people we invite into our teams. So, we should look for evidence of how they behaved (a.k.a. worked) with other people in their previous jobs. We should learn, via voice-to-voice or face-to-face examples specifically what behaviors they used to achieve results. What behaviors proved they valued team success? Search for evidence of We-First and Me-First behavior and ask a dozen questions about it. If you are sitting with a me-me-me woman, cut her loose. You will protect your organization and show respect for the other team members, no matter how technically skilled she is.
If Only
If Bode Miller had earned five gold medals observers would have praised his style, attitude and mastery. Yet, I am convinced they would not say, and never will, that the man was interested in more than himself.
Being a teammate does not require we morph into a "company guy."It does not mean we have to passively acquiesce to the will of the collective with no regard for what we want to achieve individually. Being part of a team does, however, require we blend our values and behaviors with those of our teammates, and what everyone together chooses as team values and norms of behavior.
As counterintuitive as it seems, individual stars, be they salespeople, board members or shortstops on your Sunday softball team, no matter how brilliant, may hinder success.
As if to add an outsized exclamation point himself, after his final run in which he did not finish, Bode Miller summed up his 2006 Olympic contribution thus: "It's been an awesome two weeks. I got to party and socialize on an Olympic level."
Miller's values-revealing comment leaves me wondering at what point accepting eccentricities and individual style becomes pandering that weakens a team.
In the end, Bode Miller's Olympic performance reproves the adage, there is no I in team. Indeed, there is no Bode in team, either.
To talk about strengthening your team or enhancing your team leadership, give me a call at (619) 688-1202 or email me at David@ActivatePotential.com.
