The Vince Lombardi Effect
When the Green Bay Packers football team hired Vince Lombardi as their new coach, he was committed to the challenge of turning the franchise around. So he began leading practices, inspiring, training, and motivating everyone on the team. But at one point in a particular practice, he became so frustrated with the players’ performance that he finally blew the whistle.
“Everybody stop and gather around,” he said. Then he knelt down, picked up the pigskin, and said, “Let’s start at the beginning. This is a football. These are the yard markers. I’m the coach. You are the players.” He went on, in the most elementary of ways, to explain the basic fundamentals of football.
Coach Lombardi brought back focus to what the team needed to remember. It’s the clarity of a vision that unifies the team. When tasks get foggy and vague, confusion begins to set in. Unclear expectations produce unmet results.
There’s no question that the role of leader is constantly evolving. But despite all of the new tools and techniques at our disposal, the basics of leadership still hold true. In order to be an effective leader, you need to be able to communicate effectively, build relationships, and motivate people. So if you’re looking to improve your leadership skills, forget about the latest trends and focus on mastering these basics instead.
“In order to be an effective leader, you need to be able to communicate effectively, build relationships, and motivate people.”
Aeronautical engineer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson created a famous acronym while working on complicated design protocols in the 1960s. He implemented the KISS principle: Keep It Simple Stupid. The saying helped his team remember that systems work best when kept uncomplicated. Simplicity is always the best course of action. It is the process of eliminating everything that is unnecessary. Complicated procedures and red tape only create frustration and limited participation. Resist the urge to create more rules and regulations. Complexity breeds confusion, confusion breeds chaos, chaos breeds contempt, and contempt breeds carelessness. When a leader makes things difficult, they make things worse. You should always minimize steps to the simplest form without losing excellence. Journalist C. W. Ceran said, “Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple.”
When issues are getting out of control and it seems your team is losing focus remember to do as Vince Lombardi did and bring people back to the basics of success. I call it the Vince Lombardi Effect when you simplify and regain clarity.
