bcg blog

Fine Tuning

If you’ve ever seen the movie Miracle, about the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, then you have a pretty clear picture of what coach Herb Brooks valued. He was never enamored with having the most talented players. His focus was on picking the right ones - and right only pertained to his opinion, not the media. When his selection process was over, the roster confused almost everyone who watched it come together. Future NHL stars were left off while college kids nobody had heard of made it. The logic wasn't obvious, but Brooks knew exactly what he was building.
Brooks never wanted a collection of the best individuals. He wanted people who could each, individually, commit to a standard of play, preparation, and sacrifice that he had defined long before the team was selected. Once chosen, Brooks would crush them physically, running them until they couldn't stand. He would press their true commitment by challenging their identities before he challenged their skills. 
A subtlety in Brooks’ approach is that he never asked them to follow each other. Instead, he asked each of them to follow something bigger. And because every single player on that roster eventually bowed to the same standard, twenty guys who didn't particularly like each other became one of the most unified teams in sports history.
They didn't find alignment by looking sideways at each other. They found it by looking up at something fixed, demanding, and non-negotiable. That's the thing about standards. When they're real, they do the heavy lifting. You don't have to manage people with each other. You just have to make sure everyone is committed to the same standard.
Why Should We Care?
Most people think culture is built through relationships. And relationships matter, but they alone don't hold a culture together when things get tough. The relationships need a shared standard that each person has individually accepted as their own too.
The clarity this provides is critical. It never drifts. If your standard is tied too closely to other people, then your ceiling is whatever the room produces. When the room is tired or tempted to cut corners, then the standard moves with it. And so does your identity. 
Standards, as we all now, are the standards. They don’t move. They don't have good days and bad days. They don't soften when things get hard or tighten up when people are watching. They are fixed. And the only way a team actually holds a standard is when each individual on that team has made a personal decision to be accountable to it because they've decided that's who they want to be.
This is where individual excellence and team culture stop being separate conversations. Your personal standard is the building block of everything around you. How you prepare when no one's watching you. How you respond when you're corrected. Whether your effort changes based on the score. These aren't small things. These are the things that tell everyone around you what the real standard is. People believe what they see far more than what they hear.
Brooks didn't stand in front of that team and talk about unity. He stood in front of each individual player and demanded something specific. The unity was a byproduct of what each man chose to give despite what it cost him.
Your standard is your identity and your identity is your culture.
REAL TALK - Action Steps
The Tozer quote is convincing because it removes excuses. You don't get to point at the environment and explain away your standard. Here's a good place to start down that road.

• Name It 
  
  • Every person who operates with real consistency has a fixed reference point. There is something specific they are accountable to regardless of circumstances. For some it's faith. For some it's their values. Whatever it is, it needs to be named. Get specific. Write it down. Make it real.
    

• Check It
  
  • Is your standard the same on a Tuesday in February as it is on a Friday in October? Is it the same when things are going great and when everything is a challenge? Most people’s aren't and most people don't even notice. Choose an area of life and ask yourself whether your standard in that area is fixed or flexible. Flexible standards aren't standards. They're preferences. 
    

• Live It
  
  • The most powerful thing a leader can do is be the most visibly committed person in the room to the standard they're asking others to hold. You must be relentless in it. When the person leading sets their own standard at an unmistakable level, it gives everyone else something tangible to strive for. Culture trickles down from what people actually watch you do.
    

The 1980 team beat the Soviets because twenty individuals each made a personal decision to be accountable to something fixed and demanding. When it came time to perform, that alignment was unshakeable. The standard didn’t raise the bar. It held it.
Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!