The Score Takes Care of Itself (15 page)

So the question is this: How do you know when it’s time to quit, to try another approach, to move in a different direction, regardless of whether it’s a commitment to a football team’s running game, a company’s marketing plan, or a new hire? When is it time to say, “I’m wrong”? Here’s the answer: There is no answer; there is no cut-and-dried formula.

We all have in our mind inspiring examples of individuals who persevered beyond the point of reason and common sense and prevailed. We tend to ignore the more numerous examples of individuals who persisted and persisted and finally
failed
and took everybody down with them because they would not change course or quit. We ignore them because we never heard about them. Failure rarely garners the amount of attention that victory does.

Thus, the epic journey of Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton is worth noting because we’ve heard about him. Shackleton took the crew of the HMS
Endurance
on a monumental and courageous expedition aimed at crossing the Antarctic on foot. Many have been inspired by his exploits; even the name of his ship—
Endurance
—is used for motivation.

I also greatly admire his courage, loyalty, and dedication, but in case you forgot, his expedition was doomed; it ended in failure: The HMS
Endurance
was trapped in ice and crushed. Shackleton’s incredible commitment to his men ultimately saved them from death, although three of the rescuers died in the process. The magnitude of his ultimately successful rescue effort—rather than the failure to reach his primary goal—is what we remember. I, too, am inspired by his raw drive to save his men. I also keep in mind the loss of his ship and the failure of his expedition.

In every leader’s work there are times when you must coldly evaluate the path down which you are taking your organization. In my own work, the Tulane experience was valuable because it was an example of persisting for the wrong reason.

The lesson I took from it was this: A leader must be keen and alert to what drives a decision, a plan of action. If it was based on good logic, sound principles, and strong belief, I felt comfortable in being unswerving in moving toward my goal. Any other reason (or reasons) for persisting were examined carefully. Among the most common faulty reasons are (1) trying to prove you are right and (2) trying to prove someone else is wrong. Of course, they amount to about the same thing and often lead to the same place: defeat.

Losing—failure—is part of the package for a leader in a competitive career. I was always reluctant to change a course of action that I had committed to in pursuit of a goal, but after my pigheaded persistence against Tulane University, I became scrupulous in analyzing when a change of course was appropriate, when “my way” was the wrong way.

A leader must have a vision, which is simply an elevated word for “goal.” Significant time and resources will be applied to achieving that goal. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that you proceed and persist for the correct reasons; your tactics must be sound and based on logic seasoned with instinct. If I led our team down the road to failure, I wanted to make sure the quality of my reasoning was very solid. If we went down, I wanted to go down for the right reasons. That’s tough enough to take, but what is toughest of all—what is inexcusable—is to fail because you are unwilling to admit that your way was the wrong way and that a change of course is your only path to victory.

Few things are more painful for a leader than losing because your reasoning is faulty, your conclusions flawed, your logic skewed by emotions, pride, or arrogance. One of the great leadership challenges is to recognize when hubris has you in its grip before it is too late to change. Here’s a short checklist worth keeping in mind when it comes to persevering, to doing it “your way” at all costs:

The head of the 49er scouts, Howard White, was incensed when I was named general manager; he wanted the job and felt he deserved it. During a tense meeting in which I told him he wasn’t going to be general manager, White announced that not only was he resigning but
all
of our scouts were quitting out of loyalty to him.

His threat carried tremendous weight, since the scouts happened to be in town for a predraft conference, a series of meetings that would chart our future talent acquisitions and, in effect, my future. My authority—my leadership—was being challenged at a critical moment. Howard knew it and was more than pleased to put a gun to my head.

I felt, however, that I had no option but to call Howard out and call him on his threat. I knew more about judging talent for my system than anyone, including Howard. I therefore accepted his “resignation” and then asked John Ralston, a member of our staff, to immediately inform all of the other scouts that we accepted their resignations as tendered by their boss. That was a bombshell.

The scouts’ response was swift and unequivocal: “We want to stay; we’re not unhappy that Howard White is leaving; we didn’t offer to follow him out the door,” or words to that effect. My problem was over, but only because I had stood my ground and protected my turf when my position and authority were challenged. Leaders who don’t understand what their territory is and how to protect it will soon find themselves with no turf to protect.

A defining characteristic of a good leader is the conviction that he or she can make a positive difference—can prevail even when the odds are stacked against him or her. A successful leader is not easily swayed from this self-belief. But it happens.

When you fall prey to the naysayers who eagerly provide you with all the reasons why you won’t succeed, why you can’t win, and why you should quit, you have lost the winner’s edge. When that happens, the game is over, regardless of your profession.

In addition to expertise and knowledge of the specific competitive environment, I believe a leader must also have certain habits (to use a word popularized by Dr. Stephen Covey) that contribute to his or her effectiveness, that create and cement his or her winner’s edge. In my view a truly effective leader must
be
certain things. Here are twelve habits I have identified over the years that will make you
be
a better leader:

Coach George Allen was a demon on details. As head coach of the Washington Redskins, he was preparing to face the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VII at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. A few days before the game, he sent a staff member out to the Coliseum for an entire afternoon to chart the movement of the sun during the hours when the game would be played. George wanted to know exactly where it would be so he could calculate the “sun advantage” if the Redskins won the coin toss. This is an example of sweating the right small stuff.

Later, in a turbulent and brief tenure as head coach of the Los Angeles Rams, George supposedly took time off from his coaching responsibilities to design a more efficient system of serving food, a way of reducing the amount of time players spent in the lunch line. He took time out of his jam-packed schedule to personally draw up a schematic for those players wanting soup with their meals: One line was designated for those wanting crackers with their soup; the other for those who didn’t want any crackers. This is an example of sweating the wrong small stuff. Owner Carroll Rosenbloom fired him before the regular season even began. (I should note that while George wasn’t fired for designing a “crackerless” line, it may have been symptomatic of what he was doing—sweating the wrong details.)

While it is critically important to concentrate on the smallest relevant aspects of your job without losing sight of the big picture, it is easy to become so completely overwhelmed by ongoing setbacks that you start focusing on issues completely extraneous to improvement in an attempt to keep from having to look at intractable problems.

Seeing it in others, I watched for it in my own behavior—as you should in yours—knowing that it would significantly reduce my ability to be effective, that it was dodge, a way of diverting my attention. A coach who becomes afflicted with the malady of “trivialities” might suddenly and compulsively worry about whether all of the practice uniforms have been laundered correctly (“Can’t you get
all
of those grass stains out?”); obsess over luncheons with local fan clubs; and take inordinate pride in various award ceremonies or alumni gatherings.

All of this is an escape mechanism—a method of distracting yourself from the tough work ahead. George Allen isn’t the only NFL coach who became immersed in the meaningless at the expense of the meaningful. A Seattle head coach once diverted himself from the hardships of fixing a dismal team and organization by focusing more on how the Seahawks performed during the national anthem than on how they performed during a game. Valuable practice time was actually spent rehearsing the national anthem “formation”—lining players up by height and number in a perfectly straight row, feet together, helmets held in the left hand by the face guard, no gum chewing, no movement, shirttails tucked in, and actually singing the words. This was going on at a time when the team was in the tank.