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Success Disease—overconfidence is a major symptom—can happen in any profession and can be as difficult to remedy as underconfidence. Over- and underconfidence are an ongoing challenge in leadership.
You feel content after navigating up the hard and treacherous road to victory. This is understandable; you should feel satisfaction and contentment. But when it lingers—sets in—you and your team are suffering from Success Disease. It can create a lack of respect for the competition, a feeling of superiority, and an assumption that you can win at will, turn it on when it counts. The time to turn it on (and leave it on) is before it counts. In fact, my belief is that it counts all the time.
1. Formally celebrate and observe the momentous achievement—the victory—and make sure that everyone feels ownership in it.
3. Be apprehensive about applause.
4. Develop a plan for your staff that gets them back into the mode of operation that produced success in the first place.
8. Use the time immediately following success as an opportunity to make hard decisions, including elevation or demotion of individuals who contributed—or didn’t—to the victory. This window is brief. Use it.
mastery is a process, not a destination.
Thus, when we faced an opponent the 49ers were expected to easily beat, I had to come up with some innovative reasoning as to why we could just as easily lose, why we should consider ourselves the underdog—ideally a one-point underdog.
After that 18-1 Super Bowl season, we were 5-5 going into the Kansas City game—perhaps the best 5-5 team in NFL history.)
regardless of the opponent, we were a one-point underdog, that the upcoming team was just a little better than we were or had motivation enough to really raise their level of play—the
Seek Character. Beware Characters.
Ronnie Lott, a 49er defensive back who had been an All-American at USC, was a model player who had no trouble adhering to high standards, regardless of the circumstances.
An opposing player described being tackled by Ronnie as equivalent to having someone hit you on the head with a baseball bat.)
Otto Graham, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, demonstrated tremendous strength of character when he forced himself to compete in the NFL Pro Bowl Game just weeks after the tragic death of his son. Somehow he was able to summon the fortitude not only to perform, but to perform at a level that resulted in being selected as MVP. Otto just felt he had to continue with his life, to go on. Ultimately, he simply would not allow himself to opt out, even after such a catastrophic personal tragedy.
On many occasions, before games, he would put on his San Francisco 49ers uniform at his house, smear the eye black under his eyes, and call a cab to take him to the game. He would arrive at Candlestick Park ready to go, in full uniform, including cleats!
Here’s what a big ego is: pride, self-confidence, self-esteem, self-assurance . Ego is a powerful and productive engine. In fact, without a healthy ego you’ve got a big problem.
Psychologists suggest that there is a strong link between ego and competitiveness.
The Bottom 20 Percent May Determine Your Success
“Every single one of you guys will have at least one chance to win a game for us. I ask you to prepare for that opportunity with the attitude that it’s a certainty, not a possibility. Prepare and be ready when your time comes, because it will come. Can you do that for me?”
Those comments were aimed specifically at the so-called bottom 20 percent of our team—the backups, “benchwarmers,” and special role players, those who didn’t see much action during the regular season.
Future Hall of Fame players such as Steve Young, Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, and others with plenty of playing time didn’t need me to remind them to get physically, mentally, and emotionally ready for action. Rather, it was the bottom 20 percent who were more likely to feel overlooked, unimportant, and unattached to our organization.
When the bottom 20 percent is dissatisfied—doesn’t feel they’re a real part of your team, that is, appreciated—their comments, perspective, and reactions—their “bitching”—is seen, heard, and absorbed by those who are positive and productive.
For reasons I’ve never quite figured out, the bitching of the bottom 20 percent often overshadows the positive enthusiasm of the other 80 percent. I always thought it should be the other way around, but it isn’t. The whiners seem to have a disproportionate impact.
While coaching at Stanford University, I instituted a “12th Man Award,” which, of course, didn’t involve money, but did acknowledge publicly the effort being made by those who were less visible. I wanted them to know they were an essential part of the success of the team and, as such, should focus and train for the moment they would have a chance to make a big play. I strove to avoid having a “second tier” of lower-class players or staff members.
On the steppes of Africa, a “dance of death” occurs when a wildebeest is run into exhaustion by a lion. Waiting to be killed as the lion circles, the wildebeest meekly submits to its fate—head drooping, shoulders slumped, eyes glazed over. It is the posture of the doomed, the same look you often see in competitors in sports and business who have given up after deciding that failure is inevitable, their competitor unbeatable.
Your competitor must never look at you across the field, conference table, or anywhere else and conclude, “I not only beat you, I broke your spirit.” The dance of the doomed tells them they’ve broken your spirit. That message can hurt you the next time around.
(Prior to my drafting Joe, my friend and fellow coach Sam Wyche tracked him down in southern California for a workout. We flew to Los Angeles International Airport and took a cab to a little public playground nearby. When Joe started throwing the ball, I knew immediately that he was very special—poise, nimble feet that reminded me of Joe Namath’s exquisite footwork, and a “look” I liked when he threw the football, even though his strength was not the long pass.)
one of the things I love most about leadership—teaching a person how to reach higher and higher, to achieve great things with his or her talent. And always keep this in mind: Nobody will ever come back to you later and say “thank you” for expecting too little of them.
