Super Bowl CIOs: 7 Lessons From Winning NFL Coaches
The two Super Bowl XLIX coaches are controversial but interesting leaders with many lessons to teach CIOs.
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In case you aren't a sports fan, it might help to know that this Sunday two of the most interesting coaching characters in the history of football, Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll, will be battling for the championship in Super Bowl XLIX.
You may not care who wins, but you should want to get to know these coaches. They are two of the best leaders the game has ever produced and they are heretics in their own field. They provide some very interesting leadership lessons for CIOs willing to pay attention.
But before we get into these lessons, just who are these people and why should we listen? If they were movie characters Belichick would probably best be described as Darth Vader. Carroll is Danny Ocean, the George Clooney version.
Belichick leads a team, the New England Patriots, that many refer to as the Evil Empire. He has been caught in a cheating scandal referred to as Spygate, where he illegally taped practices of other teams, including possibly the Super Bowl. For some reason, perhaps because of a Jedi mind trick, the league destroyed the evidence so we'll never know what he did. He's now embroiled in another scandal called defaltegate (or ballghazi) where it is possible his team broke into a room to deflate footballs in order to gain an advantage playing in cold weather.
But there is no doubting his power. He is fifth all-time among coaches in regular season wins, first all-time in playoff wins, and has taken his team to six Super Bowls, winning three, with one still pending. He is dark and mysterious, and he seldom says much of anything.
Carroll, on the other hand, is friendly and gregarious. He clearly leads his team one relationship at a time. He creates a loyalty that makes players want to rob banks for him -- almost literally. During his tenure as a college coach at USC, his team was forced to vacate wins, including a national championship because one his star players took money from an agent. No one knows how much Carroll knew about it, but the perception is that he left the school for the NFL because he didn’t want to face the sanctions, including lost scholarships, the team was receiving.
Since coming to the NFL, he's already won a Super Bowl and has a chance to win a second. He’s only the third coach in history to win a National Championship at the college level and a Super Bowl. Despite all of the controversy and potential scandal (or because of it), he is immensely popular with his players. He's like Ocean when he is called a thief and a liar and he says, "I only lied about being a thief."
Here are two men, entirely different in personal styles, but with similar controversies following them and similar success. With that in mind, see what lessons you can learn from these controversial but high successful leaders.
Both Carroll and Belichick were punchlines after their early failures as NFL head coaches. Carroll lost on the famous Dan Marino "spike play," where Marino pretended to spike the ball at the last second and then threw a touchdown instead. Carroll was actually replaced by Belichick in New England. But Belichick was previously so bad, he was the last coach of the original Cleveland Browns team. He was fired and the team was moved to Baltimore. When Carroll was hired at USC he was roundly booed. Expect to fail as part of your journey to the top.
One of football's biggest problems is the number of concussions. Many concussions are caused by the violent head-to-head collisions in the game. Many blame the helmet itself, because it makes players feel invincible. Carroll, after originally resisting new safety rules, has done something radical. After nearly 100 years of tackling the same way in football, he reinvented the way his team tackles. Adopting aspects of rugby tackling, he taught his team what he often refers to as "shoulder tackling." He even filmed a video intended to teach the style to junior football coaches. It is not only safer, but Carroll has the number one defense in nearly every category in the NFL. Instead of complaining, he adapted.
Similar to Carroll, Belichick also refuses to put up with "we've always done it this way" but he did it in his own more controversial style. In football, there are players allowed to catch passes and those who aren't. The numbers they wear on their shirts tell the other team who can catch. If you need to, you can have a player wearing the wrong number report in as eligible to catch a pass.
In recent playoff games, Belichick starting subbing multiple players who were ordinarily ineligible for spots where they were eligible, and also taking eligible numbered players and putting them in places where they weren't allowed to catch the ball. This is entirely legal, but completely unusual. It resulted in several easy touchdowns for the Patriots. It was so outrageous, one of the opposing coaches ran onto the field illegally just to complain to the refs and drew a penalty. They were later accused of deception. Because everyone had conformed to a habit of the way the game was played, Belichick was able to gain a temporary advantage while doing nothing wrong.
Not to be outdone, Pete Carroll responded to Belichick's new strategy the week by calling the NFL league office for "clarification" over Belichick's crazy substitutions. It resulted in the league telling Carroll they were going to create new signals to help players know who can catch the ball and who can't. This should end the confusion. Carroll trumping Belichick's new strategy before ever taking the field is a stroke of proactive genius.
Think about that for a second. The league changed the way its officials run the game in the middle of a season right before the biggest game. That's pretty unprecedented. It would be like asking a baseball umpire to change a strike zone for the World Series. No doubt Belichick has a response, too. As CIO, you might not need to be playing games like this, but if you aren't thinking this far ahead, you're not going to succeed.
Coach Carroll devotes one day per week of practice to "Turnover Thursday." On that day the players practice preventing losing the ball and try taking the ball from the other team. Losing the ball is called a turnover. Carroll has identified turnovers as the most important factor of success in a game.
In fact, Carroll and Belichick have the two best teams in the league in causing more turnovers than giving them up. This added emphasis on what is important to the organization has clearly created a positive effect. Try to determine what is most important to your success and emphasize it clearly. Maybe you don't have to have "transform the business Tuesdays" but communicating your keys to success will help your team do just that.
Both Carroll and Belichick have fantastic quarterbacks. Tom Brady is a future Hall of Famer and has been with Belichick for nearly his entire time at New England. Russell Wilson is on a hall of fame trajectory in his short career and is a level-headed coach on the field despite being young. Both reflect the personalities and philosophies of their coaches. Here's another interesting fact. Neither was a highly touted prospect coming out of college. Brady was considered average at best in college. Wilson was considered too short. But both coaches found the person they could trust with the reigns of their team. Find directors and managers you can trust, and don't be afraid to look in unlikely places for them.
If you've never seen a Bill Belichick press conference, you've missed high art. Bill Belichick would rather do anything than talk to the media it seems. Earlier this year, after a loss, he refused to answer questions about why his team lost. He simply referred to his next opponent. He said repeatedly that his team was "on to Cincinnati." This was more than just trolling the press though. This was about explaining to his team that previous failures didn't matter. The present was all that mattered. Moving from failure to success comes from the "We're on to Cincinnati" mode of thinking.
(Image Source: Hulu)
What do you think? Did you learn anything from these guys? Are you going to incorporate any of this thinking into the way you lead? Would you want a boss like either of these guys? Who do you think will win? Tell us in the comments.
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