Summary: You Win in the Locker Room First The 7 C’s to Build a Winning Team in Business, Sports, and Life by Jon Gordon, Mike Smith
Summary: You Win in the Locker Room First The 7 C’s to Build a Winning Team in Business, Sports, and Life by Jon Gordon, Mike Smith

Summary: You Win in the Locker Room First The 7 C’s to Build a Winning Team in Business, Sports, and Life by Jon Gordon, Mike Smith

Kindle | Hardcover | Audiobook 

You Win in the Locker Room First draws on the extraordinary experiences of Coach Mike Smith and Jon Gordon―consultant to numerous college and professional teams―to explore the seven powerful principles that any business, school, organization, or sports team can adopt to revitalize their organization.

  1. Culture: Culture drives expectations and beliefs. Expectations and beliefs drive behavior. Behavior drives habits. Habits create the future. It all starts with the culture.
  2. Contagious: Leadership is a transfer of purpose, passion, optimism and belief.
  3. Consistent: If you’re not consistent, you’ll lose the trust your team has in you. When you lose trust, you lose the locker room.
  4. Communicate: When there’s a void in communication, negativity will fill it. Fill the void with great communication.
  5. Connect: Team beats talent when talent isn’t a team.
  6. Commitment: It’s not about you. It’s about committing yourself to the team.
  7. Care: Relationships are the foundation upon which winning teams are built, and all great relationships are based on value, respect, love, trust and care.

 

 

Your 7C Action Plan
Culture

  • Build up culture up, down and across. Build culture in board room and locker room.
  • Everyone plays a role in creating your culture. Make sure they’re on the right track.
  • Let everyone know your vision and beliefs. Make sure they’re in line with it.
  • Identify what your team stands for. If you know that, it’s easier to make decisions.
  • You have to live your culture for others to embrace it.
Contagious

  • Become a big dose of vitamin C for your team.
  • Share your vision and work to earn a buy-in from your team.
  • Transfer positive attitude and beliefs.
  • Share a no-complaining policy. Weed negativity.
  • Lead with passion.
Consistent

  • Be the same leader regardless of the outcome. Stick to your principles even if you’re not winning.
  • Be consistent with the actions as you strive to grow.
  • Look for signs of complacency to stop your team from resting on their past success.
  • Stay humble and hungry.
Communicate

  • Communicate frequently with the team both collectively and individually.
  • If you don’t communicate, people will fill in the silence with negativity.
  • Take temperate of your team daily. Walk around. Listen. Observe. Gather information.
  • Reiterate and reinforce values. Say your vision so much so that it almost becomes annoying.
  • Be aware of internal politics and tension that can sabotage your team.
  • Be transparent and eliminate barriers to foster collaboration.
Connect

  • Understand that creating a team is one of the most important things you can do.
  • Help your team build meaningful relationships.
  • Pay attention to technology. Use it only to supplement your communication methods.
  • When teams start to connect, they work for each other, not just with each other.
  • Deploy team-building exercises to open hearts and share vulnerability.
  • Stay connected. Don’t assume relationships will last forever.
Commit

  • Commit yourself first before you expect your team to be committed.
  • Lead in a way that people feel your commitment.
  • Demonstrate your commitment through actions.
  • Look for opportunities to commit bigger than your team while serving your team first.
  • You don’t have to be great to serve but you have to serve to be great.
  • Check your ego at the door. Take ownership instead of blaming problems.
Care

  • Create a caring culture. When your team feel that they’re being cared for, they’ll perform at a much higher level.
  • Value people, not numbers.
  • Decide to be a transformational leader instead of a transactional leader.
  • Surround yourself with people who care.
And finally, the Big C – Coach

  • Realize today’s leaders must coach the people they lead to develop the leaders of tomorrow.
  • Focus on the development of the people you lead.
  • Listen to the vision and goals of the people you lead. Ask how you can help them to achieve their aspirations.

Kindle | Hardcover | Audiobook 

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