Legion of Boom! Is your team this tight?

Seattle Seahawks and HR lessons learned from the 2015 NFC Championship

In Seattle, Washington, the entire city is fired up about the NFC Champions, Seattle Seahawks going to SuperBowl XLIX. I will be the first to admit that I didn’t watch too many games this year, but I enjoyed the game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers this past weekend. Yes, it was exciting, and yes, it was a nail-bite. As an HR guy, I found the story of an organization to be one that captured the essence of “Best Place to Work.”

Nothing says badass moe foe like flying into the end zone while flexing your muscles and calling attention to your junk, BACKWARDS! Marshawn Lynch is doing it with style. 

Can train plays, can’t train attitude

I have said it before, and it was reinforced during the Seahawks’ NFC Championship game. Hire employees who embody your company’s values before they are hired, and you have the foundation for a Best Place to Work. Interview and hire your team to succeed in the toughest times; they will stick with the mission when the going gets tough. Anyone can hire a team to perform at their best when the money is flowing and everyone is in a good mood. Building a team that will execute when the odds are against you, when many would give up, takes chops. The Seahawks have those chops.

Hire for success against adversity within your company culture.

For me, the parallels between the concept of sports teams and corporate departments were uncanny. Watching this game, I observed several dynamics in action that all corporate managers strive for with their teams. I observed the values that every company strives to recruit, nurture, and retain within its departments. Yes, I am comparing HR with the 2015 NFC Champions – the Seattle Seahawks.

Adversity the team faced

• The Seahawks trailed 19 – 7 with 4 minutes remaining and were all but ineffective on offense before this point. For many, the game was over, as some Seahawks fans left early.
• Quarterback Russell Wilson threw more interceptions (4) in the first 3 quarters than in any other game.
• Richard Sherman, the All-Pro Cornerback, plays much of the 4th quarter, holding one arm pinned to his body due to injury.
• Earl Thomas, one of the league’s best defensive backs, leaves the game with a dislocated shoulder and then returns with a harness to finish the game. (I don’t know about you, but that sounds painful. He is going to tackle 250-pound men with this shoulder?

So, what did I see in the game that gets me so fired up when thinking about building great teams and legendary leadership in HR?

The Seahawks NEVER gave up

The Hawks believed in each other till the very end. With 3 minutes and 19 seconds left in the game, Predictionmachine.com had the Seahawks’ chance of winning at 1%. After Russell Wilson’s 4^th interception, ESPN put the Seahawks’ probability of LOSING at 97.1%. In other words, ESPN’s software predicted that the Seahawks would lose ninety-seven times out of a hundred. I doubt the Seahawks looked at this stat, but if they did, I think they would have viewed the number with a positive outlook and seen a 3.9% chance of winning instead of the 97.1% chance of losing. Instead of throwing in the towel, the team did what they always do: they believed in each other.

Faith in each other

Faith in each other came naturally to them because it is not just a “corporate value” for the Seahawks. This is a value the team looks for and hires when recruiting new players. It is a value the culture nurtures and protects. One percentage point at a time, the Seahawks believed in themselves and never gave up. One step at a time, they believed in each other and that they would claw back, and they did. This unified team created luck and capitalized on the opportunities presented to them one play at a time. If you are sitting in an office cube and cannot relate, think of David Horwitz’s newest book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. When it can’t seem to get worse, it does, but you keep fighting.

Quotes post-game from the team reinforcing each other

• “I believed in our offense, I believed in our playmaker, and Russ always finds a way”. Richard Sherman (see last year’s Super Bowl post on Richard Sherman here) 
• Jermaine Kearse fumbles two passes. Russell Wilson throws an additional two interceptions with Kearse as the intended receiver. Where most armchair quarterbacks would have us passing the ball to a different receiver the rest of the game, Wilson predicts that he would throw the GAME WINNER to Kearse on an audible. Yes, he does just that. It was a winning pass to the player who had fumbled twice and been intercepted twice. (That my friends are two brothers believing in each other.)
• “Y’all ain’t gotta believe in us because we believe in ourselves,” Doug Baldwin said on fans leaving the game early when the odds were against the Seahawks.
• Russell Wilson after the game: “I just believed, we all just kept believing in each other, and I just believed we were going to make the plays that we needed to make, that somehow we would get it done. I believed we could overcome the turnovers, mistakes, and adversity”.

2. The right hire for the right company culture.

You can have the Best Place to Work, but that doesn’t mean this workplace is the right place for everyone. An asshole will upset the balance created in most Best Places to Work but will probably be effective and happy in a culture of fellow assholes. A culture of assholes could also win Best Place to Work if everyone is on board with the mission and the recruiting team is consistent with the hiring practices of looking for assholes.

Accountability and optimism

• The Seahawks look to potential draft picks (job candidates), culling those with negative language or finger-pointing. They want accountability and optimism. They make a point to hire to this standard and have subtle tests to cull out players who will not fit the corporate culture.

• I love to see the pure Grit of a guy like Richard Sherman playing with the equivalent of one arm. He kept himself in the game and didn’t allow any of the physicians to check out his apparent injury. I can only assume it would have sidelined him. After the game, he was quoted as saying, “I am 100%. My arm will have to fall off for me to miss the Super Bowl”. Sherman is not a guy who calls in sick at the first sign of a sniffle.

Coaches with Style

• Pete Carroll is this HR guy’s wet dream when it comes to CEO’s. In a city with a reputation for some very hotheaded CEOs, Coach Carroll is the role model. Coach Carroll has a style of encouragement that avoids laying blame.

• Carroll gives team members the freedom to be themselves. He is on a constant quest to identify and maximize the uniqueness of every player and coach. He is committed to a nurturing environment that allows people to be themselves while still being accountable to the team. Carroll is committed to honoring diversity and respecting individuality.

• Tom Cable, former hot-tempered coach of the Raiders, changed his coaching style after working with Pete Carroll. “If I go ballistic on a guy because he dropped his outside hand or missed an underneath stunt, who is wrong? I am.” Cable says. “I’m attacking his self-confidence, and he’s learning that if he screws up, he is going to get yelled at. If you make a mistake here, it will get fixed.” Cable knows the difference between a boss and a manager.

Inspiring game for an HR Nerd

Yes, it was a great game. It will go down in history books, but for me, it reminded me of why I practice HR and what I love about HR. It inspired me to rethink and raise my game regarding building exceptional teams and how a cohesive team can make a difference to the bottom line.  I don’t have any jersey gear, but I will probably buy a jersey cap to remember this day of sports and team-building greatness. Congrats, and thank you, Seahawks, for inspiring this HR guy.

See you at the Super Bowl after party

HRNasty

nasty: an unreal maneuver of incredible technique, something that is ridiculously good, tricky, and manipulative but with a result that can’t help but be admired, a phrase used to describe someone good at something. “He has a nasty forkball”.

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