I read a lot, and as I am reading, I usually share quotes and thoughts from what I am reading on Twitter. Sometimes, that leads to me engaging in short, 280 character conversations with the author of the book. Well, that happened to me last week. I was reading Culture Defeats Strategy. It is written by Randy Jackson, the head football coach at North Forney High School in Forney, TX. Coach Jackson put together a great book about the strategies he uses to develop a championship culture within his program. I loved reading it, and as I was sharing some quotes from his book on Twitter, there were a couple of short exchanges about culture. Here’s one of them:

Plays are so overrated. Got to get them thinking the same, speaking same, and acting the same.

— Randy Jackson (@CoachJacksonTPW) January 13, 2018

This brief exchange made me think of a quote that we looked at in the “Coaches Leadership Academy” earlier in the school year. If you’re new to my blog, you need to know that in the Leadership Academy, we are doing a book study of “Legacy” by James Kerr.

Here’s the backstory leading up to the quote. There was a time when the All Blacks organization (the winningest professional sports franchise in history) had taken a downturn, and the situation was looking bleak. Here is what the author of the book had to say about it.

With results declining, key players threating to leave, and cultural dysfunction endemic, the management had to act and act quickly…. Gram Henry identified his key areas of focus:

• Sufficient leadership, knowledge, and confidence to implement the game plan
• The transference of leadership and therefore responsibility from the coaches to the players
• The development of leadership ability and composure.
• The necessity for the group to understand their identity – who they are, what they stand for, and their collective and individual responsibilities as All Blacks

Graham Henry (the head coach of the All Blacks) came up with four “Key Areas of Focus,” and I think there are a few important observations to be made here.

1. None of those statements have anything to do with strategy, talent, or skill set.
2. Three out of four of his “key areas of focus” are specifically centered around leadership. Who has it? How do we develop it? How do we transfer more of it to our players?
3. It is vitally important to know what you stand for. If you know who you are and what you stand for, you look at everything through that lens, and it helps you stay focused on what’s really important.

Now refer back to Coach Jackson’s statements above:

“If you’re a head coach, your most important job is to build a culture of team. It is also your toughest.”

“Plays are so overrated. Got to get them thinking the same, speaking same, and acting the same.”

I am seeing a lot of parallels.

So often we work our tails off trying to gain an advantage, but are we spending time on things that have the biggest impact? We need to focus on culture, and we need to invest in multiplying the leadership within our organizations. I firmly believe that if we can take care of those things, any organization can be well on its way to being successful.

Thanks for reading! If you are a coach, I would highly recommend Coach Jackson’s book, “Culture Defeats Strategy.” He speaks from the perspective of a high school football coach, but the message and the strategies that he shares can be applied successfully to any sport. I would also argue that you can apply most of it to schools, businesses, etc… (minus the boot camp part). It’s definitely worth your time. I would also recommend a couple of Twitter follows. You can follow Coach Jackson at @CoachJacksonTPW, and you can follow The Culture Factory at @CDSFactory. The Culture Factory is the newsletter Coach Jackson has put out “for all leaders who are on a growth mission.”

**It should probably be noted that outside of the Twitter world, Coach Jackson and I do not know each other. I think I shook his hand at a football clinic once. There are a lot of people on the internet “pitching” their buddies. That’s not the case here. I just wanted to share his work with you because I thought it would be worth your time to check it out.