One of my favorite things in life is sports. I really enjoy sports for many facets, but I also enjoy studying them and seeing how championship teams win and how coaches and managers, manage or coach their teams and what they do to help them succeed.

One of my favorite stories of all time is from the NFL, Bill Walsh and the San Francisco 49ers. Bill Walsh came into a team that was 2 and 14, and really it wasn’t anything to write home about. They were just a perennial loser and he took over and he changed the culture, right from the beginning.

One of the things that he definitely did was that he didn’t allow any of his players to do anything that would hurt the name of the San Francisco 49ers or in any way, disrespect them, that included throwing a helmet down that had the San Francisco 49 emblem. As far as he was concerned, it was the equipment of the team and it had it’s brand on it.

He said, you will not do anything like that. So much so that if you kept doing it and he warned you, I don’t know how many times, how many warnings you got, but he would bench you and if that continued, he traded some players.

He started in the late seventies and his first season was actually 2 and 14 and his plan was to win a super bowl within five years. Well, now we know that certain names that he made very well-known included Joe Montana, Roger Craig and Jerry Rice. These three individuals and others as well, had incredible records.

The other thing that he did is, he understood something about his players. He knew that they were professional athletes that made good money and not only did they make good money, but they would attract a certain kind of attention.

First kind of thing that he fixed was the money situation as the players didn’t know how to handle it. Finances were a big issue with his players, being young and not being taught at school, he knew that was going to be a problem.

The other thing that he also knew is that they attract attention. Females would get attracted and he knew that they would possibly have relationship problems. So what did he do? What he did is he set up programs that were available to his players, outside of their training schedules, that they could come and learn about relationships and they could come and learn about finances.

Why did he do that? It’s because he wanted the players to focus 100% when they got on the field. Now imagine this, whether you took his solution or not, if you step on the field and you did not take any of those solutions to go and learn more, at least you knew that when you stepped on the field, that if you want to, when you stepped off, you could go and take care of all of your relationship problems and your money problems.

Those are two of the biggest issues that we have as human beings. Bill Walsh offered a way around it. What did that do as well? It created incredible relationships. And as far as their finances go, it allowed them to know where they’re at. If you think about it, if you know where you are financially and, now you know how to deal with your relationship issues, whether you resolve them or not, at least you had somewhere to go to get help.

What a great concept. Imagine if we, as business owners took the same ideas and, and planted them in our organizations. How well did the Bill Walsh do in the second year? In the second year they won the super bowl. So he beat his goal of winning in five years. He got it done in the second year. It is an amazing story, right?

So, and the other key thing is that he built trust. They bought into his vision and they performed at incredible levels because the players knew that when they stepped on the field, they could give 100% their attention to whatever was in front of them. And they, when they stepped off, they could go deal with their other issues, whether it’s financial relationship or both or anything else for that matter. So if we, as business owners do something similar and allowed our players and workers, the people that are in our organization, to address the issues that are on their minds, and we also offer them solutions, what would our organizations be like? How would our players, our team function when they’re needed? I believe that we would have similar results as Bill Walsh did, if not better. And not only that, we personally will excel as well.

Can you imagine, when you’re not heard, how you feel? But when you are heard, how do you feel? Now imagine the people that you’re responsible for, your employees or contractors, or whoever you have in your team, if they know that you care as well, does that create harmony, unity?

Create harmony and unity, not the opposite.  I encourage all of you to adopt similar approaches to your team.