Page 255 - How to Create a Winning Organization
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Lessons from My Notebook
gree this involves the mechanics of how things can or should 237
be done.
I believe the same is true in most organizations. There is a cer-
tain way that a leader wants and expects things done, whether it’s
selling, producing, constructing, designing, or anything else. In
one way or another, you draw up the plans and your team carries
them out with varying degrees of effectiveness.
Here are some of the plans that I drew up as head coach of the
Bruins. I share them here because looking at them flat on the page
gives a sense, perhaps, of how useless they are without all the other
vital elements that go into building a successful team.
For any leader, any organization, the plans are a starting point.
That’s why I put them at the beginning of Part Three. The much
more difficult task for anyone in a leadership position is to create
an environment, a way of thinking, a set of beliefs, that ultimately
gets everyone working eagerly and to the best of their ability to
make those plans result in a winning organization.
Drawing up plans such as these diagrams is the easy part. I did
it thousands of times. Creating a successful organization with peo-
ple who execute the plans at a level of Competitive Greatness—
now, that’s the challenge of leadership.
For me, it started, in large part, at our first team meeting.
MY FIRST SPEECH TO THE TEAM:
SETTING THE STANDARD
Getting off to a good start is important. It sets the tone for your
team in many ways—expectations, values, attitude, behavior, rules,
and much more. This is especially true with individuals who are
new to your organization, but it also applies to the others under
your leadership who may need a reminder from time to time of
how you expect things to be done.