"Champion's" Culture

How do you build a “Champion’s Culture?”…. An environment that is designed and structured to provide personal and relational growth to all team members? I have been through this process many times and while most of the time I have been on the side of success, I must also admit that I have had failure at this as well. What causes the failure? While the answer to that has subtle nuances, the failure rests on these two main areas: 1. Not Everyone “Gets in the Pool” In order for a culture to shift into a status of functional utility for all participants, it HAS to have everyone on board. Now, while I fully appreciate that to get 100% buy-in is a utopic ideal, you must have at least a majority of people singing off of the same sheet of music in order for progress to be made. As we all know, “change” of any sort and at any age is not an enjoyable concept – after all, moving out of one’s “comfort zone” is a skill that not everyone can/will master. Obviously, the degree of compliance directly impacts the length of time it takes to become a productive and success-oriented team – the more people join in and are willing to be part of the solution instead of the problem, the sooner the team is invigorating a “Championship Pedigree.” 2. People Get Impatient I wish this process would be quick and painless. After all, how can you argue with the premise of trying to instill character, principles, ethics, discipline and integrity into the cultural foundation of any team and its members?

But, people do. So all parties do a dance of inching their way forward (and sometimes inching their way back). Agendas and fear and doubt and anger all push people to malinger and entrench themselves. The leaders can certainly get frustrated with those people and the (lack of) progress. And with that impatience comes a variety of problems that serve to delay, if not totally derail, the desired outcome. So we come to chronicle the journey that we take both personally and organizationally as to when, and if, we desire to establish an “Environment of Excellence”. It is a journey that is filled with visions of grandeur as well as pictures from the abyss. Yet regardless of the day’s conclusion, it is a wonderful journey of self-exploration and awareness that constantly reminds us that greatness is there for the taking…we just have to honor that call.