Every time Alabama loses a starting skill position player (usually the QB), the world asks Saban the same question. Paraphrased, it’s always something along the lines of “Oh my, what a disaster. What can you do to avoid ruining your season?” Mind you, Alabama isn’t the only team that has this figured out, and they certainly aren’t the only team asked this question. As different as teams are, the ones who consistently succeed over long periods of time appear to have a similar solution. They recruit players that fit their system and they make sure every team member knows their system to the point that it’s second nature – regardless of the player’s skill and ability level. Every day, they choose process over results.
What that means is that these teams set the expectation that if you go into the game, you do the job you were trained to do. You’re trained. You know the system as well as anyone. As such, you aren’t surprised. You know the game plan. You don’t freak out when something goes wrong, probably because no one else is. You don’t panic. You simply use your talent and ability within the system you’ve learned. Like a successful business, these teams have built a system that isn’t going to fall apart due to a single point of failure.
Teams aren’t like businesses
How different is that from hiring carefully and having good process management at your business? Of course, that’s a trick question. It isn’t different at all. The products and outcomes are different, but the work of coaching (training), process management, recruiting (hiring) and so on are roughly the same. One of the things that Saban always mentions is their process. Google “Saban process not results” to see what I mean. A lot has been written about their process and Saban’s often vague answers about what many perceive as a “secret”. Hint: Hard work isn’t a secret.
Some people think that these teams are like a machine, and that businesses that operate this way are as well. In some cases, you might hear comments as if the machine-like behavior is a negative – like all the team members are like robots and can’t think for themselves. That’s fear talking.
If your best salesperson gets the flu the day they’re supposed to fly out to your most important trade show or customer meeting of the year, is it a good thing that the rest of your salespeople know the product and the pitch as well as anyone? Or does that mean your people are bots? Does it mean your company is well-trained, consistent, resilient, or “a machine”? Maybe it means all four – none of which are bad in the right context.
The benefit of everyone knowing the process (processes, really) is that you’re rarely shorthanded. You might not have your best player on the field (or on the trade show floor, or on the phone), but you still have someone who works the same way and knows all the steps. That consistency is critical to improving quality from one end of your company to the other.
Teach / document to learn
The best practitioners of your process (or parts of your process) can teach it. If they can’t teach it, they don’t really know it. They might give you some chest puffery and get all “I don’t need to do that”, but that’s their ego talking. Every time you teach something, you learn it a bit more, a bit better, from a bit different angle. To move toward mastery of a subject, try teaching it. You may think you know it already, but as soon as newbies start asking foundational, basic, “topic 101” questions, you’ll likely realize that you don’t know it as well as you thought. It’s service to yourself, to your peers, and to your business.
Documentation has the same effect, but in a different way. When you document a process, you’ll find that the memorized steps are often left out in the first pass. When someone follows your documentation (think of it as “testing”), you’ll almost certainly discover little decisions or questions were omitted.
You may get some resistance to documenting your processes. Yet professional pilots who have flown for 30 years still follow a checklist. They do it for a reason. Under pressure or when we’re in stressful situations, we forget things. We’re human.
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