She wasn’t supposed to be there. Ester Ledecka, a world champion snowboarder from the Czech Republic was standing on the wrong podium. She was standing on the top of the Women’s Super G medal podium. Someone who was ranked only 33rd best in the world in the Super G had somehow beaten the world’s best. And she did it by the “wrong” methods.
Super G is an abreviation for Super Giant Slalom. It’s considered a speed race. Not as fast as the downhill, but faster than the slalom and giant slalom. Racers have to traverse a series of gates while going downhill, very fast.
Ledecka’s normal event is the Ladies’ Parallel Giant Slalom Snowboarding. She’ll compete in that on Saturday. She only skied the Super G this week because another skier dropped out due to race conditions. Because Ledecka didn’t come to the Olympics with the plan to ski the Super G, she didn’t bring her skis. Instead, she borrowed a pair.
Why did she win? And what was wrong about it? The answer to the first question is she made it down the hill faster than any other woman. She won by an incredible .01 seconds. The smallest possible margin of victory. Her time was 1:21:11. The answer to the second question is really the answer to the first question.
Those of you saying it can’t be done need to get out of the way for those of us who are doing it.
History is full of things that couldn’t be done. And later stories of the people who did them. The four minute mile was an unbreakable barrier until, in 1954, a British running named Roger Bannister ran the mile in 3:59.4.
While working for a large nonprofit organization, my team wanted to overhaul the email system we used for our 50,000 volunteers. I was new to the company. I was kindly coached by those who had been there longer than I had that I should just forget it. It was a fool’s errand to attempt to switch to a newer system. Others had tried and it was just too entrenched. They wanted to spare me the disappointment of failure.
As you probably guessed, we successfully moved to a new email system. We simply didn’t know it couldn’t be done, so we went out and did it.
A company runs on its processes. You have to have a sense of order and procedures. The bigger the company the more vital an organized system of operations is. And, as an IT owner, I like the process manual. However, I’ve built a career on at times going my own way. Nothing succeeds like success. Or said another way, asking forgiveness is easier than asking permission.
There have been times where I’ve run the numbers and am confident that I can get my team, my project, my programs from point A to point B faster by going my own way. In these cases, it really doesn’t take much bravery to be a rebel. The trick is to stay off the radar long enough to get over your target area. At that point, it’s impossible for people to call you back and you’ve already achieved your goal.
More challenging is the second situation. Where I don’t know if my crazy idea will work or not. Maybe my way will get us to where we need to be faster. But then again, maybe we’ll crash and burn and I’ll have to work on that ask for forgiveness piece.
I’ve been doing what I’m doing for a long time. I wish I could explain how to know when it’s the right time to follow process and how to recognize those rare times where you simply need to march to the beat of your own drummer. I don’t even do it consistently well for myself, I would hate to try to tell others how to do it.
But, I can tell you, when you take a different path and it works out, it’s an amazing feeling. Nothing is quite so sweet as having them whoever they are, tell you it can’t be done and then going out and doing it anyway.
And that brings us back to Gold Medalist Ester Ledcka. On borrowed skis, in an event she had not prepared for, she was the fastest down the hill because she didn’t know “the best” line. The more experienced skiers all followed the same basic path through the course. Ledcha, lacking their experience, had to make her own way and find her own path down the mountain. She ended up choosing a more aggressive, more dangerous, and ultimately faster path. If she had simply a little more experience, she would have known that it couldn’t be done.
She has a gold medal as thanks for going the wrong way.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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You’ve probably never heard of “for one more day.” (The title is specifically lower case, so I’m trying to honor that.) It’s by Mitch Albom. That name is familiar to some of you. If I told you he wrote “Tuesdays with Morrie,” you’ve probably heard of that book. Albom also wrote “The Five People You Will Meet In Heaven.” “for one more day” is the only one of the three I’ve read.
I don’t much care for “message books.” Books that use a story to teach you a principle. For example, “Who Moved My Cheese” is a business book about change. It uses the story of mice in a maze to tell the point. The book is interesting enough, but when I finished it I thought it could have easily been titled “Change happens: deal with it.”
I can see I’ve backed into this book review completely backwards.
Let me try again. I don’t know if “for one more day” is a message book or not. It’s just short of 200 pages. So, it’s a quick read. The story is about Chick, a former professional baseball player who has just a brief taste of the pinnacle of baseball success: playing in the World Series, and spends the rest of his life never quite living up to that standard again. In the process he destroyes his relationship with his mother, his wife, his daughter, and ultimately his father, although only because he cannot ever measure up to his father’s goals for him.
Ultimately, Chick tries to kill himself. Even in that he fails. In the process, through the magic of the story, Chick gets one more day with his mother. Of course, she was already dead, but that didn’t stop her from picking up right where she left off with him.
The book is ultimately about redemption, forgiving yourself and appreciating those around you. As a huge baseball fan, I enjoyed the chance, via the narrator to hear about what it’s like to finally get to the major leagues and the World Series. It’s not a baseball book, and I suppose Chick could have really had any profession, but the fact it was baseball, this time of year when Spring Training has just started, was a wonderful addition for me.
You might think that Chick’s extraordinary circumstance would make his redemption story hard to relate to. He went from the highest of highs (for a baseball fan) to the lowest of lows. But, it speaks to Albom’s skill as a writer that the message of the book comes through clearly. All of us have mothers. Most likely we could have all been better sons and daughters. If your mother has passed on, it’s not hard to imagine the desire to spend just one more day with her. What would you say? What would you ask?
What I Liked
Obviously the baseball references, but really I enjoyed the flow of the story. Albom takes the reader back and forth between the past, the afterlife and the messy here and now. The transitions are smooth and flow naturally with the writing. While Chick was reconciling with his mother, I spent time thinking about my mother. She’s in great health and we talk often. But, still I had the urge several times to put down the book and call her. And at the end of the book as Chick goes to say goodbye to her, the right way this time, Albom brings us to that same place emotionally.
What I Didn’t
Chick wasn’t a very nice person. He takes some getting used to. It’s important for the story for us to not only like, but to identify with Chick. Albom accomplishes it, but not without some periods where Chick’s self reflection forces our own self reflection. I didn’t think the book would make me think about my feelings this much. Was it a good thing, ultimatly? Sure. Doesn’t mean it was always pleasant.
What It Means To You
Honestly, I cannot imagine anyone who wouldn’t like the book. The “message” if there is one is delivered with such a light touch that it’s easy to simply focus on wonderful storyteling. It will definitely make you want to call your mother.
My Rating
4 out of 4 stars
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Hey, Rodney. How’s it going?
Great, thanks.
Could you badge in.
What?
Could you badge-in the door.
I work in a very secure environment. I have to walk through 3 security doors to get to my office. There are multiple cameras all over my building. Every entrance and exit has a camera. Our production floor has virtually 100% camera coverage. We have onsite security.
We take safety and security very seriously. So, why was I annoyed that someone asked me to badge through the security door instead of tailgating behind him?
Card readers on security doors have two purposes. First, is to determine who is in the building. Some of our more secure areas have anti-passback lockouts. That means if you badge into the room, you must also badge out of the room. If you don’t, the system will flag your account and you’ll find the next time you attempt to badge into that room, your badge is disabled and you need to go talk to security to get it reset.
The policy is important for very secure rooms. We want to know, we feel like we need to know who is in that room at any time. For secure rooms, tailgating is strictly prohibited. It doesn’t matter if it’s the company president. She will badge in and then out of that room.
The second purpose of security doors and badge readers is to keep people out of areas they are not supposed to be in. If you are already in a secure space, we don’t track when you leave. We figure that if you made it into the building you’re no longer a risk. This lower security is for most of the building other than our very secure areas.
Of course, people can tailgate into these lesser security areas. And it’s not unreasonable to ask someone who might tailgate behind you to “please badge in.” In fact, it’s a great practice and one that as an IT manager, I encourage.
So, why was my situation different? Because, personal identification is better than a card reader. At times we’ve had to quickly open a new center and the security features were not ready when we moved in. We placed a security guard at the door and he manually checked each persona’s ID. Eventually, we replaced him with an electronic badge reader.
As I was going through the door toward my office, my coworker positively identified me. He knew I understood I had access to that space. And since we don’t track anti-passback for the office space, it didn’t matter in the least if I badged or not.
In today’s world of hyper-security, it’s never a bad idea to go the extra mile to practice good security measures. And honestly, I wasn’t annoyed. But, I did recognize that we were not making the building any more secure by having me badge in after being positively identified.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2017 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I admit I tend to get a little emotional around this time of year. My heart races a little faster. I find myself watching the calendar, counting down the days. It’s really just a day like any other, I suppose. Some people don’t care. Some might even actively avoid it.
Today is the day we finally get to say those three magical little words: Pitcher and catchers.
The Cubs reported yesterday, but for most of Major League Baseball, today is the day that pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training. On February 2nd, the groundhog saw his shadow signifying six more weeks of winter. But, on February 14th, pitchers and catchers report signifying the real start of Spring.
We are still over a month away from Opening Day, of course. Even Spring Training games are a couple weeks away. But, today baseball, like a childhood friend who has been away on a months long trip, returns.
As big a baseball fan as I am, I’ve never been to a Spring Training game. Utah has two professional baseball teams. The Orem Owls are in the Pioneer League. That’s one step below single-A ball. And the Salt Lake Bees are a AAA team. Both are part of the Anaheim Angels organization. But, to get Major League Baseball, the closest is Denver where the Colorado Rockies play.
Spring ball will be played in Arizona and Florida. My favorite team, the Seattle Mariners will be part of the Arizona Cactus League. Every year, I look longingly South and think, “Maybe next year.” Well, this is the year.
You might wonder why Spring Training games even are a thing. The games literally don’t count for anything. Often managers will ignore the scoreboard as they work on different combinations of players. The Spring Training wins and losses are forgotten in April when the regular season starts.
But, Spring Training represents a new beginning. Every team is a potential World Series champion in February. Every team has the same record. The same chance at greatness. Also, crowds are smaller. A Major League ballpark will hold 50,000 people. A Spring Training game will get a tenth of that. It’s a chance to watch the game up close.
Yes, this is my year. But, I won’t be headed to Arizona to watch Felix Hernandez and the Seattle Mariners. Instead, I have a trip to Florida scheduled for work. It falls right in the middle of Spring Training and happens to be in the same small Florida city as the New York Mets Spring Training facilities are in.
I once drove from Shreveport, LA to Dallas, TX and back, a six hour round trip, to watch a Rangers game. Next month I’m going to be able to catch a 1:00PM game during a long lunch.
So, on this February 14th, enjoy the best Valentine’s gift ever. . .I think I’m in love.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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GECSP, GDPR, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, PHI, PII, PCI
Serious question: Is your company compliant with these?
More serious question: Do you have any idea what all these stand for?
They all have to do with IT security and compliance. I knew some of them. But, honestly, as an IT manager in my company, I didn’t give them much thought. We had a security analyst. His entire focus was to make sure he not only knew what these acronyms stood for, but that we were in compliance with them and anything else we needed to comply with. I had other items I had to be knowledgable on.
That was a great strategy. . .and then our security analyst took a position with another company. Good for him. Bad for me. But, he had a manager, right? Another security expert. I started working with Rajiv. And Rajiv made sure we were compliant for our audits. And then Rajiv took a position with another company. But, it was okay, because we’d hired Austin to replace our original security analyst. . .except that Austin had come from our accounting department. Security analysts were so hard to find and hire that we opted to hire from within and train Austin to be a security analyst.
At this point I started learning acronyms. Austin is very sharp and has quickly mastered the intricacies of data security. But, considering we went through two security experts in just a couple of months, I decided that I needed to become my own expert.
In terms of training, it actually works out well. As Austin is learning the details of being a security analyst, I can tag along with him and learn as well.
GECSP: Global Essential Compliance and Security Policies – designed to anticipate any possible risks of fraud and violation of any security guidelines. Essentially, a list of best practices and policies designed to help your organziation avoid fraud.
GDPR: General Data Protection Regulation – A European law that is designed to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, to protec and empower all EU citizens data privacy adn to reshape the way organizations approach data privacy. Not just for European companies, but anyone who has clients or employees in Europe. (It replaces the Data Protection Directive DPD.)
Sarbanes-Oxley: A law passed by the US Congress to protect investors from the possibility of fraudulent accounting activities by corporations.
HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act – A US law that provides data privacy and security provision for safeguarding medical information.
PHI: Personal Health Informaiton – Generally the data that HIPAA requires you to protect.
PII: Personal Identifiable Information – Personal data that can be used to identify a person. Typically this information is the holy grail for hackers: social security numbers, birthdates, names, addresses.
PCI: Payment Card Industry – Provisions for protecting customer personal credit card data.
I decided I needed to learn the details of these standards for three reasons. First, each law/requirement was specifically designed to protect customer information. I’m very interested in making sure my company’s customers data is safe. Second, my company and our client do multiple security audits through out the year. I need to be able to help my sites prepare. Finally, not following some of these laws means that the data owners (that could be interpreted as me) could face severe penalties up to and including jail time. Yeah, that’s a pretty good incentive.
It’s not good enough to just have a security analyst. To really protect your customers, you should probably go brush up on how to be a security expert yourself.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Lt. J.G. Jean-Luc Picard: You having a good laugh now, Q? Does it amuse you to think of me living out the rest of my life as a dreary man in a tedious job?
Q: I gave you something most mortals never experience: a second chance at life. And now all you can do is complain?
Lt. J.G. Jean-Luc Picard: I can’t live out my days as that person. That man is bereft of passion… and imagination! That is not who *I* am!
Q: Au contraire. He’s the person you wanted to be: one who was less arrogant and undisciplined in his youth, one who was less like me… The Jean-Luc Picard *you* wanted to be, the one who did *not* fight the Nausicaan, had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard never had a brush with death, never came face to face with his own mortality, never realized how fragile life is or how important each moment must be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted through much of his career, with no plan or agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never led the away team on Milika III to save the Ambassador; or take charge of the Stargazer’s bridge when its captain was killed. And no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe – and he never, ever, got noticed by anyone.
– Star Trek:TNG Tapastries
It’s a common pasttime, looking back and wondering “what if?” What if I’d taken that job offer that required me to move across the country? What if I’d finished my degree instead of jumping into business? What if I’d stayed in the ROTC and pursued a military career?
We all have things we would go back and change. Or rather, we have parts of our past that we aren’t proud of. That we wish we’d done differently. I find myself often being, shall we say the “senior” member of my project teams. I watch my coworkers who are closer to the beginning of their careers than I am. And, of course, I think about when I was their age. (Gahh, that phrase alone makes me sound like a tottering old guy barely able to stumble to my computer.) Was I ever that young?
Of course, and just as Picard, in Star Trek: The Next Generation lamented his earlier life choices, I sometimes think of the brash mistakes of youth. I once was frustrated when a promised promotion failed to materialize. I made the mistake of complaining to one of our biggest cients. I was in a call center at the time. Yes, all those calls are recorded. I didn’t get fired, but it taught me an important lesson both about maintaining company loyalty and keeping my own counsel.
At the time it was a painful lesson. In hindsight, it probably saved me from much worse fates.
Another time, when I should have known better, I went into partnership with a man I barely knew. I moved my family across the country to join him in a busines I had no experience in. He turned out to be a liar and a crook. It took my family nearly five years to recover. And yet, it taught me in a way that nothing else ever had, the value of getting out of debt. I paid off $80,000 and other than the house, haven’t gone into debt seince. Would I have had that discipline if I hadn’t gone through that tough time? Possibly, but probably not.
I still remember the first manager that really chewed me out. Looking back, with the advantage of experience I can see the signs leading up to it. At the time I walked into an emotional buzzsaw. I still experience a physcial reaction when a manager says the phrase “can I see you in my office?” Would I have handled my manager crisis a year ago as well as I did if I hadn’t been through that emotional trainwreck at the beginning of my career? Definitely not.
While we all might look back with some thought of wishing to “fix” our mistakes, the truth is, I wouldn’t change a thing. The successes I have today have the seeds of their success planted in the fertile soil of a young and inexperienced kid stumbing his way through an unfamiliar landscape.
The message from my younger self is the same message I offer to my future self: You’re doing fine. It will all work out and the bumps are the spots where you learn the most.
You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes
But they’re the only thing that you can truly call your own
-Billy Joel, You’re Only Human (Second Wind)
So, keep on going. You’re doing fine. It’s all going to work out.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2017 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Who’s the best lawman?
Best? You mean toughest? Or easist to bribe?
–Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
We’ve all been part of a team. Maybe it was a formal team with a manager and matching shirts. Maybe it was an informal team where everyone came from different departments. Whichever example you have, good teams have certain things in common. Good teams depend on and trust one another. Great teams get to the point where members anticipate each others needs.
Most teams I’ve been on have at times been the best team I worked on. In the early 1990’s I worked for WordPerfect. Daryl Carter, a Marketing Manager over the new email program, WordPerfect Office, came to me and asked me to take on a troubled account. The Environmental Protection Agency was trying to put 30,000 people on our new email system and it wasn’t going well. In fact, it was going terribly. They had decided they were throwing our product out,
Who’s product are you going to replace it with?
Anyone but yours.
Daryl asked me to take over the account. “Do whatever you need to do make them happy.” I had the full support management. I had a really challenging project. And I got to work with some really interesting people. And we pulled it off. Not only did we save the account, we realized we could set up an entire team to do the same thing for other accounts. It was called the Strategic WordPerfect Assistance Team (SWAT.) Coolest business cards I ever had. It was a very fun time, but not the best team I ever worked on.
I love to teach. While at Microsoft I worked on a team that was responsible for writing training material for Microsoft Exchange. At one point we got a new manager. Sally was one of the top 3 best managers I ever worked for. She completely supported my role on the team. I ended up writing a very poorly titled course called “Exchange Advanced Topics.” Terrible name, but a really cool team. It was a course that taught support agents how to read network traces. It was literally a once in a career time. The course was by far the most popular course we had ever written; not just for Exchange but for any Microsoft product.
I got to travel all over the world teaching that course. And everywhere I taught it, it got rave reviews. It was a wonderful time in my career. Eventually, the company reorganized the department, and Sally moved to a different company and we all went to different positions. It was a great time, but it was not my best team.
I was driving home from Yellowstone with my kids. My wife had stayed for a few days with her sisters. My cell phone rang and it was a senior executive from our biggest client. He asked me to take on a special project. I had no idea he even knew who I was. I’m not sure who he tracked me down. But, it was a fantastic opportunity. Of course, I still had to do my normal job, but I had this exciting project to work on as well.
The project went on for nearly two years. We created new technology. We worked across 4 states. We migrated thousands of users. We did the near impossible. And we finished last week. It’s the best team I’ve ever been on. . .probably until the next one.
This is the third in a three part series on teams
Wednesday: Building Teams From The Inside Out
Thursday: Building Teams From The Outside In
Friday: The Best Team I’ve Ever Been On
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2017 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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They are demoralized, disorganized, discouraged. And they are your new team. You’ve been brought in to lead them. In addition, you’re new. What are you going to do first?
Leading a team as the designated leader is much different than leading a team as a peer. Where the player/coach, who is a peer-leader needs to be the best or one of the best on the team, the designated leader doesn’t need to be an expert. He (or she) just needs to be competent at what the team does.
A team is more than a collection of people. It’s a functional unit with as many moving parts as there are members of the team. A baseball team, for example has infielders and outfielders, pitchers and catchers. Even within each group, like pitchers for example, you have starters, long relievers, short relievers, setup men and closers. And over all of it is the manager. Occasionally through history, there are been player managers. The last one was Pete Rose who both played for and managed the Cincinnati Reds. Generally, though the manager is a separate role. The manager wears a uniform just as the player do. He really another member of the team. His role is different but just as important as any of the players.
As a new team leader or as a team leader trying to rally your group, you need to understand what your role is. Your role is to focus the team; drive it toward your objectives. But, first you have to pull them together as a team. The mechanics of how you do it are less important than the objective. The Army, for examples, follows the pattern of first breaking down individual members and then building them back up as a team. In the movie Miracle, famous USA Hockey Coach Herb Brooks, who lead the 1980 USA Hockey team to a gold medal is shown in one scene intentionally agitating his team to inspire them. Legendary basketball coach Red Auerbach was known to intentionally get thrown out of games to inspire his team to play harder.
How you inspire you team will depend on your skills and your team’s needs. Trying to use someone else’s technique, if it’s not a natural fit for you would be a waste of time and effort. There are a few rules that can help to guide you.
Teams rarely respond to threats. Even if you do get some increased effort as a result of a threat, any positive will be offset by lack of loyalty. There’s a school of thought that you need to give your team a common enemy (you) to rally around. I’ve never seen it work except in the movies.
Teams do respond to a vision. As the leader it’s your job to give them something to work for. Steve Jobs, when trying to recruit John Sculley away from his position at PepsiCo said, “Do you want to stay here making sugar water, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” Sculley said it was that statement that made the difference. Jobs also, when working with the team that developed the first Macintosh computer told them to make it “Insanely great.”
Teams will also respond to a challenge. You might be a manager over a frontline team that has no influence in the rest of the organization. Don’t sell them on the corporate vision. Sell them on your vision of the team. If you are an engineering team, inspire them to be the best engineering team in the company. If they are a manufacturing team, inspire them to be the most efficient manufacturing team in the corporation. Find a goal, a goal that will make them stretch and also be achievable and give them something to work for.
I’m a believer that rewards are an important part of leading and inspiring a team. It’s not a universally accepted view. Some people insist that “I don’t like the attention,” or “Awards just go to the best brown noser.” I’ve given plenty of awards to teams and team members over the years, I still believe that in moderation it’s a great motivational tool.
Mostly, you need to make sure that you identify the team roles that need to be filled and put the right people in each role. Then, get the team headed in the right direction. Like a well-tuned engine, if you put the right inputs in, you get an efficient, powerful result. Just don’t think you have to do everything yourself.
This is the second in a three part series on teams
Wednesday: Building Teams From The Inside Out
Thursday: Building Teams From The Outside In
Friday: The Best Team I’ve Ever Been On
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2017 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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It’s just a movie. In fact, it’s not a particularly accurate movie. It’s certainly entertaining. But I was struck by what it teaches about teams.
I watched Gladiator today. I have spent a lot of time on planes this year and I’ve worked through most of the modern movies available on the in-plane entertainment system. Today, I picked the Russell Crowe/Ridley Scott Roman saga.
Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus starts the movie as the commanding general of not just one, but three Roman Legions. He’s fighting the Franks in ancient Germany. Of course, he wins a crushing victory. There’s lots of death and destruction and it sets up the political conflict for the rest of the movie. We don’t find out a lot about how Maximus runs his army, but we discover that he inspires a tremendous loyalty. It makes the betrayal of one of his chief advisors all the more surprising.
Not to rehash the entire movie, but eventually his character discovers his family has been killed and he is enslaved and forced to become a gladiator. And it’s this transition from leader to individual team member that struck me as compelling. Maximus appears to genuinely not care if he lives or dies.
Not only is he no longer the leader, because he initially refuses to spar, he’s deemed a coward and a deserter. When it is his turn to fight, he fights because it is the only thing he knows.
My task is to kill people so I kill.
Through the middle act of the film, we watch him step up and become a team member. In the final act he is clearly the leader of his team, giving orders and having them willingly obeyed. Eventually his team sacrifice themselves to give him a chance at freedom.
Ridley Scott, the director does a great job of building Maximus’ relationship with his team. And while your team is not going to enter the arena and fight to the death, there is still value in them building trust in one another.
The first hint of team building we see is after Maximus is captured. Juba, played by Djimon Hounsou, plays another slave, helps heal him. Gross as it is in the movie, putting maggots into an infected wound is actually an effective treatment. So, the first step in forming a team from the inside is to expose your own vulnerability. Crowe’s character trusts no one. His world has been destroyed. He’s not in the mood to “form a relationship of trust” with his coworkers.
In your office, putting maggots into a coworker’s wound might look like an invitation to join the team for lunch. Or afterwork drinks. If you have a team member who is as broken as this disgraced Roman general, it will most likely take a continued effort.
If you want to build a strong team, reach out to your coworkers. Show interest in their lives outside of work. Even if they say nothing, the effort will help strengthen the team.
But, all the lunches and drinks after work mean nothing if your coworkers don’t value their jobs and don’t do a good job. If the result of a failed performance review is to be hacked to death with a Roman short sword, you will have a highly motivated workforce. Hightly motivated doesn’t always transfer to highly skilled.
While Crowe’s gladiator isn’t much on conversation, he is very good at what he does. I’ve written previously about Prima Donnas. I don’t mind Prima Donnas, because in order to be a Prima Donna, you first have to be really good at what you do.
Sports teams don’t pick the best leader as the team captain. They pick the best player. The challenge is when the best player doesn’t want to be a leader. Fortunately, for the movie, Maximus is willing to be the leader.
You need to either be the leader, or encourage and support the leader. The team of slaves would have been easily killed if they had refused to unite behind Russell Crowe’s character. There were strong players on that team, just as there are on yours. Of course, the team leader doesn’t have to be the absolute strongest. But, it also cannot be the weakest.
Given the opportunity, a team will find it’s own leader. If you are a member of that team, it helps to understand how the team comes together.
This is the first in a three part series on team building:
Wednesday: Building Teams From The Inside Out
Thursday: Building Teams From The Outside In
Friday: The Best Team I’ve Ever Been On
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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