Learning about excellence, team and legacy…

Boys’ Basketball Team Teaches How to Play & Win

Playing your heart out for school and team

      Fennville Michigan is a small town with a population of about 1,400 in southwest Michigan near Lake Michigan; the town may be small, but their boys’ basketball team is “large.”  The team just finished the regular season of play with an undefeated 20-0 winning record.

   The team’s star player, Junior Wes Leonard plays with all of his heart in the game, never lowering his expectations or standard of excellence.  He wasn’t overly impressed with his performance during a recent game: “I’d give myself about a five,” Leonard said afterwards when asked to rate his level of play on a 1-10 scale.  Before the game Leonard had been battling the flu but refused to accept that as an excuse not to play well: “I stayed home from school all day yesterday,” he said, “but I felt a little better today.”

“We have to come out stronger” and “It takes great teammates”

“I don’t know if we played our best tonight,” added Fennville coach Ryan Klingler after the game which was their 19^th win on the road to their 20^th.   “The bottom line is that even though I don’t think we looked our best tonight, we still found a way to win. So even if we’re not necessarily happy with the way we played, and we’re happy with that we found a way to win.”

   Leonard, who entered the game averaging nearly 20 points per game, was only able to score a below average 14 points. “There were times we looked a little tired, and this wasn’t one of Wes’ best games,” Klingler said. “He’s been recovering from the flu for a few days, and I probably rode him a little harder than I should have, and that’s on me.”

  “We just didn’t play very well to start the game,” Leonard said. “We have to come out stronger than that.”

   In a ceremony before the game, Leonard was awarded a plaque for becoming the eighth team member to score 1,000 or more career points.  Coach Klingler said Leonard would have not reached the milestone if it wasn’t for his friends: “It takes great teammates willing to maybe give up some of their own points to do what’s best for the team.” 

   Leonard too credited his teammates:  “It feels good. It’s a great honor to score 1,000 points,” Leonard said. “I credit my teammates for this.”

Legacy of greatness: Inspiring those who follow

    While eight of Fennville’s senior players have achieved career scoring highs over 1,000 points, there are up-and-coming players in the team’s pipeline following the legacy of greatness.  Sophomore Pete Alfaro, for example, finished the game in which Leonard only scored 14 points with a career-high of 30 points.  “I wasn’t trying to steal the thunder from Wes,” Alfaro said. “I was on fire tonight and the guys kept feeding me.”

   Leonard was very pleased to see Alfaro light up the scoreboard: “The more the better,” Leonard said of Alfaro and all of his teammates contributing to the team’s latest win. “I was very happy for Pete. It was great to see him light it up like that.” Coach Klingler added that Alfaro’s day to shine in the spotlight as the team’s main character will come.

The final game: A lasting legacy

   In the final game of the regular season, March 3^rd, the score was tied 55 all with just seconds to play.  Leonard received a pass and went in for a layup, scoring the final two of his 21 points that game, leading the undefeated Fennville team to a 57-55 win.  The team surrounded Leonard, hoisting him up on their shoulders. 

   "Wes made the shot and then the game was over, we had won, everyone rushed the court," said a Fennville senior attending the game. "He did the team lineups where they all shake hands, the basketball team held him up, he started walking, then collapsed."

   Wes Leonard gave his heart to the game and his team.  Within seconds of his pushing the team to their final—and undefeated—victory of the season, the 16 year old collapsed and died on the floor of the game he loved.  Leonard died of an enlarged heart. 

    Monday the team paid tribute to Wes on the eve of his funeral by continuing the undefeated season in post-season tournament play.  In tribute to Wes, Fennville sent just 4 players onto the court before the opening tip. The fifth player took the court after a dramatic pause to wild cheering from the crowd.  Some players flashed Leonard's jersey number, "35" - holding up three fingers on one hand and five on the other - at moments before and during the game.   Wes Leonard gave his heart to the school, the team and the game. His legacy of greatness will live on.        

What is your legacy of greatness?

Golf, Baseball and LaserShip

Making an ever-closer approach to optimal performance

    Tiger Woods may never dominate golf again.  Not because of his personal problems or because he has finally been supplanted as the top ranking golf professional:  The reason Tiger will not dominate golf again like he did from 1999 to 2001 and again from 2005 through 2008 is that the level of play in the game has been raised—everybody else is playing better.  

   There is a natural and inevitable advancement that occurs in golf and many other similar systems.  There is scientific theorizing to this phenomenon:  The late scientist Stephen Jay Gould, a baseball fan, theorized on this very topic using baseball as his example.  He asked why there were no more .400 hitters—the last professional baseball player to bat over .400 (hitting 40% of the time) was Ted Williams in 1941.  In answering his own question, the Harvard professor theorized that this was not due to the lack of good players, but to everything else in the game getting better.  Gould’s assessment was that over time, in a more or less stable universe like baseball or golf, the overall quality of performance advances inexorably, making outlier performances like a very low percentage hitter and .400 average hitter all less likely. 

   .400 hitters haven't disappeared because of cosmetic changes in the game or that the heroes of the past were supermen, but rather as the natural consequence of an increasing level of play that comes closer to the maximum of human ability coupled with stabilization of the game itself. These factors tend to decrease the differences between average and stellar performers.  The best players are always there, but everyone is so much better now that the average has moved right next to them.  In other words, the disappearance of 400 hitting paradoxically is measuring the general improvement of play overall and not the exact opposite--the absence of great players. 

   As golf and baseball teach us, overtime, in stable systems, all elements within will make an ever-closer approach to optimal performance. 

The Spread of Excellence

  Can we expect the same in LaserShip?  As we develop our distribution systems—processes and procedures—and standardize them across our entire company, we should see the benefit of a stable system moving us in the inevitable direction toward optimal performance.  When we are successful in developing universal, across the board, consistent systems, and if the theorizing of Gould was correct, we should see increasing, consistent performance by all players and teams; the spread of excellence.

Rock-n-Rollers, Rodeo Riders and LaserShip

To Achieve Success, Master the Fundamentals 

 There are a few who achieve excellence without much hard work

The Rocker:  Studied the fundamentals until he owned the guitar

  “Don’t think you’re going to be Townshend or Hendrix just because you can go wee wee wah wah, and all the electronic tricks of the trade,” advises legendary guitarist Keith Richards.  Writing in his new tell-all book about his life and music career with the Rolling Stones, Richards relates his efforts to learn and master the guitar.  He devoted years of surprisingly—for the drug reprobate he admits to being—diligent effort to figuring out how the great blues masters played the key chords they did, then years to finding his own sound.

   Once Richards “owned” the guitar technically, he felt free to give himself over to instinct. In the end, he wrote, "There is no 'properly.' There's just how you feel about it. Feel your way around it." The key to developing some of his most famous, later-career riffs, in songs like "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Gimme Shelter," was realizing that "there is often one note doing something that makes the whole thing work."

The Rider:  Rode into each competition with a purpose and a plan

   “My weakness, or strength in competition, came from the decision to sacrifice one-time stunning runs for consistent performance,” admits Sharon Camarillo, rodeo champion barrel racer.  “Call me a control freak, but I always opted for the solid average run every time, rather than pushing for the fastest run one time—to me getting the fundamentals right meant that over time I would win more often than not.

   The opportunity for Camarillo to make the fastest run or set an arena record was a rare event.  “I never called myself a brave competitor,” she says, “I opted for a consistent win—that is what bought the gas, paid the entry fees and allowed me to follow my dreams one competition weekend at a time. As a competitor, I lived by the philosophy that every run—not just one for glory—had to count. Therefore, I felt learning to plan the run and run the plan, gave me the courage to ride into each competitive situation with a purpose, and most importantly, a plan.  Being a winner is not just making a winning run; sometimes, it's having the ability to make a qualifying run every time.” 

   Each run in a rodeo contest is a learning opportunity, a chance to evaluate strengths and weaknesses, and a chance to learn a lesson that will make the next run better than the last. “Winning runs don’t come by luck or fate,” comments Sharon. “Winning runs are created through preparation, practice and experience and are manifested when the opportunity to excel presents itself. Top barrel racing competitors understand the methodology of producing consistent performance regardless of the size of arena or ground conditions. In barrel racing, I believe that achieving the mastery of fundamentals comes with a lifetime of commitment and dedication, practice, preparation and experience, and then you add speed and the learning process begins all over again! 

LaserShip

  

   Like the rocker, LaserShip did not just recently discover success in the distribution business.  We have been strumming the same instrument for 25 years, learning and practicing the fundamentals, discovering “our own sound.”  It is often, as Richards discovered, the same “one note,” maybe with a little twist to it that makes the whole thing work after years of practice. 

  And like the rider, LaserShip is not in this to impress a client with one wild, outlying run—but performing consistently, time after time, time over time; every run has to count.  This level of consistent play takes, as with rodeo, “preparation, practice and experience.”  Achieving the mastery of the fundamentals of distribution comes with commitment and dedication, “and then you add speed and the learning process begins all over again!” 

What Makes a Positive Difference?

   LaserDay is a big fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers organization as an excellent example of how strong, positive organizational culture works as a performance booster.  The team’s coach, Mike Tomlin, is an individual from that organization that also serves as an excellent role model of performance management leadership.

   Little things—that little extra—set Mike Tomlin apart from the ordinary and make him extra-ordinary.  Take his immediate post-SuperBowl game performance:  His team had just lost the game, but Tomlin stood at the entrance to the locker-room and shook the hand of every single player and thanked them individually for their effort.  When asked about it, Tomlin answered simply:  “It wasn’t a big deal; I do it after every game.”

Tomlin is only 37 years old and the last season was only his 4^th as coach.  In that time he has won one and lost one SuperBowl.  When asked if he was meeting the expectations he had when becoming coach he once again replied simply:  “It’s probably about two SuperBowls too short of my vision.”

   Tomlin expects to win and expects his players to be self-motivated to win as well.  "He doesn't give you that win-one-for-the-Gipper-type speech," says Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. "He lets us motivate ourselves."  For example, Tomlin scribbled a note and put it on Roethlisberger’s locker.  It said:  “Terry Bradshaw: 4.  Joe Montana: 4. Where do you want to fit it?”

   Tomlin’s coaching and leadership strategy comes from his mentor, Coach Tony Dungy, who gave Tomlin his first coaching opportunity in the NFL.  “Dungy tries to lead through service, and I do the same,” said Tomlin recently. “I learned that from him in providing the men what they need to be great. Every day when I go to work, I don’t think about things I have to do, I think about the things I can do to make my men successful. So I have a servant’s mentality in terms of how I approach my job, and I get that from Coach Dungy.” 

   Does servant leadership guarantee you win every game?  “No, of course not,” says Tomlin, “but it does make a positive difference?”

  Tomlin has had to put that philosophy to use with the Steelers throughout the season, imploring backup players to step in and perform, and young players to grow up and contribute. “If you have a helmet on, you’re a guy who is capable of making deciding plays,” Tomlin said. “We don’t grade on a curve. If I give any of these guys a helmet on Sunday, I expect them to potentially put themselves in position to be the reason why they win. I think there is not a man in our locker room who doesn’t embrace that. We’re not interested in style points.” 

We have a lot of leaders in LaserShip: Regional Managers, General Managers, Operations Managers and Project Managers, but the lessons of Mike Tomlin apply to just about everyone—as Tomlin defines it: “if you have a helmet on I expect you be in a position to be the reason why we win.”   Tomlin’s philosophy is that we are all in a position to give people what they need be successful, to provide the means for others to self-motivate themselves, and to be, collectively, winners by building on each other’s strengths.  These lessons do not guarantee success but they make a positive difference.  

Understanding Our Values

  LaserShip has grown at such a dramatic pace over the last few years: We are processing millions (no longer thousands) of product deliveries through a network of far flung operations with many new employees.  

  It is therefore vital that everyone understands—or at least has a feeling for—who we are as a company, as an organization:  Where we came from, what is we believe in and what we are working toward.

   Core Connectivity is this process of reaching out to everyone—to connect everyone at LaserShip to our core. 

  At the core of LaserShip’s culture is our values; those things that define who we are, what we believe in, why we make the choices that we do. 

  Our organizational culture was formed early on as a reflection of the founder's beliefs. What was important to the founders of the company became important to the first generation of employees and managers and the next, and the next until those values became entwined as the corporate culture.

   The risk of any growing organization is to lose touch with its founding principles.  But, we cannot afford to lose touch with what made us successful, competitive and enduring. 

  In the beginning, the fundamental values were a set of shared beliefs:

   

v    

v

Work together

v     All hands on deck

v     Do whatever it takes to get the job done

v     Keep relationships alive

v     Trust each other

v     Do what feels right in your heart

v     Reward performance 

v   Teach the next person in line 

v  Take care of those around you
v  Give your all each day
v  Make it better tomorrow
v  Be passionate about what you 
v  Show the world your good side

 

   Eventually, these shared beliefs made their way into five value statements or focuses of the business:

1.      CUSTOMER FOCUS—driven to create satisfied, long-term customers through superior service.

2.      EMPLOYEE FOCUS—driven to recognize, reward and respect the contribution of our people.

3.      ETHICAL FOCUS—driven to demonstrate integrity to customers and employees through honesty and fairness.

4.      QUALITY FOCUS— driven to constantly improve our performance.

5.      IMAGE FOCUS—driven to conduct our selves in a professional manner.