Tom Brady!!! Whether you like him or not, he wins. How did he win his last Championship? Talent? Skill? Something else?
For sure, he is an elite athlete, just like every other NFL player. So what separates him from so many other talented players?
If you have paid attention to the headlines it's his soft skills. That's what separates him.
What are soft skills?
Softskills are skills like; decision making, communication, teamwork, drive, responsibility, leadership, engagement, focus, and many more.
Tom Brady is amazing at these qualities. The media continues to call them intangibles.
I feel that many organizations and teams are competing in the wrong game. Hear me out real quick. Many organizations and teams try to develop talent alone thinking that hard skills win championships. I'm not belittling the value of talent and hard skills. I'm just making the case that intangibles and soft skills are what takes teams and organizations to the next level.
Here is a thought. If you had two organizations with equal talent however one organization had better soft skills, which one would win the championship? Talent alone doesn't equal success.
We continue to hear story after story of teamwork beating talent and yet we still focus on building teams with great hard skills.
What if the development wasn't the next sales conference or Human Resource forced training seminar? What if it was an intentional effort to develop soft skills? What if it was entirely focused on helping talented people develop their intangibles?
I already know some of the push back. It's safe to measure hard skills. It's hard to measure soft skills. Hard skills are predictable, measurable, quantitative. Softskills aren't appreciated on the ROI calculator. Most companies would rather spend money developing hard skills than increasing team communication. I'm not saying that leaders don't value intangibles, but most leaders don't develop them because its hard to put a value on the bottom line. How much return do we get on the bottom line for better teamwork or communication? The one issue I have seen with this is that it often overlooks disengagement, turnover, morale, and other key factors that make a business successful.
Imagine:
If you had 10,000 dollars and could get your sales team to go to a offsite and they would learn a skill or trick that could earn your business 1 percent more sales over the year would you do it? The math makes sense.
If you had 10,000 dollars to invest in your leadership team for an offsite that would increase their engagement, EQ, teamwork, and communication would you do that? The math becomes more blurry. What do we get in return? How much will we save or make by doing this?
I feel that many organizations measure the two scenarios and default to the first because its more tangible.
So I have to circle back to the top.
What makes Tom Brady win championships? I think the experts are right. Intangibles. Softskills. He makes everyone better in the organization. His communication is exceptional. He unifiies a team. He works hard and his mindset doesn't faulter. He engaes everyone around him. Turn over is low. These things all lead to championships.
Organizations need to invest into soft skills because it seperates the championship teams from the talented ones.
The good news for leaders is that this isn't uncharted territory. We have developed a playbook that has developed softskills for team year after year. This isn't a magic formula. It is a constant drip of leadership development in the lives of your team that makes significant impact year after year. I have used this playbook to help develop fortune 500 teams and also small teams that don't have that kind of budget.
If you are a leader Contact me.
If your team need this. Contact me.
We are sharing our playbook to help teams get better. I would love to help you become a championship team.
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Justin Smith
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