Managing Uncertainty Podcast - Episode #80: The New England Patriots and Rockstar Teams

How do you build a rockstar team to drive your resiliency initiatives?  Or your cross-functional crisis management team?

In this episode of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & Chief Executive Bryan Strawser, along with Consultant Bray Wheeler, take on these questions, using the New England Patriots as an example of how to build a rockstar team.

Topics discussed include rockstar talent, working for the greater team, doing your job, helping each other succeed, cross-functional team development, and more.

Related Blog Posts & Episodes

• Episode #20: Down the stairs to the basement
• Episode #47: A Crisis Team is not an Academic Debating Society
• Webinar: Shots Fired – Leading in an Active Shooter Incident

Episode Transcript

Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. This is Bryan Strawser, principal and chief executive here at Bryghtpath.

Bray Wheeler: This is Bray Wheeler, consultant at Bryghtpath.

Bryan Strawser: And I’m sure this is going to engender a whole ton of comments, but I want to confess that I am a New England Patriots fan.

Bray Wheeler: I too am also a New England Patriots fan.

Bryan Strawser: And I feel like I can come to this claim legitimately. I lived in New England from 1998 to 2005, and I remained loyal to the Patriots, Celtics, Bruins, and Red Sox ever since then despite living in Minnesota and being married to a Minnesota native who is not a fan of any of those teams.

Bray Wheeler: No, that can’t be true.

Bryan Strawser: It is true.

Bray Wheeler: I, however, while born, raised, to my mother’s chagrin, from Minnesota, in terms of my allegiances she wishes I was more of a Minnesota fan, I come by it by blood. My dad grew up out there, and I still have half my family still lives out in that area, so I come to it by blood organically.

Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bray Wheeler: But the reason we’re bringing that up is…

Bryan Strawser: We want to talk about how the New England Patriots relate to building a team of rock stars, essentially. They were kind of the example that was on our mind as Bray and I were talking about this topic this morning as we were finalizing what we were going to talk about for the podcast. But the focus of today’s show is about really recruiting the best possible talent and building that into an effective team of rock stars. And having watched the New England Patriots just simply demolish the New York Jets last night.

Bray Wheeler: Yeah.

Bryan Strawser: Yeah. I think that this is a topic that was on our minds.

Bray Wheeler: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, I think one of the things that we had kind of talked about too, and we’ve talked about it in the past offline, is really around their ability to take players of all sorts of caliber and insert them into the right positions to succeed, or find what it is that they’re really good at, or something that people are overlooking, and being able to insert it into their culture, their process, and get the most out of them to the team’s benefit. And doing it in a way that minimizes head-cases, minimizes controversy, minimizes distractions, all that kind of stuff, and really channels it into what is the team there to do? And that’s to win a football game and to do it as effectively as possible.

Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, I mean, the way I think about the Patriots as it relates to business around this is they have a handful of people who are among the best to play the role. Tom Brady certainly kind of being the kingpin of that. But there’s a number of extremely talented men on that team. Julian Edelman, Dante Hightower, the McCourty twins. There are others. Gostkowski, who’s currently on the injured reserve. And there are others. But these guys are among the top players in the league, but they’re surrounded by a lot of players who nobody talks about as being the top four, five, six, ten people in the position. It’s the whole when put together that carries the day.

Bryan Strawser: And I think the business relationship I think about, the business compared to this that I think about when I think about effective teams I’ve been on, there have been a couple of people that have been truly rock stars at what they do. Who you looked at and you were like, man, that person going to going to move quickly, they’re going to do more than just this. And those folks were candid and blunt in some cases and outspoken in meetings, but at the end of the day, they came together as a team.

Bray Wheeler: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bryan Strawser: I imagine that’s what happens with the Patriots. You’ve got all this individual talent, but Bill Belichick finds a way to meld them into a winning organization. And they do it over, and over, and over, and over. That’s how I think about that team of rock stars in the business world where it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a couple of outsized egos of people who are tremendous individuals in their own right, they have to be able to come together as the team of rock stars in order to accomplish the thing that you’re trying to do.

Bray Wheeler: To the benefit of the team.

Bryan Strawser: To the benefit of the team.

Bray Wheeler: And with team support for that outsized ego.

Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bray Wheeler: Yeah. You know, they can talk all they want because they are super talented, but I’ve got to tell you, when they come in the locker room there’s none of that when we’re out there conducting business. I think that’s huge. And certainly as a person who’s been on teams in various capacities, and still, on teams in various capacities, I know personally that’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for the person that shows up for the team and isn’t about the exclusion of somebody else within that team. It’s really about, yeah, they might talk and bolster and have that outside ego, but really it’s about the team, and you’re there for the benefit of the team, and you’re willing to bring other people along with you.

Bryan Strawser: I know I was going through interviews at some point in my career, like 2003, 2004, about being promoted in the field at the organization that I was working at at the time. And I was in a position where I was running a team of about a hundred folks, 14-ish managers and then a bunch of people under them that were non-exempt, and I had an opening. And this had come up in the interview. Tell me about your team. Well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’ve got one opening. Or somebody asked me, do you have any openings on your team? There’s was a couple of mounting attempts, but there was a manager position at a location in Connecticut, or wherever it was. And they go, oh, what are you looking for for that job?

Bryan Strawser: I said, well, there’s two things. I mean, the job is this and so I need someone who can fulfill the requirements of the job. And I obviously would like to have somebody who can move ahead and do more in the organization, because we were growing like gangbusters and needed future talent. But I said, you know, the other thing I’m missing is I need somebody that has some strong investigative experience because we’re kind of weak in that area. And I think that a good person in this role who has a good investigative background at another retailer, law enforcement, something to give them some drive and some expertise, would be valuable have on the team to help fill a gap in the team and help the peer group evolve.

Bryan Strawser: And so I think when you have an opening, you’re always thinking about that. I need to have somebody who can do the role, but what’s the contribution to the team? And of course, there’s cultural fitness too. By cultural, I mean the culture of your team.

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: If your team is about, as I hope it is, cooperation, and candid feedback, and helping each other, and holding each other accountable, the lone actor doesn’t fit in that. You need someone who is willing to buy into that as the culture or it’s not going to work.

Bray Wheeler: Right. Because yeah, it has almost nothing to do with any of the other external factors. It’s really what is the team about? And how are they positioning themselves to work together and do they all have an understanding of the common goal?

Bryan Strawser: Right.

Bray Wheeler: You know, if somebody’s got a different goal than we’re here to minimize incidents, or we’re here to successfully navigate the company through an issue, or we’re trying to win a Superbowl, if they’re there for other reasons they’re more than likely going to stand out and not to the team’s benefit.

Bryan Strawser: Yeah, I mean, again, I think this goes back to the question of the broader team. How do you build a team of rock stars? Part of it is finding the right rock star to fit the hole that you have on the team. I mean, I think another example, and it was on my mind because there was a survey I took this morning for like Inc. Magazine or something about small businesses, and it asked a question about is your small business digitally enabled? And I was like, well first of all, whose isn’t in this day and age. But fine.

Bray Wheeler: Right. Unless you’re operating a small lumber company in the middle of Alaska.

Bryan Strawser: Yeah. Well right. So I’m taking the survey and it asked a couple of questions about is your business digital ready or whatever. They never defined it, which always frustrates me. But I was thinking about that in the context of like working here at Bryghtpath. If you can’t work digitally here, you can’t work here. That’s how we collaborate, right?

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: We use Slack, not email. For 99.9% of our internal discussions, we collaborate and debate and discuss things on Slack. We use Basecamp for project management, and for document collaboration, and for a lot of other collaborative things. Right down to like, hey, what swag should we order this year?

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: Or hey, here’s my outline for the Secure360 Conference presentation. What do you think? And then just brace yourself for the impact that’s about to happen.

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: But I was amused by that question. But I think it goes back to the part that we were just talking about in terms of hiring for the team, right? If I interviewed a candidate, and this did happen last year, I interviewed someone to work here and they were like, well, I don’t really do any of the online collaboration stuff. And I’m like, I mean, why not? Tell me why?

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: Well, face to face conversation, and this and that and the other thing. And I’m like, yeah, but we have clients that are not here.

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: They’re not here in the Twin Cities, and we don’t see them face to face all that often.

Bray Wheeler: Can’t fly in just to have a five-minute conversation.

Bryan Strawser: Yeah. So I mean, but that’s our culture.

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: That’s how we have chosen to operate. And so anyone that we bring in to work here has got to buy into that culture. We have to understand that in the part of the interviews or be willing to be open to it. But that’s table stakes to be a part of the team here.

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: That’s how we work. You don’t come to the office as often as Marie and I, or others.

Bray Wheeler: No. Yeah.

Bryan Strawser: And for a while, you didn’t come here very often at all. But it didn’t impact your work.

Bray Wheeler: No. No. No. Maybe my sanity a little bit.

Bryan Strawser: Locked up at home with four kids.

Bray Wheeler: Yeah. Not being able to be locked in my office and doing work by myself. But yeah, I mean that ability to kind of blend into what the culture is. Part of that’s the needs of the organization. You know, especially in our case, we have, to your point, clients all over the place. We’re spread out around the Twin Cities. We have to be able to be nimble to make it work. I mean, to be able to just do the work. And that’s just a part of our culture.

Bryan Strawser: There’s another aspect to all of this too, I think, about the team collaboration portion of this. And that is I think we should clarify that in none of this, what we’re talking about, are we saying that there shouldn’t be conflict, and there shouldn’t be disagreements, and there shouldn’t be candid feedback or even people getting pissed off. I think those are all appropriate things for teams to go through. But when they’re over, when you’ve made the decision as a group, or the leader has decided what you’re going to do, then that needs to be the end of that and you move forward as a team until you’ve agreed to revisit the decision that’s been made.

Bryan Strawser: I know when I was in my last organization, when I was in the field as a security leader, I was partnered with a business leader. And we were the only two people at that level in that group. And we had an HR partner, I should clarify. So there were three of us. But we were it. Right? There was nobody at our level, else, at that group level, that was out in the field managing stuff. And I remember my boss pulled me aside one day, who was at a regional level, and he goes, hey, so there are some scuttle butts rolling around that you guys don’t have conflict, the three of you. Right? That you just don’t disagree. And I’m like, yeah.

Bray Wheeler: The problem is, on the one hand, what’s the problem?

Bryan Strawser: One, what’s the problem? But not really, because I understood. I mean, he just thought that we weren’t challenging each other. And I go, look, when we came together because we had opened this area together, the three of us. I said, look, when we started this thing a year ago, one of the things that we to all talked about privately and agreed upon is that our disagreements would be between us and that was it, and we would decide. And unless it violated…

Bryan Strawser: I’m in a silo in terms of I’m a security leader, and I don’t report to the business leader. And the HR leader is in the HR org and does not report to the business leader. As long as the HR guy doesn’t feel like we’re being unethical from an HR standpoint, and I’m not violating the things I’m supposed to be doing here in corporate security, it’s his business. And if I’m following your strategies, and we’re not violating that, and we’re following the HR strategies, and we’re not violating that, then that disagreement that goes on happens between the three of us in private, and no one is going to see a crack in that leadership team, because they can’t.

Bray Wheeler: Right. Yeah.

Bryan Strawser: That’s how we get everything done because everyone sees us on the same page. And then nobody, nobody, can play us off of each other.

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: We’re in agreement. And when we find things that happen, at that happens, we talk about it in private. Because I did have a manager, one of the managers at one of our sites tried that, and that didn’t go well for him.

Bray Wheeler: No. Well, and I don’t want to say underlings or like kids, but there’s a little bit of that agreement that even my wife and I have arrived at.

Bryan Strawser: We’re in the same tribe.

Bray Wheeler: Behind the scenes, it a united front. And disagreements to the point where, I think a couple of weeks ago we got into an argument, and it was kind of a full family disagreement around what was going on, and frustrations were being shared. And my wife and I’s volume level went up from what it normally does when we’re talking about stuff to the point where the kids are coming up going, are you guys okay? Is something going to happen? No, we just had a disagreement. Well, you guys never fight. No.

Bryan Strawser: No, they just don’t.

Bray Wheeler: You just don’t see it. When there’s a disagreement, it’s happening behind the scenes. But that blends into, when you have a team of rock stars, it starts to mirror that family dynamic. That closeness where you have each other’s back, but inside the walls, yeah, there’s probably going to be a few butting heads, there’s going to be a little bit of frustration because you’re trying to arrive at that common goal. But to anybody outside, it’s going to look like a unified front that’s just humming, as I like to say. It’s just humming.

Bryan Strawser: Yeah. But to me, these are all elements of just building that team of rock stars, right?

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: You bring in the best possible individual talent that fits the culture of your team, you lead with unity, you have these courageous candid conversations, and you come out of those discussions united about the direction that you’re going to go. If you have all of those elements, in my mind, then you built a pretty good foundation for success.

Bryan Strawser: But not everybody’s cut out for that. Not everyone is going to be willing to participate in the team that way.

Bray Wheeler: What do you think the differences are? So we’ve talked a lot about kind of our team kind of as an organization, and that kind of mirrors into probably functional areas within organizations. A security team, something like that. Is there any differences or any unique pieces that you would call out from a cross-functional team? So not necessarily a team that has the hierarchy structure, but really one that’s brought together, and I’m going to play the obvious, but a crisis management team of some sort. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that, but, you know, those cross-functional teams. What does that dynamic look like, and how can you build the kind of a team of rock stars that way? Particularly when you may not have control over who comes to the table.

Bryan Strawser: That’s a great question. I mean, I think you definitely need to find some ways to build that team collaboration. And I don’t want to overuse the term muscle memory, we use it a lot. But I think there’s something to be said about the muscle memory of collaborating in these cross-functional settings to achieve your objective of a crisis situation.

Bryan Strawser: And I think, too, you need to get this. My experience is that these kinds of cross-functional teams start in a relatively low trust environment. Not because teams don’t trust each other, but the players probably are not used to interacting around this problem.

Bray Wheeler: Oh, and there’s uncertainty, probably, around what is this?

Bryan Strawser: There uncertainly. How is this going to work?

Bray Wheeler: How much work do I have to do here? I get the, hey, the building’s on fire. I’ll chip in. But when it’s not on fire, what am I doing?

Bryan Strawser: Yeah. Why am I here? And in particular, if it’s a disruption or crisis where your function is not involved.

Bray Wheeler: Right. That’s really hard.

Bryan Strawser: What do I have to bring here? And the chances are there probably is a lot for you to bring. But you need to be open to the idea that you’ve got something to bring to the table.

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: For something that doesn’t impact your area. But to get back to your original question, I think that when we’ve built crisis teams, cross-functional crisis management teams, in organizations, I think that starts off in a pretty low trust environment. Simply because they’ve never interacted like this before, and they’re trying to figure all this out, and what’s their role, and who’s in charge, and is that person in charge competent to be in charge? I mean, there’s a whole lot of things that go on. I’m bringing bad memories back for Bray here.

Bryan Strawser: So I think part of this is training the team, and, I think, just laying that issue on the table. But just building collaboration across organizational silos like this is really hard. It’s really hard. And be upfront about that. And talk with them about how they problem solves today across organizations, and how does that work, and what kind of discussions would they have. And I think helping them understand that this is not an academic debating society, right? We can talk about things for a while, but we need to do that before something bad happens because then we need to make decisions.

Bray Wheeler: Well, and recognizing this is the new norm. So regardless of where the culture was, what functions were doing what, what capabilities were doing what, if this is kind of the new direction of the organization or the new kind of capability that the organization is putting forth, this is where we’re kind of starting from. So airing some of that stuff upfront a little bit, but really kind of rallying everybody to say this the new team.

Bray Wheeler: I mean to go back to the Patriots, but really kind of any professional team, it’s a new team every year. Coaches change.

Bryan Strawser: That’s right.

Bray Wheeler: Staff changes. Front office changes. Players change. The whole nine yards. It’s a brand new team every year and they have to kind of come together and kind of coalesce around a similar culture, or in some cases, a completely different culture, depending on the level of success they’ve been having. But that’s a part of that. And it kind of bleeds into the mantra we were kind of talking about. The New England Patriots famous saying is-

Bryan Strawser: Do your job.

Bray Wheeler: Do your job. It doesn’t always work in a kind of organizational sense of just do your job. You know, it kind of comes across as just sit there and pump your work out and that’s it. But I think when you get into this kind of cross-functional, or just as kind of a more abstract mantra for the team, of do your job. That’s be engaging, show up, be prepared, be a part of it, jump in, disagree, agree, collaborate. Do your job. And a lot of that is part of the job, and that is a huge part of it.

Bray Wheeler: So it may not translate as direct as Bill Belichick can get away with. He’s quite the personality. But in terms of that group, in that environment, being an individual walking into that group, knowing that, hey, it’s a brand new team with brand new objectives, brand new values. We’re aligning for the organization regardless of kind of personality. It’s what I’m here to do. I’m here to show up to do that. And I think that that goes a long way in building that culture too. If everybody showing up with kind of positive intent and a willingness to collaborate and do those kinds of things, you’re probably more than halfway there.

Bryan Strawser: Yeah, I mean I couldn’t agree more. I think you illustrate well there in what you talked through around there is this element of you need to do your job. And part of the job is you and your silo that you’re bringing to the table in these cross-functional discussions, and part of the job is your ability to cut across the silo and be a part of a bigger team. I don’t think it’s any different than thinking about your role as a leader within your organization in your day to day job. That you have a role.

Bryan Strawser: You have kind of three managerial roles, right? You’re leading your function, your team that you’re the leader of. You’re a member of a team. Unless you’re the CEO, you have peers reporting to a boss. You and your peers are a team, and they have as much pull on your feedback and accountability and your accountability to them. And as a peer group, you’re constantly managing the boundaries of what your role is vis a vis the roles of the other teams. And sometimes those change. And then you have a role to be a leader to your boss in that you need to be able to give him feedback. Him or her, just to be clear. You need to deliver that feedback upwards to your leader, and sometimes to your leader’s leader, in a candid and forthright manner.

Bryan Strawser: And so I think it’s similar to that. You know, when you bring yourself to the job, you’re bringing yourself, you’re bringing your various managerial roles, and you’re bringing this kind of fit to the organization and what the organization needs. That’s all part of being a leader, whether you’re talking about leading your function, or as we talked about in the latter half of the episode here, talking about what’s your role on a cross-functional team? What’s your role as a member or leader of a crisis management team? And I think all of those things matter.

Bryan Strawser: And this isn’t too far off of what this whole concept of meta-leadership that the Harvard National Preparedness Leadership Program teaches.

Bray Wheeler: Yeah.

Bryan Strawser: That leading in these very difficult critical moments is about five things. It’s about yourself, it’s about situational awareness, it’s about running your silo, it’s about leading upward, and what I think is probably the most important one, which is your ability to cut across the organization. Lead horizontally across all these silos.

Bryan Strawser: And quite frankly, some folks can’t do that. They can’t see past their own nose, so to speak, to make that collaborative leadership and understand what another team is bringing to the table.

Bray Wheeler: Well, I think that the one piece that you touched on is that situational awareness which blends into that kind of self-awareness of you’re recognizing who you are, what you’re about, what you’re capable of kind of melding into, and understanding what that culture of the team is. And being able to recognize I’m going to have to do something different here because I want to be a part of this team or this isn’t the right fit and recognizing that. And that’s okay.

Bray Wheeler: And players leave the Patriots. They recognize, hey, this no longer is… In some cases it might be about the bigger paycheck. But sometimes it’s about, hey, I need a different cultural fit. This isn’t what I thought it was going to be. And for other players it’s when I show up to the Patriots, I’ve got to shut my mouth and I just have to do my work. Because if at the end of the day my goal is to win a championship, to have success, to get that ring, I’ve got to shut my mouth. And I can’t talk about how many yards I may or may not be getting, how many tackles I’m getting, how often I’m playing, how much I’m being utilized, all that kind of stuff. You have to kind of accept that that’s what you’re stepping into. And I think that’s a huge piece, too.

Bray Wheeler: Because as someone who would work as part of a team, having those people step in and go, yep, I’m here to do my work. How can I help you? Because we’re all driving towards that same goal. Which I think we kind of mentioned, beating it a little bit. But I mean it’s a huge piece is being willing to step into that cross-functional or just the functional team.

Bryan Strawser: Well, I think you bring up an interesting point about situational awareness in a way I hadn’t thought about it. And that is there’s a bigger picture to be seen in almost any circumstance. And we’ve talked about this a lot on the podcast when it comes to crisis management and crisis situations. That it’s important to understand what’s going on in front of you, but it’s just as important for the crisis leader to see the broader picture of what’s going on, and see these other threats in motion around you, and understand what’s going to influence or not influence the circumstance that you’re in.

Bryan Strawser: I was thinking about this in a more related way on Sunday watching the Vikings and the Detroit Lions play. Because there on the Detroit Lions is Danny Amendola who was with the Dolphins last year and with the Patriots for many years prior to that. And Amendola left as a free agent because he got more money somewhere else, which was Miami. And then Miami released him. Of course, Lion’s coach is a former defensive coordinator for the Patriots. The Lions picked him up coming into the season or coming into last season, I think it was.

Bryan Strawser: But my point related to all this so herein lies the trade-off that you make to be a part of a team. Do you want more money? In this case, Amendola took the money to go to the Dolphins. More money than the Pats were going to pay him. And so he’s made more money in the last three years. No rings. And not a great experience in Miami for him because they were horrible. They’ve continued to be horrible. At least a little better in Detroit.

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: So what’s the trade-off? Do you want to remain as a part of a great team and have the chance to win, or do you want to make more money? Now there’s no guarantee the Pats were going to keep him anyway.

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: Right? I mean, nobody knows what those conversations were. But that’s what it looked like. I’m going to make more money, so I’m going here.

Bray Wheeler: Right.

Bryan Strawser: As opposed to staying here and potentially taking equal or less money, but getting two more Superbowl rings.

Bray Wheeler: Well, and that’s part of the kind of self-awareness, situational awareness, and kind of understanding of the culture of the team. I think most people on that Patriots team recognize if they’re not doing their job or fitting to what is the established culture, they are no longer a part of that organization.

Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bray Wheeler: And there will come a time where you will not be a part of that organization. And I think for right, wrong, people’s personal emotional opinion to it, not to debate Belichick’s philosophy, is walking into a team like that, within any organization, understanding that this is a team, if you don’t perform, you’re out. If this is a team that they’re always looking for the kind of fresh ideas and new ideas, and most people stick around for two, three, maybe four years, and then they kind of move on. This isn’t a team of lifers, so to speak. Understanding that that’s kind of what the team is, and your job is to show up for the amount of time that you’re there and to do those things. Great. but at a certain point, it may come a time to move on.

Bray Wheeler: And I think that’s also something to kind of think about and part of the challenge of maintaining that team of rock stars. So you might be able to kind of form a team right up front, or fall into or get yourself a team of rock stars, but at a certain point transitions are coming, changes are coming. Growth happens. Sometimes shrinkage happens. The team has to be willing to flex and kind of evolve as it moves through.

Bryan Strawser: So to summarize, hire the best possible talent you can get your hands on.

Bray Wheeler: Agree.

Bryan Strawser: That fits your culture.

Bray Wheeler: Agree.

Bryan Strawser: That fits your expectations for how the team should operate and what’s called the operating system, the platform of how your organization works.

Bray Wheeler: Agree.

Bryan Strawser: And as the leader, hold the team accountable to those expectations. Not just their individual performance, but understanding that their interaction with the rest of the team and your leadership of that team is what makes the team great.

Bryan Strawser: That’s it for this edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast. We’ll be back next week with another new episode.