THOUGHTS ON PRODUCTIVITY

By Tor Dahl

Volume 1, Issue 3 April 2004

A film about the 1980 U. S. Olympic Hockey Team, coached by Herb Brooks, recently opened across the country. The film showed how a group of young hockey players formed the team that beat the dominant and well-trained hockey team from the then Soviet Union. The victory was referred to as the Miracle on Ice. Kurt Russell is the actor who plays Coach Herb Brooks in a manner that is faithful to the style and personality of Mr. Brooks. The film shows, in a convincing and persuasive manner, how important emotion is to high performance, and victory.

This is not a new finding. In Henry V, Shakespeare wrote the best locker room speech in history. It fires up a totally outnumbered British army so that they defeat a French army in the battle of Agincourt. The five to one supremacy of the French was not sufficient to beat the British.

Examples of this abound. The home team has an established edge over visiting opponents that is in part rooted in emotion. All great coaches know how to mobilize this force: Vince Lombardi and Knute Rockne are perhaps the most famous examples. Through season after season, they were able to draw upon an emotional intensity that created superb teams. For that reason, emotion and performance are not just of the moment – they can be nourished and sustained over long periods.

This is a topic that makes many leaders feel both uncomfortable and challenged. It is perfectly acceptable for emotion to be mobilized in a sports team. It may not be equally acceptable to mobilize it in a corporation.

But some leaders DO mobilize this potent force. Herb Kellegher did it at Southwest Airlines and created a culture of joyous cooperation among their airline personnel. The emotion was very much in evidence whenever a Southwest plane had to meet its own stringent requirements for gate loading and unloading, and for the rather minimal service offered in the air.

Warren Bennis has written about it in Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration. He outlines the emotion-laden atmospheres of the Lockheed Skunk Works, of the Disney Animation Studios, and during the Manhattan Project. Those of us who watched the Jet Propulsion Laboratory crew during the Mars Rover Landings witnessed a full measure of enthusiasm and celebration not usually associated with government agencies.

The question raised is whether this is a sustainable strategy for a company, or a business.

But think about why you remain a customer with a certain business. Is it not the way they make you feel? How long would you tolerate terrible service, even though their product may be exemplary? If someone else delivers an equally good product or service, but with a smile, you would probably change vendors in the blink of an eye. Only if you have no other choice would you put up with inferior service.

When we were randomly sampling people at work using electronic instruments, we discovered that they were tough judges in assessing their own performance. To our surprise, we found that when they were rating their performance highly, it was always linked to positive emotions: satisfaction, pride, excitement. When they rated themselves as poor performers, it was linked to negative emotions: dissatisfaction, stress, embarrassment.

Magic occurred when both workers and clients met in mutually satisfying encounters. Not only did performance peak, but so did staff AND customer satisfaction, revenues, profits and repeat sales.

There is a common denominator to satisfying encounters between a provider and a customer. It is a very simple and powerful concept.

The common denominator is respect. Mutual respect has an immediate consequence: A rise in self-esteem.

It is this rise that changes satisfaction into delight. When that happens, referrals increase at least seven times.

Respect must be earned. Once I had the privilege of driving Paul Samuelson from Minneapolis, MN to St. Cloud, MN, and back again. It was just after he had won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1970. I had been the McGraw-Hill consultant on the programmed learning version of his famous textbook, and we had much to talk about.

At the end of the trip, I asked him: “What is the most important lesson you have learned as a researcher?”

When I think back on it now, I am reminded of the slogan that the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin put on the buttons they distributed to everyone after an in depth and successful project we conducted with them on productivity.

And on a street in St. Cloud, MN, as of this week, there is a sign that reads: Herb Brooks Way.

But he doesn't get too far out in front, to where he can't hear their footsteps.”

Manager 2000 U. S. Olympic Baseball team that won the first U. S. gold medal in baseball

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