High Fives, forearm bashes, and testosterone oriented grunts are a part of every game we play and fill me and my teammates with energy. For the last 15 years I have been a weekend warrior softball player. Softball is in my blood… I truly love the sport.
With a little introspection, one can recognize that being part of any type of sports team has real significance and meaning. Not only is there joy in executing the game itself, but there is an abundance of rituals that you naturally participate in… usually without even thinking about it.
By choosing to deliberately observe these rituals and their impact on performance and meaning you can start to use rituals as a results generating tool.
Rituals are about managing energy and as highly respected Sales Communication Specialist Blair Singer of Sales Dogs says,“Highest Energy Wins!”
Highest Energy does win.
In a game this past season my team and I were down by 3 runs in the 5th inning of a 7 inning game. The opposing team consisted of pompous smartasses with obnoxious attitudes. This obnoxious attitude fueled our energy… and with this surge of energy… things started to happen.
You could feel the momentum shift as batter after batter hit the ball low and hard. A deep ball hit to the fence resulted in several runs and a dramatic play at the plate… “He’s out!” shouts the ump. Then the ball rolls out of the catcher’s mitt…”No…he’s safe!”
The team explodes with energy… running out to the plate with high fives and forearm bashes. We are fired up!
At this very moment, every single player on the team is focused, engaged, and ready to perform. We score 17 runs in three innings crushing our opponents 21-9.
We managed our energy and rode the wave of momentum to victory… and you can do the same thing with your team.
Whether it is a sales team, a marketing team, executive team, venture capital team or softball team, the dynamics of team synergy and energy management remain the same.
Energy management for a performance oriented team starts with the use of 3 distinctive types of High Performance Success Rituals;(1) Celebration Rituals (2) Identity Rituals (3) Focus Rituals
In my next post we will be discussing Celebration Rituals
AAhh, I get goose bumps just thinking about those games, those situations and how we prevail. Season 2007 is just around the corner!!
Posted by: Brad | Monday, January 22, 2007 at 05:16 PM