by Dan Oswald

If you read the Harvard Business Review, you might have noticed a recent article proclaiming “The New Employer-Employee Compact.” The article, like all the other articles and books written on the subject, reminds us that the days of lifelong employment with a single company are over. (Thanks for that news flash!) Then the authors, who include the cofounder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, put forward the idea of “tours of duty” as the solution. You can read more about their ideas in the June 2013 issue.

For some reason, the fact that we keep talking about “today’s employees” and how they must be treated for them to be “engaged” frustrates me. There’s certainly no shortage of advice. Type “employee engagement” into Google, and over 40 million search results come up in .24 seconds. Search Amazon for books on the same topic, and you get no fewer than 4,436 titles. Like I said, there’s no shortage of advice.

Larry Winget tells us It’s Called Work for a Reason. Daniel Pink, in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, proclaims there are only three things that truly motivate us at work or in life. Another book tells us there are no fewer than 42 rules to engaging employees. Everybody has a theory. If you want to learn more about the various theories, you could read a book a week from Amazon’s list of titles and be reading for the next 84 years!

I’m not saying there isn’t some really good stuff in these articles and books. I’m not saying company leaders don’t need to work to understand employees and what motivates them. And I’m certainly not saying that employee engagement doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is that people are people and they change, individually and collectively, all the time.

As a manager, I think you must get to know the people. When I coached high-school football, I learned quickly that no two players were the same. Each had specific skills, different experiences, and varying abilities. But more than anything else, each had his own personality and therefore had to be coached as an individual. An action that might require a kick in the rear for one (not literally) could require a word of encouragement and a pat on the back for another.

I can remember becoming frustrated with colleagues who treated every player exactly the same—usually by taking an approach much like you’d expect from a drill sergeant. When I would question them about that, the stock answer was that they treated everyone the same and didn’t play favorites. What they failed to get from the players who didn’t respond positively to tongue-lashings we’ll never know. I’m more of a fan of treating everyone fairly but not necessarily treating them the same—equal but as individuals.

I remember one year we had a truly gifted athlete who played wide receiver. He was easily the most talented athlete on the team. He was big, strong, and fast. His biggest weakness was a lack of mental toughness. If he dropped a pass, he couldn’t overcome it immediately. Some coaches would jump on him and berate him for his mistake.

We learned that the best thing to do was bring him to the sideline and reassure him. We knew we would need him again, and we told him so. We had to build him back up or else he would be lost for the rest of the game—something we couldn’t afford as a team. Another player may have needed to be challenged about his lack of concentration, but not this one. We want to get the most out of everyone, but that requires treating them as individuals. And to treat them as individuals, you must know them.

One book title jumped out at me when I did my Amazon search—Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of RESPECT. I haven’t read the book and know nothing of its author, but the concept makes sense to me. If you respect people enough to get to know them—to understand their wants, needs, and desires—and if you can help them find a way to contribute to the organization’s success that satisfies them, then you’ll have a successful relationship.

I don’t want to discourage you from thinking about employee engagement or reading up on the subject. I understand that truly engaged employees are critical to success. I just don’t believe there is a silver bullet that will solve this issue. There is no single idea or theory that will allow you to have a company filled with engaged people. You must build employee engagement one person at a time. And you do it by understanding who each person is and what drives him or her as an individual. It’s that simple and that difficult!

by Dan Oswald

As a manager, you’re tasked with finding and evaluating talent. You need to know which people will fit on your team. You must determine who has the right skill set to make the necessary contributions. And you must decide what blend of talent and personalities will allow the team to achieve its goals. No easy job, for sure.

It takes trial and error to get it right. Nobody—absolutely nobody—gets it right the first time. It’s impossible to pick the perfect cast of characters necessary to achieve success on the first try. It takes firsthand experience to see how the team members will work together and react to one another. The team must be put in real-life situations before you can see how they will perform as a unit. And as the business evolves, so must the team chosen to navigate its ebbs and flows. No team is perfectly suited for all circumstances, and as they change, so must the team.

But as important as it is as a manager to be able to understand people and evaluate talent, there’s another key to a successful team. That key is how well you, the leader, know yourself. Basketball great Jerry West once said, “My life has been about trying to figure out my limitations, and I know them quite well. Once you find out what they are, it really gives you a chance to find your niche.”

So I ask you, how well do you know yourself?

Most people, when asked that question, will respond confidently (and without much thought) that they know themselves quite well. And it goes to reason who could possibly not know who they are? You’re the only one who is with you 100 percent of the time. You’re the only one who knows every experience you’ve had. You’re the only one who is privy to your innermost thoughts.

Yet truly knowing oneself takes a great deal of self-examination and honesty. Most of us, when asked to evaluate ourselves, go immediately to what we’re good at. We’re proud of our strengths, our successes, our accomplishments—and for good reason. But read West’s quote again. He says his life has been about trying to figure out his limitations. He goes on to say that the knowledge of those limitations “gives you a chance to find your niche.” He doesn’t talk about strengths; he talks about limitations.

That is what is so hard for people. It’s not fun to dwell on your shortcomings. It’s difficult to think about your limitations. But once you know them as well as you know your strengths, you truly know yourself. Getting to that point takes a tremendous amount of introspection, self-evaluation, and honesty. It means putting your ego aside and truly evaluating who you are, what you are capable of, and what you are not.

I ask you again, how well do you know yourself? Do you know what your limitations are? To lead a team, you need to know not only what you’re good at but also what you’re not good at. You need to surround yourself with others who have strengths where you have weaknesses. You need people on your team who excel in areas where you do not. You need colleagues who know your limitations so that they can make contributions that offset your shortcomings.

If you’re unwilling to admit any weakness—if you cannot see your own limitations—then your ability to lead will be greatly hampered. Finding and evaluating talent are key skills for any manager, but I would argue that knowing yourself—both your strengths and your weaknesses—is even more critical to your success. I challenge you to look beyond the surface, to consider not only what you excel at but also the things that hold you back. It is there that you will discover what talents you must surround yourself with for your team to succeed.

by Dan Oswald

Abraham Lincoln once said, “I will prepare and some day my chance will come.” And for Lincoln, the opportunities did come in large part because he created them. He was known for his hard work and determination. But it all started with two things: his willingness to prepare and his understanding that opportunities will present themselves.

It’s the second item that I believe is most overlooked by those supposedly seeking opportunity. Often we are looking so hard for a certain opportunity or for opportunity to look a specific way that we miss countless other opportunities along the way. The saying goes, “When one door closes, another one opens.” Maybe it should be, “When one door never opens, others do.” We can’t get so wrapped up in one thing that we miss everything.

I know some of you are thinking, “But isn’t it focusing on a specific goal that leads to opportunity?” I don’t think so. There are some dreams that, regardless of how much we work at them, will never come true. Think about the career minor league baseball player who just can’t seem to get to the majors. Sure, he has talent—lots of it—but just not quite enough to be counted among the world’s elite. His focus on one goal will never lead to the opportunity he so desperately seeks—a chance to play major league baseball.

But what if he’s destined to make the majors as a coach? What if all of those years playing minor league baseball, watching other young and talented players get called up to the majors, have provided him with the perspective, knowledge, and experience to be a major league coach? His focus and dedication to one goal could provide him with an opportunity even rarer than playing in the majors, but only if he recognizes it as an opportunity when it presents itself. If he has closed his eyes and his mind to everything but playing major league baseball, then every other opportunity will be lost to him.

So now we’re looking for opportunities wherever they may present themselves. You must understand that opportunities come in weird shapes and sizes. Often they don’t look like opportunities at all. When I look back at my career, I can see wonderful developments that resulted from situations that at the time looked like anything but an opportunity.

I was working at my first job and my wife and I had just had our first child when the company I was working for was sold. Keeping my job meant picking up our young family and moving halfway across the country away from family and friends. It was a big step and one that came with considerable risk. But we packed up our young son and made the move. There we met some wonderful people we still count among our friends, I found a mentor who continues to provide counsel to this day, and I gained some terrific experience that has aided my career. Everything considered, it was a great opportunity. But if you had tried to sell it as such to two young 20-somethings with a newborn (not to mention my mother-in-law, who lived nearby), it would have been a tough sale. Sometimes an opportunity looks like anything but one.

Consider the saying, “When opportunity knocks . . .” There is a certain amount of passivity implied in it. Opportunity comes from hard work—as Lincoln said, you must be prepared. Let’s assume you have worked hard and have done well to prepare yourself. When the time comes and opportunity is knocking at your door, you still need to get up off your seat and open it. How many times do you think opportunity has knocked at our door and we have failed to open it? It could be out of fear or misunderstanding—even laziness or passivity—but we let opportunity move on down the road because we couldn’t or wouldn’t open the door. Again, some of this requires that we look for opportunity and that we recognize it despite its packaging, but it also requires us to seize the moment. Sometimes that door opens only for a second and we must be willing to step through.

I believe opportunities present themselves to all of us on a daily basis. What we do with them is up to us. For our part, we must be prepared, understand that not every opportunity will look like one at the time, and be ready to seize them when they do present themselves. When opportunity knocks, will you open the door?

by Dan Oswald

A few weeks ago, the San Francisco 49ers, with the 131st pick in the NFL draft, chose Marcus Lattimore, a running back out of the University of South Carolina. Considered by many to be the most talented running back in the 2013 draft, Lattimore wasn’t chosen until the fourth round because he had suffered not one but two knee injuries while in college. So while he possessed the talent, there was some question about whether he would ever be able to demonstrate it on Sunday afternoons in the NFL.

The second of Lattimore’s two injuries came during his senior year and was quite serious. Mothers with sons playing football, stop reading and skip to the next paragraph! In an interview with ESPN, famed sports surgeon Dr. James Andrews said Lattimore’s knee ligaments looked like hamburger meat and that he was lucky he didn’t lose his leg. Given the seriousness of the injury, it wouldn’t have been surprising if it had ended his career.

But Lattimore had a dream of playing in the NFL, and through a tremendous amount of hard work, he was able to realize his dream—with some help from the 49ers. You want to see a young man thankful for an opportunity? Watch this clip of Lattimore receiving a call from the 49ers on draft day. Oh yeah, all of you moms reading this are going to want to watch it, too. You’ll probably be able to relate to his mother’s reaction!

It’s great to see someone fight through adversity—not once but twice—and get the opportunity to achieve something he has dreamed about his entire life. But just as interesting and inspiring as Lattimore’s story is the decision by the 49ers and their coach, Jim Harbaugh, to draft him.

There’s a chance Lattimore won’t play a single down in 2013. The 49ers don’t want to rush him onto the field and risk another injury. The team was the NFC champion last season and already has a Pro Bowl running back in their backfield, so they can afford to be patient with Lattimore. They chose him because he is a “first round talent” and they can afford to wait until his knee is 100 percent healed before putting him on the field.

The 49ers picked Lattimore because of his talent and his ability to overcome adversity. Coach Harbaugh was impressed with his character, so much so that he asked to speak with his mother on draft day. The coach complimented her on what a fine son she had raised and told her the decision to draft him was due in large part to what they saw in him as a person.

There are great lessons in this story for all of us. First, if you have a dream, don’t let anything stand in your way of achieving it. Lattimore suffered two knee injuries. No one would have questioned him if he had hung up his cleats after the second one and decided that playing in the NFL just wasn’t meant to be. But he didn’t. He worked hard, overcame the injury, and got drafted. Last week I quoted Winston Churchill on how important it is to never give up. That is something Lattimore certainly understands.

The second lesson for us comes from the 49ers. They chose talent and character and figured the rest will work itself out. Lattimore isn’t completely healed from his injury. He might not be ready to play this season, but the 49ers believed in his willingness to work hard and rehabilitate his knee enough to take a risk when others weren’t willing to do so. And that decision, in part, was due to the high degree of character he had demonstrated and how he had persevered. They could have picked someone more likely to help them immediately, but they took a risk on the upside that Lattimore possesses. Sometimes it’s not best to do the safe thing. We’ll see how it turns out for the 49ers.

My oldest graduated from college this weekend. In addition to reminding me that I am, indeed, getting older, it caused me to consider what sage career and life advice I might have for him. My first thought was that I had the order of those two things reversed—that I should be providing him advice on life first and career second.

The most precious things in life aren’t “things” at all—they’re people. Be a good friend, brother, son, husband, father. Be a good person who makes a positive impact on the world. Advice on how my son might do that comes miles before career advice, just as being those things comes before being a great worker or employee. What’s the old saying? “No one on their deathbed ever says they wish they had spent more time at work.” I’m sure that’s because when the time is really near, what is really important in life becomes crystal clear.

Commencement addresses are full of advice from people much wiser than I, as they convey to graduating collegians what they must do to achieve their dreams. I thought I might borrow from a few to come up with a message for my son.

Live YOUR life

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. . . . Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” Steve Jobs

Listen

“Listen once in a while. . . . Or sometime when you’re talking up a storm so brilliant, so charming that you can hardly believe how wonderful you are, pause just a moment and listen to yourself. It’s good for the soul to hear yourself as others hear you, and next time maybe, just maybe, you will not talk so much, so loudly, so brilliantly, so charmingly, so utterly shamelessly foolishly.” Russell Baker

Have a plan

“It is very common . . . to tell graduates: dream and dream big. I say do more than that. When you dream, you are in an unconscious state. It ends. You wake up. It’s not real. You need to create a vision. This takes determination and a plan that takes your dream to a destination.” Roger Goodell

Be bold

“Don’t let your fears overwhelm your desire. Let the barriers you face—and there will be barriers—be external, not internal. Fortune does favor the bold, and I promise that you will never know what you’re capable of unless you try.” Sheryl Sandberg

Take action

“Every story you’ve ever connected with, every leader you’ve ever admired, every puny little thing that you’ve ever accomplished is the result of taking action. You have a choice. You can either be a passive victim of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life. Action is the antidote to apathy and cynicism and despair. You will inevitably make mistakes. Learn what you can and move on. At the end of your days, you will be judged by your gallop, not by your stumble.” Bradley Whitford

It’s OK to fail

“So that’s what I wish for all of you—the bad as well as the good. Fall down. Make a mess. Break something occasionally. . . . And remember that the story is never over.” Conan O’Brien

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.” J.K. Rowling

Never quit

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.” Winston Churchill

There you have it! Great advice on life from some very accomplished people that would serve any graduate—or person, for that matter—very well to consider. And maybe because it’s coming from them instead of Dad, it will carry more weight. My single addition to all of this is that I hope and pray my son finds something he is truly passionate about and can spend his life pursuing that passion. Life’s way too short to spend your days doing something you don’t love.

by Dan Oswald

I was traveling last week and had tossed a couple of recent copies of Harvard Business Review (HBR) into my briefcase before leaving home. So on the plane, I dutifully grabbed the April issue and was greeted by a cover that said, “We Studied 25,453 Companies over 44 Years to Find the 3 Rules for Success.” As was HBR’s intention, they had my attention.

I opened the magazine to the appropriate page and found this eye-popping title: “Three Rules for Making a Company Truly Great.” Wow! If only I had known it could be that easy. I can follow rules pretty well. Spell things out for me, and I can get with the program. At this point, I was intrigued but skeptical. It has never seemed to me that business is as easy as some pundits who offer advice make it out to be, but maybe—just maybe—the authors of the article had stumbled upon the Holy Grail of management.

I learned early that you need to consider the source of the advice you receive. Many of the people writing these articles and books have never managed anything in their lives. They are career professors or journalists who think that crunching data and talking to people can somehow replace real-life experience. My least favorite professor in graduate school was a marketing instructor who had never worked a day in a marketing department in any company, large or small. Of course, he had “consulted” with companies but had never lived what he was teaching. Want to learn what it takes to be successful? Get to work and discover success through years of trial and error. Live with your mistakes, and celebrate your successes.

Back to the HBR article. The very first sentence states: “Much of the strategy and management advice that business leaders turn to is unreliable or impractical.” That’s an honest admission from a couple of guys about to provide a few thousand words of strategy and management advice. Of course, they go on to say that their advice is different because it is the result of rigorous research—a statistical study of thousands of companies. It sounded like they were crunching data and talking to people. I remained skeptical.

Very early in the article, the authors reveal what they refer to as “three seemingly elementary rules” that made certain companies great. (Drum roll, please.) They are:

1. Better before cheaper—compete on differentiators other than price.
2. Revenue before cost—prioritize increasing revenue over reducing costs.
3. There are no other rules—you must follow Rules 1 and 2.

Well, there you have it. I had a couple of immediate thoughts about what I had just read. I remained skeptical, and the fact that the authors claimed their rules were “elementary” only heightened my skepticism. Remember, nothing in business is easy. I tend to follow the Thomas Edison way of thinking: “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” I also felt a little misled by the authors. Let’s be honest—they really offered only two rules.

After further consideration, I decided that the rules themselves may be “elementary,” but that doesn’t mean following them is easy. The authors freely admit that their rules don’t “dictate specific behaviors; nor are they even general strategies.” So the bottom line is that I could follow these two rules and fail miserably if my behavior and that of the people in my organization aren’t consistent with the behaviors of successful individuals. And I need to come up with successful strategies surrounding these basic rules to expect a positive outcome. Isn’t that where the rubber meets the road? A couple of grand, overarching rules are great, but it’s all in the execution. That’s the difficult part.

So what about the two rules the authors put forward? It’s hard to argue with producing a quality product. Our household owns one Mac. Apple, with the largest market cap in the world, has done pretty well following the “better before cheaper” rule. But I’m also a huge fan of Southwest Airlines, and it’s hard to argue with the company’s success. It advertises as the “low fare” airline. I would maintain that it succeeds at being “better and cheaper.”

The second rule is “revenue before cost.” I believe growth is the key to long-term success in any business. If you’re not growing, you’re slowly dying. But again, it comes down to execution. You can’t employ a strategy of growth at any cost. I’ve seen plenty of companies fail chasing growth without regard to cost—it just doesn’t work. In most cases, I would say it’s better to increase profits through revenue growth than cost reduction, but there are exceptions. For instance, closing unprofitable stores or killing an unprofitable product line might reduce revenues and costs, resulting in higher profits. Would anyone argue that you should simply put unprofitable revenues ahead of cost reduction? The devil is in the details, and only those working in the business are truly intimate with those details.

The article is worth reading. If nothing else, it can cause you to think about your business and how these rules might apply. You can consider whether you are already following the rules. If so, what have the results been? What people and strategies have you applied to the rules to get those results?

But in the end, it all comes down to knowing your customers, your business, and your people to develop the very best approach for your company. These general rules are great for the pundits, but for those of us in the trenches, the devil is in the details.

by Dan Oswald

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. Begin it well and serenely with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend sent me this quote the other day. Maybe it was the day I was having, but I appreciated receiving Emerson’s advice at that particular moment. We all have days when things just don’t go our way. And just like a hitter in baseball, from time to time we might even experience a bit of a slump where it seems we can’t get out of our own way.

Tell me you’ve never felt like the words expressed in the old Porter Wagoner song “Sun Don’t Shine (on the Same Dog Every Day).” Included in the lyrics is this line: “You know the sun don’t shine on the same dog every day. And I’m due a little sunshine; it’s been a long, long time.”

It’s human nature to think about the what-ifs. What if I had done that differently? What if that hadn’t happened? What if we had moved more quickly? What’s the saying? “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas.” You can second-guess and wonder about what you might have done differently, but you can’t change what has already occurred. The sooner you accept that reality, the better off you’ll be.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t review what you have done and what’s gone wrong. To bury your head in the sand and ignore problems that have occurred and mistakes that have been made would be foolish. But you also can’t spend all your time dwelling on the past and considering what went wrong. If you do, you will never move forward.

This is where we need to heed Emerson’s advice so we can “begin it well and serenely with too high a spirit to be encumbered with [our] old nonsense.” To his point, if you want to come to work energized and ready to face the day, you can’t be dwelling on yesterday’s problems. If you’re constantly thinking about what has happened in the past, you won’t be able to look forward to the next opportunity.

I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself, “Easier said than done.” And you’re right. It’s easy to say you shouldn’t dwell on the negative that has transpired and should think only about what’s next—much easier than actually doing it. That’s where you need to develop some strategies for yourself.

I have a confession to make. Regardless of the amount of pressure at work or the problems I may have encountered that day, I have no problem falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. I don’t know why that is, but I’m thankful for it! My problem occurs when I wake up in the middle of the night. If I have concerns that I’m grappling with, that’s when I begin to think about them. My mind starts working, and I can’t fall back to sleep. I have learned that I’m better off getting up and dealing with the problem in some fashion so I can go back to sleep. If I do that, I still have the opportunity to come to work unencumbered with my “old nonsense.”

Who knows what might work for you. Maybe you can come up with an end-of-day ritual that will help you bring closure to every day—even the worst of them. But whatever it is, you must find ways to put yesterday’s concerns behind you so you can face today’s opportunities with energy and enthusiasm. Doing the most with today and not worrying about yesterday will bring you the greatest success!

by Dan Oswald

I’ve been reading Tell My Sons . . . by Lieutenant Colonel Mark Weber. The book is filled with the life lessons he has learned. After a routine Army physical revealed he had stage IV intestinal cancer, he began a battle for his life that he ultimately will lose. When he realized he wouldn’t be able to conquer his cancer, he began writing a letter to his three sons, which became this book.

One piece of advice from Weber to his sons struck me as I read the book this morning. He writes, “I propose to you that you’ll find answers to your questions by taking just one step beyond what others tell you that you shouldn’t. Be curious and ask just one more question. Be persistent and insist on just one more consideration. Speak out. At least try.”

That’s a lot of advice packed into just a few sentences, and all of it is sound. Weber tells his boys, “Be curious and ask just one more question.” That’s great advice for you and for me. A healthy curiosity can be an asset in the workplace. Asking questions—figuring out how things work or why they are a certain way—can lead to new discoveries. Being curious and encouraging your people to be the same can result in new breakthroughs and lead to exciting opportunities.

Earlier in my career, I was traveling with my boss. This was in the mid-1990s, and we were flying home from Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport. As was our custom, we had checked our luggage and were sitting in the gate area carrying on a conversation and waiting for all the other passengers to board. Instead of standing in line, we would remain comfortably in our seats and listen for the final boarding call.

But this time something different happened. Instead of hearing a final boarding call for the flight, we heard our names being called. The airline knew exactly which passengers hadn’t boarded the flight. It seems like an ordinary occurrence today, but at the time, we had never experienced this. As we approached the gate attendant and handed her our tickets to board the flight, I asked, “How did you know we weren’t already on the plane?”

The airline employee didn’t just tell me—she also showed me. She ran the ticket below a bar code reader and told me how every ticket now was tied back to the individual passenger. Like I said, it seems like a no-brainer today, but at the time it was new technology. As we walked down the Jetway, my boss said, “That’s one of the things that makes you good at what you do.” Not understanding what he meant, I asked, “What’s that?” His reply came, “Your curiosity. You could have just handed her your ticket and boarded the plane, but you wanted to know how it worked—how they could have known that we were the two passengers still not on the plane. So you asked.”

Without really thinking about it, I had done what Weber suggests to his sons—I had been curious and had asked one more question. Through my curiosity, I had learned something. What I could or would do with that knowledge is anyone’s guess. I can’t tell you that it led to any great breakthrough or that it led to some innovation in our business, but it could have or still may. The point is that being curious and asking questions will lead to greater knowledge, and that’s a good thing. Being curious and asking questions will lead to new information, and that’s a good thing. So I suggest to you that you should be curious, and as a manager, you should encourage your people to do the same.

When an employee asks you a question—why something is done a certain way or even done at all—do you take the time to explain it, or are you more apt to brush the question off with, “Don’t worry about why; just do it”? You see, if we as managers don’t embrace the questions those who work for us ask, then we’re discouraging their curiosity. And when you discourage curiosity, you’re standing in the way of their gaining new information and knowledge. No manager should ever want to do that to the people who work for him.

Encourage your people to ask questions. Embrace their curiosity. And when those questions are directed at you, take the time to provide meaningful answers because that’s how they’ll learn. You want your people to be curious and ask questions—doing so can lead to exciting and wonderful things.

by Dan Oswald

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
—Maya Angelou

On Saturday, the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers football team held its annual Red-White Spring Game. With time for just one final play, Jack Hoffman walked onto the field. Like the rest of the players, he was dressed in a Cornhuskers jersey (#22) and had a Nebraska helmet on his head. On a fourth-and-two play, the ball was snapped, and the quarterback handed Jack the ball. On that final play, Jack ran 69 yards for a touchdown and was carried off the field by a throng of Husker players.

You might be wondering what was so special about that play. You may be thinking it was just a spring game and Jack’s touchdown really didn’t mean anything—it was scored against his own team. And that’s where you would be wrong. You see, Jack Hoffman is a seven-year-old boy who is battling brain cancer. Can you imagine how he, a huge Nebraska fan, felt at that moment when he scored the touchdown and was swept up by a group of players he reveres? I bet he never forgets how they made him feel.

It was a wonderful thing the Nebraska football team did for that young boy—a simple gesture but one he will never forget. It’s also a great lesson for all of us. The things we do and say have an impact on others because of the way we make them feel. Never underestimate the effect your actions have on others.

Companies are social places where people interact on a daily basis. We all have countless opportunities each day to affect the lives of others. Is the effect you have on others positive or negative? How do you make others feel?

It’s easy to get caught up in our work and forget how our words and actions might make others feel. Think for a moment. Can you recall something you said to a coworker that may have left her feeling angry or embarrassed? Criticizing others’ work product or questioning their judgment publicly can result in hard feelings.

I’m not saying that providing criticism of someone’s work—if you’re in a position in which you’re expected to give feedback—is wrong. It’s in the “how” and “where” that you can run into problems. If you react out of frustration and publicly question a person’s work, you’re making a mistake. The “how” and the “where” are wrong. Criticism shouldn’t be made when you’re angry, and it should be done privately. Waiting until you’re calm and can coach someone behind closed doors allows him to hear the criticism without feeling embarrassed. It doesn’t always mean he is going to like what you have to say, but you have demonstrated enough respect for the person to have had the conversation in private.

On the other hand, praise is something that should be spontaneous and public. Who doesn’t want to hear she has done a great job? And who doesn’t like to have her peers hear that her work is being recognized? It’s the exact opposite of criticism. When you have something good to say, shout it from the rooftops. People will remember how it made them feel when they were recognized for their work.

Jack Hoffman had an extraordinary experience on Saturday. I can only imagine how he felt as he was being carried off the field by the Nebraska football players. Here he was with an entire team of players he idolized who were now looking up to him as he triumphantly left the field. You have the ability to give the people you work with a special moment like that every day. It takes a little thought and effort, but it can really make a difference in the way someone feels. Just ask Jack Hoffman.

by Dan Oswald

If you’re like many, you have been watching the NCAA basketball tournament. And if you’re one of the lucky few, you might be on top of the leader board in your office pool or your team might be one of the Final Four.

What makes watching the tournament fun for me, in part, is seeing the variety of team personalities and coaching styles. What does it take to make it to the final weekend or actually win the tournament? It takes some luck, certainly some skill, and a great deal of leadership coming from one place or another. But the mix of those three elements varies by team, and that fascinates me.

The personality of one of the basketball teams, made up of young players under the age of 22, isn’t unlike your team at work. Let’s consider the makeup of some of the teams in this year’s tournament.

The star and supporting cast. Some of the teams that do well in the tournament have a key player who is the recognized star of the team. The rest of the players have a distinct role to play, but when a big basket or other key contribution is needed, everyone looks to the star. The players recognize the star’s talent and accept their roles within the system because doing so allows the team to be successful.

This type of team reminds me of a business with a key figure who is critical to the company’s success. Steve Jobs comes to mind immediately during his days at Apple. He was the star, and he was surrounded by a cast of very capable players. But when a big decision had to be made, he was the one to whom everyone turned. He demanded it—the same way the star demands the ball at the critical moments during the big game.

The team of equals. Abraham Lincoln had his team of rivals, but this is a team of equals. Some teams have no discernible star but a group of players who are willing and able to contribute. From one game to the next, no one knows who will step up with a key performance that leads the team to victory. These teams are typically marked by their consistency because they don’t rely on one person who may or may not have a great game.

This probably is the most common type of team in a business setting. Each person on the team is chosen for his or her skills and is expected to make an equal contribution. Depending on the project, a different person may step up as the work lends itself to a specific person’s skills.

The overachievers. There’s a team in every tournament that captures the attention of the nation by performing beyond all expectations—except maybe their own. They know what they’re capable of, but no one else expects to see them do well. This year we had Florida Gulf Coast University and Wichita State. Wichita State is in the Final Four, and if the team can win two more games, it will become the lowest-seeded team to win the tournament. The players and their coach knew what they could do, but now given the chance, they get to show the rest of the world.

There are teams like this at work as well. You bring a certain mix of individuals together, and the chemistry is just right and they produce something extraordinary. No one would have predicted their success, but once you see them perform together, it just makes sense that it would work. They’re not surprised by what they can do, but in everyone else’s eyes, they have overachieved.

Don’t forget the coaches. It wouldn’t be right to talk about the teams without talking about the various styles and personalities of the coaches. The thing to note is that there isn’t one style of coaching that seems to be most effective. What you learn, if you watch over time, is that the key to coaching success is being true to yourself. The coaches who regularly win—and two of this year’s coaches in the Final Four already have won national championships—are those who know exactly who they are and behave consistently.

There are coaches who are fiery and scream at their players, pushing them hard. There are coaches who are quiet tacticians who guide their teams with advice and strategy. There are emotional coaches who bounce between tears and joy, showing their players how much they care about them. And each type of coach has been successful on college basketball’s biggest stage. If you’re not sure, just consider the differences between Bobby Knight, Mike Krzyzewski, and John Calipari. Each has won at least one national championship, but all have vastly different styles. What they all did was coach consistently in a style that represented who they are each and every game.

The bottom line is that there is no one secret to putting together the best team. You have to find the mix of talents that fits best together—with your management style and within your organization. You may have one of the three team types described above or one that is entirely unique. The critical element is that you and everyone on the team must understand each person’s role. And you must display consistent leadership on which your team can rely. If those two elements exist, your team has a shot at ending up on top.