Picking A Team
My old friend Don Phillips once asked me which player on a Pop Warner football team is the most important. My response, was, of course, "Oh, it's the quarterback." Whoops. Don very quickly asked me why. Well, the QB drives everything that happens on the field. In the pros, obviously, the QB is the highest paid player on the team. But, remember, we're talking about Pop Warner, not the pros. There's a difference.
In Pop Warner football, if the QB doesn't end up with the football in his hands, nothing happens. Kids aren't necessaryily dexterous, so there is actually a very good possibility that, if you don't have a very good Center, your team is never going to go anywhere. One of your best players might end up being the QB, OK. But another good player had better end up playing Center. If you as a coach want to spend time with individual players on the field, the Center is a very good place to start. That even goes before practice to actual team selection. If you can, make sure you have a good Center.
Jim Collins actually has a whole chapter on the people topic entitled "First Who ... Then What" (Collins, 41). He has some tough advice, especially in these times. He points to the ascention of Wells Fargo from regional has-been to national power house. From 1983 til about 1998, the bank out-performed other banks. The effort to grow healthier and then larger actually started back in the early seventies when the CEO Dick Cooley started to very carefully put together a team (Collins, 42). It took him more than a decade to put his team together. Their efforts, working together, sparked the ultimate growth. Collins' criteria for selecting folks are interesting (Collins, 52): Ruthless could be nice for some companies. Rigorous is better. Not sure? Keep looking. Not happy with a current team member? Make a change (Collins, 56). Put your best people on the largest opportunities, not your problem children (Collins, 58).
OK, you say. What's the next step? Start thinking about what goes into your plan.
References
Collins, Jim. Good to Great. Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't. Harper Business. 2001.