As the thrill of the Superbowl winds down and the anticipation of the commercials wanes for another year it’s time to shift our focus to the Great American Race.  Yes folks, it’s time to start your engines and head for Daytona!  The very short off season for NASCARs teams, drivers and fans has come to an end.  And anything is possible yet again this season as the cars take the track for the Daytona 500 on Sunday.

My husband and I always look forward to start of the new NASCAR season and the renewed hope for our favorite drivers that come with it.  As the season kicked off last week the SPEED network also kicked off several new shows and specials to get the fans catching the fever once again.  Of course, at my house we must watch every NASCAR related show, race, news; it’s all NASCAR all the time for 9 months and then its reruns!  One show that caught my eye this week was a four part series on Joe Gibbs Racing.

Joe Gibbs is known as a Superbowl winning head coach and the founder of Joe Gibbs racing.  He has a proven record in leadership not only winning 3 Superbowls but also bringing home 3 Championship titles in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series.  This is no small feat.  As I watched the documentary on Joe Gibbs Racing there was one thing that stood out the most; the true sense of teamwork at every level of the organization.

Typically the driver gets all the glory when the team is doing well and the bad rap when the team is struggling.  You will hear about the owner and maybe the Crew Chief but rarely do we hear about or even consider the hundreds of people working behind the scenes that help the NASCAR teams compete for and win NASCAR Championships.  In this particular segment of the series the Director of Aviation was being interviewed.  He was talking about and showing us the extensive fleet of planes the JGR has to get teams to and from the various tracks around the country each week.  The teams are on the move 36 weekends of the year.  As he was sharing he very clearly said, “Our job at Joe Gibbs Racing is to win races.”  He then went on to describe how his role and the role of the Aviation department impacts the ability of the race teams to win races and championships. He doesn’t drive the car, he doesn’t build the engines, he doesn’t deal with the sponsors, but what he does do is get the teams and everyone it takes to win a race to track each and every week safely and on schedule. That’s his contribution; he plays a huge role in the organizations ability to win races.  If the drivers, crew, crew chiefs, mechanics, executives and the PR people don’t get to the track safely and on schedule they don’t race.  You can’t win races if you don’t race.

And that’s when I went from watching a show about racing to watching a real life organization that gets it.  Joe Gibbs success boils down to ensuring that everyone understands the mission of the company.  In this case, to win races.  He takes it a step further though and makes sure everyone working at JGR understands how their particular role impacts the overall mission.  From the mechanics in the shop, to the accounting department, to the gift shop; everyone is clear on what they are there to do and to support.  To win races.

This is what is missing in many organizations whether you are a for-profit business, not for-profit organization, a hospital, a school or an entrepreneur.  Often times there’s a disconnect between an organization’s mission and the people working hard every day to fulfill that mission.  I work with thousands of employees and it still shocks me when I come across an employee who doesn’t understand why their role is important, how they contribute or heck they sometimes don’t even know what the mission of the organization is.  This is a leadership failure.  If your employees are wondering, “What am I doing here?” how do you expect them to make a difference?  So how does Joe Gibbs create winning teams?  Here are my thoughts:

You create a team by having a combined mission and vision.

You create a team by making sure everyone understands and can fulfill their role on the team.

You create a team by talking about what’s important.

You create a team by showing each team members value.

You create a team by holding people accountable for performance.

You create a team by celebrating successes.

You create a team by examining problems and failures and fixing them together without pointing the finger.

You create a team by choosing the players that want to be there and can do what you need them to do.

You create a team by modeling the behaviors you expect.

It takes a group of people to fulfill your organizations mission.  Not just the sales people, not just the teachers, not just the doctors but everyone.  From the mail room, to the board room, to IT, to billing, to the principal’s office. Until everyone understands the mission and what it takes to be part of the team you won’t have a winning season.

I would love for you to add your own thoughts to the list and challenge some of mine as well.

Cheers to teamwork and the start of the 2010 NASCAR season!

Find out when you can catch the SPEED series on Joe Gibbs Racing here: http://joegibbsracing.com/news-||-headlines/jgr-all-access-tv-schedule.html