🏈5 Super Team Building Strategies from NFL Football

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s November 1st, and the NFL season is in full swing—which means every fan is already calculating the path to the Super Bowl, every coach is answering questions about “execution,” and every office has at least one person treating a fantasy-football lineup like a major corporate acquisition. The championship may still be months away, but the weekly preparation, teamwork, and course corrections offer useful lessons for building a stronger team right now.

You do not need to know the difference between a blitz and a breakfast burrito to use these ideas. Football makes teamwork visible: people prepare together, compete for roles, develop skills, track results, and receive constant coaching.

Here are five practical strategies leaders can borrow from the NFL—no helmet, tackling dummy, or seven-layer dip required.

1. Practice Like Game Day Matters

NFL teams do not wander onto the field on Sunday and say, “Let’s circle back after the first quarter.” They study opponents, review film, rehearse fundamentals, and practice specific situations until good decisions become automatic.

Workplace example—service operations: Before the Monday rush, rehearse a realistic service disruption: three technicians call out, a priority customer loses service, and the scheduling system decides it also needs a personal day. Have dispatchers practice triage, customer updates, escalation, and reassignment. Debrief afterward so the real emergency does not become the first rehearsal.

Try this: Pick one recurring high-stakes moment—sales calls, product launches, incident response, or executive updates—and schedule a short, realistic practice session before the next one.

2. Create Positive Pressure to Perform

NFL players know that talented teammates are preparing behind them. Healthy competition raises the standard, but the key word is healthy. Fear may produce frantic activity; clear expectations and capable backups produce reliable performance.

Workplace example—sales: Pair two account executives on a group of priority prospects. Each person owns specific opportunities, but both learn the customer history, decision makers, and next steps. They can challenge each other’s strategy, cover important calls, and keep momentum when someone is unavailable—without turning the sales floor into a reality television audition.

Try this: Identify one critical responsibility that only one person can perform. Create a trained backup, then rotate ownership occasionally so readiness becomes real—not a box checked in a spreadsheet.

3. Select for Strengths, Then Develop for Growth

NFL teams spend enormous energy evaluating talent, matching players to roles, and developing them over time. They do not draft a quarterback and then act surprised that he is not the best choice to kick field goals.

Workplace example—administrative work: When hiring an executive assistant, use a realistic exercise rather than relying only on polished interview answers. Give candidates a crowded calendar, a last-minute travel change, and two leaders who both claim their meeting is urgent. Ask them to organize the day and explain their choices. Once hired, provide templates, shadowing, and weekly coaching so good judgment grows alongside speed.

Try this: For every important role, define the three strengths that predict success, use a realistic selection exercise, and create a 90-day development plan with visible milestones.

4. Make the Scoreboard Clear

Sports are satisfying because everyone can see the score—even when we wish we could not. At work, teams often receive a foggier message: “Improve quality, move faster, delight customers, reduce costs, and please do not ask which one matters most.” Clear measures focus attention.

Workplace example—service operations and sales: A service team might track the percentage of urgent requests acknowledged within 15 minutes as a leading measure and repeat service visits as a lagging measure. A sales team might track qualified follow-up meetings alongside closed revenue. The point is to connect daily actions with outcomes—not to build a dashboard so elaborate that it needs its own help desk.

Try this: Choose one outcome measure and two behavior measures for the next quarter. Review them weekly, discuss what the numbers are teaching you, and retire any metric that generates more theater than insight.

5. Coach in Real Time.

Football coaches do not save every observation for an annual performance review in a conference room with questionable coffee. They give specific feedback during practice, after plays, and between games. The best feedback is timely enough to help with the next attempt.

Workplace example—administrative work: After a coordinator prepares the weekly operations report, take five minutes to review it together. Say, “The summary made the service backlog easy to understand. Next time, flag overdue items at the top and identify an owner for each one.” That is more useful than waiting six months to write, “Needs greater attention to detail,” which sounds official while explaining almost nothing.

Try this: Ask every manager to hold one brief coaching conversation each week using three questions: What worked? What would improve the next attempt? What support do you need from me?

Click here to read my related blog post: Coach in Real Time—The Playful Power-Up Edition

What Will Your Team Try?

Your workplace is not an NFL stadium. That is good news: the printer may jam, but it rarely weighs 300 pounds and runs a 4.8-second forty-yard dash. Still, the team-building fundamentals transfer remarkably well.

Practice important moments. Build capable backups. Select people thoughtfully and develop them deliberately. Make performance measures visible. Coach while improvement is still possible.

Choose one strategy and test it for the next 30 days. Define the behavior you will change, decide how you will measure progress, and review the result with your team. You may not receive a championship ring, but you could build a team that performs with greater confidence, consistency, and trust—and nobody has to get tackled.

Take the field together, commit to getting better every day, and turn small wins into a stronger team.

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees or a SMART Development consultant please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, energy storage and facilities management, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

 

 

🦢 Soaring Together: Teamwork Lessons from Geese

    

 

It's Fall in Vancouver, WA. One of the many delights of the season is hearing the beautiful call of the Canadian geese which alerts you to look up in the Autumnal sky. The first image of the skein (or flock) of geese reminds me of a floating black ribbon or the tail of a kite. 

In October and November in the Pacific Northwest the sky is alive with ribbons of geese gracefully swooping and looping sometimes bearing left and sometimes right. These maneuvers seem to give the stray birds time to catch up to the throng. 

When you watch the flock closely you realize that the geese are all leaders and followers each taking a turn. Alternately leading and following creates a perfect rhythm which enables them to get to their faraway winter destination. 

I believe there are several lessons in teamwork that we can learn from the goose. Geese are intriguing creatures and while considered pests in certain situations, they also have an incredibly strong sense of family and group loyalty. Probably one of the most phenomenal geese facts is that their desire to return to their birth place every year is so strong that they will often fly up to 3,000 miles to get there. 

Lesson #1: Empowering Others to Lead
When the lead goose in the front gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and allows another goose to take the leadership position. Apparently, even geese know that “delegation” works better than flying yourself into a feathery burnout.

The lesson here is to empower others to also lead. It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership. 
As with geese, people are interdependent on each other’s skills, capabilities, and unique arrangement of gifts, talents, or resources.

Lesson #2: Staying Committed to Core Values and Purpose

The geese migration routes never vary. They use the same route year after year. Even when the flock members change, the young learn the route from their parents. In the spring they will go back to the spot where they were born. No GPS, no route recalculating, and apparently no arguments about who missed the last turn.
  
The lesson to learn here is to stay true to our core values and purpose. 
  
Strategies, tactics may change in order remain agile, but great struggles always stick to their core purpose and values, and preserve them with vigor

Lesson #3: Offering Support in Challenging Times

When a goose gets sick or wounded, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. That is a stronger support plan than “Let me know if you need anything” followed by radio silence

They stay with it until it dies or is able to fly again. Then, they launch out with another formation or catch up with the flock.  

The lesson here is to stand by each other in difficult times. It’s easy to always be part of winning teams, but when things get difficult and people are facing challenges, that’s when your teammates need you the most. 

Lesson #4 Encouraging and Recognizing Other’s Contribution

The geese honk to recognize each other and encourage those up front to keep up their speed. The lesson here is to make sure we praise people and give them the recognition they deserve. Think of it as a performance review—only shorter, louder, and with fewer forms
  
Lack of recognition is one of the main reasons employees are unsatisfied at work and quit. 
  
We need to make sure our honking is encouraging. 

In groups where there is encouragement, the production is greater. The power of encouragement (to stand by one's heart or core values and encourage the heart and core of others) is the quality of honking we seek. 

Lesson #5 Sharing a Common Goal

As each goose flaps its wings it creates “uplift”, an aerodynamics orientation that reduces air friction, for the birds that follow. By flying in a V-formation, the whole flock achieves a 70% greater flying range than if each bird flew alone. In other words, teamwork saves energy—and possibly cuts down on the need for another motivational webinar 

The lesson we can learn here is that people who share a common direction and goal can get where they are going quicker and with less effort because they benefit from the momentum of the group moving around them. 
  
Make sure your team is aligned towards a common goal. 

Lesson #6 Having Humility to Seek Help

When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the friction of flying alone. 
  
It then quickly adjusts its mistake and moves back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front of it. 

The lesson we can learn here is to be humble to admit the challenges we face and to seek help as soon as we get stuck. 
  
This humility will enable you, your team, to move faster and achieve more. 

 

A Story About Geese 

A flock of wild geese had settled to rest on a pond. 
  
One of the flock had been captured by a gardener, who had clipped its wings before releasing it. 

When the geese started to resume their flight, this one tried frantically, but vainly, to lift itself into the air. The others, observing his struggles, flew about in obvious efforts to encourage him; but it was no use. 

Thereupon, the entire flock settled back on the pond and waited, even though the urge to go on was strong within them. For several days they waited until the damaged feathers had grown sufficiently to permit the goose to fly. 

Meanwhile, the unethical gardener, having been converted by the ethical geese, gladly watched them as they finally rose together and all resumed their long flight.                                                                            --Albert Schweitzer 

[Epilogue: And so, as the geese soared off into the sunset, the gardener waved goodbye, vowing never to underestimate the power of teamwork—or the tenacity of geese. Legend has it that from that day forward, whenever the gardener tried to plant anything, there was always a mysterious feather nearby, just to remind him to always stick with the flock—or else prepare to be thoroughly out-honked. 😉]

Remember, Together-Everybody-Achieves-More

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

          Take the Next Step...

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, facilities services and maintenance, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.