Andy Reid, the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, is receiving a lot of deserved praise as he prepares for the chance to win back to back championships. But what is his secret sauce? What has helped him to rise to the top?
Coach Reid believes in an iterative process that will lead to continual improvement. Iterative, as described by Merriam-Webster, is the repetition of a sequence of operations or procedures. But doesn’t everybody believe in getting better with each repetition? Yes, but Coach Reid sees that there are processes that will lead to the improvement of the team, beyond the improvement of the individuals within the team.
That is where the processes of Scrum and Kaizen come in. Although Coach Reid is not going to share that he has adopted Scrum and Kaizen, and he might not have even heard about those terms, what is happening on the ground is the same. Let’s start with some definitions.
Scrum from Scrum.Org: Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.
Kaizen from Reverescore.com: Kaizen is a term that refers to on-going or continuous improvement. The definition of kaizen comes from two Japanese words: ‘kai’ meaning ‘change’ and ‘zen’ meaning ‘good’.
Now let’s bring in a recent example to demonstrate. Coach Reid, as explained in this ESPN article, has a recurring leadership meeting, which includes one member from each position group, so the players can share their concerns and ideas for improvement.
This sounds so simple, but it is so powerful. Does your boss ask you how things can be improved and do you feel you are listened to? I hope so, but it does not always happen. Organizations, like the Kansas City Chiefs do this, and the result is extremely dedicated and loyal team members.
In that ESPN article they talked about how players felt it would be better if the pads could be taken off during certain practice periods and if the hitting could be lessened in practice to keep the players fresh and reduce practice injuries. Coach Reid listened and implemented those changes. As a result, his players felt listened to and trust was incrementally built. As an example for how Coach Reid has been building trust and loyalty for years in the people around him, read this Yahoo.com article from January 2020, which appeared before his first championship. People love to be around him because he involves them in the process.
So how does this tie back to these concepts of Scrum and Kaizen?
The first important detail with both Scrum and Kaizen is that the process is iterative. Iterative means that meetings like this are on a schedule. I am guessing that Coach Reid has these meetings either every week or bi-weekly. This is very important as improvement is not a one-time thing. As the name of Kaizen in itself describes, there is always ‘Change’ = ‘Kai’ and we need to make sure that change is ‘Positive’ = ‘Zen’. New issues come up. New solutions need to be found. What if Coach Reid had a player’s meeting at the beginning of the 2013 season, his first season at Kansas City, and thought that would be enough listening for the duration of his career? That would not work. There are new players each year and new issues like Covid19 can totally change the priorities on a continual basis.
The way that Scrum describes this players meeting is as a Retrospective. A retrospective meeting occurs after some amount of work is completed and before that same type of work is repeated. The group involved in that work will get together to find improvements. The goal at the end of a Retrospective meeting is to take 1 or 2 ideas and to implement them in the next time period. A meeting like this takes a ‘certain amount of emotional maturity and an atmosphere of trust’ as described on page 150 in the book Scrum, The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time’ by Jeff Sutherland. A key part of this meeting is to pull ideas from the participants first. If only Coach Reid is speaking at this meeting it would not be very helpful. Simply having everybody start with answering a question like this gets the conversation rolling…
- What is one thing that would make you happier until we meet again?
The processes of Kaizen and Scrum use the word ‘happier’ on purpose. Kaizen includes the included word ‘Zen’ for the concept of ‘good’ for ‘happier’. As Jeff Sutherland describes in his book about Scrum, ‘Happiness is a predictive measure’. We all know that winning helps, but a happy team comes first before the winning. We all hear about how the teams that rise to the top have a great culture. That process of listening and supporting is started a long time before the first regular season game. Players will play harder when they feel listened to and are supported.
Here is a positive and negative example from the team I cheer for the most, which is the Minnesota Vikings.
Positive Example: Bud Grant, who led the Vikings to 4 Super Bowls and is a Hall of Fame coach. I was lucky enough to shake Coach Grant’s hand one time when one of my running backs from Litchfield, Minnesota, Terry Eurle, received a state-wide award at the Metrodome. You could immediately tell he was such a down-to-earth human being. To show the trust his players had in him we need to look no further than the quote from Fran Tarkenton in this Minneapolis Star & Tribune article. “I’ve never met a more interesting person,’’ Tarkenton said. “Bud brought dignity to the Vikings. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t yell. But if he said something, you listened. Because it made sense.’’ A player like Tarkenton does not give a quote like that unless the head coach has created a positive, happy and trusting environment.
Negative Example: After Bud Grant retired in1983 and before Bud Grant returned for one more season in 1985, there was a Vikings season run by Les Steckle where the Vikings ended up 3-13. Les Steckle started the year with a military inspired training camp that all Viking fans remember and it led to a very poor season. My belief is that Coach Steckle simply did not have buy-in from his players. Did he meet with them before the season and get them to commit to more conditioning and more physical hitting at practice? Did he understand that he was replacing a head coach in Bud Grant with an exact opposite stance on some of these expectations? Coach Steckle should have understood that switch in expectations as he was an assistant with the Vikings for many years. In the end if you look at Coach Steckle’s coaching career with a variety of teams, he had some good success, but it is that one year without that team ‘happiness’ that will stick with Vikings fans.
Good luck Coach Reid defending your title! You are doing it right by doing the right thing: Making sure your players and everyone in your organization feels heard through time tested processes as described by Scrum and Kaizen, even if you most likely do not call them by those names.
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