3 Essential Elements for Excellence
The Management Ideas of Nick Saban: A Leadership Case Study of the Alabama Crimson Tide Football Head Coach
I confess, I like Nick Saban. Now some of my friends and family may find that statement odd since I grew up as a diehard University of Kentucky fan -Big Blue Nation! Today, I am a strong fan of the Washington Huskies and the Gonzaga Bulldogs. Go Dawgs! And Bulldogs! Still, I really like Nick Saban’s leadership style in coaching the University of Alabama football team. Roll Tide!
This small booklet covers Nick Saban’s approach to running a high-performance system. Saban is big on process and the book highlights three essential elements for excellence:
1. Mindset
2. Preparation
3. Performance
Most any goal or work effort can apply these three principles. It boils down to being in sync with the overall process that delivers a consistent, positive mindset, disciplined preparation, and performance excellence (doing your best no matter what the outcome).
1. Mindset
- How you think about success
- Involves vision, process, and discipline
- Vision of what you want to accomplish
- Discipline is putting in the work you have to do in order to accomplish your goals
- Hardest part is having the discipline to stick to the process
- Think of discipline as
- Doing what you’re supposed to do
- When you’re supposed to do it
- In the way it is supposed to be done
- Doing what you’re supposed to do
- Face challenges and difficulty with a positive attitude
- Positive mindset allows you to meet challenges with determination and effort
What is your vision?
How do you approach difficulties?
What are you selling in your interactions with others – positive or negative
2. Preparation
- Create a culture of excellence
- Also includes time management
- How are you investing your time to facilitate working toward your goals?
- Actions you take on a day-to-day basis determines whether or not you will be successful or not
- Emphasis is on effort – do what needs to be done to the best of your ability
- Every single task must be done to the highest standard
How are your spending your time?
What goals are you setting for yourself?
It’s the journey that’s important…It’s about what you control every minute of every day – Nick Saban
3. Performance
- Executing at the highest level
- Failure is an opportunity to improve
- It’s a part of life
- Learn from your mistakes
- Focus on improvement – ways to get better
- Be relentless in your pursuit of excellence
- Relentless attitude of always seeking excellence
- Focus on the process and not the outcome – helps keep the emotions in check
What lessons do you learn from your mistakes
Focus on:
- Program goals
- Efforts and not the results
- Work that needs to be done; let the results take care of themselves
- The moment right in front of you
I appreciate these principles articulated by Saban, for they fuel my inner drive toward doing my best. The process of getting to a state of excellence is just as important as the end result. For me, excellence is always a work in progress, an inner motivation that keeps pushing me forward to improve and get better. The process truly is about mindset, preparation and performance. Be intentional. Be focused. Keep a positive attitude, and be relentless in your pursuit of your goal, your work, your desire in life.
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