Practice Like a Pro to Build Strong Team Skills

“Prac­tice puts brains in your mus­cles.” - Sam Snead, pro­fes­sion­al golfer

One of the peo­ple I have the great for­tune to work with is Andrew Limouris, CEOs of Medix, a lead­ing provider of work­force solu­tions for clients and can­di­dates across the Health­care, Sci­en­tif­ic and IT indus­tries. Medix has been fea­tured on such pres­ti­gious lists as Inc. mag­a­zine’s ​“Inc. 5000 Hon­or Roll,” Inavero’s ​“Best of Staffing” Tal­ent Award, and Best and Bright­est Com­pa­nies to Work for in the US. Last year, Andrew was hon­ored as a Mid­west Ernst and Young Entre­pre­neur of The Year® in Tech­nol­o­gy and Tal­ent Services.

Andrew also wrote Won with Pur­pose: Pos­i­tive­ly Impact­ing Lives On and Off the Field, about cul­ti­vat­ing a deep­er pur­pose in busi­ness, to bring suc­cess to a com­pa­ny and to every per­son on every team. And he does coach a foot­ball team.

I’d heard about this amaz­ing foot­ball team of 14- and 15-year-old boys but had nev­er seen them in per­son until ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, at an exec­u­tive retreat, when we par­tic­i­pat­ed in their team prac­tice. And I mean full-on participated!

At one point in the prac­tice, in a block­ing drill, I was up against a 14-year old kid in full gear. It was my job to stop him, hold­ing only a big pad — wear­ing no oth­er gear. I took a hel­met to the bridge of my nose and to the back of my head, and had an absolute riot, with the sore mus­cles and bruis­es to prove it.

I was struck by how, for young kids, how well orga­nized and dynam­ic the prac­tice was: the dis­ci­pline, the call­ing down of the drills – 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…switch! — to lin­ing up their hel­mets when coach called a water break. Not nor­mal teen boy behaviour.

They rotat­ed through six dif­fer­ent sta­tions, drill after drill. Of the many sports prac­tices I’ve seen, over the years, I have nev­er seen one this orga­nized or effec­tive. The coach­es were involved, teach­ing and run­ning the drills with the boys, run­ning the prac­tice with the incred­i­ble inten­si­ty and focus you’d expect on a pro team. Unbelievable!

And it real­ly made me think that if we all prac­ticed with that kind of focus and inten­si­ty, how could we not do incred­i­bly well?

“An ounce of prac­tice is worth more than tons of preach­ing”. - Mahat­ma Gandhi

Prac­tice, perfect

If in your busi­ness­es, a week­ly meet­ing includ­ed train­ing at this inten­si­ty — with ​‘coach­es’, show­ing your team the way to high­er lev­el of achieve­ment — you’d like­ly build strong team skills and have great per­for­mances from your people.

Most com­pa­nies are so busy doing the job that they lose that rigour to train. They don’t do enough prac­tice and rehearsal, in order to do the job that much better.

Sales meet­ings should have some com­po­nent of sales train­ing on a reg­u­lar basis – not just the read­ing of reports: role play, run sce­nar­ios again and again, and get feedback.

The Chal­lenge

• Do your meet­ings include train­ing or skill devel­op­ment as part of the agenda?
• Does your train­ing incor­po­rate the rigour of a pro team – or do you expect peo­ple to get bet­ter and stronger on their own?