Why Lebron James Creates A Handshake For Each Teammate

Thanks for your feedback last week!! It was a unanimous vote to keep the sections as they are so without further ado, let’s dive in…

✍️ Coming up in today’s edition:

1. One quick win: LeBron James uses to build team chemistry

2. One proven system: To define excellence in each role and attract the best talent in your industry

3. One million-dollar question: That Scottish Rugby used to retain the Calcutta Cup

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1. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LEBRON JAMES’S TEAM HANDSHAKE

LeBron James is widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players ever.

He is the NBA's all-time scoring title with more than 40,000 points scored.

But the one thing that is even more impressive is his ability to build championship-winning teams wherever he has played.

It might seem insignificant but before every game, Lebron greets each teammate with a unique handshake, one crafted just for them.

This is one of many “rituals” that he uses to build team chemistry 👇

The coordination and memorisation required are mind-blowing, but the purpose is crystal clear. As the team captain, he’s recognising each player and setting the tone, signalling that it’s game time.

Research shows us that rituals like this reduce anxiety and increase confidence.

If you don’t have rituals with your team just yet, take a couple of minutes this week to come up with something unique for your team.

2. BUILDING A MODEL OF EXCELLENCE FOR EACH ROLE

You hear a lot of successful entrepreneurs, like Steve Jobs, talk about the need to hire “A Players” when building teams.

But very rarely do they describe what makes an A player.

Here is a system you can use within your own company to make you sure you bring in the best talent for each role 👇

Step 1: Gather a cross-section of people within a given role and ask them the following questions:

1. Describe the key skills and strengths that distinguish the top performers in your role from everyone else

2. Describe the best colleague you ever worked with and what made them so special

3. Write down the non-negotiables parts of this role (what you absolutely need to do well)

4. Share the most useful advice you could give your younger self about succeeding in this role

5. Describe the parts of the job that are commonly misunderstood by people on the outside

Step 2: Capture the key skills that keep getting mentioned in this process and add them across the top of a spreadsheet. (Tip: Don’t do more than 10 as usually there a commonalities)

Then populate the columns with detailed descriptions of those skills in action, using the quotes and stories that were shared by the people you asked.

Step 3: Once completed, share with the wider executive team and hiring managers and ask the following three questions:

1. What are we missing?

2. What surprises you about the model so far?

3. How can we use this to create more clarity about the key skills we need both internally and externally?

This is a game-changer when building a high-performing team.

If you have done something similar or if you adopt a different approach, please reply to this email with your framework as we are always looking to share what the best in the industry are doing with the ETT community 📧 

3. WHAT ARE YOUR THREE STRONGEST TEAM BEHAVIOURS?

This question is one of the most powerful in the toolbox.

What are the behaviours that your team live to their fullest and sacrifice to deliver against every week?

These are more powerful than singular words written on the wall.

The best example of this is the Scottish Rugby team who were losing 31-7 at half-time to England in the Calcutta Cup.

They came back to retain the Cup in what was one of the greatest second halves of rugby ever.

When the Head Coach was asked about how they did it, he reiterated the importance of the three team behaviours that they had all committed to a long time before kick off:

• Be brave and take risks 

• Stick together 

• Do everything with high energy

You’ll notice these aren’t behavioural outcomes but behavioural outputs that are in the control of every person on that team.

They certainly played that second half with those three in clear sight.

So this week, ask yourself:

What are the three behaviours that will define the team I’m leading?

MY FAVOURITE FINDS 🔗

For your performance:

• World Champion Lacrosse player shares his 100 reps per day framework (Paul Rabil)

• What separates world-class players from the great ones (Pep Guardiola)

For your team:

• A simple tactic to help your team handle pressure (Sports Psychology)

• Tennis Legend’s core principles for success (Billy Jean King)

For your health:

• A crazy experiment on sleep that improved performance of the Stanford Basketball team by 9% (Dr. Andy Galpin)

• The actor behind Spiderman shares the most valuable piece of advice he ever received (Tom Holland)

Thanks!

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