Winning Communications: Earning the Right to Entertain

Communications That Work: Principle #8 Entertainment is a tool…not a goal

In the movie Hoosiers, a new coach inherits a rag tag group of basketball players who had not, and were probably never going to, win much of anything. At his first practice, the coach sees players running in different directions, not passing, shooting…and missing…from all spots on the court as they scrimmaged. The old coach leading the practice was pleased because what he sees is basketball. The new coach sees a chaotic mess—and he’s right. 

The first thing the new coach does is to stop the play. He forces individual and team drills in passing and defense. He forbids shooting initially and adds it in later. The players comply, though it’s not as fun. It’s work. He sets the standards and reinforces them daily. Over time, the team adds more and more stuff into the mix, on a set foundation, becoming better and eventually winning at the highest level. 

I love this story and movie (not the least of which is there are many parallels to the high school basketball team I played on.) There are so many lessons to be learned.  Playing and goofing off can be fun—but winning is better. Consistency and repetition build skills and habits. Structure is liberating, and creativity comes from confidence. Change is easier when it’s incorporated on a solid foundation. Mostly, I think people forget the lesson that winning comes usually as a result of hard work by many people working toward a common goal. 

I find it’s a lesson that communicators and leaders need to keep learning, though. I see many communicators and leaders want to skip ahead to the fun part—avoid the practice, the repetition and the standards and have a big meeting, focus on tactics like brown bags, videos and blogs, without clearly defining the story they’re trying to tell. It’s like painting a car before it’s assembled. Like in Hoosiers, we want to scrimmage and play and push the real work to another day or worse, assume a miracle will occur, and employees will bail out leaders through “innovation.” Which creates a lot of individual action, some of which might be great, but destined to undermine the team winning. 

it’s important to remember that employee communication is different. They’re not fans or customers or audience, they’re the people who will decide whether your business wins or fails. You speak to them  differently, and they expect more. To shift metaphors, when the lights come on, they don’t leave the theater or the arena; They return to work. They’re still there the next day, and the next, and the next. 

The tools of entertainment can be valuable. Storytelling, videos, speeches etc. are useful–but they aren’t the goal. More information isn’t the goal. Getting people to be excited isn’t the goal. The goal is winning. Defining what winning means for your organization, clearly and consistently and telling that story to enable your team to act is the job. Because, at the end of the day, winning together is really fun, too.

Have you ever felt like entertainment took precedent over communications?