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Leadership Tips From USC Football Coach Pete Carroll

Posted Friday April 7, 2006 in Business

Have I mentioned lately that I love the speakers in business school? Yeah, so I do. Especially when they’re a surprise speaker, and especially when that surprise speaker is… well…

Yeah, that’s USC Trojans Football coach Pete Carroll! He came to our class to talk about his experiences turning around USC football, but the leadership philosophy he expressed touched on a other important topics that are relevant to most entrepreneurs and businesspeople. In particular, he spoke about:

• Being honest about and loyal to who you are and what you’re good at
• Building a winner by bringing, and sticking with, a philosophy
• The importance of competitive spirit
• Using a core philosophy to drive even the toughest decisions
• Empowering employees

But first:

Pete Who?

Pete Carroll is the coach of the wildly successful USC Trojans football team, which has won or shared two of the last three college national championships. In the four years before Carroll came, the Trojans played in one bowl game and lost it; we had also gone through six coaches in the previous 18 years. Now, the Trojans are recruiting the top high school talent and as many as five Trojans may be drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft. That’s a turnaround, folks.

Pete himself was a quiet and friendly guy. Soft-spoken, he used casual constructions in speaking but also drew from a wide variety of sources, from philosophers to politicians, and he displayed quite a large vocabulary. He was also a big fidgeter. Obviously a patient guy, Coach Carroll clearly enjoyed spending the time with students and was a natural teacher.

Is Business Really Like Sports?

Well, men tend to speak of sports either in terms of sports or in terms of war, so, if you’re put off by sports as a metaphor, it’s still probably the better of the options. Sports and business have many differences, but do share several key similarities:

• Competition
• Management of individuals
• Planning and strategizing, both versus a group of opponents and versus single opponents

So, sports and business are by no means equal, but there is likely room for some useful cross-pollination of ideas. Interestingly enough, we have a class at the Marshall School that teaches American Football to people who aren’t familiar with it, including international students, because sports metaphors show up in business so often. There are also opportunities to learn about baseball and basketball (I’m sure that, in other countries, people speak in terms of hockey, soccer, etc.). If you’re planning to be a businessperson in the US, it’s worth being able to speak in sports metaphors (and it’s really not hard).

Be Who You Are

Coach Carroll was kind enough to talk about some tough topics, one of those being his unsuccessful career as an NFL head coach. He told the story of his three-year run as Patriots coach. Carroll preceded Bill Belichick, who has led the Pats to three NFL championships in five years; but, even more importantly, Pete succeeded Bill Parcells, who had also brought New England to a Super Bowl, before falling out with the owner and general manager. Now, Pete is a laid-back California kind of guy; even when in front of our class, he spoke quietly, if clearly, had the occasional surfer-style phrasing, and displayed a modern, ADHD-affected inability to sit still in his chair. Pete described Parcells — without any animosity — as “Attila the Hun,” a portrayal that matches the image of Parcells in the media. Pete didn’t want to run the Patriots like Parcells did, but Patriots owner Bob Kraft expected a continuation of the Parcells era. Ultimately, Pete was fired, but he could never yell and terrorize and dominate the way Parcells could, and Kraft had to fire him; but Pete’s attitude is perfectly matched to Southern California’s needs. Trying to be someone else, Coach Carroll believes, would have still resulted in failure, but not provided the opportunity to grow into the future and into the coach of the Trojans.

Build a Winner With a Philosophy

In retrospect, Pete might have taken other coaching opportunities. He took the Patriots job because it was the most challenging job out there; but there were other jobs out there, jobs which would have given Carroll the chance to implement his own philosophy, rather than trying to make him a link in the Parcells-Belichick dynasty. Other coaches of his age and with his resume, such as the Broncos’ Mike Shanahan, took an opportunity to that let them put in their own philosophy in a less-successful, less-pressured environment, and gave them a honeymoon period in which to implement that philosophy, and thrived (the Broncos have won two Super Bowls and gone to two other AFC championship games with Shanahan as coach). Knowing that he could in no way expect more than three shots at a head coaching job, Pete waited for just such an opportunity and found it at USC, where he had the opportunity to bring in his own system and philosophy. Apparently, this approach worked. The lesson? Go to places that will embrace your philosophy and let you grow.

Follow That Philosophy With Even the Toughest Decisions

The Trojans played for the football national championship in January, taking a lead into the last 19 seconds of the game. Coach Carroll has been criticized for going for a first down on a fourth down play earlier in the fourth quarter; had the Trojans punted the ball, as most teams do in that situation, there’s a real chance that Texas wouldn’t have had enough time to drive for the winning score. But, as Pete pointed out, they’d gotten to the game by going for it all season long, they had a solid philosophy, and a history of execution, in going for the first down in such situations. He’s never regretted his decision there, because he knows it was right. Not every event can turn out right, but you can always feel good about the choices you make if you have a solid philosophy and stick to it, even when the chips are down. Best of all, if your philosophy is right, then things will work out more often than not (see: 2 championships, 1 second-place finish in 3 years).

Competitive Spirit

One way in which the similarity between business and sports cannot be denied is in the ceaseless need for competitive spirit in both. You never win except by going for it. Pete looks for that spirit in his recruits and works to instill it in all of his players, and a spirit of competition will never let down a company that strives to be the best (in an ethical way, of course).

Empowerment

Coach Caroll is a humble man. Many college coaches out there proudly say “It’s my job to turn these boys into men,” but Pete recognizes the variety of influences on his players and doesn’t try to break them down and build them up again. Instead, he believes his role is to make his players believe they have the power to achieve at whatever level is asked of them, without micro-management and without fitting a mold. Anyone who’s been supervised by a micromanager knows that empowerment leads to higher performance and personal growth.

Learning about business from sports is sometimes a dodgy proposition, but there’s nothing like having the chance to learn from a proven leader, especially an interesting, mellow, and very successful one like Pete Carroll!