If you have read any of my previous articles, you absolutely know that I am a sports fanatic. I have always been a participant as well as an observer. I believe in maintaining a VERY active lifestyle. But I ramble!
Along with many people (men and women) in the US, I am an unabashed fan of the NFL. I root for the Washington Redskins, but I’m much more of a fan of specific individuals. Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Russell Wilson and Greg Olson are among my favorite players. Pete Carroll, (former coach) Tony Dungy and Mike Tomlin are among my favorite coaches. The only common threads that exist between these people are their authenticity, resilience, perseverance, and spirit of community service. I have thoroughly researched each of these people’s “stories” because the pursuit of excellence in any field fascinates me. I believe that success in team sports and team success in business are analogous.
Being a fan of the Redskins, I pay close attention to developments among the players and coaches there, looking for leadership nuggets (or lack thereof), which brings me to my topic: Robert Griffin III, Aaron Rodgers, and some lessons that may give you.
Robert Griffin III was the ‘Skins’ phenom rookie quarterback in 2012. Having won the Heisman Trophy at Baylor, graduating seventh in his class, and coming from a disciplined and respectful military family, RGIII won the Rookie of the Year award for the NFL. Two concerns coaches and scouts had before the NFL draft his senior year in college: He was an undisciplined quarterback (lots of athletic ability but not much disciplined “quarterback intelligence”) and he had broken a knee in college that required ACL surgery with lengthy rehabilitation.
Griffin dazzled in his first year in the NFL, leading the Redskins to the playoffs for the first time in five years. In a midseason game, he injured his knee (the same knee he had surgery on in college) but kept playing. In his first playoff game against the Seahawks, he once again tore his ACL, again requiring surgery.
When RGIII returned, it wasn’t the same guy. He tried to learn and perform in coach Mike Shanahan’s system. That required a little less athleticism but a lot more brainpower. He didn’t succeed. The Redskins benched him after their preseason games in 2015 and passed on Kirk Cousins with flying colors.
I spoke to several people who would know about Griffin’s inability or inclination to work on a more cerebral system. Each said team management believed he would come back after surgery, learn to be an NFL quarterback instead of a free player, and be successful. Because? Because they believed that he had the intelligence to do that. “Look at his college grades,” one person warned. Robert Griffin was “book smart”.
Aaron Rodgers grew up in California, where he did well in school and was a small quarterback. He scored over 1300 on his SAT (when a perfect score was 1600). The combination of his soccer performance and academic performance led him to believe that he would be highly recruited. His skinny body (at the time) nullified his attributes and virtually no school recruited him. Rodgers desperately wanted to develop as a soccer player and enrolled in a community college to hone his skills; he performed magnificently. That led to a scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley, where he again performed brilliantly and was expected to be a top-three pick in the NFL draft. He was drafted 24th by the Packers, which was a huge disappointment that further sharpened his “edge.”
Like Packer, Rodgers sat on the bench for three years behind Brett Favre, who paid little attention to him. When asked about that, Favre said: “It’s not my job to train the guy who can take my place.” When he finally got the starting job in 2008, he wasn’t a popular guy. The fans in Green Bay chanted, “We want Brett,” as Rodgers initially struggled. A few years later, Rodgers led the Packers to the Super Bowl, which they won. He also won the league’s Most Valuable Player award twice and is a sure bet to be voted into the Hall of Fame when he retires.
Some vital information about Rodgers’ intelligence BEYOND classroom intelligence: He won the Celebrity Jeopardy award last year, easily beating out astronaut and physicist Mark Kelly and venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary. According to people who know him, that victory came down to “his intelligence and his reflexes” from him (i.e., the ability to process information quickly and click the buzzer quickly). Both are critical attributes for a quarterback.
In addition to needing only two days to memorize his college playbook (which he did), Rodgers has a quick and integrative mind. He can process a lot of diverse information, integrate it into a cohesive whole, make a decision about what to do with that cohesive whole, and act on that decision almost instantly. “Smart Classroom” may be a necessary component to quarterback success; “fast performance” is even faster.
Here’s what this means to you: Most of us think of “strengths” and “weaknesses” in very general terms. I hear CEOs ALL THE TIME describe people (for example) as “smart”, with “interpersonal skills” or “analytical”. Those are abstract terms that are useless for personal development. Robert Griffin is smart; so is Aaron Rodgers. To truly understand the application and usefulness of each of your intelligences, one must be able to describe what each one is capable of DOING!
When an executive tells me that one of his co-workers is not (again, for example) a good co-worker, I ask him the following: “When you’re not being a good co-worker, what are you doing that you should stop doing, and what is it? What aren’t you doing that you should start doing?” If the executive says, “In staff meetings, you intimidate people,” I ask the same two questions again, until I get to the root of the problem in behavioral, customer-oriented terms. action, specific and granular.
Redskins front office should have known that integrative thinking and processing speed were not among Robert Griffin’s strengths when they accused him of leading an offense that was complex and wouldn’t rely solely on athleticism. YOU must know your own strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of the people who report to you, in finite detail, or your development initiatives will go to waste.
