The one trait that trumps any skill

Do you remember that scene in the movie Cars when Lightning McQueen was trying to win the Piston Cup at the end of the movie? 'The King' was in the last race of his career and trying to win the Cup again to go out on top.

The green car, "Chick", who had tied with Lightning and 'The King' in their first race decided to play dirty and spun 'The King' off of the track. If it hadn't been for Lightning's humbling experience in Radiator Springs, he would have probably ignored King's crash and went on to win the race.

But something happened to Lightning in Radiator Springs that changed everything. He learned patience, humility, and the genuine concern for other people. He developed the one train that trumps any skill: Character.

As I dedicated a series of my first five blog posts on culture and the four pillars of culture that make a great team, I didn't say what happened when you put all those ingredients together. The output of a team full of positivity, love, accountability, and yearning is a team of high character.

No team demonstrated a culture of character as well as the 2020 National Champions, the LSU Tiger Football Team. In full transparency, I am a die-hard LSU fan. But with complete objectivity, there's some great lessons to be learned from their head coach and at least a couple of their players.

Coach Ed Orgeron just finished his third full year in his dream job, coaching the LSU Tiger Football Team. As a Louisiana native, Coach O always dreamed of coaching for the team he grew up cheering for.

Through much adversity, Coach O was fired from one major football program at Ole Miss and passed over for the head coaching job at USC (University of Southern California). At a low point in his career, his wife (Kelly) reminded him that God had something better. Coach O's response, "well it must be good, because I was just passed over for a pretty darn good job."

Kelly was right, and when Ed Orgeron became "coach" again, it was two years later, in 2015, as the Defensive Line coach at no other university but Louisiana State University. He was thrilled just to be part of it.

Eighteen months later, Les Miles, the current LSU head coach at the time, was fired. LSU's Athletic Director tapped Coach O to be the interim head coach, and Ed was going to make every bit of that opportunity count. It was then that he started to instill a new mantra at LSU: "One Team. One Heartbeat." (If you watch any of their incredibly produced hype videos on YouTube, you'll hear their mantra repeatedly)

With a mantra like "One Team. One Heartbeat." There's no room for doubt with what message Coach O wanted the team to understand. LSU recruits a lot of top talent coming out of high school, but Coach O knows that one player doesn't make a team. It's a team of character, fighting for one another, that makes a great team. A championship team.

Like Lightning McQueen, there are two highly touted players at LSU who had to learn patience and humility. Myles Brennan has been a backup quarterback at LSU for three years now, and he's getting ready to become the next starting quarterback.

When Myles was recruited, he was the #1 quarterback in the state of Mississippi, and he looked to be the potential starter in his second year. With the transfer of Joe Burrow, Heisman winner and breaker of multiple all-time national records, Myles had to wait two more years behind the eventual #1 NFL draft pick.

Many talented quarterbacks transfer to other schools to start playing sooner. But not Brennan. He had bought into Orgeron's culture: "One Team. One Heartbeat." He would wait his turn, for the team. Now, it's about to pay off.

The second player is John Emery Jr., the #1 ranked running back coming out of high school in the 2019 recruiting class. Many believed Emery would be LSU's starter mid-way through the 2019 season. But as a Junior, Clyde Edwards-Helaire had an incredible season, far-surpassing the expectations of most. Emery was the fourth option with the fewest carries of the running backs on the roster.

There was speculation Emery would be entering the transfer portal (an online database of players who want to transfer out of their current school), and I thought this could be a possibility. But Emery was interviewed not long after the national title game, and what he said shocked a lot of people.

As highly touted as he was, he admitted that he had a lot of growing up to do and a lot to still learn. Someone in his position could have pouted about not having the spotlight right away, but he didn't. He bought into Coach O and the LSU team's mantra: "One Team. One Heartbeat."

You can hire all the talent you want for your organization, and you can spend a lot of money to get what looks like the best, on paper. But if all you have to offer is money, then talent will always go to the highest bidder.

The only sustainable strategy for retaining your best talent is a strong culture. A culture of character. A culture of positivity, love, accountability, and yearning. LSU won a national title that nobody saw coming, because they exuded this culture.

What would your organization look like? What could your organization accomplish if it was defined as a culture of character?

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