MN Wild Are Cooking More Than Just a Good Record
State of Hockey Does Leadership Right
February 4, 2022, Mary Kay Delvo, INspiring SIGHT
You don’t have to look hard to see what leadership looks like. Just watch the Minnesota Wild Hockey team since Bill Guerin took over as general manager and he named Dean Evason head coach. The MN Wild have been plagued by a lackluster record for over a decade. They’ve also had organizational culture issues which didn’t align with the results they wanted on the ice. It’s no accident that in just 1-2 years’ time, the Wild are near the top of the National Hockey League (NHL), and they don’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.
Looking to the MN Wild’s last decade as a case study in leadership and culture, the Wild seemingly had good talent, yet took fans on a disappointment rollercoaster ride with no way to get off. Hockey analysts often blamed players, yet when traded to other teams, those same players excelled. Others scratched their heads wondering why they weren’t performing and getting the results they desired when they had plenty of talent on their roster. The MN Wild had a dynamic familiar to what organizational leaders of all sizes experience. If you are scratching your head about this same phenomenon, it’s a clear sign culture is to blame—and culture always starts at the top.
So how do we know the culture has improved within the MN Wild? What else explains, Ryan Hartman, a 26-year-old pending free agent, signing a three-year extension with the MN Wild and taking a $200,000 per-year pay cut without even testing the market? Tony Abbott writes in https://zonecoverage.com that According to Hartman, that was the price to stay in a place he really enjoyed. “I like the camaraderie of this team, this locker room, the direction of where this team is heading.”
If that’s not a testament to a change in culture, I don’t know what is and that’s just one example.
So, what is happening that would make Hartman take a pay cut mid-way into his NHL career? Let’s take a look at what ingredients, General Manager, Guerin, and Head Coach, Evason, are baking into the culture from top to bottom.
KEY INGREDIENTS FOR CREATING CULTURE
MINDSET- a structure of mental lenses responsible for determining how we think, make decisions and act. The kind of mindset the MN Wild organization wants their players to have is demonstrated by its top leaders, Guerin, and Evason. In other words, they walk the talk.
As you listen to players and coaches talk about the team and organization, you’ll hear four primary mindsets behind what they say.
1) Growth - sees challenges, failures & feedback as opportunities for growth & learning
2) Open - voice = value, seek to validate others
3) Outward - focused on success; mental frames that orient toward winning & gains, and
4) Promotion - value is measured by helping others be successful
VISION & STRATEGY- the vision for the organization is clear, consistent, and articulated throughout. Regardless of role within the MN Wild organization, everyone knows what they are working towards. To borrow from another popular Minnesota sports culture phrase, everyone is “rowing the boat” in the same direction.
EXPECTATION & ACCOUNTABILITY - Clear expectations set the tone for behavior and provide a rational starting place for performance conversations. When expectations are consistent across the organization, it puts everyone on the same playing field. Poor performance often stems from a lack of upfront and clear expectations—inviting excuse making, frustration, lack of ownership and limited accountability.
Clear expectations also allow for uniform accountability. Gone are the days of the MN Wild where selling more jerseys with your name on the back and having a bigger paycheck equates to more playing time or a more important voice in the locker room. When too much emphasis is put on a few exceptionally skilled players, it undermines and devalues effort and performance of others. When everyone is held to the same expectations, it creates one team vs. a supporting cast for a few stars of the show. Evason demonstrates his philosophy in every game and the Wild’s performance and record proves its effectiveness.
This philosophy creates bench strength which creates resiliency and confidence. It sends the message that every team member counts and is needed to contribute because we all do better when we all do better. The new MN Wild culture expects that any player can score regardless of what line they are on. The results—on more than one occasion, in one game, seven different players from all four lines score goals.
TEAM CHEMISTRY - Both Guerin and Evason know that skill alone will not win a Stanley Cup and that finding the right balance of skill, attitude, personality, and drive are essential ingredients for success. Dan Myers writes in Wild.com, that Guerin has placed an emphasis on chemistry in the dressing room, and believes it's been one of the keys to Minnesota's hot start to the 2021-22 season. If anyone knows the importance of a solid personality in a championship-caliber dressing room, it's Guerin, who was a part of two Stanley Cup championship teams as a player and two more as an executive with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Guerin says, "In a strong culture you have to have character people, but you also have to have characters."
EVERYONE IS A LEADER - and everyone has a voice. Contrary to the popular-held belief that a coach has to chew their team out during intermission to motivate better performance, Evason has a different philosophy. Trust they know what to do and let them do it. Leadership and the responsibility players feel to each other drives their attitude and results and must come from within the team to be sustainable. Not a shellacking from the coach.
For the MN Wild, that responsibility to each other has extended onto the ice which you’ll notice in their unselfish play, how they cover each other when not at their best, and how they celebrate each other’s successes, even when they have been benched for poor performance. Unlike in most sports teams, in the new MN Wild locker room, rookies don’t have to prove themselves before being welcomed, and considered valuable contributors to the team. They are part of the team from day one.
TAKING THE STAIRS INSTEAD OF THE ELEVATOR - Both Guerin and Evason started at the bottom, worked their way up, and know the emotional and physical toll required to advance. Evason was an American Hockey League (AHL) coach before becoming a National Hockey League (NHL) head coach. He refers more often to the struggles AHL players, in their quest to play in the NHL, have with mindset over skill sets. Something he only knows because he’s been there.
I work to develop leaders in organizations every day, and if I had to pick just one thing I am proud of as a fan of the Minnesota Wild, it would be the current leadership and the organizational culture they are creating. After all, without it, we wouldn’t have a legitimate chance at being a Stanley Cup Contender. Go Wild!
@inspiringsight, www.inspiringsight.com, marykay@inspiringsight.com