When you read about a successful NFL coach or watch an interview after championships are won, you hear words like “toughness,” “blue collar,” and “gritty.” This is often how leaders describe their teams' reactions when the chips are on the line. When it comes to building a strong culture for your program or organization, leaders want those “grinders” around them. We think they'll be the hardest-working, most reliable, and best able to get though the muck that will be dealt to a group over a period of time.

But what is real “toughness?” What does grit mean when describing a person within your organization?

Imagine a weekly staff meeting at a huge firm, where the account supervisor announces, “I want to point out how proud we all are of Julie's efforts this past month. She sealed one of our biggest contracts to date with a client we have been chasing for months. She showed determination and grit, going the extra mile with late hours and weekends to accomplish this account. Let's give her a big round of applause!”

What did the supervisor mean by grit? What is true toughness? I frequently ask these questions of people who have built championship programs or successful businesses.

True Toughness

A prevalent answer is that toughness is not a value or trait; it is a combination of many ideas, values, and traits that each individual in the organization is willing to invest in.

Toughness is a combination of many ideas, values, and traits that each individual in the organization is willing to invest in.

Being tough is not about how loud you are or how much you posture to intimidate others. Toughness is commonly misunderstood to equate to fist fights and verbal arguments. I call it the “hold me back” theory: the person who is posturing how “tough” they think they are by picking a fight or engaging in a shouting match. I chuckle every fall when I turn on a college football game, especially during rivalry week, when teams play longstanding foes. As the two teams come together for pregame warmups at the 50-yard line, they begin to yell and scream at each other. At first glance it looks to be a battle royal or rumble about to go down, a true street fight. Everyone is telling their teammates “Hold me back!” This is fake toughness, just like the two guys in a bar arguing over who bumped whom in the line to get a drink. One tells a friend, “Hold me back before I beat the pulp out of this guy!”

I always wonder what would happen if the person who is supposedly holding them back lets them go. Those college players surely know the NCAA or the schools they play for would hand down hefty suspensions or rip their eligibility away, costing them not only issues with their scholarships, but potentially their professional careers! The bouncer in that bar would quickly throw those two fellas on the street or even have them arrested. All these situations are fake toughness—just talk.

If you want to be tough, follow your core values.

Real toughness is an individual who is willing to follow a set of standards put forth by the leader of a program or organization in order to do their part for the greater good of that organization.

People who demonstrate grit stick to these principles, even when faced with a setback, failure, or adversity. When a group of people follow this pattern, the program becomes tough, resilient, tenacious. All these values and traits we strive for allow us to form a strong culture. So if you want to be tough, follow your core values.

Learn to Compete

Have a great attitude and stay positive when things don't necessarily go the way you planned. Learn how to compete in everything you engage in. Challenge yourself and you're co-workers to compete every day. Competition tests your true toughness.

Your compete level will help you prepare for the everyday challenges that will arise on playing fields and in boardrooms. And it has to be practiced. Set up daily plans to compete with one another. There is a huge difference during competition between having fun and doing something rewarding. Everyone wants to have fun, but only few substitute it for something rewarding. That is another sign of toughness.

Toughness is also brought out through competition simply because competition will ultimately lead to winners and losers, or success and failure. During the tough times of losing, setbacks, and failure, your toughness will be tested. The end result that comes from competing drives an individual to relate back to the core values their organization established. If you beat out your co-worker for a promotion, show humility toward them to help them grow. If you lose your starting position on a sports team, recognize the value of failure as a positive teaching tool in order to improve tomorrow. When competition exists both within an organization and against opponents, the outcome will always test your core values. When you have an opportunity to demonstrate these values, it gives you the opportunity to show true toughness.

Competing has to be practiced.

I see this every day when recruiting Division I baseball players to our program. There has been a cultural change in our sport, like others. It used to be that winning a game or championship at the high school level meant more than individual success. Unfortunately, we have entered the “travel ball” era. Now, not all travel ball organizations operate as I am about to describe and actually engage in a team concept, but the majority have set the tone of individual as oppose to organizational success. Players don't necessarily represent a town or high school team anymore, but they play for a team consisting of players from all over a region or even a state, that they pay exorbitant fees to be a part of in order to play in front of college and professional scouts. People like me, scouting for future talent, are forced to attend these games, as most parents buy into the pressure to have their sons or daughters play in order to obtain scholarships. What is not explained is that scholarships are very rare, and with tens of thousands of players around the country, a participant really has to stand out. What transpires at these travel games is athletes playing to impress scouts, not to win the game. In fact, some games have time limits and no one even knows the score.

Also, players on the travel teams who don't like a coach or get benched for not hustling just leave and take their payment to another organization. The competition necessary for these young players to be successful in baseball and later in life is lacking. These games are for individual rewards, and not for the reward of a team championship. A strong group culture rarely forms from this model.

Let's switch gears for a moment, out of the sports world, and paint a picture of the travel ball mentality in the corporate world. Can you envision paying a sum of money to a business you would like to work for? Imagine that you have to pay them to work, in exchange for many larger rewards, such as higher pay and better jobs once you leave this company.

All the people inside that office building also pay to be there. So your colleagues consist of employees who “pay to play.” They come from all over the United States to join this organization. The supervisor of this group gets everyone together, most likely once a month, and asks everyone to demonstrate their skills in order to win a huge account. There are no internal meetings, no training sessions, no discussions on how to win the big account, and certainly no time that everyone on the team spends together. No team bond has time to form.

Everyone is on their own and employees are asked to add to the overall success of winning this particular account. Yet there is one caveat in this office: everyone will work for individual rewards. If you perform, you get the bonus, not the others on your team or within the group. If you stand out among your peers, you win, not the team.

In this scenario, there certainly will be great internal competition, which as we discussed is vital in the early stages when building a program. Yet this internal competition will not back down once the group is after the same carrot, or account. What ensues is a ton of friction within the organization, which certainly will derail the long-term success of this group.

This is what I see when recruiting young adults from travel ball teams. As their potential future coach, I must take the time and energy to unravel this mentality in order to build the culture we feel is vital for the long-term success of our program.

It becomes more difficult to find young players who love the competition to win as a team, as opposed to the individual glory and success.

Bricks and Mortar

Whether I work with my own program or speak to an organization on building leadership, I ask them if they can envision themselves as a brick in their organization and think about what that means. They tell me a brick is tough, hard, and a foundation of the program. Bricks stand the test of time. They weather well and don't crumble easily. In groups, they can be hard to move. If you had a choice of being in a brick structure or a wooden one during a hurricane, naturally you would choose the brick one for safety. So most people want to be labeled a brick in an organization.

I do an exercise where I pass out an individual brick to each of them and ask them to make it their own by writing their name on it. Next, I ask them to go to a table positioned in the front of the room and place their brick either on top of or beside another brick. More times than not, the group stacks their bricks to form a mini wall. I then scan the room and usually find some form of a cinderblock or brick wall within eyesight; if not, I tell them to visualize one close by. As I approach the group's stack of bricks, I explain how everyone has the capabilities to be just like the brick with their name on it. And with one simple push, I topple the bricks as if they were made of foam.

By themselves, bricks hold some weight and capabilities, but without other bricks, they can't accomplish much. And more important, what holds them together through the storm? Well, that's the mortar—the gritty substance made of a sticky, sandy, moist material. It holds each brick together with a strong bond. Without mortar, bricks can topple with ease. The wall of bricks may look strong, but without mortar it doesn't have the strength or toughness it appears to have. So even though people in an organization view themselves as bricks, more is needed to make them truly strong.

Mortar establishes the culture of one's organization.

What makes the “mortar” within an organization?

I explain this as the formation of core values the team must engage in. This mortar establishes the culture of one's organization. It consistently acts as a bonding agent to hold all the organizational bricks together, allowing the entire wall to stand tall and tough for many years to come.

Values are what the leader presents to the team to follow, especially during tough times. That is when true toughness and grit is put to the test. It is easy to be a leader, or a brick, when times are good. But how do you get out of slumps, or turn around poor quarterly earnings? You revert back to your values that define your successful program. Throughout this book, we navigate through values and traits a leader not only needs to have, but must instill in the individuals within the organization to find true, long-term success.

You must set a positive environment, with a stable group of core values, in order to create a winning culture.

Many times we hear of great organizations and teams that have unbelievable talent, yet fail to succeed. A pro team obtains high-level all-star players through free agency and trades, hoping to assemble a roster of the best players. Or a CEO sways top executives and a sales force from other companies to assemble a corporate sales “dream team.” The person in charge recruits really good bricks. Yet when these superstars in their respected fields join together without core values and a strong culture, it can be quite difficult to succeed. Although you, as a leader, need the competition and egos that go with high-level performers, you must create a positive environment, with a stable group of core values, in order to create a “winning” culture.

So, as a leader, you need to find bricks, to surround yourself with the good people you think have the capabilities to succeed in the environment and culture you are working hard to achieve. Then it is your responsibility to mix the mortar. Find the values you want your people to strive for. Remember the value wall at Stetson? Come up with your organization's own set of values. Remember not to overload your bricks with too many ideas. Constantly work your values into the culture you want to create. There will certainly be setbacks and naysayers; that is part of the growth process. Not only will these setbacks and failures happen, but they are necessary for you and your organization to grow for long-term success.

Learn to “Pivot” with Your Mortar

A common mistake many leaders make is that once they feel they have established a strong list of core values, and build a positive and productive culture, they believe that culture will always exist.

Quite the contrary—there are many moving parts and puzzle pieces to any organization or team. People will leave for other jobs, or even transition within the same organization into a different role. Technology is ever changing, requiring employees to become educated with new ideas and products. Team members can become complacent when success happens, believing it only gets easier to obtain with time. This couldn't be further from the truth; it is difficult enough to be successful, let alone sustain long-term success.

Due to these factors that can derail the culture of an organization, everyone must be willing to change as situations change. You, as their leader, need to be on the constant lookout for culture changes that could adversely affect the organization. When recognized, either pivot the group to new ways to engage in core values, or remind them of what brought past successes.

Once you have good mortar, those bricks will certainly stick together and be strong as the test of time.

Again, think of your values as that mortar that holds your bricks, or employees, together. What happens when mortar sits outside in the sun too long? It dries out. What if you add too much water to the mortar? It becomes runny and won't stick to any bricks. When mortar is too watery, you add grit; too dry, you add liquid.

In the corporate world this needs to happen to sustain long-term success. If you or your organization are dealt adversity, get a little tougher and revert to the core values everyone set. Become more positively assertive with one another to foster competition within your team, driving everyone to be better prepared for competition against opponents. Or maybe you have to back off a little and allow people some space to live through their values. Once you pay constant attention to these values, your “organizational mortar” can change to the consistency needed to make it work. It bonds the people of an organization—the bricks—tighter and makes it tougher to bring them down.

At times, it seems a bit of a puzzle to fix your mortar. Some combinations of the mixing process work, and some don't. Your mortar can even start out perfect but may need to be addressed after some time. Yet once you have good mortar, those bricks will certainly stick together and be strong enough to stand the test of time.

So, we can have tough people, which is essential to a strong culture. Yet, the true grit of the organization is infusing the people (the bricks) with a set of important values (the mortar). Be a strong leader who can find good people for the organization or team, then invest as much energy as you possibly can in the values and culture you feel is best. Your mortar will constantly change, so make sure you pay attention to these foreseeable revisions that will need to be addressed. It will pay dividends when you define the success of your organization.