This past October 27, I posted a Reminder dealing with the fact that in the National Football League, the players typically hang out in the locker room and the head coach hangs out in his office. This sends a very clear message that the head coach is the boss and the players are the subordinates. As a result, relationships between players and their head coach are typically not very open or honest. Ron Rivera, head coach of the Carolina Panthers decided to change all that after receiving some advice from fighter pilots. According to an article in The Wall Street Journal written by Kevin Clark, the pilots told him, that to promote honest relationships with his players, he needed to” remove rank” when addressing them. As a result, Coach Rivera now hangs out in the locker room as an equal rather than a boss. As Coach Rivera put it, “Unless you are exposed to them there, when they let their hair down, you won’t get to know them….” I pointed out back then that “the players absolutely love the arrangement and have responded by winning the first six games of the season.” Today, I’m convinced that Coach Rivera is really on to something, because the Panthers’ record is 17 wins against only one loss and they’ll be playing in the Super Bowl. The lesson here is that when you sincerely reach out to people, they respond in a big way.

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