It's The Experience We're After - What A Class on Stadiums Taught Me About Leadership & Culture

I asked a group of future sports leaders a question the other day. “What makes a great stadium?”

The room was split. Ultimately deciding it was some combination of artistic expression, some influence of the fundamentals of architecture, history and nostalgia, and of course personal experiences.

As much as we want to debate and discuss the question, “what makes a great stadium,” it’s ultimately subjective.

I could show you the above image and tell you Cinergy Field is one of my all-time favorite stadiums and you could reply, “That place is a dump!”

It has no uniqueness, no artistic expression. No sense of elite history and architecture glory. It pales in comparison to modern stadiums like the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minnesota, Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, or Allianz Arena in Germany, all full of flash and shine.

“How could you possibly tell me that Cinergy field is one of your all-time favorite stadiums?!” You would exclaim.

Well it’s not the design that I hold in high regard. 

It’s the experience. 

I grew up going to Cinergy Field. My Dad and I, my brother and I. 

I saw dozens of games in those upper deck bleachers. I roamed these upper decks with one eye on the game and one eye on my cotton candy from the time I was six until the Reds stopped playing there in 2002. We’d frequently travel down I-71 about 2 hours to get to that stadium from Columbus. We’d get McDonald’s breakfast and talk and ride excited for another game.

I fell in love with baseball in that stadium. 

I developed the foundations of a great life-long relationship with my Dad in that stadium. 

My experiences tell me it’s a great stadium. 

Stadiums aren’t remembered for their concrete and steel. They’re remembered for the experiences inside them. The same is true for great leaders and great cultures. 

What makes a great leader or culture?

Personal experiences. It can be pretty subjective. 

You can feel it the moment you step into it. You feel it when it’s not there. 

Of course, there’s fundamentals in play. 

Vision casting, standards being communicated, all the fundamentals every leadership book talks about.  

There’s artistic expression. Leaders give off an ethos. A personal spirit or vibe. The best leaders have some winsome quality to their approach that is tough to describe but is felt.

For defining a great culture, there’s definitely history and nostalgia. 

Successful organizations do a great job of telling the history. When you enter a successful culture, participants are aware they are a part of a larger story. There’s banners hanging around. 

But most importantly what makes a great leader and a great culture is the personal experience had when under the leadership or in the culture. 

Ask someone about a past leader they worked for. “What was it like under that leader?”

“It was a horrible experience.”

“What was it like playing in that team culture?”

“It was one of the best experiences of my life.”

It’s the experience we’re after.  Are your people having a great experience?

Doesn’t mean everything is easy and the team is toggling between high productivity and competitive excellence in between rounds of trust falls all day. Certainly doesn’t mean the experience has to be less focused on execution, success and winning. A great experience doesn’t mean comfort zones, lack of challenge, and everybody’s happy. 

A great experience is transformative. 

Former Louisiana Lafayette head baseball coach Tony Robichaux seemed to understand this. He led the Ragin’ Cajuns for 25 seasons, amassing 1,173 career wins, eight NCAA tournament appearances, all while at an underfunded program in comparison to his competitors.

On July 3, 2019 Coach Robichaux unexpectedly passed away due to a sudden heart attack. He left his wife, three grown children and over 1000 alums in the wake of his life.

In a tribute video, here’s what some of his former players and assistant coaches had to say about him. (Watch the full video here to jolt your purpose.)

From a former assistant coach.. “I think what made Tony so different was how he went about it. It is a game, and it’s going to end. The biggest teach was to prepare them for what knocks them in the face once that game is done.”

Another younger former player, “He was Mr. Consistent. His teachings, his lessons, never changed. He was so much more worried about us as people.”

The former assistant continued, “We compete at a high level, that’s what these kids came here for. They didn’t come here knowing the life lessons they were going to learn. By the time they left they had a tremendous amount of knowledge to prepare them for what they would experience in life after baseball.”

An older former player.. “My thanks to him can only be properly addressed by conducting myself and teaching my own kids and others in a way he would be proud of. That’s the only way I can properly thank him for the time he gave to us.”

I think it’s safe to assume the players under Tony Robichaux’s leadership and in the Ragin’ Cajuns program had a transformative experience.

What will your people say about the experience they’re having under your leadership?