Hockey Notes from Craig Berube
This past week, Craig Berube was the keynote speaker at a leadership conference I attended. While it was fun to hear stories from the coach who took the St. Louis Blues to their first Stanely Cup Championship, I wasn’t expecting to learn as much as I would from other organizational leaders, but I was pleasantly surprised by some of the points he made. Here are three of my top takeaways.
Coach Berube was burning mad about how one line from his hockey team was playing. During the first intermission, he came storming down the hall to unleash his rage. The captain, Alex Pietrangelo, calmly stopped in the hall and said, “Coach, I got it.” And he did. Having a captain know what is needed and executing on behalf of the coach was more effective than the coach chewing out the players himself. Delegating responsibility is important, and then trusting those people to make it happen.
One of the hardest decisions Coach Berube had to make was to sit David Perron for a game during the season. Perron had been playing aggressively, but some careless penalties were hurting the team, and the star player was not making adjustments. Berube told Perron he would be out for the game at the end of practice, and the left-wing used colorful language to describe the mistake of sitting a talented player like him. Later in the afternoon, the coach got another earful about what a bad decision this was. The next day, he got a load more of Perron’s frustrations, yet Coach Berube still sat him for the game that day and followed through on his decision. The following game, David Perron was back in the lineup and more effective than he had been previously.
The last point really builds on the first two stories. It is fun to hear stories about players we see on TV, but the final point that Coach Berube made did not have to do with a specific individual but rather about building a culture with accountability; it has to come from the team. While it is important for the coach to set the tone for the team, real accountability does not come from the coach holding players accountable, but when the team leaders can hold the rest of the team accountable, you have something special. Accountability can be established by the leader but is enforced from within.
The spring of 2019, when the Blues won the Cup, was an amazing time here in St. Louis, but I have even more respect for the man who led the team because of his leadership and character. If you would like to learn more about how you can develop leadership and character to influence your team, please Contact Us.
