Traits of a Winning Team
Kyle Vasey is a Thrive mentor, top producer, and culture champion. Before joining Thrive, Kyle was awarded a full football scholarship with Penn State University. He was also a walk-on with the NFL Team, the Atlanta Falcons.
Kyle’s history in elite sporting teams has taught him some valuable lessons about what makes a team a winning one. He shares those with us.
Adversity: it’s a requirement, for a team to truly become a unit. Adversity is the biggest test and most crucial growth factor in the development of championship-level teams. Penn State got hit with NCAA sanctions in 2012 and a mass exodus followed, the classes of 12,13,14,15 all had pride in them for coming in and rebuilding. Thrive experienced a similar challenge in 2023 and this is great to have been through and walked out the other side.
Consistency: great teams develop and grow in a consistent environment of challenges and opportunities. The best teams will thrive when individuals are consistently being taught the same things, pushed in the same direction, and preaching the same narrative. Biggest way to derail a team? Make them change the identity they’ve had for years and years. Best way to grow a championship team? Create that hard-to-break identity (KC Chiefs right now, Yankees in the early 2000s).
Peer-led Accountability: it sucks to be chewed by a coach in front of your team, but it’s even worse when a teammate is the one doing it to you. Undisciplined players can hear a coach talk for hours and take nothing from it, but when a teammate grabs them by the face mask and tells them how it’s going to go, the message is the same but the outcome and change in behavior is very different.
Engagement off the field: through my years at Penn State I became more social each year, which made me better on the field and more dedicated to the team. Sunday practices, when the whole group was together Saturday night were far less miserable because you could banter and enjoy the others’ company and bounce memories off each other, whereas solo flyers couldn’t relate and would often feel disconnected.