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Champs or Chumps? CX, EX, and the Super Bowl Champions

By Gabe Smith, CCXP posted 03-07-2024 09:48 PM

  

The shouts and cheers began immediately. The high fives and hugs to strangers started soon after. As a lifelong fan of the Kansas City Chiefs who drove to a Chiefs bar 125 miles away to spare his family from his in-game yelling and general anxiety,

I was jubilant when my team scored the game-winning touchdown against the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII.

The NFL’s average team revenue climbed 8% in 2023 and the Chiefs, along with their star tight end Travis Kelce (and his notably more famous significant other, Taylor Swift) are widely recognized for having grown the Chiefs and NFL fanbase this season.

So I was surprised when the results of the NFL Player’s Association’s annual player survey were released showing that the Chiefs, for the second year in a row, scored next to last--#31 out of 32 on the team report card.  The report card grades clubs across 11 categories, from treatment of families, training room and travel, locker room and training staff, head coach, and more. How could a team that achieved such on-field success, delivered profitability to its owner and the league, and provided so much excitement and memorable experiences for its fans, be perceived so poorly by the same players delivering such success?

The Chiefs’ success would seem to fly in the face of our beliefs about the CX + EX linkage.

Or does it?

The one area the players rated highly in the survey was head coach. Andy Reid, who has coached in the league for over 25 years, ranked 1st out of 32 head coaches. McKinsey research showed an 86% share of employee satisfaction at work was driven by relationships with management, far outpacing the 14% share driven by relationships with coworkers (and, one might assume, workplace amenities). “The wealth of literature on what makes for a good workplace highlights two aspects that line managers directly control: good work organization,” the report states. “That is, providing workers with the context, guidance, tools, and autonomy to minimize frustration and make their jobs meaningful—and psychological safety, which is the absence of interpersonal fear as a driver of employee behavior.”

In many blog posts, I put forward a well-built argument.  In this case, I am left with mixed emotions and unresolved questions.  What do you make of this confounding data – Super Bowl Champions, highly satisfied fans, apparently less satisfied players - but a really highly-rated leader.  Certainly a topic I’d welcome to discuss with you at CX Leaders Advance or a football tailgate! 


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Gabe Smith, CCXP
03-08-2024 03:46 PM

@Barry Sutherland Two areas of the survey that I found slightly surprising that would seem to be more directly related to on-field performance were training staff, which received an F, and weight room, which received a C+. 5 of the league's playoff teams received top 10 grades, 3 received bottom ten grades, with the balance in the middle. Hard to draw clear conclusions without a bit more clarity on the underlying data, but I do think that overall coaching leadership plays a big role.

Gabe Smith, CCXP
03-08-2024 03:42 PM

@Brian Lunde " I would expect that in the NFL (and probably in professional sports in general) that winning is more a function of talent and coaching, and much less a function of other environmental factors like facilities and amenities." 

Definitely agree on this point!  

Brian Lunde
03-08-2024 03:25 PM

Without more data from this specific context, we can't be sure it's really a paradox. For example, looking across all the teams, perhaps there is still a positive relationship between EX and each team's win percentage? 

That said, I would expect that in the NFL (and probably in professional sports in general) that winning is more a function of talent and coaching, and much less a function of other environmental factors like facilities and amenities. I suspect that for professional athletes, the motivation to perform at a high level, win, and enjoy adoring fans is intrinsic and far less dependent on their employee experience. This could be true in other professions that have public visibility such as the performing arts (e.g., I know there were some famous jazz groups in the 50s and 60s that were adored by fans but led by tyrants).  

In other words, the EX-CX relationship isn't a universal law, it's a wise rule-of-thumb that doesn't work in every context.

Barry Sutherland
03-08-2024 12:32 PM

Gabe - as a diehard Chiefs fan myself, I was also a bit shocked by the results of the NFLPA survey, especially with how the season played out. But I think you're onto something with the high ranking of Andy Reid. Although they scored low with their facilities and things related to their facilities, the players are being led by someone that they trust wholeheartedly and are willing to fight exceptionally hard to win for, which helps them to maybe overlook some of the organization's deficiencies. When I think about the physical buildings that I've worked in over my career in comparison to where I'm at now, I've definitiely worked in nicer facilities. However, even in the nicest facilities I've worked in, the leadership at those companies was not ideal, which is a more important factor in my willingness to work hard for the company. With my current company, I may not work in the nicest building, but I trust the leadership to work hard for them.