Q&A: NFL Personnel Boss Lake Dawson

Marcus Garvey said, “If you have no confidence in yourself, you’re twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you’ve won before you’ve even started.” So you can’t allow yourself to become influenced by the negative criticism.  You need to have some confidence in your processes and beliefs. And I do believe that our words are powerful, the way you think and your attitude have an effect on everything we do. If you are filling your mind with things that are nothing but criticism and doubt, you will have just that – doubt.

So you want to be positive, but also honest when dealing with criticism coming your way. You don’t want to have blind faith. But you should have faith in the process that you put together. You take notes about how things are progressing. You stay aware of the challenges along the way and make decisions accordingly. At the end of the day, you have to be able to ignore the noise in my opinion. It’s not easy to do. That’s why I believe in the people aspect so much. It’s paramount to have the right people around you who are similar. You can be like-minded and still disagree, but you need people who have the same vision to help you overlook the criticism and focus on the processes.” 

P&Q: Diversity is a hot topic. And an NFL locker room is packed with people from different socio-economic backgrounds, value systems, and agendas – and some of them clash. As a leader, what strategies have you applied to reduce conflict, build a consensus, and keep everyone focused on the same end?

LD: Speaking from a football perspective, for me as an executive in the National Football League, it is paramount that you get the right coach in position to help you decide what type of players you want and what type of coaching you’re going to have in that locker room. I think the coach’s primary job is to develop talent and to develop that locker room. We’ve talked about vision and we’ve talked about direction. It starts there with your ability to have some cohesiveness between the coach and the decision-makers about what type of vision you’re going to have and what type of players you’re going to have in the locker room. You need to be on the same page that way.

But that also means that you want to hire smart people who are self-directed. And let’s not forget talent. By hiring smart, talented people who are self-directed, those people will go master their craft. When they’re mastering their craft, there’s going to be a purpose behind what they are doing. So you’re looking for are smart, talented, self-directed people who compete; who are disciplined; smart talented people who compete with enthusiasm; Smart talented people who have high character. Those are the type of people that you are trying to put into that locker room and build with as an organization.

With regards to maintaining that culture, I believe, from the places that I’ve been, that it is important to have a team council of various leaders from each of the positions. They normally meet with the general manager or decision-makers and also the head coach. By making them be a part of the decision-making process, you can get a pulse of what’s happening in locker room in terms of the culture or the type of guys who are fitting into that culture (or who’s not fitting into it). On top of that, it gives players a sense of accountability that, ‘This is your team. This is your organization and your voice is heard here.’

I’ve been in places where that [sentiment] wasn’t nurtured. It was almost top-to-bottom in terms of the leadership model. And the players felt a huge disconnect between the administration and the head coach. I think it is important that you put into place a strategy that is going to help reduce conflict and strengthen cohesiveness. People will buy into something when they feel that their voice is being heard. Irregardless if the decision-makers don’t go the direction that they want to go, as long as people feel that there is respect there, they will buy into the process. Some of the best teams that I have been on, whether it was at Notre Dame as a student athlete or in Kansas City with (Coach) Marty Schottenheimer and (Team President) Carl Peterson, we had some of that. And that’s something that I value.

The same applies to the business world. When I came to Tennessee, it was important for our department heads to get together and have weekly meetings in terms of football operations as we talked about before in regards to what was going on in each of their respective departments so that people knew that their voices are being heard and their suggestions were being shared as well.

Editor’s Note: Football operations includes: Information Technology, Video and Production, Security, Player Development, Media Relations, the College Scouting Director, and the Pro Scouting Director. Any department that makes the football players better and enhances their experience falls under football operation. Player development is a liaison between the organization and players. They handle everything from helping players re-locate to the area to acting as a life coach who develops programs for players to transition from football to their professional lives). 

P&Q: This summer, many first year MBAs will be completing their internships and weighing job offers. Next fall, the Class of 2018 will start interviewing with the world’s leading companies. You’ve interviewed to run the football operations for teams like the Chicago Bears, St. Louis Rams, and Miami Dolphins – and even turned down an offer from the Dolphins. First, how do you prepare to interview for such a high profile position? Second, what variables should MBAs be considering when evaluating potential employers in your experience? 

LD: I’ve been very humbled to have the opportunity to interview with the St. Louis Rams, Carolina Panthers, Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Chicago Bears. There are a lot of other talented people in the National Football League who are more than capable of running an organization and evaluating talent and bringing in the right people to help an owner accomplish their goals. With that said, in going through preparing for that process, it becomes a lifetime journey in terms of preparation. We’re all a make up of everyone that we’ve come into contact with.

So a lot of my values that I have with regards to running an organization, as well as what I value in terms of football, is an accumulative effect of the people I’ve been around – Lou Holtz, Carl Peterson, Marty Schottenheimer, Mike Holmgren, and Ted Thompson. I took a lit bit of everything from those guys. From Lou Holtz, I admired his commitment to people, his ability to teach, his relatability, and his ability to show that he cared about people (as well as challenge them). Marty Schottenheimer was committed to the vision that he’d put in place and doing things as a team. He always used the illustration of a hand. He’d explain how much stronger it could be collectively when it was balled up into a fist than when it’s separated – and how you need every finger and every thumb to make that fist and have that power. Ted Thompson taught me to stay true to the core values of scouting. I also learned from him how important it is get the right people in place, not only for your team but also your coach – and how important it was to have cohesiveness between the general manager and coach.

Even though I learned a lot of lessons from those guys – and the success they had along the way – I also  learned a lot of lessons from people that I’d been around when I didn’t have success or when I didn’t like the way they did a certain thing from an operational standpoint. So if I were put into a position of authority and leadership, [I learned from them] how I would not want to operate.

In terms of preparation, hopefully you get a chance to work with some good people and learn from them. From there, you begin to take bits and pieces from the people that you’ve been around and formulate your own ideas. Then you put pen to paper and put down some of those ideas to have something concrete that you really believe in and make it your own. To me, that’s the best way to prepare for important jobs.