April 2010

Dear Friends and Fans:

It’s been a busy time, traveling east and west, north and south, around the country, speaking to companies and other organizations representing many different industries.

And no matter the group and the sector of the economy in which it operates, all benefit from more efficient and higher functioning teamwork.

So whether – to use an example of a stretch of appearances early last month – it was addressing Rite-Aid in Baltimore, MD, or Sanofi Aventis in Bridgewater, NJ, or MPI Research in Salt Lake City, UT, or Citizens Bank in Warwick, RI, or Horace Mann Insurance in Marana, AZ, my messages and teaching points, adjusted and customized for each audience, emphasized and expanded on the traits and strategies of great teams.

A primary point I present and discuss is that members of great teams have a shared dream.  Employees of many companies for which I speak are practicing and striving to share a dream.  Still, a speech specifically tailored, well crafted and presented, reasserts the importance of and makes more urgent and relevant this winning element.

Think of the players on the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team.  Early in our journey together, six months out from the Olympics, the 20 players who would make up the team that played at Lake Placid did not share a dream. We were 20 guys with our own individual dreams.  That changed, of course.  We trained and worked and were molded into a group of young men whom fervently shared a dream.  We wouldn’t have made history if we didn’t.

One of my mentors, and a good friend of mine, is Jon Luther, executive chairman for Dunkin’ Brands, the company that owns the Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin Robbins brands.  Here is a reflection Jon wrote recently on the importance of a shared dream:

As Jim Craig and I built our friendship over the years,we often talked about leadership…and how you get teams aligned to win.  Jimmy believed that one of the ways that great teams are able to win ….is to create a shared dream or shared vision.  I took that premise to heart when building our great team at Dunkin Donuts.  We spent a lot of time developing that strategic notion and once that dream/vision was set….  we wrote it…we talked about it…we communicated it…we role modeled it… we rewarded it….and now everyone in the organization lives it!!  It is no coincidence that our strong results followed.  Today, Dunkin Donuts is one of the most admired brands in the restaurant world…….in part due to Jim Craig’s view of a shared dream…and helping me to embed the Dunkin shared dream throughout the organization…

I am fortunate and blessed to make a living doing something that I enjoy, which I know is important, and which challenges and improves me.

I also wanted to give a special call out to one of my clients and teammates, W.L. Gore, a company I work with as a national spokesperson for its Ultimate SAAAVE, a public affairs campaign that urges those at risk for abdominal aortic aneurysm, or triple-A, to get screened for the condition.  The screening is easy and painless, and if a triple-A is discovered, a non-invasive endovascular procedure can repair the triple-A and make you as good as new.  My father died suddenly from a triple-A that ruptured.

Please visit www.ultimatesaaave.com to learn more about triple-A and the Ultimate SAAAVE campaign.

****

April is upon us.  I leave you with a reflection of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, on the Olympics and its relationship to spring: “The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.”  Nice.

****

Please return here often and follow what I and Gold Medal Strategies have been up to.   I encourage you to click on the links here that take you to my Facebook page, where you can become a fan, and Twitter page, where you can sign up to follow my tweets.  As well, you can link here to my YouTube channel and sign up for my online newsletter.

****

Believe in Your Dreams – and Believe in Miracles.

Sincerely,

JIM CRAIG

And now, in accordance with tradition, I declare the XXI Olympic Winter Games closed, and I call upon the youth of the world to assemble four years from now in Sochi to celebrate the XXII Olympic Winter Games.

JACQUES ROGGE, PRESIDENT
International Olympic Committee
Vancouver Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony Speech
February 28, 2010

March 2010

Great job Vancouver!  Get ready Sochi.

An Olympics that began with hurt and sadness – Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, killed when his sled crashed in a training run a few hours prior to the opening ceremonies – emerged as magnificent and demonstrated just about the best we are as an international community.

Speaking to those in attendance at the opening ceremonies, and to those watching and listening around the world, John Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, struck the right balance of memorializing an athlete who died young, honoring those about to compete, and celebrating the wonder of what was to come, when he said, “May you carry his Olympic dream on your shoulders and compete with his spirit in your heart.”

So the 2010 Olympics began.

Yes these Olympics had operational problems, including one which was broadcast globally:  a beam of the Olympic cauldron failing to rise from the event floor during the opening ceremonies.  And – although this was not the fault of Vancouver organizers – the weather was not great, providing little snow, and too much rain and fog and temperatures more than a few degrees above freezing.

Still, the games were mostly a big win.

It was fun to be in such a beautiful city, in that environment, during the 30^th anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice” and gold medal clinching game against Finland – reliving the emotion and wonder.

Some of that historic energy seemed to carry through the years and into the event that closed the athletic competition of the 2010 games: an adrenaline-rushing and anxiety-pulsing Canada-U.S.A. men’s hockey gold medal game.  It was a contest that showed hockey – supported by the passions and carrying with it the hopes of hundreds of millions of people – at its best and most exciting:  fast and with flow and precise passing, sometimes even elegant; with hard hitting, but light on the mugging; high energy and high spirited; all out from start to finish.

Congrats, Canada, on the win.  Nice job U.S.A.  Together you did a lot of good for hockey, the sport I love.

(By the way, my daughter, Taylor, who is a talented high school hockey player, and shares my love for the sport, has a favorite player.  Who is it?  Why, that would be Sydney Crosby – yeah, the guy who scored the game winner in OT. Figures.)

It is healthy and helpful when following sport to tie in to the broader human stories, to go beyond and behind the Xs and Os, the scoreboard, the stopwatch, and the scores of judges.   What girded and supported the performances of Vancouver were countless hours of personal sacrifice, and lifting, running, calisthenics, skating routine after routine, exercises and drills to strengthen and focus the mind, flips and aerials, and runs down tracks.   Every athlete was nurtured by family, friends, coaches, and other mentors.  Every athlete arrived at Vancouver with dreams, a history of triumph and defeat, success and failure, hurt and exhilaration, confidence and doubt.

Jim Craig with fan Photo Credit: Alan Hay The DreamCatches Photography www.thedreamcatchersphotography.ca

Consider the stories of women’s figure skating – Kim Yu-Na from South Korea winning her country’s first gold medal in the event; and the bronze medalist, Joannie Rochette, displaying grit and inspiring poise in competing four days after her mom died of a heart attack.

How about the U.S. winning its first gold in the four-man bobsled since the St. Moritz games in 1948?  Steve Holcomb, a former Utah National Guardsman, piloted his crew of Steve Mesler, Justin Olsen, and Curt Tomasevicz to victory.  But here’s the thing – only two years ago, Holcomb, who is responsible for steering the 500-lb. sled at speeds of up to 95 miles per hour, had been left legally blind from a degenerative eye condition.  Holcomb’s sight was saved through an experimental procedure in which permanent lenses were placed in his eyes.

In late November 2007, Norwegian alpine skier Aksel Lund Svindal suffered broken facial bones and deep body bruises in a scary crash during a training run on a slope in Beaver Creek, CO.   Svindal was in the hospital for weeks in Vail, CO and in Olso.  He was out of competition for the winter.   It would be understood of someone who endured such physical and emotional trauma never again skied fast and aggressively enough to win.   A little more than two years later, though, Svindal was in Vancouver to take on the world.  He won gold in the super-G, silver in the downhill, and bronze in the slalom.

These are just a few stories; again, every athlete has her own, his own.

It gets you thinking.

What stories are being written now?
Who are the authors?
And which stories have chapters and verses that remain to be told in Sochi?

Believe in Your Dreams – and Believe in Miracles.

Sincerely,

JIM CRAIG

Dear Friends and Fans:

February – this February especially – prompts all sorts of powerful and happy memories.

Thirty years ago, the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team entered February prepared, focused, anxious, and full of wonder and anticipation.  We knew we had at least five games to play at Lake Placid – and after that … perhaps … just perhaps … we would play two more games in the medal round and compete for a bronze medal.

Today, athletes from all over the world, make final preparations for the Winter Olympic Games at Vancouver.  I know what they are feeling.  I’ve been there.

I am busy speaking to corporations and other groups across America , motivating, delivering sales and marketing coaching, and teaching teamwork.   Lately, with the 30^th anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice” and the Vancouver games upon us, there is a special type of energy and nostalgia to tap into when I make an appearance.

[[Show as slideshow]]Of course, over 12 days in February in 1980, over seven games, the U.S. Olympic hockey team managed to do better than bronze.  What happened on that ice rink in upstate New York – happenings that were extraordinary, incredible, and a bit unbelievable  – continue to inspire and warm hearts.

I am forever grateful and fortunate to have been part of such an extraordinary group of men mentored and directed by a coach for the ages.

Who knows what achievements and performances and stories will play out this month when the strongest, fastest, most agile, best conditioned, and most focused meet in Vancouver.

Thrills, epic accomplishment, and the amazing are in the forecast.

Believe in Your Dreams – and Believe in Miracles.

Sincerely,

JIM CRAIG

Dear Friends and Fans:

Next month – it will be 30 years.  Thirty years since that wonderful episode in Lake Placid, NY when my teammates and I, under the direction of a coach for the ages, Herb Brooks, demonstrated what optimum and high achieving teamwork is all about.

Can you believe it?

That the 30^th anniversary takes place during the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games makes it particularly special.

I am forever fortunate in that I was able to be a part of such an exceptional group of men.

How we prepared – and how we competed – are an enduring legacy and example for all types of organizations and people as to what traits, what qualities, what type of talent enables and supports greatness.

My experience in hockey nurtured and was fundamental to my later success in marketing and sales.  And today I am rewarded in traveling across the country and integrating the “Miracle on Ice” with lessons from my business career into speeches and seminars I deliver that help people and groups win in life and in the marketplace.

Get ready for the anniversary and for Vancouver.

Excitement builds.

Believe in Your Dreams – and Believe in Miracles.

Sincerely,

JIM CRAIG

Dear Friends and Fans:

Happy Holidays. Hockey, at all levels, is now in action. And speaking of hockey, we are on the cusp of the greatest international hockey tournament on earth – that which will be played in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, which runs from February 12-28.

What is particularly historic about the 2010 Winter Olympics and its hockey competition is that most of it coincides with the 30th anniversary of the remarkable run of the 1980 U.S. men’s hockey team at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics.

All this ongoing and impending history is keeping my teammates and I busy with media interviews and other types of appearances.

Our team actually started out the Olympic tournament on February 12, the day prior to the Opening Ceremonies, with a 2-2 tie against Sweden. Now, of course everyone knew what team would win the gold medal, but on February 14, we stunned a solid silver medal favorite, Czechoslovakia, 7-3, to make the world take notice. Two days later, we beat Norway, 5-1; on February 18, we defeated Romania, 7-2. Team USA completed the preliminary round with a 4-2 win over West Germany on February 20.

It is often said that many people do not know, or just don’t remember, that our epic upset win over the Soviet Union – the “Miracle on Ice” – on Friday evening, February 22, did not clinch the gold medal; indeed, the win did not guarantee a medal of any type. Yet after knocking off the seemingly invincible Soviets, we did control our destiny. If we beat Finland on Sunday, we would be Olympic champions.

Our coach Herb Brooks told us that a loss to Finland in the final – to get so close and to fail – would be something we would take to our graves.

Well, that is something we just couldn’t let happen.

1980 US Olympic Hockey Team

Believe in Your Dreams – and Believe in Miracles.

Sincerely,

JIM CRAIG