The Process Is Fearless

If there’s one common trait that emanates throughout elite sport, it’s fear.

Players fear making mistakes.

Coaches fear losing their jobs.

Executives fear getting their talent identification wrong.

Owners fear being embarrassed in front of their buddies at the country club.

The fear cycle runs up and down, left and right, within our organizations. Despite monstrous supporting evidence that fear is not a good long-term motivator, it is still used as the primary long-term motivator.

And as we’ve moved from goal-oriented leadership to process-oriented leadership, this fear-oriented leadership has created a significant misalignment.

Which is why this Joe Maddon slogan stands out so much:

The process is fearless!

To End The Drought

In 2016, the Chicago Cubs ended a 108-year drought to win the World Series. They did it by going through a methodical process.

For five long years, the Cubs were one of the worst teams in baseball — never even getting close to a .500 record. At their worst, they lost 101 games in a season.

But they also acquired top executives, who acquired top players, and hired a top coach in Maddon.

When he joined the team in 2015, Maddon developed ‘the process if fearless’ as a way to keep his players in-the-moment. In his autobiography, he described it this way:

“When you’re focusing on outcomes and just winning, then you become fearful. But if you focus on the process, the process is fearless.”

Maddon’s fearless process has four core tenets:

1. The process lacks emotion

2. The process is the moment

3. The process is the mental anchor

4. The process simplifies the task

“It means that if you stay with the process you stay in the present tense, and you won’t be fearful of taking chances,” Maddon elaborates. “It’s easy to get out of that and get emotional or get attached to the game. That’s not helping anybody. Leadership is about being fearless, which is about staying in the moment.”

Everyone Must Be Fearless

What I love about the slogan is it’s all-encompassing nature. It’s catchy enough for the players to use, but also serves as an effective reminder for coaches, executives, and owners to be fearless in their process.

A process cannot be fearless on its own. For it to be fearless, it must be human.

For the Cubs, their ‘process’ was rapid and linear. They flipped from losing 100 games to beating 100-win teams in the playoffs within three years. The following year they became a 100-win team themselves, and won the World Series.

But for most teams, it’s not going to be rapid, and it’s not going to be linear. There’s likely going to be tough times, including a likely regression after you start seeing some initial success. It’s these tough times when the fear shows up and people get twitchy.

A fearless process accounts for these tough times, a fearful process only accounts for the good times.

This is why it takes a strong stomach to commit to the process. And it takes everyone.

• Your players need to be fearless in their process of mastery.

• Your coaches need to be fearless in their process of teaching.

• Your executives need to be fearless in their process of acquiring talent.

• Your owners need to be fearless in allowing their process to play out.

“The Process is Fearless means if you stay with the process you can stay in the present tense, and you won’t be fearful of taking chances,” Maddon reminds us.

And to get out of the fear cycle, we need to take more chances!