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In June 2018, after three days of intense competition and just one more event, the NCAA women's athletics championship title remained open. The three best teams were less than ten points apart. The University of Southern California Trojans, who sat in third place, were still in the running, but their path to victory was narrow. To win, they needed nothing less than a first place in the final event of the meeting, the 4 × 400 meter relay.

Unfortunately, the first two runners of the Trojans ran a little slower than expected. USC third runner Deanna Hill was supposed to catch up, but she got tangled up with her teammate Kendall Ellis during the last relay handover.

With a title on the line, Ellis oriented himself and sprinted off. She looked strong, but with a hundred yards to go, she still had a lot to do: Ellis was forty yards and two runners behind first place. It seemed unlikely, if not impossible, to win a USC championship. But then Ellis dug deep. She released a searing finishing kick and overtook an Oregon competitor.

Eventually – by only a few inches ahead – Ellis brought herself together with the front runner and leaned over just enough to fly over the finish line first and win a national championship for USC. The clock also reflected superhuman exertion. Ellis had run an amazing split time, 0.15 seconds faster than she'd run in her individual 400-meter race earlier that day.

Though Ellis takes a diluted spot in the elite race, the dynamics of her breathtaking win from behind apply to us all. This is a story about a why. It's something we've all experienced at one time or another: when we know people are counting on us, we face the opportunity.

The Koehler effect

Social scientists call this the Köhler effect after the work psychologist Otto Köhler observed how members of the Berlin rowing club lift weights. In the 1920s, Kohler asked rowers to curl a ninety-seven pound bar as many times as possible until they were too tired to carry on. After that, Koehler had the rowers curled in groups of two or three curls and held a bar that was exactly two or three times as heavy to ensure that each rower lifted the same weight as before. He found that the rowers could do significantly more repetitions in groups than alone. Subsequent research has shown that this happens, at least in part, because people don't want to be seen as a weak link holding everyone else back. They are more motivated when they know that the outcome of a group depends on their performance.

A company is not a sporty team, and yet we work harder and achieve better results when we are all rowing in the same direction with a clear mission and vision – and when we know that other people are counting on us to see if they & # 39; are our employees or our customers. Most importantly, as company directors or managers, we can emphasize that our collective purpose is greater than any individual and that each individual is interested in fulfilling it.

The insurance industry understands that everyone benefits when the fate of an individual is tied to that of a group. This is especially true of Guardian, which is 100% owned by our policyholders as a mutual. However, reciprocity does not have to be built into a corporate infrastructure to be a core value. Reciprocity is about more than ownership. It's about making sure all employees know that they are part of something beyond the bottom line. It's about showing that every person has a commitment to customers, each other, and the wider community, even in the smallest of daily actions.

Contributing to Brand Strategy Insider By: Deanna Mulligan, Chairman of the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. Excerpt from her book Hire Purpose Copyright (c) 2020. Used after consultation with the publisher. All rights reserved.

The Blake Project Can Help: Please email us to learn more about our purpose, mission, vision and values, as well as our brand culture workshops.

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