Audio: Building Teams to Withstand Adversity

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh has a guarantee for young professionals starting their careers. “You’re trying to figure out where you’re going to go, and what you’re going to be, and what’s going to happen in a year, and five years, and 10 years, and 20 years, and how your career is going to unfold,” he said Wednesday during a NewDay USA Enterprise and Leadership Forum at the University of Maryland in College Park. “In the end, whatever you think, whatever you imagine, I can assure you one thing: It won’t be that.”

Harbaugh said winning teams and individuals must prepare for adversity, which hit the Ravens hard in 2015. “The thing that we held onto was our principles,” he said. “We’ll be a better team next year because of what we went through last year.”

Harbaugh said organizations need team members with character as well as ability to overcome adversity. “That’s how we’re going to build a championship team,” he said. “When things get rough, when things get rocky, and you’re fighting your way through a tough loss or another tough loss, and you get knocked down, we need people who are going to pick each other back up.”

In the end, he said winners are just people who keep trying. “It’s not possible for you to fail unless you decide to fail,” he said. “Failing is just stopping.”

Harbaugh was joined on stage by Rear Adm. Thomas Lynch (retired), commander of the Navy Battle Group in Operation Desert Shield and executive chairman of NewDay USA. "You’re going to have failure," Lynch said. "You’re going to face adversity. There’s going to be challenges. We’ve all had that. It’s what you do when you face adversity that defines you." 

Professor Rajshree Agarwal, director of the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets at the Univeristy of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, moderated the discussion.