In an article written for the Wall Street Journal (Thursday, January 8, 2015), Kevin Clark suggests that total candor is the Seattle Seahawks’ competitive edge. Here is a brief excerpt. To read the complete article, check out others, obtain subscription information, please click here.

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The Seattle Seahawks have the best defense in football right now, and one of the best in the history of the sport. It is largely because they have hulking defensive backs who wreck passing games and a deep defensive line that destroys everything else.

But it is also because of scenes like this one, which took place in practice this season.

Earl Thomas, the Seahawks’ star safety, didn’t like the way that second-year cornerback Tharold Simon was reading his “keys”—subtle signals by the opposing offense that indicate what it is about to do. Thomas sprinted over to Simon, who admits he wasn’t particularly focused on this day, and yelled, “You are playing football like you are playing ‘Madden.’ You look like you don’t care. Are you playing a videogame?”

Simon says he immediately got focused. He had a good practice and has come on as a solid contributor this season, but more notably, he wasn’t the slightest bit mad at Thomas’s remark. “He didn’t mean anything by it,” Simon said. “These are straightforward guys.”

This is part of the Seattle defense’s honesty policy, a blunt camaraderie that players say has been crucial in taking the defending Super Bowl champions from their disappointing 3-3 start to a 12-4 record and the top seed in the NFC. They host the Carolina Panthers in a divisional-round playoff game on Saturday.

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I found Clark’s article especially valuable in terms of its relevance to the contemporary workplace and, indeed, to our entire society. In my opinion, these are among the most valuable lessons to be learned, none of which is a headsnapper:

o Commit to a best effort and always do your very best.
o Hold others to the same high standard.
o Take full ownership of the results of what you do and how you do it.
o Insist that others do so, also.
o Speak frankly (bluntly) whenever necessary and insist that others do so, also.
o Welcome their candor gratefully. “If someone says something to you, and you feel [bad], it’s probably true.”
o Be not only willing but eager to work with anyone, anytime, to do whatever must be done.

According to Clark, Earl Thomas, the Seahawks’ star safety, refers to the Seahawks’ frank discussions as “hard talks” and “family arguments.” There is some yelling and some correction, and then, according to Thomas, “it turned into guys telling me they love me, and of course I’m going to say I love them back, because I do.”

I agree with Clark that the Seahawks “have the most emotionally healthy locker room in the NFL.”

True, there are people who are so insecure, so desperate for praise, that they cannot handle such candor. They are losers.

Winners welcome and appreciate candor it because it is so rare.

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Here is a direct link to the complete article.

Kevin Clark writes about professional football for the Wall Street Journal‘s sports section and is based in New York. He graduated from the University of Miami in 2010 and is a native of Orlando, Florida. Prior to covering football, he wrote about the NBA and New York Knicks for the paper.