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Head coach Mike McCarthy indirectly took a few swipes at predecessor Mike Sherman during the NFL owners meeting in Phoenix last week.
McCarthy, who emphasized a change in culture when he replaced a fired Sherman last year, revealed a telling contrast of the atmosphere within the team's Lambeau Field headquarters before and after his arrival.
"(Veteran quarterback) Brett Favre comes in my office, and he's walking around and (says), 'Well, I've never been up here,'" McCarthy said. "If I had one, I had 20 guys tell me that."
The coaches' offices are on the third level of the renovated stadium, far away from the locker room that is on the basement level. Some players who were with the team when Sherman was coach for six years alluded to his putting distance between himself and players by not inviting dialogue in his office.
McCarthy sensed that was the case early in his own tenure.
"Our business is hard enough. To have tension in the workplace, to me, is totally counterproductive in team building," McCarthy said. "Tension, high anxiety, things like that, those are short-term answers to get people to do what you want them to do. That's not positive reinforcement. There should be no walls in your organization."
As such, McCarthy advocates that his players make the effort to come up to the coaches' wing to discuss matters privately with himself or an assistant.
"What I don't want is that when they push number three in the elevator, it's, 'Oh (shoot), here I go, I'm going up to the head coach's office for something negative,'" McCarthy said. "You have to have a lot of personal interaction. I'm not talking about being buddy-buddy, and I told the players that. I'm just trying to promote as much player-coach interaction as possible."
McCarthy, who emphasized a change in culture when he replaced a fired Sherman last year, revealed a telling contrast of the atmosphere within the team's Lambeau Field headquarters before and after his arrival.
"(Veteran quarterback) Brett Favre comes in my office, and he's walking around and (says), 'Well, I've never been up here,'" McCarthy said. "If I had one, I had 20 guys tell me that."
The coaches' offices are on the third level of the renovated stadium, far away from the locker room that is on the basement level. Some players who were with the team when Sherman was coach for six years alluded to his putting distance between himself and players by not inviting dialogue in his office.
McCarthy sensed that was the case early in his own tenure.
"Our business is hard enough. To have tension in the workplace, to me, is totally counterproductive in team building," McCarthy said. "Tension, high anxiety, things like that, those are short-term answers to get people to do what you want them to do. That's not positive reinforcement. There should be no walls in your organization."
As such, McCarthy advocates that his players make the effort to come up to the coaches' wing to discuss matters privately with himself or an assistant.
"What I don't want is that when they push number three in the elevator, it's, 'Oh (shoot), here I go, I'm going up to the head coach's office for something negative,'" McCarthy said. "You have to have a lot of personal interaction. I'm not talking about being buddy-buddy, and I told the players that. I'm just trying to promote as much player-coach interaction as possible."
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