EntreLeadership - #185: Don Yaeger—Creating a Championship Team

Episode Date: February 6, 2017

Whether in business or sports, teams that are winning all have one thing in common: a sense of purpose. Best-selling author Don Yaeger joins us to discuss how you can create one for your employees. Also on tap, we’re sharing one of the most-talked about clips of the new year: Simon Sinek talking about leading millennials. And finally, we dug into the archives for a special clip on teamwork from former NBA coach and current LSU associate coach Brendan Suhr. entreleadership.com/podcast Simon's "InsideQuest" Talk DISC Cheat Sheet Infusionsoft's 2017 Marketing Trends Report EntreLeadership Summit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. We're broadcasting from the Music City, and this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, four leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Oh, my goodness, it is just jam-packed. I hope it all fits in and doesn't spill out all over the place.

We're going to have a special clip. About 15 minutes from Simon Seneca. Been a guest many times on this show and is a speaker for us at our Entree Leadership Summit event this coming May. This clip has gone absolutely viral, going to bring it to you. And then our feature conversation is with Don Yeager, multi-bestselling author. And he's got a new book out called Great Teams. 16 things, high-performing organizations do differently. Speaking of teamwork, we're going to go back in the archives. Our engineer Will went and got a clip from,

a conversation I had with a past guest that is going to really frame up the attributes and a story about one of the greatest teams of all time. And then we've got a brand new entree leadership tool for this month. It is the disc cheat sheet. I'm talking about the disc, a D-I-S-C personality profile. We've got a cheat sheet for you that will help you unlock the secrets of how your team ticks. And this is vital information. Infusionsoft also has a brand new tool. 2017 Small Business Marketing Trends report. So all of that coming to you. Now, I mentioned Simon Seneca who's been a guest on this podcast a few times.

I've had the privilege of interviewing a handful of times. He's going to be speaking for us at the Entry Leadership Summit coming up this May. And you people probably are not unaware of this. But if you've somehow missed it, he recently did an interview with a show called Inside Quest. And he was asked a question about training millennials. leaders for tomorrow. And he went on a beautiful diatribe. I mean, it was classic Simon, well thought out, multiple points. It was unbelievable. He didn't breathe for like 30 minutes. It was an unbelievable answer. The clip was posted, and it has since gone viral so you can look

it up. And if you have any millennials in your organization or you are raising a millennial, hopefully you're not raising a millennial at this point, hopefully they're kind of on their way out the door. But the point is, if you have any influence on a millennial, this is mandatory listening. So without any further ado, here's Simon Sinek on leading millennials. Apparently, millennials as a generation, which is a group of people who were born approximately 1984 and after, are tough to manage. And they're accused of being entitled and narcissistic, and self-interested, unfocused, lazy. But entitled is the big one.

And because they confound leadership so much, what's happening is leaders are asking the millennials, what do you want? And millennials are saying, we want to work in a place with purpose, love that, we want to make an impact, you know, whatever that means. We want free food and bean bags. And so somebody articulates some sort of purpose, there's lots of free food and there's bean bags, and yet for some reason they are still not happy. And that's because there's a missing piece.

What I've learned, I can break it down into four pieces, right? There are four things, four characteristics. One is parenting. The other one is technology. The third is impatience and the fourth is environment. The generation that we call the millennials, too many of them grew up subject to, not my words, failed parenting strategies where, for example, they were told that they were special all the time. They were told that they could have anything they want in life.

just because they want it. Some of them got into honors classes not because they deserved it, but because their parents complained. And some of them got A's not because they earned them, but because the teachers didn't want to deal with the parents. Some kids got participation medals. You got a medal for coming in last, right? Which the science we know is pretty clear, which is it devalues the medal and the reward for those who actually work hard, and that actually makes the person who comes in last feel embarrassed because they know they didn't deserve it, so it actually makes them feel worse, right? So you take this group of people and they grab it and they grab it. graduate school and they get a job and they're thrust into the real world and in an instant

they find out they're not special, their moms can't get them a promotion, that you get nothing for coming in last, and by the way you can't just have it because you want it. And in an instant, their entire self-image is shattered. And so you have an entire generation that's growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations. The other problem to compound it is we're growing up in a Facebook, Instagram world, in other words, we're good at putting filters on things. We're good at showing people that life is amazing even though I'm depressed, right?

And so everybody sounds tough, and everybody sounds like they got it all figured out. And the reality is there's very little toughness, and most people don't have it figured out. And so when the more senior people say, well, what should we do? They sound like, this is what you got to do. And they have no clue. So you have an entire generation growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations. Amazing group of young, fantastic kids who just dealt a bad hand. It's no fault of their own.

And we put them in corporate environments that care more about the numbers than they do about the kids. They care more about the short-term gains than the long-term life of this young human being. We care more about the year than the lifetime. And so we are putting them in corporate environments that aren't helping them build their confidence, that aren't helping them learn the skills of cooperation,

that aren't helping them overcome the challenges of a digital world and finding more balance, that isn't helping them overcome the need to have, instant gratification and teach them the joys and impact and the fulfillment you get from working hard over on something for a long time that cannot be done in a month or even in a year. And so we're thrusting to them in corporate environments and the worst part about it is they think it's them. They blame themselves.

They think it's them who can't deal. And so it makes it all worse. It's not. I'm here to tell them. It's not them. It's the corporations. It's the corporate environments. It's the total lack of good leadership in our world today that is made.

making them feel the way they do. They were dealt a bad hand. And I hate to say it, but it's the company's responsibility. Sucks to be you. Like, we have no choice, right? This is what we got. And I wish that society and their parents did a better job. They didn't.

So we're getting them in our companies, and we now have to pick up the slack. We have to work extra hard to figure out the ways that we build their confidence. We have to work extra hard to find ways to teach them the social skills that they're missing out on. There should be no cell phone. in conference rooms. None. Zero. And I don't mean the kind of like sitting outside waiting to text. I mean like when you're sitting and waiting for a meeting to start, this is what we all do. We all sit here and wait for the meeting to start. Meeting starting? Okay. And we start the meeting. No, that's not how relationships are formed. Remember we talked about it's the little things?

Relationships are formed this way. We're waiting for a meeting to start and we go, how's your dad? I heard he was in the hospital. Oh, he's really good. Thanks for asking. He's actually at home now. Oh, I'm really glad. That was really amazing. I know. It was really scary for a while. That's how you form relationships. Hey, did you ever get that report on, oh my God, no, I didn't. I'll help you out. I totally, can I help you out with that? Really?

That's how trust forms. Trust doesn't form an event in a day. Even bad times don't form trust immediately. It's the slow, steady consistency. And we have to create mechanisms where we allow for those little innocuous interactions to happen. But if you don't have the phone, you just kind of enjoy. joy the world. And that's where ideas happen. The constant, constant, constant engagement is not where you have innovation and ideas. Ideas happen when our minds wander. And we go, and you see

something on. I bet they could do that. That's called innovation. Hope you enjoyed that, folks. And the full video is available to you to watch in the show notes of this episode. So go check that out. And as I mentioned, Simon's going to be with us at our summit event. I've been telling you about this. May 21 through 24, Orlando, Florida, John Maxwell, Robert Hershevik from Shark Tank, legendary coach Lou Holtz, Pat Lynch,ioni, Dave Ramsey, Chris Hogan, Christy Wright, and myself all joining Simon Seneca on stage. It's going to be an amazing event, all the details and the opportunity for you to sign up at entreleadership.com slash summit. That's entreeleadership.com slash summit. Now at the top of the podcast, I told you that we were

going to go back into the archives. I love going back. into the Wayback Machine, and Will the Engineer made it happen. We had Brendan Surr on a while back. Now, Brendan Sir, if you're not a basketball fan, you may not know who he is. Quick introduction here, so this makes a lot of sense. Brendan Sir was the longtime assistant coach for the legendary Hall of Fame basketball coach, Chuck Daly, who is the head coach of the Detroit Pistons. And as a result, when the 1992 Dream Team was the first time that NBA players were allowed

to play in the Olympics, because quite frankly, Frankly, basketball internationally, well, it was no longer American domination, and we as Americans can't settle for that. So the Olympic Committee said, all right, we'll let pros play. So when they made this available to NBA players, all of the all-stars, we're talking legends, said, I'm in. Jordan, magic, bird. The list goes on and on and on. They raise their hands, said, I'm in. And so they put together what was called the Dream Team.

They ended up, I think they won by an average of 60-some points. they just blew people away. They were beating people by 60 points. At the end of the game, the opposite team that they had just beat, their opponent was asking for pictures in the middle of the court. I mean, it was a phenomenon. But what's really interesting when I had Brendan Suron, who was an assistant coach on that team,

I wanted to know what was it like to take all these egos, all-stars, quite frankly, legends, put him together on one team. And he gives a story here in this clip. That's just so beautiful. and I think is great for you leaders when you're figuring out how do we get a bunch of all-sars together

and get them on the same page so that we achieve one goal and that's the gold medal. Here it is a little bit of Brendan Surr on I believe the greatest team ever assembled. For a year and a half when Chuck was named the coach, he and I were coaching the Pistons, we're traveling all over the country playing our NBA schedule. And as we're going to the next thing,

men's national team, what are we going to say to these guys when we got them and it's our first meeting going to be like we'll not show them bounce ideas off of them i've got all these ideas he's so brilliant i know so we go into the sheridan la hoya outside san diego our first meeting where we are and there's you shape patrick ewing there's magic johnson there's bark listen here's the most important thing and now i'm waiting for this is a year and a half of planning here we and my it's the most marvelous thing. So big thanks to Brendan, sir, for being on our podcast.

Great job, Will the engineer for pulling that. And just to give you a real tie-in here, because later in our conversation with Don Yeager, you're going to hear him say that the number one reason that great teams can have sustainable success over a long period of time is they develop the sense of purpose. It's very clear. We're all striving towards this goal. And again, that team, Barclay was passing the ball to Bird. Bird was passing it to magic.

They passed it too much at times. They looked like the Harlem Globetrotters out there. Why? They didn't care about how many points they scored. They only cared about one thing, raising the American flag at the gold medal ceremony. That's a developed sense of purpose. All right, folks, our team has got a great tool for you. It is our disc tool I mentioned at the top of the podcast.

When you are going to build a great team, it starts early on with building relationships and trust and really truly getting to know each other. Like those are all kind of this combined activity. Great teams trust each other. Why? They know each other. And so the disc cheat sheet will help you unlock the secrets of how your team ticks. It's so important.

I'm going to tell you this, at Ramsey Solutions, if you come stop by our house, and you're welcome anytime you want to come by, you walk to every desk in the building and there somewhere at your, eye level, you're going to see that person's disc profile. Now, why do we do that? One, it's good information that everybody kind of needs to see, and it behooves you to kind of look it over. But it also is driving home the point to our leaders. We need to know who our team is, how they tick, why they

tick. This makes for a much stronger team. So this disc assessment tool is not just something we use at Ramsey's Solutions. They really do come alive. You've got four distinct behavior styles, decisive, interactive, stabilizing, cautious. So our team has created a chart where you can instantly see how to handle different situations based on behavior styles. The way you deal, and you know this as parents, the way I deal with one of my kids is not the way I deal with the other. This is extremely important.

So you can get it. It's absolutely free. Text it in as one word. EL disk. EL disc. You can text that to 33-4-44-4-4-4-text-E-L-Disc, or of course, you can get it absolutely free as a download in the show notes of this episode. Well, folks, I tell you from time to time when I have a good friend on the podcast, because I have

been blessed to when I meet some of these individuals, these men and women, you develop a relationship with them, some stronger than others. Don Yeager is a guy that I have been privileged to get to know. Now, Don has a unbelievable sports background as a writer where Sports illustrated and written several best-selling books, and over time became a sought-after speaker in corporate America, because obviously the truths that are transferable for, you know, from champions in sport to champions in business. It's there all day long. You can connect the dots very easily.

So he's developed a wonderful, wonderful platform there. And he writes just good stuff. So when he told me about this a couple years ago, I said, dude, this is an absolute runaway. You've got to do this book. It's entitled Great Teams. 16 things high-performing organizations do differently. As I said, he's a nine-time best-selling author.

He gets it. He sat with champions. He's observed them up close. He gets it. This is a great book. and a great conversation. Here's Don Yeager. Well, Don, it's always a pleasure to speak with you, and I love this topic. Great Teams. We're going to spend a lot of our time on the new book, Great Team, 16 things, high-performing

organizations do differently. And I know why you wrote this book, because I just know who you are and you love studying leaders and great teams, and you've had access to all these great champions of sport. But what about great teams did you discover in writing this book that maybe you didn't realize before. And I know that's a huge question and there's a million things, but what one thing that surprised you is you begin to do the research and write this book? Ken, thank you. By the way, as you know, I'm a huge fan of yours and Dave's as well,

so it's an honor to get a chance to be with you. But when I think about my big aha's, my big takeaways, it was the answer that came up probably most frequently while talking to these great team builders about why they were able to do what they were able to. able to do, why they could create sustainable success for long periods of time. And the number one answer that came up is that they developed and they made evident to their team a sense of purpose, that they played for a sense of purpose. There was something bigger than them that allowed them to coalesce.

And the thing I loved about that is it was probably the most business friendly of the lessons I can learn. Because truthfully, just as those great teams do, are big. businesses need to be founded in a sense of purpose. And if we can do that, if we can create that sense of purpose within the environment that we live and then we work, we have a chance to encourage and get our team to come to work, come to play differently every day. And as I listen to these great team builders one by one, talk about how they built sense of purpose into who they were, the more I saw the possibilities for this to be a great business lesson as well. Well, one of the words that you write about, and I think it's becoming like leadership. The word was 20 years ago

and it's culture and you hear so much. You read so much about culture. It's a bit of a buzzword. Yet it is absolutely a foundation for winning teams, certainly teams that win long term and sustain that success. So talk about what you have learned and what you write about in the book around this idea of shaping a culture so that it becomes a winning culture and ultimately a winning team. Ken, you're right. I mean, it has become a buzzword. You can't pick up a Harvard Business Review.

You can't pick up a business-related magazine without there being some article about culture, culture, culture, culture, culture. What is it? And what I learned, actually, as I was sitting with all these great team builders, was that they believe that to be really successful, you can't focus, and I'm going to use sports examples here, but we can translate them into business. You can't focus on an offense or a defense because they can change, right? Different circumstances could take those away from you. You can't focus on a great player because, frankly, that person could get injured or they could be lost.

It's almost like in business. You can't focus on your pricing or your product. That can't be the only reason people come to work for you or people do business with you. What you can control is your culture. And culture is really, if you really want to break it down within a team, culture is what you celebrate. What does someone get promoted for in your organization? Because that's truthfully, that's your culture. You can say we respect we're customer service driven, right?

That's our culture. We're customer service. And I've talked to companies where when digging down with the employees, one of the things you learn is that, yeah, we talk about customer service all the time. But oh, by the way, John over there, last month, he went outside to help change the tire of one of our customers because it was a lady who had a flat. He was gracious enough to do that. And he got in trouble because he was late for a meeting.

Now, does anybody believe that customer service is really the, the citizen? centerpiece of your culture. What really is the centerpiece of your culture is being on time for meetings. And so that's what you start to learn is that your culture is what you celebrate within your organization. And when that culture becomes a deep-seated piece of everything that you do and touch organizationally, and when it's the right culture, what you find is that habits are developed as a result. And ultimately, it's the habits that you develop because of your culture that lead teams to great success. All right. So one of the things I want to talk about, and you actually really dedicate a whole chapter to this idea. Great teams create and maintain depth.

This is chapter four. And, you know, depth is a word. When we think of a deep team, that's a sports analogy. Again, you don't have to be a sports fan to get this. It just means that there are a lot of different people on the team that can contribute, that can deliver wins. And essentially, we don't talk a lot about this, that great teams are deep teams. They've got so many different people who can bring the wind home, right? Because not everybody has a great day. Sometimes there are off nights, off days. We know this from sports.

And it's so huge that someone else can step up. What did you learn and write about in this chapter that we as business leaders can understand about creating depth? So, Ken, when I think about depth and about creating and retaining depth and how important that is, yes, in a sports team, it's important because you don't want to be, let's say someone gets injured or something happens and they're no longer available to you.

In a business, right, a small business, let's say suddenly somebody gets a job offer, or maybe they're getting married and moving to another town. If they are the only person that knows that particular skill that is so integral to your operation, you're in a bad place when that happens. So two things that I learned from these great teams that make this so powerful and valuable. One is the importance of cross-training, right? It's the importance. In baseball, for example, you have utility infielders, right?

those people who could play multiple positions. You look at the Chicago Cubs this last year. One of the things that made that team so ridiculously special was that every day that team showed up. And in most teams, you know every day you're going to be the third baseman, right? That's your job. You can be third baseman every day.

Joe Madden wanted to make sure that everybody was ready to play multiple positions. So he was regularly changing up his lineup. And you would show up one day and today you're the third base from tomorrow. You're the right fielder. And it made that team, A, it made everybody sharper because you never knew exactly what was going to be asked of you, but secondly, it made them deeper. They were ready.

Injuries happened. Something came up. They were ready. The second piece of that is healthy internal competition. How do you create an opportunity for people to compete? Maybe there's a promotion involved. Maybe there's an opportunity. But how do you create healthy internal competition?

And a story I'd share with you real quick is I was working really recently with a company, a manufacturing organization in Chicago. And one of the things they created is an internal competition was the opportunity for people who were not in these roles to come in and make a presentation to the leadership of the organization about a potential opportunity that the organization could be pursuing. Now, the people doing this are not generally presenters. They don't go in and ask for business. But by giving them the chance to compete, learn, try that. They suddenly realized they had two or three people who had a skill. set that they didn't fully appreciate previously. So create opportunities for people to learn and

experience and, again, cross-train. And what you create for yourself is depth that means you are no longer held hostage by that one employee who might maybe decide, I'm going to ask for a doubling of my salary because I'm so valuable here. Because you're ready, you've created the opportunity for your team to continue to be highly successful. That's so good. And I'm going to make a point to you listeners here. This depth issue is also a great leadership principle. You've got to be continually developing leaders underneath you as well. And it really is the hallmark of great teams. Another thing I want to stay on with this particular line of questioning on the individuals, the people, right? Because you can't think of a team without all these individuals. And when you

got people involved, that means there's problems because we people, Don, you know this, were just not perfect. Here's the interesting thing, because you've studied great teams, championship teams. And they are not without problems because they're not without people. What do great teams figure out and how do they manage people problems? Because that's a reality in any great teams. Absolutely. Absolutely. So two of my favorite chapters or discussion points in this book that come back to back. One is the great teams build camaraderie, right? And camaraderie isn't singing kubayah. Comerottery is truly an appreciation of everybody else in the room. Why are you here? Why are you here? What do you bring to the team? If you have an appreciation of those around you, you feel differently about the team.

And that's the camaraderie we're looking for. But camaraderie doesn't always happen. In fact, dysfunction, as you said, is real. Especially, everybody thinks that the best teams don't have any dysfunction. The truth is, the best teams have more dysfunction than the rest of us because they have more high performers. And anytime you put a bunch of high performers in a room or any time you put them on a team, let's be honest, high performers have egos and other challenges that maybe don't exist with some of the other players on your team. So the better your team gets, the more dysfunction

you should expect. And this came up over and over again. That was one of the things. I was surprised. Ken, our mutual friend Mike Shoshchevsky at Duke shared with me that that's one of the things that many people don't get. The better your team, the more dysfunction you're going to have. But what he and others shared with me is your job in leadership is to shorten the life cycle of that dysfunction. Most leaders, when dysfunction happens, your first reaction is I'm going to cover my eyes, I'm going to close my ears, and I'm going to hope it goes away, right? Please work this out. Please become friends again, or whatever it is you want of your team. The truth is that's not real, and that the best leaders, the second

they see it, they do some discovery, and then they bring, to use another phrase, warring parties, right? The people who might be in a dysfunctional situation, they bring them in and they address it. They address it boldly and openly in a way that allows them to be really successful. Okay, that's huge, Don. And I'm interrupting here because I want to make sure, if you're not a sports fan, don't check out here. But this metaphor is very important. And it's something you just brought up with Coach Kay, the legendary coach at Duke. And other sports leaders like him, doesn't matter the sport, when you've got a high rate

of turnover like these sports leaders do, specifically, let's look at college basketball, college football, even in professional sports with free agency, rarely do we see a coach have the same team season to season. And you know this, Don. And so their dysfunctional challenges are fresh all the time. I think this happens in business as well. But one of the things they have to do or they get fired is figure out the dysfunction and fix it. And so here's the point I'm making. I want you to expound on this.

Sometimes we look at dysfunction and it's painful and we choose. to kick the can down the road because we don't want to deal with it. And the reality is that's hurting us more and as painful as it might be, we have to jump into it because these leaders in sports prove that you can dive into it and you can fix it. Yeah, no, that's so true. But I think the other thing that they teach me anyway is that we all want to think of dysfunction as a negative. Right, right.

But the truth is what dysfunction often means if you really get to its root is you've got passion involved in what's going on, right? You've got passionate people. Now, again, we're not talking here about I don't like the way Sally does her hair or, you know what, Jimmy talks too much in meetings. We're not talking about that kind of dysfunction. We're talking about professional dysfunction. And when that happens, in personal dysfunction you need to address as well, but I want to focus on professional jealousy or challenges that exist. As you said, in teams, in sports, it happens all the time, and it's fresh because it can be, you know, you got people moving in, out. That's probably true in a lot of the businesses that are listening here too. But the key to it all

is the willingness to address it, to be forceful. I talked about Coach Kay. Another great interview I did on this one was with Rick Hendrick, the owner of Hendrick Motorsports, right? If you're a NASCAR fan, Jimmy Johnson, his star driver, just won his seventh Sprint Cup title. Now, this guy is incredible, but before he ever won his first title, he was having problems. He was having a communication issue with his crew chief, Chagin House. And the two of them were not, in fact, it became really obvious to everybody else that these two were

just not on the same page. They were both really talented, really passionate, but they just kind of weren't clicking. And so Rick Hendrick brings the two guys together. And these are his two studs, right? And he doesn't want either one them to leave, but he brings them together.

He arranges for a breakfast meeting for the two of them to come into his office. And when they show up, they are surprised, but they're in the middle of the table. It's a gallon of milk, a plate of chocolate chip cookies, and Mickey Mouse plates. And Rick Hendrick looks at his two stars, and he said,

guys, we're acting like children. And you know what? We're not leaving this room until we grow up. And he makes them sit at the table and eat milk and cookies. But over the course of that conversation, because the leader prompted the discussion and got the two of them on the same communication

wavelength, they solved their problems. and they've gone on to win as many titles as any driver in the history of that sport. Now, I'm not a big NASCAR guy, but I do know how difficult that is. And to win seven championships is really difficult. And he put together a great team, but he did it by addressing the dysfunction. And you're thinking, gosh, you know, these guys are the very best. How could there be any dysfunction there? How could that compare to my business?

You know what? It compares to your business. If you've got two people on your team who are not shi, sharing the same wavelength, it's your job. It's your job as the leader to bring it in and open the lines of communication. All right. So, Don, you're a prolific writer. I'm a Baptist Preacher's Kid. We both love alliteration. And so you were just talking about addressing it. As leaders, as healthy and great teams, we have to address dysfunction, which is just a function of doing work with other people. Now let's look at another A word. After Rick Hendrick addressed it, using that metaphor, then they

had to make some adjustments and great teams. I mean, don't get me started on, you know, football coaches that make adjustments at halftime, right? They see what's going on. They go back in, they huddle in what's about 15 minutes or less, and literally change the trajectory of the entire game and maybe a season based on a few or maybe just one singular adjustment. This is so rich for business leaders. When we address problems, now we have to, like, that's just shining light on it. But then responsible parties, right? Don have to then say, all right, what adjustments

do we need to make to our behaviors, to our systems? I want you to talk about the pivot, the adjustment that great teams make. You know, it's interesting, you use that phrase, because pivot is, I would argue, maybe people ask me all the time, what's the difference between a good and great team? And I say it's the ability

to pivot, right? It's the ability to say to see an opportunity, to see a challenge and to pivot, right? And opportunities and challenges can be the same thing, can be drastically different, but the ability to pivot. So the key to everything is flexibility, right? It's the ability to wrap your mind around the idea that what you've done in the past has very little bearing of what we're going to do in the future. We're going to make changes, and changes have to be, you have to be ready to make that change with me and go all in

on this change. And so where I find great leadership is that ability to create their personal flexibility and the willing to project it into the lives of others. And you project it by sharing what it is that you're challenged with, explaining why what we're doing today is no longer working, right? Sometimes it's really obvious. In sports, it might be really obvious. You haven't been able to execute on this play all game long. Now, if we're going to try to change our trajectory in the second half,

we need to make these two adjustments. Is everybody good with that, right? That's a real key. Is everybody good with that? And making sure there are questions that are asked in the meeting room or the locker room before you leave so that the questions aren't being, projected out on the field.

All right, I want to talk. You can't talk about great teams without talking about some of the things that really define greatness in the minds of people who are observing them and thus giving them that label. And where I'm going with this is I think we've got to have a really frank discussion

about a lot of this greatness and we've talked about so much of it. But a lot of it comes down to great teams perform when it matters most. Those are the ones we tell stories about. In the championship games, they actually win this. championship. And, you know, I think of growing up, the Buffalo Bills, you know, were a really,

really good football team. They went to four consecutive Super Bowls, I think, and they never won the big game. And thus, you really can't say they were a great team. And not picking on the bills, but really illustrating this whole point. So what is it about the great teams and those clutch moments, those moments that matter more than others? They win the championships. You know, Ken, I'm going to share with you a lesson I learned from Pete Carroll in Seattle. We talk a lot about winning the fourth quarter, right? How do you win in critical situations, as you said? In sports, it's often called winning the fourth quarter.

And in business, it's that too, right? How do we win the fourth quarter? One thing that Pete Carroll shared that was so powerful is that to win the fourth quarter is not something you can just talk about. You can't just say, you know what, we're going to be a great fourth quarter team. You have to practice it. But how do you practice winning the fourth quarter? So one of the things they do in Seattle that's really, really powerful is that they identify the fourth quarter of everything they do. So you're doing a team meeting, right? And the meeting's an hour long. At the 45 minute mark, they stop the meeting to say, guys, we are entering the fourth quarter. Let's finish strong.

Finish this meeting strong. They talk about the fourth quarter in everything they do. Everything they do has a fourth quarter application. And they want you to finish strong in everything you do. And that matters. So that would be an example that somebody might be able to play into their business. Whatever you're doing, that whatever that period of time is, that would be the fourth quarter of what you're doing, stop and remind your team, we are entering the winning zone. We're entering the fourth quarter. Let's practice. Let's do well in the next 15 minutes. Because then when you get ready to do it, your mindset is ready.

You have trained your psyche to believe the fourth quarter matters. All right. Before I let you go, this is my favorite chapter of the book. Chapter 15, great teams speak a different language. I believe in this. I'm a word nerd. Our audience knows that. And there's something to this.

And again, it's got a great Pete Carroll story. It's got several stories in here. But I just want to kind of let you run free here and challenge our audience. What does this mean? Specifically, what does it look like in winning teams when they have a different language? They just speak differently. They really do, Ken. And, you know, again, as you said, I'm going to use another Pete Carroll example because this was one.

I went to Seattle to study this. I spent a day on his practice fields and in his meetings trying to understand how Pete Carroll has mastered this because he's so good at this. That other coaches, Steve Kerr, baseball coaches, all kinds of coaches come to Seattle to watch and study Pete Carroll on this subject. Pete Carroll believes that, as you do, language matters, right? Words matter. And so what we say and how we say it matters. And one of the things that's a truism in sports probably more so than business, but I don't know. I mean, I've talked to people who've worked for people like this.

You make a mistake, the immediate response from leadership is, what were you thinking? How could you do that? Are you kidding me? And how do you respond to that, right? Pete Carroll and his leadership believes no one ever enters an opportunity. looking to make a mistake. No wide receiver drops the football because he wants to. That's what he gets paid to do. No sales guy, no person working for you in sales loses a sale because they want to, right? And if you believe that, if you enter, then what happens is you begin to talk to them

differently after the event, right? I watched this happen in Seattle. I watched the wide receiver drop a pass. He was brand new to the team. He'd just been acquired. And so he was used to playing in other environments and he comes to the sidelines in this practice and he's expected to get blessed out right he's expected to get it because he just dropped a pass and the coach pulls him aside and says hey remember this morning when we talked about on this route your three steps dig hard with your left foot you're cutting to your right you're extending your left arm a little bit further than your right so you can cradle the ball when it comes your way is that what you did he said no sir it's not And the coach said, all right, here's the deal.

Remember what we talked about this morning because I'm going to need you to do that a little later. Now, that receiver is going to respond differently in the future than the guy who comes the sideline and gets screamed at for dropping a football, right? That person in your office is going to respond differently than the person that you yell at because they made a mistake or they didn't close a deal or whatever. So the great teams, they've figured out that language matters and the way we deliver it. matters and they are hyper focused on the way we communicate to those who work for us, for those who are in our roster. And as they do that, what you find is that those who are working with and for you show up differently than next time you need them.

And that's the power of this language, this focus on language. And Seattle's just one of a number of places I've studied that have made this an entire discussion among their team. This is how we're going to talk to each other, and that language inspires different results. He is Don Yeager. The book is Great Teams. 16 things high-performing organizations do differently. Well, he's a nine-time New York Times best-selling author, so he's got a track record, and if that's not enough for you, this guy's a friend of mine, one of the great writers out there. He really does study greatness in leadership and teams. And this book, we just gave you, I mean, we barely scratched the surface, folks.

I think it's a great read for all teams. I would recommend you buy it and walk through it with your teams. Certainly would not come back void. Don, you're a good man and a good friend. We appreciate you taking time to be with us. We're better for it. Ken, I appreciate you and all that you do to grow so many others. Thank you.

All right, folks, if you'd like to get the book Great Teams, it's wherever books are sold. Or you can go to donyager.com. Don Yeager.com. That's Don Y-A-E-G-R.com. Don is a great guy. Check him out. If you like to bring him to your organization, it will be worth it. I'll tell you what else is worth it.

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But when I meet a listener, I always say this. I always say, spread the word, will you? And I need you to spread the word because you and your direct influence is huge for growing this podcast. If you believe in it, people will trust you and kick the tires. So spread the word, would you? We really would appreciate it. If you've not subscribed on iTunes, that will sure help us. So please do that, and it'll download automatically for you every week.

All right, folks, it has been so much fun. Can't believe we've got to get out of here. So on behalf of Eric the producer, our engineer, Will Rutter, and the entire Entree leadership team, thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.