The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 206: Sam Walker - The Hidden Force That Creates The World's Greatest Teams

Episode Date: May 24, 2017

Episode 206: Sam Walker - The Hidden Force That Creates The World's Greatest Teams: Captains Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The 7 Traits of Elite Captains: Extreme doggedness and focus in competition, often to the point of madness A tendency to play aggressively up to, and often beyond, the limits of the rules A willingness to do thankless jobs in the shadow of more acclaimed teammates A bias against making big speeches in favor of continuous practical communication A talent for displaying their commitment and motivating teammates through aggressive nonverbal means An unwavering commitment to defend their principles and speak truth to power The presence of a "kill switch" for shutting off emotion when it's not useful Studying the moment when teams went from good to great Why LeBron James is a unicorn "His model of leadership is completely new." Relation to the business world -- Some of the greatest leaders don't think they deserve the title (job title or to be captain) -- Tim Duncan & Yogi Berra The rituals of Tim Duncan Short conversations with each teammate Great facial expressions Effective messaging Never giving big speeches How to be a charismatic connector like Tim Duncan Great captains (and leaders) are not "yes men." They defend their principles and speak truth to power Jack Lambert purposely left blood on his jersey as a message to his team -- Great captains have a talent for displaying their commitment and motivating teammates through aggressive nonverbal means The ability to develop "emotional maturity." A measured approach As Liz Wiseman said "Great leaders have a buffer between the stimulus and their response" They are able to build resilience Social Media: Follow David on Twitter: @SamWalkers Read: The Captain Class Connect with me on LinkedIn Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 More Learning: Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 071: Nate Boyer - Green Beret, Texas Football, The NFL Episode 179: How To Sustain Excellence - The Best Answers From 178 Questions Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell The Learning Leader Show is supported by Rhone.  Use the code "Hawk" for 15% off.  Rhone... premium activewear engineered with principle, performance and progress for the modern man.  Rhone builds clothing around 3 main tenants: Cutting-edge Performance, Premium Comfort, and Simplistic Style.  

What was fascinating is that on the high-performing teams, there was always a leader who did exactly what Duncan did, circulated widely, talking to individuals with great intensity and short bursts. They call these people charismatic connectors. And I realized then that we have a completely backwards idea of how you motivate people and how you communicate. We think you've got to give a speech. You've got to fire up the troops. You've got to be someone who just radiates charisma and passion and intensity. but really the opposite is true. None of those outward qualities matter.

It's all about a leader who is constantly engaging and constantly talking about the matter at hand in a low-key way. Hey and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday. Go to LearningLeader.com. Enter your email address.

Sign up. We'd love to have you receive your monthly. Mindful Monday email every Monday morning at 9 o'clock Eastern discussing the latest most insightful thoughts on leadership from the past weeks, articles, books, TED Talks, videos, discussion back and forth. Love to have you. LearningLeader.com into your email address for Mindful Monday. On to tonight's episode.

It's with award-winning writer Sam Walker, the Wall Street Journal's deputy editor for Enterprise a unit that oversees the paper's in-depth page one features investigative reporting projects. His most recent book, it's an incredible entitled the captain class, the hidden force that creates the world's greatest teams. It will be a bestseller for sure. Some of the things Sam and I talked about. What it means to be a charismatic connector, then the seven traits of elite captains, followed up by why continuous practical communication is more effective than big speeches. Ladies and gentlemen, you'll love this one with Sam Walker. All right, Sam, anytime I can talk to somebody who has done a lot of work in regards to great teams

and specifically the leaders of those teams, the captains, that means a lot to me. And it really piqued my interest when I first, I think I mentioned, you saw a speech. you gave and it was shared via social media, the seven traits of elite captains. And I immediately said, I got to talk to this Sam Walker guy. He's writing this incredible book. I think it's going to be neat to learn about great team. So first of all, welcome to the Learning Leaders Show. Thanks, Ryan. I'm really happy to be here. So I like to get things kick started typically with a question around leaders and people that you've studied that have a common theme. And that is if they've been able to sustain excellence, meaning they are not one-hit wonders.

Maybe they didn't just win one championship for the sake of talking sports, but they have sustained it over time. And I'm curious, if you had to distill it down to one or two key common characteristics between those who sustained excellence, what would it be? Well, if we're talking about teams and longevity of winning, that's really what I focused on. I noticed early on, I'm sure you've had this bar stool debate. I mean, I've had it a million times about what's the greatest team of all time.

And, you know, I realized immediately when I started trying to actually figure it out empirically that we're not talking about the same things. A lot of people will point to the 1985 Chicago Bears or the 72 dolphins or the 2004 Arsenal Invincibles or these teams that won really dramatically in one. season. But the more I looked into it, you know, I realized when we're talking about winning teams, we're talking about a culture, we're talking about a system, a combination of personalities that's kind of magical and that sustains winning over time. And so my feeling was, look, if you win one championship, I mean, you know, luck plays a role in sports and you can't completely discount it. You can't really even discount it for two titles. So ultimately, I just sort of leaned on the odds of coin flipping. And I think if you flip a coin and get heads four

times, and that's a 6% chance, I felt like at four seasons, it's really almost impossible to chalk up a team's performance to luck. So I went with that threshold, and I felt like that's the way to find insights about a winning culture. So once I had discovered these teams and really gone through thousands of teams and figured out what the 16 best were, that's when I showed. I should, started examining them. And what I was looking for was the moment they made that turn, the moment that they transformed from a good team or even a mediocre team into an elite and outstanding one. And what was shocking to me, I mean, I came into this with no prejudices. I thought coaches, right? Maybe tactics. Maybe money had something to do with it. And very likely

it has to do with the presence of a superstar, a great player, a transcendent talent. So the first thing I noticed, I looked at two teams to start with, and one was the Boston Celtics from the late 50s and 60s who won 11 titles in 13 years. And the second was the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, which in the late 80s didn't lose for four years and put on an incredible run. And I noticed immediately right away after looking at those two teams that their winning streaks corresponded perfectly, overlap precisely with the arrival and the departure of one player. And those players were Bill Russell and Buck Shelford. And these guys were, ultimately became the captains and the leaders of these teams. So it jumped right out.

And, you know, frankly, I was a little skeptical because I thought it was just too easy. I thought it was too obvious. So I went back and really examined all these other factors. And in the end, it's a hard, it's a care. I need to be careful when I explain this because no team had, and all the teams, you look at all the teams, there was no pattern. I mean, the coaches had some great coaches, some bad. Some had money, some didn't. Some were tactically advanced. Some weren't.

Some had superstars. Some had mediocre talent. So none of those things apply to all of these great teams. The one thing that did, the only thing that did was the presence of this captain. And it was a certain type of captain, which also came as a bit of surprise. to me. So I want to be clear, a great team has many variables. It takes a lot to put on an elite performance. But what my research showed absolutely emphatically was that the only thing that must be present in order to build a sustained winning culture is a certain kind of leader.

So you have seven traits. And I don't, I mean, we'll go through some of them, which I thought was really interesting and probably the basis of your talks when you go out. And maybe we can point out some people or how these traits, which led to the best teams, the traits of the captains, could maybe, and additionally translate to the business world or people who are looking to progress within their careers and see if there's a correlation. I'm not entirely certain there is, but I think there might be because I know from playing sports, from being a voted captain on different teams, and then going into the business world. in earning leadership roles, there's a lot of similarities, at least for me. So I love Sam. I think it's an interesting conversation why I wanted to talk because you have this angle where you're studying sports and success and leadership.

And that's my background and now it's in the business world. So if you like, we can go through some of these traits. And I'll name one. And you could either tell a story or share why that's so important. Is that cool? Sounds great. So let's just start with the first one. It's extreme doggedness and focus and competition.

often to the point of madness. And let me tell you who I think of when I hear that. I think of like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, these guys who are like, some would say they were mad about competing, about they're relentless in their approach towards beating the person across from them. They trash talk. They use every little slight as motivation there.

That's the point of madness. So that's who I think of when I think of that. elite trait or that trade of an elite captain. Yeah, that's who I thought of too when I thought of that. I mean, I think we've always looked at Jordan and his incredible competitiveness really on and off the court. I mean, he, he kind of ran at 100 miles an hour and was always looking for a way to challenge himself. And, you know, what's fascinating about Jordan is his retirement. I mean, I think he just kind of got ran out of challenges in basketball. He needed a new one. He's got this sort of hungry soul and he needs to constantly prove himself. What I found in studying these captains that

popped up in my survey is that that wasn't the kind of competitiveness and relentlessness we were talking about. They had the ability to be one way in competition and completely different outside of competition. And on the field of play, they were relentless. And I'll give you an example one minute, but they were relentless, but then as soon as the match was over, they were different. I mean, in competition, they would often do unsportsman-like things, or they would push the rules to the absolute limit. But then once the game was over, they would kind of magically revert to normal. I mean, these were very quiet people generally who were almost introverts and homebodies. They never got into trouble off the field. They got a lot of sleep. They were pretty boring in their

So there was a sharp divide there. And I think that's what really distinguishes the greatest captains from the people we normally think of like Kobe and MJ. Hmm. That's interesting because I think you mentioned that as a seventh is the presence of a kill switch for shutting off emotion when it's not useful. Is that what you mean? Or is that meaning they're able to be calm under really pressure-packed moments, which makes me think of a guy like Tom Brady. who can be, like, have ice in his veins in the toughest moments of games in these won multiple championships. Is that what you mean, or is that two separate things? Well, there were three traits that I split out separately, but I think all of them have, are somewhat related. And that's this relentlessness and doggedness and competition. The other one is this ironclad emotional control, which was really amazing. and you see it over and over with these players being able to play through negative emotions.

And the third one was this ability to test the limits of the rules, to play aggressively right up to the limits of the rules and sometimes beyond in order to win. So all of those traits were things that these athletes showed in competition, but outside of competition, they didn't. It was that kill. They were able to just become a different person. They were able to have one personality in competition and another one off the field. And this to me is one of the most interesting and relevant things about the book in that, you know, we often look at aggressive athletes and we, you know, we see the way they play.

And then we kind of shrug at the fact that they get into a bar brawl or they flip their Lamborghini and get a DUI. We just think that's the way they're wired. But the truth is that's great leaders, no one to turn it on and turn it off. I gotcha Which I'm just trying to relate to like current sports Superstars now Like LeBron is a guy that people say

When he gets on the court He just seems to take over To completely dominate To He literally does what he wants a lot of the times And But then when he gets off the court You'll see him just like

Taking selfies or his Instagram stories Or him like wrapping along. It's different than he seems to be happily married with three kids, has never gotten trouble, has never, at least from what we've seen, you know, cheat on his wife like we saw Kobe and MJ do. It doesn't seem to have a gambling problem. Always seems to do is just drink a little bit of wine, but not anything else.

I mean, from what we can tell. LeBron seems to fit that where he, when he gets in the court, he can just be the most dominant figure ever, but then when he gets off the court, he can be a fun-loving guy who sing, who, who things to Instagram. I mean, so does he not fit that role? No, I think he does. You know, he's a fascinating case, though. I mean, LeBron is kind of a

unicorn. I've never seen anyone in sports history who had that level of talent that he can really take over a game. And, you know, it's not just his offensive ability, but I mean, it's his hustle on defense and, you know, the way he plays without the ball, too.

So I think he's kind of an anomaly. I mean, the other thing that's an about LeBron is his model of leadership is completely new. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. And I don't quite know what to make of it because he's shown time and again that he's the most powerful person on the team. I mean, he's got more influenced than the coach. I mean, he really- NGM.

Yeah. I mean, he's really the singular leader of the team. It's almost like a, I don't want to say it's a dictatorship. It's too strong. But I mean, he's got a level of power no athlete has ever had and a level of talent to match. So, you know, I think he's a curious case. I mean, he's definitely got a lot of the qualities that I mentioned. But, you know, I'm watching fascinated.

I've never seen a team achieve a real dynasty and a historic dynasty with that kind of leadership model. And, you know, if you look at the history of the NBA, LeBron's going to have to win a bunch of the championships in a row if he wants to try to equal what the Celtics did or if he wants to have the long-term record that the San Antonio Spurs had put together. So he may never get quite over that high bar, but he's tremendous. And, you know, the relentlessness I'm talking about, though, is a little less obvious, I think, to, than someone like LeBron who can score, you know, 40 points a game at times. A good example is, Bill Russell, and Russell, of course, was the captain of the Celtics team that set the probably unachievable record of 11 titles in 13 years up until 1969.

But my favorite Russell story that kind of gives you a window into how he played, he wasn't a big score. At the time, in the NBA, the center was supposed to be the main engine of the offense, and he never was. And he averaged about 15 points a game in his career, but he wasn't the main scoring threat. So when he arrived in his first season in 1956, 57, the Celtics made it finally. They never won a championship. They made it to the finals. And they got to a game seven against the St. Louis Hawks. And there were about 40 seconds left in the game.

And the Celtics had a one-point lead. And Russell got a rebound and charged down the court and tried to dunk the ball and missed. And he wound up underneath his own basket. So the Hawks very smartly made a quick inbound pass to mid court where a forward named Jack Coleman was waiting. Coleman was kind of cherry picking. He was behind everybody else. Caught the ball with a running start at mid court and had a clear look at the basket and just a gimmie layup to give the hawks the lead in the final seconds. So Bill Russell, remember, he's underneath his own basket.

So he's about 96 feet away from the basket. He's a rookie. He just missed a dump, which would be humiliating for most of us. He sees Coleman get the ball and takes off. And the minute Coleman gets to the rim would have been about three seconds for him to run that distance. The minute he goes up and the ball leaves his fingertips, Russell appears from nowhere and swats the ball away, Karams off the backboard and the Celtics get the rebound. So what he did was run 96 feet in three seconds, which, you know, I did some rough calculations.

And if he'd kept that up for 100 meters, he would have won in the Olympic gold medal by a nose. It was an incredible effort. Sadly, it was never captured on video because they didn't save a tape of this game. But everyone calls it the Coleman play, and they say it was one of the greatest defensive acts in the history of the league.

And it clearly was, given the circumstances. The Celtics went on to win and to win the championship. But the thing is, think about the mindset of someone who would do that. I mean, it wasn't a scoring play. It wasn't a statistical play. None of his teammates even bothered trying to give chase. And yet he had the passion and the drive and the relentlessness to go after that shot. And that's, I think, a great example.

One of the other surprising things that whenever you think of like a great leader or the person in charge, A word that gets attached to them, I think, is they have great charisma or they're charismatic. And you found from the empirical evidence stated that they were rarely charismatic. And one of the examples you use is Tim Duncan from the Spurs, who just recently retired, but they'd won multiple championships and had certainly sustained excellence. Talk about the myth of charisma. when it comes to great leaders and captains? This is absolutely something that translates to the business world. In fact, I found a ton of fascinating research that is in the works and also out now,

which suggests that the people who make the most effective leaders and have the biggest impact on groups are often the people who aren't, don't believe they deserve it, who actually kind of lower their own status within the group. and those people are automatically given more status by the group and are more effective leaders. So Tim Duncan, you know, the two people who epitomize this were amazing. It was Tim Duncan and Yogi Berra. And if you were asked to name two of the least charismatic or most, you know,

inarticulate seeming athletes, they might be on the list. I mean, Barrow was famous for kind of having a halting speech pattern and all his funny sayings. And he wasn't, you know, the idea of him reading a motivational speech is kind of funny to think of. And then there's Duncan who seemed to have no personality. I mean, he gave these sort of monotone answers and interviews and really didn't seek attention and seemed to have a very bland emotional life, you know, on and off the court. He just never just pumped or expressed a lot of emotion. He got kind of knocked for being boring.

And, you know, when I looked at the Spurs in particular, I said, okay, I've got to figure this out because it makes no sense that, you know, this team could have superior communication. So, you know, I watched a ton of tape. I went to a Spurs game and sat behind the bench. I talked to a lot of the players. And what I saw was a completely different person when you look closely at Duncan. So what he does is he has these rituals, especially around. timeouts and pregame where he goes and he'll have these short, intense conversations with everyone on the team, everybody. And it's usually about the task at hand. It's about something they need

to do to adjust their defense or something they need to remember going into the fourth quarter. And you'll see him talking. And when he talks, he's not an animated guy, but his eyes are fascinating. He has very clear facial expressions. He has one for shock, one for encouragement, one for kind of criticism. And he uses his eyes very purposefully with the players. He'll lock eyes with them and stare at them intensely for three or four seconds. And these are very effective ways of communicating with people. I mean, studies have shown that they're very good.

So he circulates. He talks individually. He doesn't give speeches. In fact, none of these captains gave speeches. It shocked me. Many of them avoided talking to the group as a whole. They all prefer to talk constantly, but to individuals and about the matter at hand in a practical kind of low-key way. So after watching this, I realize that the spurs are a very talkative team.

They talk constantly on the court and off the court. And the person who facilitates that is Duncan because he creates this sort of open culture where every mistake is acknowledged, every good deed is rewarded. Everything is done in the moment. And, you know, I found this study that had been done at MIT, which was just incredible because of the overlap. It was done in the business world, but they used very high-tech scanners to measure all aspects of conversations between members of a team, length, intensity, who was talking to whom. And they discovered that these communication patterns were the best way to predict the team's performance, more so than skill or past performance or anything else. they could tell by the way a team communicated internally how well it was going to perform. And what was fascinating is that on the high performing teams, there was always a leader who did exactly what Duncan did,

circulated widely talking to individuals with great intensity and short bursts. They call these people charismatic connectors. And I realized then that we have a completely backwards idea of how you motivate people and how you communicate. We think you've got to give a speech. You've got to fire up the troops. You've got to be someone who just radiates charisma and passion and intensity. But really the opposite is true. None of those outward qualities matter.

It's all about a leader who is constantly engaging and constantly talking about the matter at hand in a low-key way with people with great energy and intensity. And that's a lot of work. That's a constant commitment to upholding the goals of the team. And that's what distinguishes these great leaders. They weren't great orders. They were practical. Yeah. What made you write this book?

Well, you know, I started off. It all really began in 2004 when I spent a lot of time with the Boston Red Sox. And early in that season, you know, these guys were, they were fun, but they just seemed completely undisciplined. They're kind of unsurious to me. And they seem nothing like the elite sports teams that I've been around in the past. And so I was not surprised at all in July when they fell nine and a half games behind the Yankees. I mean, they were basically left for dead.

And, you know, it just seemed like, well, this is just not an elite team. But in August, something clicked. And it was amazing the transformation. Suddenly this team had focus and confidence and swagger. I could feel the difference in the clubhouse when I was there. And, you know, they went on to not only sneak into the playoffs, but, you know, they took down the Yankees after falling behind three games in the American League Championship Series.

And that was, you know, no team has ever done that. And then they won the World Series and they broke this curse. It was 86 years old at the time. So that, to me, was the final straw. I just said I don't understand what provides the spark, what allows a team to transform itself. from just being good to being outstanding or extraordinary. And I decided at that point to pursue this idea and to try to figure out what it was.

And that's when I decided that I needed a sample of the greatest teams of all time. So I did this exhaustive study, which I thought would take two weeks and, you know, I ended up taking 10 years to complete. And once I had the teams, I really started looking at the moments where they made the turn and they became extraordinary. And that's when I stumbled on the captains. And it was an absolutely clear pattern. I mean, it really was the only thing that was present in all of these cases at the beginning of these incredible dynasties.

And then I started looking into their traits. And, you know, the reason it took so long was partly because I think the research was incredibly exhaustive but difficult. I mean, it was hard to profile all these people and all these teams and to rank them the way I did. But really, you know, I realized early that I felt like there was something here and there's something that kind of runs against our expectations about leadership and about what teen greatness is. So, you know, it was great fun at the same time and I really felt a commitment to seeing it through to the end. So, you know, a lot of time transpired, but I really didn't feel there was any other way to do it. I felt like the idea that I'd stumbled onto was important. And I needed to really give it all the time that it needed.

So you did a ton of research leading up to this. And we've talked about that there are already your surprises. But what would you say was the most surprising piece of information you learned through this deep dive you did? You know, it's hard to see on one thing. I think one thing that really shocked me was coaching. I think in the modern. sports world, there's a huge emphasis put on coaching. And I think in the business world, you know, the same sort of CEO culture has, is somewhat similar in that we tend to make the

top person the face of the team. You know, I was really amazed that the coaches, you know, there were great coaches on these teams. There were also very mediocre coaches and even some teams that changed coaches and kept winning. But what I found was, I think, another interesting point that I didn't realize. I looked at Vince Lombardi, for example, who was two Americans, I think the epitome of the great coach. And I went out to L.A. and I met with his defensive captain, Willie Davis, has spent a lot of time talking to him about it.

And, you know, I looked at that team very closely. I realized, you know, Lombardi was a freak. He was an incredible motivator. and an intensely great coach. There were others. There's Alex Ferguson from Manchester United who I looked at. And there were some great coaches in my sample, too. A guy Gustav Sevis, who was the coach of the great Hungarian team in the 1950s,

and a guy named Jock McHale, who was a legendary Australian football coach. And I looked at them and really studied their stories. You know, what I realized is that even these elite coaches, who are by all means, won some of the grades. None of them really started to win at an elite level until they had a captain like this.

And all of them really saw their peak years when they had someone running the team. And what was interesting was these captains weren't yes men. I mean, they weren't simply doing the coach's bidding. They were independent-minded. And, you know, they took stands against the coach and against management and even against the player sometimes.

They were not afraid to have unpopular views and to dissent against things they didn't think will work. And this presence of a great coach and then a kind of independent partner in a captain who sometimes listened and sometimes didn't, that seemed to be the great formula. So it's important to have a great coach, but I think the great coach will never achieve top results without this kind of captain. Yeah, I mean, I guess though, if you look at any winning coach, any winning team, I mean, you rarely are going to see him without whether, if you look at the three main sports

in America, I should say, because for all the international issues, the three main sports America, baseball, football, and basketball, baseball, football. I mean, if they go hand in hand, it seems like it. I mean, Phil Jackson is not going to win without MJ, Scotty Pippen, Kobe Bryant, Shaq, Popovich, and Tim Duncan. You know, Popovich is one of those ones who's sustained excellence, I would say, is a great coach. But certainly, they all need good players, though. So I just wonder about that specific, or whether it's, you know, Belichick, Brady, Bill Walsh, Joe Montana. I mean, they all need a great player.

And in football, typically, it's got to be a great quarterback. So, I mean, I got to believe, though, that a great coach can make a significant difference in a team versus a bad coach. I mean, the Cavs fired their coach last year, and the only difference then was they had Tailu, and it seemed that he made a difference. I'm reading Brian Winhorse's book on the Return of the King from LeBron, and it's interesting to read about that that actually had a big impact as well as some of the role players who you'd never heard of, like the fact that James Jones is a guy that everybody, buddy would listen to. He wasn't even that good of a player. He barely even played, but he's a guy that they all looked up to, and he had like a captain type mentality and equality in some of these characteristics. So I guess what I'm saying is every team that wins and every coach that wins, they have to have good players. They're not going to start winning without good players. And I mean,

there's probably some examples of that, but I just find that interesting because I think a coach has to be important. I played for good coaches and I played for bad coaches and I noticed a distinct difference in my play and our team's play when we've had good versus average or bad. Yeah, no, it's a, this is kind of a nuanced point that I've made. I mean, I think the first thing I would say is absolutely coaches Matt. I mean, it's, it's, and having a great coach is definitely an asset to a team. So, but there's a difference that I found between winning, a championship or two championships or just being kind of consistently good over a long period of time and this kind of sustained freakish excellence that that I was looking for. And, you know, that to me is

the magic elixir because I think a great coach can power a team forward. I think we've seen that and some of the people you've mentioned and so can a superstar and we see it now with LeBron. And that's valuable and important and you can win that way. But I think the idea is, is there are just certain teams that get to this freakish level where they just know nothing else but winning. And it's a culture. It's something indescribable. It's a team that's far greater than the sum of its parts.

And this is something that needs to be created, but both created and sustained. And again, the only thing that I've found on those kind of freakish teams is that the captain's role was the one thing that really held it together. I mean, and, you know, some of these teams, I have to say, I looked at the Brazilian soccer dynasty from 58 to 62 where they won two World Cups

and, you know, essentially didn't lose for that whole period. And, you know, the coach of that team was, you know, he was famous for falling asleep on the bench. I mean, he was a sort of heavy-lid kind of guy who was very mellow and didn't really weigh in. let the veteran players run the team. And, you know, he may have been a great, calming presence and very good person who didn't get in the way of anything.

But the idea that he somehow drove that team forward, it's just not possible. I mean, he wasn't really actively leading the team. And there were a lot of examples, too, of teams that, you know, whose coaches left, even the Celtics, right, Auerbach retired in the middle of their streak. And, you know, Russell took over his coach, and they won two or three more titles after that. So, you know, I think it's, I think we got it, we're really, what we're really talking about here isn't the formula for winning a championship or two. I think we're talking about how a team becomes something greater. And a team becomes not an extension of one person's personality or

talent, but becomes a body unto itself that plays by its own rules. And I think when that happens, the reason it happens is because there's a captain, someone like Tim Duncan, who's behind the scenes working his ass off to make sure that that it stays that way and that culture is sustained. I love that story of the way of his rituals and the way that he he communicates. And another one of the elite or one of the traits of elite captains you write is a talent for displaying their commitment and motivating teammates through aggressive, nonverbal means. What do you mean by that? Well, so there were several players on my list, several captains, who were a little different from that model I talked about, the sort of Duncan communication model.

And there were two that I'll mention. The first was Jack Lambert. And Jack Lambert was the middle linebacker of the Steelers. And he was in his time considered a complete maniac. I mean, he, if you remember him, he had, he was missing two front teeth. and he had this wild look in his eyes, and he just looked like a Western gunslinger, and he, you know, would crouch behind a line

and hammer his legs like he was sort of twitching with rage. And he was, you know, with pound quarterbacks, even if they were, you know, almost out of bounds. And he had a reputation for being fearsome. The interesting thing about Lambert, he did communicate with his teammates a lot. In fact, the Steelers would go to the sauna after the games, to talk kind of privately away from the coaches.

And it was a brutally honest environment where everyone's play was critiqued. And Lambert was the first one in and the last lead. And that was his place where he really talked to the players practically about what was going on. And he was very vocal also on the field. But Lambert had another quality, which I just couldn't figure out.

He did things on purpose in games because he knew that seeing these aggressive, aggressive acts would fire up his teammates and intimidate the opponents probably at the same time. My favorite example was this game against Cincinnati in 76, I believe it was. And the Ceros got out to a bad start. They were one in four. And people had written them off as the defending Super Bowl champions that people out there were done. So he played the most incredible game, I think of his career, with something like 18 tackles.

and, you know, he single-handedly accounted for 10 points with fumbled recoveries. It was probably his greatest game. So in the middle of that game, he had a cut on his hand, a deep cut on his palm. And it was bandaged up. The bandages failed. Blood started spurting out all over his uniform. I mean, his pants, his jersey, it was a complete, gory mess. So I asked one of the former trainers, I said, well, why didn't you change his uniform?

Why didn't you change the bandages? And he'd sort of laughed and said, oh, we wouldn't have even approached him about that. It's like that's, he would have said no. Lambert that he said was the biggest motivator, intimidator had ever seen. He loved having blood on his uniform. He absolutely wanted to. And, you know, everything he did when you look at it was calculated. I mean, all the crazy behavior on the field.

I mean, he had a denture. He didn't have to have missing teeth on the field, but he knew the message. had sent. And Lambert's interesting because, you know what, he was undersized. He was really small for a linebacker. And his grades for athletic ability were all, you know, bees. I mean, he wasn't super fast. He wasn't, he wasn't an athlete. I don't think he would have been able to play in the modern NFL. Yet he was, he was incredibly studied tape. He was always in the right place of the right time. And, you know, he developed his fearsome reputation, which made him way better than he should have been given his athletic ability.

So that level, I've looked at a lot of the science, and there's a whole genre of science that shows how these aggressive displays, these nonverbal, passionate things that leaders do, have an immediate subconscious impact on people. Like, we're actually able to feel a paler version of an emotion that we've seen somebody else. And there's this sort of invisible neural network between people. And

on a team, you know, the studies show that leaders that are able to tap into that interconnection are much more effective in terms of getting people to perform at higher levels. And I think these captains understood that. And many of them did these sorts of things in the field

knowing that it would have an impact and it would make their team better. Really about it's having a purpose behind everything you do. There's a reason behind what he did as far as how he could see it would would lift up his teammates. When I was looking at the fact that one of the traits is the fact that they possess remarkable emotional self-control, it made me think of my recent conversation with Liz Weissman, where she told me that great leaders, quote from her, great leaders have a buffer between the

stimulus and their response. And I've gotten advice from other mentors of mine that tell me that one of the keys to leading is there will be moments in your career both in this this is why I think it helped me playing quarterback but there'll be moments in my career where there will be negative things happening you'll be in a meeting and odd things will be said and it's on you to respond you don't have to not have emotion it's okay to show emotion sometimes in fact it's it's it's a good thing to show emotion but but to have a slight buffer between what happens and how you respond because how you respond is going to determine your team's potential actions and how they feel and how they respond. They're going to be looking to you.

And so it's interesting that the great captains, the great leaders of the best teams, as well as some of the greatest leaders in the business world, share this same similar feature about them as the fact that they're able to have this buffer between the stimulus and their response. Yeah, Ryan, that's a tremendous point. And I think there's a lot of overlap there between sports and other team environments. So there's a researcher who sadly passed away a few years ago

and Richard Hackman who was at Harvard. And he spent years and years embedding himself with high-performing teams. Teams that competed under pressure that needed, couldn't have a do-over. We're talking about airplane cockpit crews, some sports teams, chamber orchestras, even emergency room staffs at hospitals. And he came up with some fascinating rules about what make great teams great, which were very similar to what I discovered. I mean, not just in the fact that talent and charisma really didn't matter and a leader, but one of the things

he cited was emotional maturity. And just the ability to allow reason to govern emotion. And this is something that these captains had just in spades. And it wasn't just the ability to not overreact. It was a kind of resilience that was really uncommon. And I looked a lot at the science and there's an emerging, I mean, the research, the neuroscience. on this subject shows that there are just some people who have stronger wiring in their brain

that allows them to override negative emotions and to continue to return quickly to a more neutral state. And also there's research that suggests that we can change over time and that through training and practice and experience, we can become more resilient and we can kind of rewire our brains to react better to negative stimulus, as you say. But there are two categories these captains fell into. One was a lot of them just had this. I mean, they clearly had this ability to control their emotions. My favorite example is a guy named Jerome Fernandez,

who I'm sure you've never heard of, who was the captain of the French national handball team, which handball is a huge sport in Europe and very competitive, and they were the best team of all time, hands down. This is my favorite example. So they were playing the finals of the world championships in 2009. And this is an event that 180 million people watch around the world. And they were not favored to win.

So two days before the final, he got a call from his mother. And his parents hadn't told him this because they didn't want to distract them. But his father was dying of cancer and was in the hospital and he had days to live. And they needed to tell him now because they were worried that he would never see him. see him alive again. So Fernandez had this wrenching decision. I mean, this is worse than most situations like this because he had just been named captain of the team and some people on team weren't sure about his leadership yet. And this was the biggest match of his life to date. So he faced this agonizing decision. Do I go home now and miss the final and let my team down?

Or do I stay and possibly never see my father again? And what if we lose? And I never see him again. So really wrenching situation. So what did he decide to do? He not only decided to stay and play and win a medal for his father, but he decided not to tell the team. He told only his coach knew. None of his teammates knew. He didn't want to distract them from the task at hand.

So here he was suffering this incredible, tragic situation. So not only did he play brilliantly and help his team upset the Croatians to win the title, but he scored a clinching goal in the final seconds on an incredible play where he was knocked to the floor and had to shoot across his body. It was really amazing. And after that, he completely broke down on the court. And no one, his teammates were shocked. They had no idea that he, what was going on or how he could have possibly endured that. So that's what we're talking about. And let me give you one more example, though, because a lot of these captains had that natural ability, but there was one who didn't. And this was probably one of the

most interesting stories I found. And it's Maurice Richard. And Maurice Richard, the rocket was famously the captain of the Montreal Canadiens in the late 1950s. He's the only team to win five consecutive Stanley Cups. And in 1955, Richard was a completely different player. He was a hot temper. He lost his temper all the time. Other teams would target him because they knew he would explode. And he was one of the most penalized players in the NHL. And in 195, in a game against the Rangers, he just went completely berserk after getting hit by a stick in the face. And he punched an efficient, punched a lineman who was trying to restrain him. And he was suspended for the rest of the year, including the playoffs. And his team didn't win the Cup that year.

So here he is the most hot-tempered player in my group by far. But what he did after that was he vowed to become calmer and to try to control his emotions. And it was tough at first, but, you know, his penalty minutes started to fall. And as a consequence, he started passing to teammates more to make himself less of a target and getting them involved. His scoring totals fell. But immediately they won their first Stanley Cup. And then he became captain. And from that moment on, he's a completely different player.

His penalty minutes declined to the point where they were not even remarkable. And his scoring totals did too, but they became this formidable team. So, Richard learned. I mean, he learned how to change and control emotion and to put it into the hockey as opposed to putting it into his anger about the way he was being roughed up on the ice. And, you know, he became captain and they became the greatest dynasty in hockey. And so, you know, I think some of these traits that I've mentioned, people are, you know, they're kind of born with.

But in this case, and in many of these cases, it's just about behavior. It's about self-control and really trying to learn to be a better leader. I love the last part of that story because this show, Sam, is all about the fact that you can become a leader if you make the choice. You can learn constantly. You can always strive to improve to get better to find new and innovative ways. ways to solve problems if you're willing, if you have an open mind, if you're searching and striving for that. And so that's a really good bookend, I think, to this conversation.

I really appreciate it, Sam. And especially, I know the book just came out. And so you're in the midst of all this crazy launch stuff going on, which is a lot of fun. But I really appreciate the fact that you've invested your time with us here on the Learning Leaders Show, man. Right. It's a great show.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thanks. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? Well, I have a website. It's called By Sam Walker, which has a lot about the book and some takeaways and some of the press.

I've had a ton of excerpts from. There's one in the Wall Street Journal from Saturday. Also, Fast Company has a piece up as to ESPN and Sports Illustrated have pieces I've done for them, a little bits about the book. So I think if you Google the book, you'll see a lot. lot of ways to get a better sense of what's in it. Yeah, I would encourage everyone to get the captain class, the hidden force that creates the world's greatest team, Sam Walker, man. Thanks so much. And I absolutely want to continue this dialogue as we both progress, man.

Great, Ryan. I'd love to. All right. Thanks, man. Okay. Proud to say that this episode of The Learning Leader Show is brought to by Roan. R-H-O-N-E. Rone.com, premium activeware, engineered with principal, performance, and progress. for the modern man. They build clothing around three main tenants, cutting edge performance, premium comfort and simplistic style from rapid moisture wicking to four-way stretch. Their clothing offers unrivaled durability and flexibility. Remember episode number 194 with Rhone CEO Nate Chekitts. I love his process for building this business and even more, I love their product. So we're happy to partner together to help you, the loyal listeners,

of the Learning Leaders Show. Go to Rohn.com. Choose whatever you'd like. And as you're checking out, type in the code, Hawk. Simply Hawk, H-A-W-K to get 15% off. Now, Roan does not typically do discount codes.

So this is a special one. It will expire within a few months. But type in Hawk, H-A-W-K at Rone.com. Great, man. Thank you. Are you still there, Sam? Yeah. Oh, that was really good.

I love the stories and the way that you're able to really dive deeper, especially when I would just kind of lead out, maybe make a statement and not ask a question and you just take it. That's the type of dialogue that I really enjoy and that we would have if we were just out to lunch or something like that. Yeah. So I really appreciate that. No, it was really fun. And I like, I really love these chances to sort of get into it. Because, you know, it's not a, it's no, there's many messages and conclusions and the. books. So sometimes I do these short interviews and I feel like, you know, I'm only getting,

I'm only scratching the surface. Yeah. For, I mean, for for books, really, I believe for anything, podcasting, that's why I love it so much because you can go so much deeper. Like, we can, we can pull apart some of the seven traits and really get into the stories and some of the research behind it and not just, you know, have surface level things to say, oh, yeah, well, Bill Russell's great, you know. I mean, like, it's so much better. I, I like going, and I found, too, the authors and other leaders really enjoy the chance to go much deeper. And I think that's why podcasting is growing so much because people see the value. And a lot of people are listening to them.

So it makes a lot more fun. Yeah, no, it's my favorite medium and the favorite emerging medium. I really think it's, I think you're on to something. It's just, it's the way people, I mean, if people have these long stretches in their cars or they don't want to look at a funny video, they want to, kind of get into something. Yeah. Well, it can be a secondary activity. Like you said, driving your car, working out, all that.

And that's why I think people like it. I've been listening, started to listen to books on Audible as well as a ton of podcast, too. But it is. It's definitely fun for me to do, man. I appreciate you doing it. Like I said, when I first saw that tweet of you giving the speech, I said, I got to talk to this guy. You were even better. I expected.

So thanks, man. I really appreciate it. All right, Ryan. Thanks. Let's keep in touch. Definitely. Definitely. I'll let you know.

I'll send a note to you when we're putting this up. I'll try to rush it since you're still on like this launch phase. Yeah. Yeah. I know how that goes. So you know how it goes. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, man.

But I'll let you know. I'll shoot you a note. All right, cool. Thanks. All right. Thanks, Sam. Take it easy. Bye.