The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 284: Michael Lombardi - A Masterclass In Building Teams And Winning Championships

Episode Date: November 19, 2018

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Episode #284: Michael Lombardi - A Masterclass In Building Teams And Winning Championships Show Notes: Commonalities of sustaining excellence: A set foundation A standard of excellence in everything they do.  Not rooted in sports, but in everything Understand how to build a culture Why mission statements were useless to Mike and his colleagues The focus on getting 1% better every day... If you do so, the score takes care of itself Demonstrate how to lead... The leader must model that behavior "Managers do things right, leaders do the right thing." Operating framework Have a plan Explain to self Build trust Command of self "Culture is a plant. You must nurture it everyday." Personal accountability is the ultimate sign of strength.  "All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong." - Sophocles Bill Walsh - The value of being his personal driver and learning from him directly during all of those car rides.  That's where Mike learned about leadership... And about Tom Peters Coach Walsh was always reading something that made him think and passed that along to Mike... "If you don't like change, you'll like irrelevancy less." Hiring process: Want people who are coach-able and able to learn the Bill Walsh system "Training is hard. Most managers don't do it." A "5 tool leader" Strategy Tactics Preparation Execution Situational instincts to know which among the first 4 is required and when The myth of coaches working long hours and sleeping in the office Sustainable values vs situational values -- command of the process When Al Davis interviewed people, he would do a deep dive on their background prior to the interview and use their high school mascot as his personal nickname for the candidate. This was Al's subtle way of letting the candidate know that he "knew everything about them so they better be honest." Creative vs divergent -- Take an existing idea and make it better The 7 QB qualifiers and how this relates to a leader in business: A winning way A thick skin Work ethic Football smarts Innate ability Carriage Leadership You must be able to process things at a high rate Learning from mistakes -- The Doug Pederson mistake Mike made... "How often is it the structure, the landscape, vs the player? Jackson Browne - "Never forget the ones you mess up." Life advice -- Jack Nicholson - "Read everything. It's the elixir of life. Understand something from all sides and all points of view. Read it all from the opposition side to get complete understanding on the topic." The most effective leaders have a willingness to receive feedback and implement it.

Often, whenever we do these things, we tend to look at other people's mistakes and laugh at them. And my point to the listeners is we can learn so much from other people. The mistakes, we have to. You know, because if we don't, we're going to get fired for our own mistakes too many. And so we have to go back. You know, when you take a new job, Brian, people always think about, you know, they always talk about the first hundred days of the new job. And they talk about that.

Well, what the truly great leader does is figure out how, why he's, he got the job. Like walk in the man's shoes that you're replacing for 20, 30 days and figure out what were his problems and what he couldn't solve. And that'll allow you to have a better administration because if you can understand his problems clearly, you'll make better decisions. This episode is brought to you by another one of my favorite companies. It's OGO. I am a big fan of the leadership team at OGO. Their new Alpha Convoy Collection of Travel Bags and Backpacks are fully loaded and equipped to keep you confident and prepared for any challenge. The collection is built with premium Cordura eco-fabric, which is ultra-durable and also made from recycled plastics.

A win-win for you and the planet. Plus, with the new OGO mod system, you can customize your storage options, giving you more space when you need it. Don't compromise on what you can take with you. And special for you, the listeners of the Learning Leaders Show, use pro, promo code Hawk, H-A-W-K to save 20% on OGO.com. That's O-G-I-O-O-D-O-com. Use promo code Hawk to save 20% on OGO.com. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show.

I am Ryan Hawk. Thanks so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday. Text learners to 44-2-2-2 in order to join thousands of other fellow learning leaders from all over the world. Text learners to 4-4-222. We're doing some unique giveaways coming up soon. So text learners to 4-4-222.

Now, on tonight's featured leader, Michael Lombardi was most recently on the New England Patriots coaching staff for Bill Belichick after 30 years working in the front offices for the San Francisco 49ers and the great Bill Walsh, the Oakland Raiders with the legendary Al Davis and the Cleveland Browns where he was a general manager. He also writes for Bill Simmons the Ringer and The Athletic.

His most recent bestselling book is titled Gridiron Genius, a master class in winning championships and building dynasties in the NFL. A few of the topics we discussed. What makes up a five-tool leader? Then his process for hiring a coach, what to look for, and what questions to ask in the interview to find those qualities. And this certainly applies in the business world. Then the difference between sustainable values and situational values and why it's so important to understand this as a leader.

This one was wide-ranging and fascinating. I think you'll love it. It's Michael Lombardi. All right, Michael Lombardi. Thank you so much for joining me here on The Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Thank you, Ryan. I appreciate you having me.

It's an honor to be here. I was so excited when you reached out, man, because I've been. following your work for quite some time. And so it's neat when we can have some uncommon commonalities and some mutual friends that feel like they want to pair us together like Coach George Dravelling or Ryan Holiday. So I'm very appreciative that this happened, man. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on because I think that I am as obsessed with leadership as you are.

And I think that that commonality would make this a really good conversation. Yeah. Well, speaking of that, Michael. I love distilling and understanding the commonalities of leaders who sustain excellence. And you've been fortunate in your lifetime to spend the bulk of it around incredible leaders like Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick, Al Davis, and countless others. And then you've taken what you've learned and implemented that into your life. So I'm curious from your perspective to get us going. What have you found to be the commonalities among those leaders who sustain excellence?

But they have a foundation. You know, their foundation isn't rooted in the discipline in which they're trying to excel in. It isn't that Walsh's foundation wasn't rooted in football, even though most people think the West Coast offense when they hear Bill Walsh, no. It was really his standard of performance, his standard of excellence. And most people think the Patriot Way is about Belichick's coaching to defense philosophy. No, it's really about getting everybody to buy into the culture. And I think both men that I've been so blessed to learn from start with a premise of if I build an organization with the right culture that everything else can come easier. But if I can't create the right culture, then every problem along the way becomes a bigger problem and I can't solve it.

So to me, that's the number one thing. Both guys didn't start saying with a mission, you know, mission statements to me are the worst thing in any leader has is because they leave out leadership. It's just a statement, right? So it's like ridiculous. Bill Walsh, when he took over the 49ers in 1979, didn't come out and say, we're going to win the Super Bowl in two years. That's the mission statement. You know, even though they did, he came in with the standard of excellence,

the standard of performance that he wanted everybody to adhere to. That's what he was driving. And that's what he was able to install in the 49ers in 79. And the same thing Belichick did in Cleveland in 91, and then when he went to New England in 99. So it's really focusing on that. And this reminds me of my talk with James Clear. James writes about habit formation, human behavior, that it's really focusing on the system rather than some end long-term goal.

It's what are we doing day by day by day to get better and better and better and to have that standard of excellence. No doubt. I mean, and the measurement really isn't the scoreboard. I mean, Bill Walsh wrote a book called The Score Takes Care of Itself. And that's really what he was all about. And so when we focus on results instead of the process, instead of the culture, we get caught up. In 1955, Ryan, of the S&P top 500 companies, only 60 remain today. Now, you could say to me, well, that's because of innovation and technology.

And that, you know, plays a part, but not really. Because in the next 10 years, most experts are believing that 250 of the current 500 will be gone. It's really about culture. And it's about how you drive that culture. is how you're able to sustain success, maintain success, and install the virtues in the company. So, Michael, a lot of people listening are managers and leaders within businesses, not necessarily in sports, but just business in general, as you know. And your book, Red Iron Genius, which we're going to talk about here at length because I took

a ton of notes from it applies to business just as much as it does to sports. But so when the culture is a buzzword now, as you know, this is something. that's written about constantly. If you Googled it, you'd see millions and millions of hits of articles written about this. And I think my question is, let's take it a step further and dive a little bit deeper into that word and specifically in how to build that. So let's say I'm a mid-level manager at a big company and I'm reading about Bill Walsh and the score takes care of itself. And I read Gridiron Genius by Michael Lombardi of how culture is so important. What are some of the tactical ways Is that either Coach Walsh or others actually implemented this on a day-to-day basis

so that that could be potentially takeaways for leaders listening? Well, you know, the thing that makes both Walsh and Belichick so unique is the fact that they demonstrated their culture that they wanted with their behavior. There wasn't two sets of standards. So what I talk about in the book and what every leader and every manager, you know, there's a difference between leaders and managers. Managers do things right. Leaders do the right thing.

But even in the managerial role, you are still in some form of leader. You're leading yourself. And so when you take command of four principles of leadership within yourself, if you have a plan when you come into work every day, you have a short term and a long term plan, if you're able to explain it to yourself or to the people you're leading, that's important. And then you're able to build trust within the people that you work with. And that comes from being able to make tough decisions, being brutally honest and transatlantic. parent and then also command of yourself, which means you're willing to admit mistakes, which allows curiosity and creativity to take hold of the organization. That's how you create that buzzword culture. You know, people think culture is just this thing that lays in a company and it just goes there.

And once it's installed, it's fine. It's not a, it's a plant. You have to work it and nurture it and water it every single day. And the way you do that is by creating those four habits within yourself as the leader or the manager, and you demonstrate that to other people. And it's a little bit like what Angela Duckworth said in her book, Grit. It becomes a butterfly effect. It becomes a way for where now everyone else starts to behave in that pattern. Yeah, I think when I envision the greatest leaders, they're not telling you to do something that they're not willing to do themselves or that they're not doing themselves. It's like a great mom or a dad. And I'm fortunate to have both. And what they do is they've continuously modeled the right behavior.

And then I've just kind of followed because that's what I saw growing up. And that's been very helpful. And I try to do the same as a dad and a husband myself, I think is modeling it is a no better way to lead. And it's interesting, Michael, you said at the end, the command of self as well as the willingness to admit mistakes. And I think you quote it was it Sophocles in your book. All men make mistakes. But a good good man yields when he knows his course is. wrong and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride. I found that to be really interesting,

a note that I highlighted and took from your book. Yeah, I think, you know, Ryan Holliday wrote the book Ego is the enemy. And so often in my profession of football, you know, when people make decisions, they get, they get locked into them and they get basically, they don't want to admit a mistake because they don't want to come out to the paper and say, well, we've blown this first round pick or we made a free agent signing that didn't work out. And because most of the decisions involve money, no one wants to make a statement and say, well, we've wasted a lot of money on this, whereas Belichick has no problem admitting a mistake. In fact, he stands in front of his team and says, look, you know, this guy wasn't good enough. We had to get rid of him. I made a mistake with it.

It takes full accountability for it, which then drives people in the organization to know that mistakes aren't really the evil empire, that mistakes can be made. You just have to learn from them and move forward. And the same thing Walsh did. Walsh would stand in front of the team and admit when his game plan didn't work or the mistakes he made and got rid of players because of it. Speaking of coach, Bill Walsh, I love for you to share the initial, probably a combination of luck and your grit and hard work to get the first job or one of the first jobs you had where you were his, basically his driver, right? He had a Porsche, but he didn't want to drive it. And you got to sit not shotgun. He was sitting shotgun.

You're driving the car. Sit next to him for countless amount of drives where you could learn directly from the master, right? The best, probably one of the best teachers in the world during his time. And I'd love for you to share that origin story of you and coach Bill Walsh. Well, you know, I was a young coach. I was in college. And I wrote in the book, The World Gets Out of Way for people that know where they want to go. And I wanted to be in pro football.

and I wanted to work in some form of scouting. And I was working at UNLV making $9,000 a year as a full-time coach at Nevada, Las Vegas. And Tony Rosano hired me to become a scouting assistant in San Francisco. Great. I took the job. And part of the job was if Walsh needed a ride to the airport, if Walsh needed to have his laundry picked up, or if Walsh needed to ride to a speaking engagement,

then Michael was going to drive them. And that was the greatest job of all because, A, I was driving a really cool car. B, I got to sit next to this guy who had really wasn't always going to just teach just innocently. He would just have conversations just organically out in the open. And I could ask questions. And oftentimes I really didn't feel I was even equipped enough to ask the right questions because I was so, such a blank tape. But from that car ride, he taught me about leadership. He's the one who drove me to read Tom Peters's,

book and Bob Waterman's book in Search of Excellence. He asked me the question in the card. You know, Tom Peters is. And I said, I thought it was a punter from South Dakota. And I said, you know, and he said, no. And so naturally, I went to the bookstore and I read it. And that sent me on the journey of Warren Benis and Peter Drucker and, of course, the great Tom Peters, who I admire tremendously. And so that knowledge of football, plus the knowledge of leadership is where I am today. that's because of those car rides. It was one of the biggest thrills for me to have Tom

on episode 252 of this show because I'm with you, Michael, that he, I just love the word excellence. I use it. If somebody did a word diagram of this show, that's probably the number one phrase or word that I use.

And so in search of it is basically what this is. It's what I live. And so it's pretty neat that Bill Wall seemed way ahead of his time, but then he was sharing all of that wisdom with you as a young kid essentially so that you could take that out into the world. Yeah, you know, it's funny because he was very much about making sure he loved reading about the Civil War. He loved reading about management. He was not, he would doodle in the car with his,

you know, he loved the doodle. He was like John Kennedy, who doodled sailboats, Walshwood Doodle plays. But he was always about reading something that made him think. And the teacher in Bill, the teacher in Bill was always looking to read more to be able to help his teaching lessons. And his search of his own excellence, really, is what made him such a great teacher. And he wasn't just going to teach the same course every single year. He was going to change it up. And, you know, and Tom, you know, I've had the opportunity to speak to Tom. And he wrote a nice comment about the back of my book.

And, you know, I still read. I mean, I still go to Tom Peters. When I work for the Raiders, you know, Tom always talks about Eric Shinnski's great quote. If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less. I had that sign hung in my office at the Raiders, hoping Al Davis would read it and understand that we needed a change. Wow. There's got to be just an amazing amount of stories that you have picked up over the years. One of the things I noticed, I talk a lot about the hiring process here because a lot of listeners maybe are

They've got their first promotion or they're on the verge of that. Or maybe they did two years ago and they're still trying to figure things out. Because I remember when I got my first promotion from individual contributor to where now I was a manager. I had people reporting to me. And one of the toughest parts of that job is that now you're in charge of hiring and firing people. And Bill Walsh is one part of his hiring process is that you had written that he valued curiosity and a displayed willingness to learn over experience. And I love that. I'd love for you to share more about that.

Some of the things that you look for in hiring, whether it's a coach or any person of an organization where you worked, as well as what you picked up from some of those greats, the Titans that you were able to work alongside. You know, when I was a young coach, I would always pick up coaches that we brought in for interviews and at the airport. That was my job. I was truly a gopher and I loved it. And one time I went to the airport to pick up Sherman Lewis. this running, who was a defense coordinator at Michigan State. And we were going to interview him as a running back coach.

Now, Sherman played running back in college and was a very successful running back. But then he went on to be a defensive coach. And once one of these car rides, I finally felt enough nerve to ask Coach Walsh, like, why would we hire the defensive coordinator and make him a running back coach? And Walsh gave me this real simple answer. He said, I'm not looking for someone to come in to tell, give me new ideas. I'm looking for people to learn my system and then develop their ideas. within that system. Powerful, right? So he always said, scout inside out, not outside in. And what we

learned was when I went to Cleveland in 91, Belichick wanted to hire a veteran offensive line coach because he felt like he needed a veteran line coach. And after two years, we had to make a change because he couldn't get the line coach to change his ways into thinking the way Bill wanted him to think or the way Bill wanted him to teach. And then we hired a young line coach from college and we had great success. And the lesson there is that it goes back to Peters. It's a lot easier to train someone than to retrain old habits. And that's the problem. And so if you look at the New England system today, you see very clearly that they only, they'll hire young, smart people that they can train. Parcells at the New York Giants and wherever he went, you look at

his coaching staff, they were all based on some form of academy, naval, Air Force Army, smart people that were young in coaching that he could train and develop. Because the job of a leader also involves the job of training. This to me seems like it should be obvious. Why is it not? Because I think training is hard. You know, people don't want to spend the time. You know, Walsh would always say to me, you're not too busy to do your job. Yeah. We get busy thinking, you know, the phone rings. I remember walking into Belichick's office one time, and I was obsessed as a young man to return all my phone calls. I thought it was polite, you know, and I walked into his office one day, and he must have had a stack of 500 phone messages. He'd just gotten a job in Cleveland. And I looked at all the messages on his table, and I said, are you going to return those? And he said, I'll get to him when I get to him. And, you know, it's like, he was so good at being able to put things away. And he'll tell the team in New England, look, this

week, put everything on the back burner. This are the three most important things you have to focus on this week. And not a lot of leaders do that. They get so busy doing other things, they forget to do their own job. Yeah. We get into a gridiron genius, a masterclass in winning championships and building dynasties in the NFL, really, really extremely well-done book by you. So I'm going to pull out some notes.

We've already touched on some of them, but there are a few others that I think are. really interesting. You talk about a five tool leader, strategy, tactics, preparation, execution, and then the situational intuition to know which among the first four is required and when. I love for you to expand on how you learned and what it was that helped you come up with this five tool leader and why those, those qualities are what the best of the best possess. You know, sometimes a lot, you become a lot, life is very, fortunate and you find things that you really weren't looking for. And one, I was a young man. I'd just gotten fired for Cleveland. The Browns moved from Cleveland to Baltimore. And I was supposed to go work for the Raiders, but I was involved in a contract dispute with the Raiders and the Browns and

Al Davis didn't want to pay and Art Modell didn't want me to go. So I ended up going to my summer house and my young kids and my wife. We were there. And the Rams asked me to do a project. They said, look, come up with what makes a great head coach. But don't give me, don't take a week on. It take three months. And so I went back and I spent so much time reading Venice and I spent time reading Peters and Drucker that I came up with the four essential qualities, which I talked about earlier, of leadership, you know, command of the message, command of the process, command of the plan and then a command of self. And then add in also the fact that you could also have to analyze those four. And what I learned from then,

I took the great coaches in the NFL. And I basically used them as an overlay. I said, okay, look, here's Marv Levy, and here he was in Kansas City. What qualities did he have? And I talked to people that were there. And then I went and looked at Bill Parcells and what are his for. And what I found was the great coaches always were really good in three of the four areas of leadership. Belichick was great at four. Nick Saban was great at four. You know, some were just really good at three, but they probably were a little less on command of self, maybe not as honest with themselves in terms of admitting mistakes, but good. The ones that failed were just good in two of the areas. And so what I did was when I presented this book to the Rams is I said, hey, you have to find

a coach who excels in three or four. It's not about hiring someone to come in here and run the West Coast offense or to run the bear's defense. It's about hiring the best leader. and finding these three areas of leadership that the coach possesses and then allowing him to develop that culture within. And that's how I came up with it. With working with these Titans, I'm curious, how did this, I guess, impact you as in all aspects of your life? I know if being a front office guy, a general manager type role within an organization is probably amazingly time consuming. I always like to bring up Michael to the personal side of this because everybody here has a personal life as well, whether they're marrying with kids. What type of impact did a Bill Walsh or Belichick or Al Davis or others have on you in your personal life as a dad and as a husband?

Well, you know, I think more of my wife probably had that. You know, my wife was driven to make sure that we would at least once a week have a family dinner and we would once a week have because the time that you spent at work was so great, you know, you really didn't have much time to have family time. And there was, you know, there was the leader at home basically made sure that I was there to so that my kids knew who the hell I was and I wasn't just an absentee father. And so there was that really that's where I got most of it for my family. And I'm blessed. I mean, I didn't want my two sons to go into coaching or football, but yes, they did. And partly of that isn't because of me. It's because of my wife because they saw that we did have a family, even though I wasn't there all the time. And I think they learned that they could

have a family too if they found the right person and the right woman with them so that they could take part in this industry. And so I think that that was real. And, you know, one thing about both Walsh and Belichick that I admire, Al Davis was wanted you in the office all the time. But Walsh and Belichick were very much about if you do your, they weren't going to micromanage you. They wanted the job done, but they weren't going to like check and see if you were in the office at 9 o'clock at night. You know, so often Belichick, you know, as long as you're doing your work, he didn't care if you got there at 7 in the morning or you left at 8. You know, Nick Saban would show up every morning at 6.30 and by 930 or 10 o'clock, he was going home. Now, Bill might sleep on his couch at night.

But Bill wasn't going to try to drive you into doing it his way. He just wanted it done the way you did it in your own authentic way. Do you think all that time is necessary to be spent? Is that just part of what you sign up for when you want to be a coach? Because I mean, honestly, as I got done playing football, Michael, I was considering that route. Go be a GA somewhere. And I could have had some opportunities. But I quite frankly didn't love the hours that I saw those guys working.

Do you feel like that's just part of the gig? You must work those hours. I heard stories about Bob Stoops and a few others that were able to manage that a little bit better. but it seems in that profession it's just the norm. Well, I think it's the idea. It's really not authentic. I think that Walsh was always talking about, look, when you come into work, be productive. Come in here, think of your life as a lawyer where you have to justify your hours.

And work smarter, don't work longer. And so much of the NFL is about working longer, not smarter. And I think that's where Belichick gains an advantage with most of the people in the league, is he's working smarter, not longer. And not to say he doesn't work long hours, but I agree, Ryan, I think that we take it over the top. We take being in the office

as a symbolism of working hard when you're just at the office. Are you actually getting better? And I've learned through writing this book that an hour away from your desk makes you more creative. An hour to work out makes you more creative. And so, you know, I think that that's really important.

And if you can create that within the culture, I mean, Walsh used to go play tennis every single day. You know, at training camp, he would have a tennis match every morning at 630 to 7.30. And then that would allow him to feel better about himself and work better for the day. And how many times have you taken a workout or taken a walk and you have a creative idea? And then you go back to your desk and feel energized. I think to me, the NFL is a little bit overkill with time versus productivity.

And it's not really always the same. Yeah, it feels like it's one of those industries where until you've won, a lot for many years. Coaches almost feel this obligation to be in their office forever. And I just had a recent conversation with Tom Goodwin about this where we said, he said, and I agreed,

we shouldn't worship busyness. We should worship output. And finding the better ways to get to the output, I think is the wiser way to go about it. All right, one of the things that you got into that I think is interesting

in the book is the difference between sustainable values and situational values. What do you mean by that? Well, I think we learned that from the mortgage company, right? So the reason we had the financial crisis is because we got obsessed with situational values. You know, we're giving loans to people that we know can't qualify just because it solves the situation at the time and the mortgage can get sold and move forward and all of a sudden we had this crisis and very few people saw it coming. It happens all the time in the NFL. It's like A coach is sitting at his desk and he just evaluates the situation at hand. How do I make this team win this year without any long-term thinking, without any sustainability to it?

You always have to ask yourself the question, you know, I talk about this in relationship to false duality. The false duality to me is when you think there's just A or B solving the problem. If we do this, this is A or this is B. When in reality, the true great leader finds C, D, and F within the process. problem and tries to solve it that way. And this is what sustainable and solution-based values come from. If you're just thinking about winning one year and you put all your chips at the middle of the table, you have no sustainability.

It can't last. However, if you're thinking long-term, if you're sitting and valuing every decision that you're making short-term and long-term and looking at it from the opposite effect, we always look at things from a positive effect. Well, this is a great deal for us. No, reverse it, you know, and reverse it, reverse engineer it, and how would it look two years from now? How would it look a year from now? And when you get the right answer, then you make the decision.

But so often, you know, and this is command of the process, so often we're looking for the simple solution. We're looking for the light when there isn't any light. And so we have to make, sometimes we have to make this hard decisions in the darkness. Yeah, it reminds me of kind of the coaching for development versus coaching for just. just that performance. And the development's more long term and the right way to think. Playing the long game seems to always be the right way to play. Michael,

one of the other things that you did was you were always a part of as a personnel guy, helping teams make decision or making the decision on who a team should draft is you did a lot of pre-draft interviews. And I think there's a lot of similarities in a pre-draft interview with a potential player that you're going to choose to have on your team with a hiring manager who is looking to add somebody to their team. And so I'm curious when you think about that interview process, what are some of the, I think, carryovers or the parallels that you, some advice you could share to a hiring

manager of questions you ask or things to look for and somebody to potentially bring aboard your team, whether it's sports or business? Well, I think you have to get them outside their comfort zone. You know, when you interview a young player and you ask them simple questions, they give you simple answers. You know, I've never called a player and got him on the telephone where he didn't tell me he was just getting done working out. And it doesn't matter if it was 12 at night or if it was six in the morning. They just got back from a workout. You know, they're just telling you what you want to hear, right? So you have to kind of set it up so that you can create a situation where they think

you know more about them and they're reluctant to really send a lie to you. So Al Davis is brilliant at this. He would always make me know the high school. nickname of any young man he was going to talk to. So when Al walked into the room, he would say, you know, and I went to Ocean City High School, there's Lombardi, that Red Raider, you know, and now all of a sudden, this man who's walking in the room knows my high school's nickname, he must know a lot about me. I'm reluctant to tell him anything that, because he probably knows the answers to every question he's asking me.

Interesting. And so, therefore, you get to a level of honesty, which is so important interviews. You know, when you ask, are you, you know, when I never ask somebody, or they're going to work hard, working hard is a prerequisite to having the job. You know, right. Like, you know, why would I ask you if you're going to work hard when, you know, that should be a tool in your tool bag? You know, it's like asking a carpenter, are you going to bring a hammer with you?

You know? Yeah. No. So you have to ask, to me, the interview must be set up so that you do enough work on the prospect that you know the prospect before the interview. The interview really becomes a formality. You should have researched the person before. Again, scout inside out.

Part of understanding who to hire is understanding what you need. What does inside out mean? What do you mean to scout inside out? You have to understand what you need. The FBI doesn't open up the phone book and start looking for serial killers. Yeah. They write down exactly what this profile of this person is. So before you hire somebody, write down again.

exactly what you're looking for. I want a high IQ. I want somebody from a Jesuit education. I'm making all this up. I want, you know, I want somebody who's going to challenge authority, whatever it is. You write it all that,

and then you search for people that fill those requirements. Gotcha. So it's more about that some people might go into an interview process not fully knowing what they value, what they believe in. Exactly.

Which seems bizarre, though, you know? Right. Most people think scouting or hiring is about finding. finding, okay, when it's the opposite. Scouting or hiring is about elimination. You want to eliminate one-third or two-thirds of the constituents. You want to eliminate people. You don't want to find somebody. It's through elimination that you find. And that's where I think people make the mistake. If you called Belichick on the phone and you were applying for a job, you asked him about one of

his coaches, his first thing he would say to you is, what are you looking for? What are you looking for? And if you can't give him that answer, he can't give you a recommendation. As in qualities in a person? Is that what you mean? Yeah. No, what are you looking for in this job? You want to become the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, let's say. You live in Ohio.

Yeah. Where you want to be the head coach of the bench, what are you looking for? Are you looking for a leader? Are you looking for somebody just to coach your deep? What are you looking for? And if you can't explain it to him, how could he recommend somebody to you? Yeah, I got you. It makes a lot of sense.

I think it's that process of regularly documenting your belief system is very useful. And I've talked about this with a lot of close friends recently. That's why I would imagine, Michael, for you writing this book actually taught you a lot. The process of going through it is a great teacher because it forced you to really think deeply about your beliefs. No doubt. It's the best. I wish I could have written this book when I was 25. I just didn't have enough experience.

You know, and so, you know, we all want to live our life backwards. It would be much better. And I think by writing this book, it made me a better leader. It made me a better person. And it made me somebody who's more aware to observe the world because I was able to put it down on paper. And look, I think to me, the most important thing that I can do is continue to grow and learn and talk to people like you and talk to coach Ravling and continue to grow and take the basic and the foundation of what I've learned. from these great men and try to keep advancing it forward. Did you always feel that way or did you have to develop this with some maturity?

I asked this selfishly because for me, this was a learned skill of, as weird as it sounds, becoming more and more curious. While there are some kids who are curious and they stay that way and they've always been that way and they just get more and more. Whereas I feel like for me, I kind of had to grow into it a bit. And now it's just, it's kind of out of control. And so I'm just wondering in a good way, I guess, I'm wondering, is this, thinking back to your childhood and your upbringing and what you did, have you always been this way?

Or have you had to develop this and maybe have these great leaders developed it in you a bit? I think everything is a developed trade and I think you have to develop it. And I think I've understood the difference between being creative and being divergent. And I'm not sure I could have ever had made that decision 20 years ago. You know, and understanding truly what an entrepreneur is. You know, an entrepreneur doesn't come up with some new idea. they take an existing idea and make it better. And I think my curiosity is about trying to make something better.

How do I make this better? That's why Belichick and I, when we sat down in 1991, to develop a grading system for the Cleveland Browns, we weren't trying to make a new system. We were trying to make an old system better. And we were trying to take the Walsh theory of the scout inside out and combine it into what we were trying to build in Cleveland in 91. And therefore, we developed this grading system

or this player procurement methodology that's used at Alabama, that's used at Iowa, that's used in a lot of top programs in the country, and frankly, still used in New England today. When I went back to be with Bill in 2014, having not been with them for 16 years, you know, the system was exactly the same as the one we wrote back in 1991 in his office on Bagley Road. Interesting. What's the difference between being creative versus divergent? Creative is believing you come up with an idea that doesn't exist. You know, it's it's that novelist, the approach, you know, this is going to take something where divergent is taking an existing problem and finding alternate solutions to it. Gotcha.

And I think that, you know, it's like you've seen the candle problem. Dan Pink's made a, talked about this in his great TED talk about how to solve the candle problem, about the candle and tax, you know, how to attach it. That's being divergent and thought. Interesting. And that's what Bill Walsh did in 19, at 1916. 67 when he sat in his office down there at the old in Cincinnati and developed the West Coast offense. He knew he couldn't block anybody. He knew he didn't have enough offensive line into power. And everybody in the NFL was a power game. And so he divergently thought, how do I make this better? Run a lot of long handoffs. I'll throw short passes. Virgil Carter's really smart.

It's taking what it is. And the greatest scene of all this is when you watch Apollo 13. And all those astronauts are in the room and they're sitting there. And the two guys, walk in with all this cardboard and they throw it on the table and they say we have to take this and make it into that and when you can create and no one bitched no one complained because those guys were in space they had to get them home so they did they solved the problem that to me is the definition of divergent i love that example it's a great movie too um okay i played quarterback so i was i was very curious when you talked about the seven quarterback qualifiers uh piqued my interest, obviously read and reread and highlighted and took notes.

I'll list them and I'll be curious to hear you kind of expand, but those qualifiers for someone to be an excellent quarterback, a winning way, thick skin, great work ethic, football smarts, innate ability, carriage, and leadership. You know, you've been around some of the greats. Two of the greats that come top of mind, obviously Joe Montana, Tom. Brady. Talk to me more about these seven quarterback qualifiers. Well, most people, it starts with Walsh. You know, Walsh had it, you know, Walsh told me a long time ago, very few people can evaluate the quarterback and even fewer can coach them. And so we get so caught up at arm strength and we get caught up in foot quickness and we get caught up in all these these athleticism things that really, when you look at Joe Montana, he didn't have the strongest arm or Tom Brady didn't have the most powerful arm in football. But they had this, thing, and I call it a crib thing, when your mama takes you from the crib, you either have it or you don't. And they play football at a high level. Like, you don't have to teach Joe Montana

how to play quarterback. He understands it. He's got it in his DNA. Same thing with Tom Brady. It's a unique thing. Now, they get better at their own skills, but you have to have this ability and it takes itself over. Like, for example, Deshaun Watson, as a high school freshman, DeShon Watson, the starting quarterback of the Houston Texans, starts on his freshman team. And he's a child. And he's And past performance, we know, predicts future achievement. Now, was he the biggest guy as a freshman on his high school team? Probably not. Was he the strongest guy?

Probably not. Did he have probably the best arm? Probably not. But yet, he had that innate ability to play quarterback. And he plays for four years in high school in Georgia, which is not an easy state to play high school football. Then he goes to Clemson, South Carolina, a perennial top four program in college football. And as a freshman, he starts there because he has all these skills. off the field and he brings them with them to them on the field. We tend to evaluate

quarterbacks just what they do on the field when it's really important what they do off the field. It's their ability to lead. It's their ability to handle pressure. It's their ability to make that one throw really important on third down that has to happen and be able to see it. It's not an athletic position. It's an instinctive position. One of the things I think too, I've had, And this is not full proof. This is just my experience. But I've had coaches who played quarterback versus ones who didn't. And for whatever reason, the ones who actually played the position did were able to teach or were better teachers for me.

I specifically think of ones I had back and back to back years, one that played and one that didn't. And there's just something about the feeling of what happens from when you get the play, you call the play. if you huddle, you break the huddle, you get to the line of scrimmage and analyze a defense, see how they're trying to fool you, make the proper check if need be, take the snap, make the play action fake, look in the defensive backfield to see how if their pre-snap read is now the same post-snap. Meanwhile, probably the toughest part that most people don't think about is that you have these gigantic specimens in front of you, these offensive and defensive linemen. the defensive guys trying to crush you and the offensive guy is trying to stop them.

And usually they get pushed back at least a little bit. And so these guys are right in your face and the verge of the NFL not so much anymore because they're protecting quarterback. But still, they're right in your face and you have to then step into that, step up in the pocket, find the open man, lead him properly and make the throw. And like you said, Michael, it's arm strength plays like one 12th of that role right there. and all of that what I just described. And that's why I think playing quarterback prepares you so well for life after that. Because you're dealing with so many different issues. You have to stay cool and calm.

You have to have that moxie about you to then step up, make the throw, and then do it again and again and again. And you need people to believe in you that you can do it. And that's why, like I said, I feel like the guys who are able to do that successfully usually go on to be almost even more successful after they get done doing it because they've gone through that. Yeah, and they can process things, like you can process things at such a high rate. I mean, all the things you just described there has to be processed under three seconds.

Right. That's really hard to do, right? Right. And so, you know, it's the same thing with not everybody can be a fighter pilot. Like, not everybody has the ability to do that. It's just, it's, it's, you can train it, but there's an instinct that has to come into play that is in your DNA that you're able to see, it's in your vision. You know, it's why Ted Williams hit the ball so well.

It wasn't because his eye-hand coordination was great, but he had an instinct for what he was doing, too. There's a little bit of that. And I think that that plays a huge role in quarterbacking, and we miss that. We miss that evaluation. I mean, look, Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback for Kansas City, he's kind of got it.

You can see it. Mitchell Tribisky, the quarterback, Chicago, doesn't quite have it. He's more athlete than he is quarterback right now. Now, can they change it? Walsh thought he could with Steve Young and he did. So there's hope. Yeah, being in that prediction business is so tough. It's hard because, like, I'm with you.

I see Deshaun Watson. I love that guy. Patrick Mahomes. You love him. And you see a Tannahill slash Trubisky who they seem like very similar type players. I wonder. But I think Trubisky seems to have a really good coach. That could possibly help him out.

And now that we're getting the kind of football. analysis. That's what you do now, Michael. So I'd be curious how this transition from being in a front office, from working alongside some of the grates for 30 plus years. And now you transition more to being essentially in the media, working for Bill Simmons Company, The Ringer, a very successful podcast called GM Street, obviously now a bestselling author. How has that transition been for you? It's been really good. I've always wanted to have a second career. I've been around some people that I've always told me that to, you know, I wasn't, I didn't define my life by just football. Football was an avenue and I've got into

leadership and reading about that. So I wanted to, and I've always wanted to write. And so this book really was my first step into a second career. And that's what I wanted to do is take the experience that I've learned from the NFL and have a second career as a writer. Talk about the sport I love. Try to explain it to people. Football is a sport that America loves the most, but they know the least about. And I write a chapter about it in my book. And it's not the fault of the people that cover the sport because football is really is grandmaster chess on grass. It's very complex.

And it's very hard to explain to people how difficult it is because you have just 30 seconds between each play. But there's nuances of the game that fans love and they need to learn more about it. And that's what I hope to bring with my podcast, with my writing for the athletic, and then with this book and combining both things with leadership. The one thing I did want to say to you was I wanted to talk about when you evaluate, the one thing I think it applies. I know we talked about quarterbacks, but I think people that are listening to this podcast that are in a leadership role or a managerial role, the one thing you have to be able to do is learn from the mistakes of others. So, for example, when you evaluate quarterbacks, you know, you can't laugh because a team blew their pick with drafting a quarterback in the first round. You know, there goes Paxton Lynch.

He's no good. You have to take the time and do an autopsy on why Lynch failed. And then when you figure out why he failed, then that gives you more information to evaluate the next guy to make sure he doesn't have those reasons why he failed. And I think you do that with every part of what you work in in life. That's Belichick's greatest virtue, is his ability to do an office. topsy, win or lose of the game, and figure out why he won, why he lost, or what happened. That's a really interesting point, Michael. How frequently do you think it's a situational issue when a quarterback flops, meaning bad

organization, bad owner, GM, coach? This happened in Cleveland for many years, and it feels like maybe they've got it right now. But how often is a Paxton Lynch, maybe if he was drafted by the Cowboys or there, there was a lot of hype about them wanting him or the Patriots or another team would have led to him being successful. And how much of it do you think is just, no, that guy was just probably not going to be good regardless of who drafted him? Probably 90%. I mean, like take Johnny Mansell. I think that Mansell had his own faults in Cleveland, but I don't think the Browns helped Mansell with what they did, the structure they gave him.

But I'm not sure Manzo would have been, based on what his behavior habits were off the field, would have been able to maintain. anything. I think it's 90-10. I think you have to look at it, but I think you really have to dig deep into the player. Why was Ryan Leif where Ryan Leaf was? People said back at that draft, it's so close between Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf. Well, in reality, if you did enough research on Ryan Leith, it really wasn't close. You needed to really do a lot. You need to dig deeper and find out there were some flaws in Ryan Leif's character, which he's going on to admit about, that have led him to to not. But I think we often, whenever we do these things, we tend to look at and other people's mistakes and laugh at them.

And my point to the listeners is we can learn so much from other people, the mistakes. We have to, you know, because if we don't, we're going to get fired for our own mistakes too many. And so we have to go back. You know, when you take a new job, Ryan, people always think about, you know, they always talk about the first hundred days of the new job. And they talk about that. Well, what the truly great leader does is figure out how, why he got the job. like walk in the man's shoes that you're replacing for 20, 30 days and figure out what were his problems and what he couldn't solve. And that'll allow you to have a better administration because if you can understand his problems clearly, you'll make better decisions.

It's a great point, a great question to bring up of why what happened. Like what's going on here? Let me dig in to figure out the issues as to why I got this job. And I'm curious, Mike, too, Michael, because of the, the business that you're in now, you're forced to take positions. I think that's just part of the deal being in the media. And obviously, you're going to have to take positions and you're going to be wrong. And one of them that was notable that I think was interesting.

I'm interested to hear you talk about is with Doug Peterson. You mentioned that you didn't think he was not qualified to be an NFL head coach, and he goes on to win the Super Bowl. And I'm curious, how has that impacted you the fact that that got some serious play on the internet that from at least people in the football circles, that Michael Lombardi, you know, the guy who worked with Belichick and worked with Al Davis and Bill Walsh was pretty loudly saying that this coach wasn't any good and he went on to win a Super Bowl. How does that impact you as a media personality now? Well, I mean, obviously you have the Twitter trolls that call you an idiot no matter what you write.

I mean, you can't really, you know, that's not my audience anyway. And I admitted I was wrong. I think where I learned I was wrong was, you know, Doug never really called plays in Kansas City, and Doug really never had a role as that. And then when I watched Doug in his first year, he was really just copying Andy Reid's offense from Kansas City. So I felt like to me this is a copycat. This isn't real. And I knew Jim Schwartz. We hired him when I was in Cleveland. So I knew his defensive coordinator was really good.

So what I learned was that Doug didn't have an ego. And Doug was willing to allow other people to help him, whether it's the guy. up in the box telling him to go for it on fourth down. I think his lack of ego and his lack of entitlement to the job allowed him to grow. And I think I missed that. And I admitted I missed that. And so I think I've learned now is to say, okay, give it a little bit more time and learn if the guy's willing to take in suggestions and allow his ego to not become center stage. Ego is the enemy, as Ryan Holliday wrote about it. And what I think helped Peterson was he didn't have an ego. And so I learned from that. And look, you know, I think it's the great.

thing of all. I embrace it as part of a learning thing. I think that's the only way you can do. I admit it. I learn from it. You grow forward. I mean, like all the people that attack me, I always want to know, I guess you haven't never made a mistake. I know. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it was really interesting because it's out there. I mean, anyone who, if someone's looking you up for the first time because you're on the show and their listener, they're going to see that. I think it's worth bringing up. And it's also, I think it's useful as a leader that if you decide to do anything, my dad, told me this when we were really young and it's always stuck with me and it's such good advice. He goes, if you decide to do anything in your life, whether it's play quarterback, they're going to write about you. And at times you're going to play bad or at times you're going to say something stupid or at times you're going to make mistakes. And that's part of the deal. The other option, the other choice is to basically do nothing. So your choice, you can do whatever you want. I think that's what I sense and feel like when, you know, I'm guessing it won't be the last time you say something that turns out to not be correct if you're going to stay in this business. And that's part of the deal.

Right. And I think you need to have a sense of honesty and you need to be open. I mean, look, we're all going to make mistakes. It's how we grow from them and how we move forward and how we handle those mistakes to me shows the true character of what you are. I mean, I wrote, and I didn't publicize it. Doug's the one who released it. I wrote him a note last December. I typed him a note last December and apologize to him. And, you know, I didn't come out there that week to try to promote myself and say I did it because to me it was me to Doug. It was a non- it was something that I felt I needed to do, not because I wanted to get publicity to do it. I wanted to admit my mistake. And I think that that allows you to grow and you move forward by doing that. You have to. I mean, look, if we all just

laugh at, if we just don't admit our mistakes, we're never going to get any better. And I'm often think of that. You know, like I always say this, a scout who's on schedule is a bad scout and a scout who never misses mistake is a really bad scout. A scout's on schedule. What does that mean? Well, so when you're a scout and you stay on schedule, right? So you go to Notre Dame and they have 10 prospects that you have to evaluate there that day. And the next day you're supposed to be at Michigan. Well, if you take, if they have 10 prospects, you're supposed to evaluate, you can't do them all in one day. Ah, okay. And so, but if you're so preoccupied with, if you're more preoccupied with the schedule than you are with doing the job right, then you're not a good scout.

Yeah, I got you. It makes a lot of sense. Now, I appreciate you being willing to engage in that, Michael, because I think that's part of the story. As all of us as we're leading and managing, we're going to make mistakes at times. And I think part of that process is understanding when we do, being very honest with ourselves, being willing to admit when that happens. because really it's about our response. How are we going to respond when we mess something up? Because we're all going to do it if we make the choice to do anything. And really it's about what do we learn from that situation?

In this case, it sounds like, well, there's there's a quality in a person that can be quite valuable when it comes to ego and not having it. That great video of Nick Folle saying, Philly, Philly on fourth down to Peterson and him kind of pausing briefly and saying, yeah, let's do it. I think kind of that that is the video evidence of that of that quality in him that makes him pretty good at his job is the fact that he's he's willing to listen to the guy who in the heat of the moment who's obviously a smart player all for an idea and then accept it when his his butts on the line if it doesn't go well. Right. And look, I've always subscribed to Jackson Brown. That's a great line in one of his songs. He says, we forget about the losses. We forget about the losses and we exaggerate the wins.

And I'm reminded of that often. never forget about the losses and don't exaggerate the wins. Don't exaggerate the things you've done well and don't forget about the things you haven't. And I think that advice to me has always been part of my life. And I think when you have that curiosity and when you have that belief, which Belichick does, then you get better. Because instead of patting yourselves on the back after a win, you learn what you need to do better. You'll get better. Yeah.

All right, Michael, I want to close out by first, obviously, thanking you for investing your time for reaching out. And I'm very grateful for our mutual friends to connect us as well. And really just ask one last thing. And I've been doing this lately, and it's interesting. You've lived an extraordinary life. You're still right in the middle of learning and growing and sharing a lot. You've written a really incredible book called Grode Iron Genius, a master class and winning championships and building dynasties in the NFL.

Maybe somebody who's a bit earlier in their career, let's say the early to mid-20s. and they're looking to, it could be football, maybe not, but they're looking to grow, advance. They're a growth-oriented individual, right? They're listening to a show like this. They obviously are. What would be some overall life-slash career advice you would give to a person in that demographic? I think Jack Nicholson gave it the best when he said that, you know, Jack Nicholson asked, he said, I am a Democrat and I believe in democratic process, but I read everything that the right wings have to say because I want to prove that I'm right. It's the elixir of life. And I think that if you want to do, if you believe something at 25, that I would encourage you to read everything about the opposition to what you believe in. It'll either strengthen your belief and you'll grow or you'll be more open-minded about other things moving forward. I think what happens to us is we can.

get stuck in a lane and we refuse to get out of the lane. And if we read about things, like, I believe Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone, so I should read everything that tells me Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. And once I've done that and I've exhausted it and I've reached a conclusion that I come up with and I believe in it, then I strengthen either my belief or I don't. And Jack Nicholson's right. It's the elixir of life. That is great advice. Really good. I'm glad I asked it, man. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ryan. Yeah.

So where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? Well, they can follow me on Twitter at M. Lombardi, NFL, on Twitter, and they can listen to my podcast, as you mentioned, on the Ringer podcast network, and then read me on The Athletic, which is a wonderful, wonderful site. You know, I've been fortunate enough to write for some online publications, but the athletic has been, it's a paid site, it's well worth it, because there's no ads, there's no pop-ups. You don't have to listen to the Superoo commercial, a thousand times. times, you know, and, you know, for $4 a month, you get really good writing, and it allows me to write. I mean, how many times have you written something that the editor comes back? And I've said, like, look, look, that's not what I wrote.

If you want to write it, go ahead and write it. But, I mean, that's not what I wrote, whereas the athletic, it's usually your voice coming out strong and loud, and I really appreciate it. Yeah, and podcasting-wise, you're working with Bill Simmons company. I've been reading Bill's work for more than 10 years. What's it like working with Bill? Well, it's been great, you know, and it's a great. You know, and it's a great platform.

Tate Frazier is my co-host. And Tate's 25 years old. It is younger than my sons. And it's great. He allows me to peek into the millennial world. We spent a lot of time in New England trying to learn about millennials because we were dealing with them and we really didn't know what we were. You know, when you're dealing, when you're leading people that you don't understand their culture,

you better learn their culture. And so we did. And Tate's been a breath of fresh air for me. I call them the young Jim Nance, who I love Jim Nance to death. I think Jim Nance is. Jim Nance for people. that watch golf or watch football is nicer in person than he appears on television and you know he appears wonderful on television right so but this is a young gymnast they both both from north carolina they both have backgrounds i think fraser is going to be a superstar in the profession love it man that's awesome well thanks again michael for being here

really appreciate it and let's uh let's obviously continue this dialogue as we both progress man appreciate it thanks ryan all righty thanks it's enjoyable for me to have a conversation like that from time to time where we mix football, where I really learn to work and to be a leader, mix that with the business world. I think Michael Lombardi does that extremely well because just about everything he talks about is applicable to the business world, even though there's a football background. So I found that to be thought-provoking and enjoyable. I hope you did as well.

If so, I would love it if you would write a review, subscribe, and rate the show wherever you listen to podcast. Write a review, subscribe, and rate the show. Five stars if you're listening in iTunes, Apple Podcasts. It really helps spread the message to people all over the world and continues to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. I am forever grateful for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will see you next week. Can't wait. Hey, Ryan, you got my number. Keep in touch. Whatever you need. I appreciate this so much. Of course. Thank you, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. And let me know when you put it up. I'll tweet it out too.

Awesome. I will. I will. Thanks, man. Okay. Thank you. Bye. This episode is brought to you by another one of my favorite companies. It's Ogeo. I am a big fan of the leadership team at Ogeo. Their new Alpha Convoy Collection of Travel Bags and Backpacks are fully loaded and equipped to keep you confident and prepared for any challenge. A collection is built with Premium Cordura Eco Fabric, which is ultra durable and also made from recycled plastics. A win-win for you and. the planet. Plus, with the new OGO mod system, you can customize your storage options, giving you more space when you need it. Don't compromise on what you can take with you. And special for you, the listeners of the Learning Leaders Show, use promo code Hawk, H-A-W-K to save 20% on OGO.com. That's O-G-I-O-G-O-D-com. Use promo code Hawk to save 20% on OGO.com. Thank you.