The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 436: John Bacon - Changing The Culture, Building Trust, & Letting Them Lead

Episode Date: September 12, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12  https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 John Bacon has written twelve books on sports, business, health, and history, the last seven all National Bestsellers. His latest book is "LET THEM LEAD: Unexpected Lessons in Leadership from America's Worst High School Hockey Team."  Notes: Be Patient with Results, Not Behavior - Accept where you are to get where you want to go. Be present so you can own your attention and energy. Be patient and you'll get there faster. Embrace vulnerability to develop genuine strength and confidence. Build deep community over efficiency and optimization. Move your body to ground your mind Reduce Your Rules, but Make Them Stick - Make your rules few, clear, and connected to your larger mission. They have to be within everyone's control to follow every day. When your people start enforcing the rules themselves, the culture has changed. To make it special to be on your team, make it hard to be on your team. The people who apply to the Navy SEALS and the Peace Corps are attracted to the difficulty. They know not everyone can make it, and that's what makes it special You can't motivate people you don't know - Leadership doesn't require rousing speeches; it requires that you get to know your people.  The more power you give, the more you get -Select leaders for their ability to lead, not their ability to do the job they used to have. Leaders must know their jobs, know how to do their jobs, know everyone else's jobs, and help them all do their jobs better! This is how you create "layers of leadership," which benefits everyone, and keeps you from burning out. All credit goes to your people - If you give away the credit and accept the blame, you'll be rewarded with loyalty. If your team succeeds, you will always get more credit than you need. "The reward of a job well done is to have done it." John's two initial goals when he took over the worst team in the state: Be the hardest working team in the state Win a state title On day 1, he set high standards -- Previously, they were 0-22-3 "Make no small plans, they lack the power to stir people's souls." John Bacon's two rules: Work hard Support your teammates "Behaviors you can always control, performance and outcomes you can't." Life advice: Focus on yourself first Work hard and support your teammates

What do you control every day? You don't control the stock price. You don't control what General Motors is going to do today You don't control the weather what the Chinese are going to do all this stuff You do control working hard and supporting your teammates and tell me that would not have an impact in your organization right now if you knew every single day in your organization that your people are going to work hard and support your teammates Man, that solves a whole lot of problems Imagine how your leadership would transform if you didn't have to worry about reading every email scheduling every call and responding to every request. If you had more time, energy, and focus to work on things that move your leadership forward.

You know you need to start delegating, but you don't know where to begin. Belay, the incredible organization revolutionizing productivity with their virtual assistant services for growing organizations can help. Delegation is the cost of your sanity and the linchpin to the survival of organizations and leaders everywhere. So get back to doing what only you can do growing your organization and leave the rest to your Belay virtual assistant. Just text Leader to 55123 for your free copy of the CEO of Belay's book, Rise Up and Lead Well Today. That's Trisha Shortino's book, Rise Up and Lead Well Today. Text Leader to 55123. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show, presented by

I, Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4422 to become part of Mindful Monday. You along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader.

Text, learners to 4-4-222. Now, on to tonight's featured leader, John Bacon, a New York Times best-selling author of 12 books, a college instructor and a hockey coach. His latest book is titled, Let Them Lead, unexpected lessons in leadership from America's worst high school hockey team. and the few of the topics we discuss how to help a top individual contributor become an excellent manager and leader. A problem a lot of us need to work on.

And then why you should have process-oriented goals instead of outcome-based goals. It tells a great story about this one. And then the two behaviors John demanded from his team and himself, which ultimately led to their massive turnaround. Ladies and gentlemen, it's John Bacon. All right, John. It's so great to have you here on The Learning Leaders Show. Welcome.

Thank you, Ryan. To get started, in this case, since we have a lot of mutual friends, I reached out to Steve Wasick, or as you call them, Stevie Wasick, as you write about in your book, Let Them Lead. And I said, what are a few things about John, that I need to know that I won't read on the internet because pretty much everything's out there.

And he's like, yes, here we go. So I just want to start with a couple of those. They're pretty much all good, but there may be one that he told me to razz you a little bit. Are you cool to start that way? I'll put the helmet on. Here we go. Okay, okay. So I won't get all of them or maybe I'll save some for later.

But he said, you do have to razz him about being the worst player in the history of Huron hockey. He's played in 86 games. and he scored zero goals. So I need to ask you about the fact that you sound like maybe one of the greatest coaches ever. You're very kind. Yet as a, well, we'll get to that statement, which I think has a lot of truth to her.

I wouldn't have said it. But yet as a player, you didn't score any goals. Or did you play goalie? Were you on defense? I don't know hockey as well. Tell me more about you. And then also that transition from being a player who didn't. score goals to being an excellent coach. Well, you're very kind on that one, of course. But the first part

is undeniably true, empirically true, Ryan. And I know I'm a big fan of your podcast, of course, track you on Twitter as well, but your guest tend to drop numbers pretty ably, I think. They like empirical evidence. Well, I've got some. When I say, and I call him Stevie, because when I met him, he's a ninth grader, not even, he's four foot 10. He's at my elbow in the team photo. I'm only He's 55.8, Ryan. So this guy was called Stevie by everybody. So now, of course, he's vice president, Wasek. So I have to adjust to that, of course. He's the man. I love Wausau. He's a good dude. He's got a good thing going, no question. Great guy. But yes, my record is 86 games in here in uniform, Annabre Heron, that is. Home of the River Rats. Not making

that up, by the way. That actually is our mascot. Across the street, we have Annabur Pioneer High School. That's the famous one. That's Jim Harbaugh and Ken Burns. the documentary filmmaker, Bob Seeger, the musician, Jack Lausma, the astronaut. It goes on and on like this, and then we got the river rats. So we're the other school. That's the wrong side of the tracks for us. But 86 games. Three years I played.

Back then, it's all year allowed. No ninth graders in high school. I dressed in every game. I played on every game. And I managed not to score a single goal. And Ryan, I played forward. I played right wing. Oh, no.

To score a goal. Now, I have to tell you, though, it is actually a family record. My brother was also on the team. He also failed to score a goal. He liked to point out that he played goalie, but we all got excuses, right? Wow. So how about this move? This move from, because I found, like, the sport my background is in is football.

Of course. When you look at some of the most effective coaches in the sport, they weren't the star quarterback. They were the backup quarterback, or they were somebody who they really had to grind. They developed grit and resilience. They had to know the playbook inside and out. They had to be watching film because probably their skills weren't enough for them alone to be a good enough player. And then that work ethic probably is what's led them to be great coaches. Do you feel some of that from your playing career to then shifting to a coach?

I feel all of it. You're dead right. And I've got a section in the book where I mentioned that the four greatest managers coaches of all time in each sports, Bill Belichick in football. He played at Wesleyan for crying out loud. That's Division 3. My dad went there and they don't produce football players there, as you know, of course. It's not Ohio University in Athens. Obviously in baseball, Casey Stengel, and it goes on from there. In hockey, it's Scottie Bowman, who never got to the NHL. Casey Stengel said about baseball, I was not very successful in baseball as it is a game of skill, but you get more

world series than anybody else. It is very rare for the great ones in a sport to become the great managers, coaches, and so on. Wayne Gretzky failed, Magic Johnson failed. The list is very long. And I think the reason for that is simple, is that the desire is so much greater for somebody who's a grinder. That's part of it. Second of all, as you pointed out, is the backup quarterback. The guy the clipboard is watching everything. He's taking everything in. And that often works to your advantage as well. So that is, was my formula, certainly. Also, I talked to her Brooks quite a bit, the architect of the 1980 Miracle on Ice, Olympic hockey team that beat the Soviets. He was the last man cut from the 1960 Olympic team. If you've seen Miracle, you know that story, of course. And I asked

him, I said, would you have been so driven to coach the 80 team and drive them the way you did? If you had made the 60 team, he was cut with two weeks to go and earned the gold medal that all your teammates earned? And he thought about it. He said, nobody ever asked me that, but no, there's no way. He was driven for 20 years to fill that hole in his heart. And that is partly my drive as well. When I think about that, if we transition it to the business world, John, let's say somebody is the number one sales professional in their division or in their company even for five years. And they're saying, okay, now I want to be a manager.

I want to be a leader within this business. I want to get promoted. how do we how do we translate this to that world how do we make sure that that top producer the number one rep which usually that person gets the interview they don't always get hired but a lot of times they do because you're like well they're really good at the job let's just give them the next job and the next job and then we hit the peter principle right where we're always we're always promoted till we reach the level of incompetence and i want to think about how do we avoid that how do we take the best of the best at their craft and help them be good leaders, be good managers when

we do promote them. You've hit the nail in the head. If Magic Johnson is not a great coach for LA Lakers, who cares? It's not affect us in business. Right. But you've pulled out the principle that does apply here. And to be clear, this book, of course, is about coaching a high school hockey team, but it's not about high school hockey, as you already know. It's about managing people, leading people. And the principal there, and it's a very, very common mistake, not only in business, but also academia in medicine and so on, your top surgeon becomes the chair of the department. Your top salesperson becomes the sales manager. And it goes on.

Your top professor becomes the chairman or the dean. These are often mistakes because the very skills you need to be, the top salesperson, don't always translate to leadership. You have to be, frankly, a little selfish to be a top salesperson often. You have to be very aggressive. You have to be numbers oriented. These are all good things in a salesperson. I'm not denigrating that in any way. And you have some of those things, of course, for a sales manager.

But you also need compassion. You need to figure out how to motivate the second half of the roster, if you will. And if you've been in that second half of the roster, you know how to motivate those guys. It can't just be the stars. So what we did it here in hockey, and that includes our man Stevie Wasick, our captains, in my four years there, my captains only once was the leading score. Oh. And usually they weren't close. When Stevie was named a captain by his teammates, he was the 14th leading score out of 23 or so as a junior.

And as a senior, second-line center, he was the sixth leading score, but he was a damn good captain. We didn't put the in his jersey for leading score. We did the see in there to lead. And likewise, my first captain, my second captain, only my third captain was the leading score. So we've got to see it here on is because we picked you to lead. Don't pick them. Don't pick the sales guy to be the same. sales manager based on sales. Find your best leader and pick that person, not always your top salesperson.

What about the reason that the top person gets chosen usually, and usually a quarterback gets voted captain. I know that what that's like. But there's a respect element. There's a saying like players know, no, right? Players know like a player, players know who's good. Aaron Rogers is going through this right now. Like basically, I know better than the front office. And in his case, actually, I think he does. Besides that, players, players know who's good and who they respect and who they want to follow. How do you manage that? Like, if someone's seventh on the stack rankings and they get promoted versus, what about the one and the two and the three, especially if they went for the job,

how do you manage that aspect when it comes to leadership roles, getting promoted when it's viewed as like, oh, look at the email comes out that so-and-so got promoted. And the person who's at the top gets really upset potentially because they, wanted to do that job. So how do you manage that aspect of it? That's a great question and you will get that. Obviously, look, anytime there's a prize, if you didn't get it, the guys who did get the prize are not going to be thrilled and you have to explain it. Hopefully what we had in our case, we had a four-month tryout basically in the off-season to find out who was going to be captain and is voted on by the players. The coach has also got one vote each, but I never ever fudged it.

And you'll appreciate this, of course, from your career as well as your brothers. It's Bacon's law of the locker room. You can fool. the media, you can fool the fans, you can't fool the guys in your locker room. They know exactly who you are. You want to find out what Tom Brady's like? Forget all the ads and all that, talk to his teammates at Michigan 20-some years ago. AJ Hawk, same thing, of course, the Buckeyes talk to his teammates, they'll tell you who he was. You already got to Stevie on my behalf, so you learn about that too. They know who you are, so as long as it's fair, you can say, look, I get that you're not happy. Why didn't your peers name you

captain why didn't you why didn't that happen and let's break that down what could be stronger going forward at doing furthermore we always had layers of leadership we had one C or two C's for captain we had one or two aes for assistant captains then we had the layer of seniors and you're a football guy you know how important that is seniors run your team for a lot of good reason then you got juniors on down it's what I call layers of leadership so you can always lead in our team whether you got a C or not in fact you have to lead it's more of our best leaders, Ross Gimbel, for example, in the book, was not named captain. Four years later, he's

captain at Tufts University, which impressed me more than his being the MVP. He's a hell of a player, right? But now he learned how to lead, and that's what I like the most. So we had a phrase in our team, Ryan, you'll appreciate. We have a name for those who lead by example. They're called sophomores. All that means is you know your job and you can do your job. Is it essential? Absolutely. Do you have to lead by example? Yes. You and all other leaders have to lead by example. But that's not nearly all you have to do. Your junior year, you have to know your job, do your job, and know everybody else's job. And your senior year, you got to know your job, do your job, know everyone else's job, and help them do their jobs better.

You don't just get your canoe through the portage. You get your canoe through and then go back and help the other guys with their canoes. That's what a real leader has got to do. So there are a lot of opportunities to lead and things can always change, so keep at it. It's not static. The military does a great job of this, in my opinion. Yeah, it reminds me so much of my high school coach, Ron Allory, who I love dearly, and he still remains a great friend and mentor, where I remember between my freshman and

sophomore year, he's like, look, last year, you didn't say much, you called the cadence, you called the play, and you executed the offense, and that was fine. Now that you've had a year to do that, you have to start finding your voice. You have to start becoming a leader. you can't just execute the offense, you have to do more. And then as I went from sophomore to junior, okay, this is your team now. And we got elected captain as a junior by my teammates from the secret vote, all of that. And then senior year, even more compounded.

And I feel like this could happen too in the business world as well, where you kind of get your feet wet, you're into it. You just go execute, you do your job. You lead by example. And you realize like each year, you kind of have to do more and more and more if you want to be a leader. And I think leadership is not necessarily a job title. Leadership is a choice. You choose if you want to be a leader, regardless of anyone else has given you a title. And I feel like that's what you're talking about when it comes to the stages of growth

and having to do more and more when it comes to leadership. You, of course, Ryan, nailed it. And I've heard your podcast with more famous guys than me. You do a great job of finding out what makes this guy tick and what he has to offer. And that's what we're talking about here, of course. It's not enough to run your own game. Your quarterback, that's great, clearly vital, almost automatically, probably more than any of the position in any other sport. If they're quarterback and you're not a leader, your team's going to have problems. And I can't say that about a right winger. I can't say that about a goalie. I can't say that about a relief pitcher.

But in quarter of, you know, that is the field general. That is the voice of the coach on the field. So that guy's got to lead. But as you pointed out, it's not enough just to do your job. You got to be aware of everyone else's job. And one thing Tom Brady does not get enough credit for, I think, is how he lifts those around him. Michael Jordan had that skill. Magic Johnson had that skill. They might not have been great coaches, but they were great leaders clearly for their team. And I've talked to a lot of guys, by the way, play with Magic Johnson. And they said, man, forget the coach.

What you don't want is Magic's glare in the huddle around the file line because that's not going to go well. So everybody knew who was running that team. But that's how it goes. It's not just your game. It's everyone else's game. You mentioned Tom Brady. I just thought of this came up because my brother was a daily show with Pat Mac if you, I don't know if you've ever seen.

Pat's a really thoughtful. He's really funny, but he said the reason that every team should have won after Tom Brady when he was a free agent was because he will lift up every aspect of your organization just by being in the building. Your athletic trainers will be better. Your strength and conditioning will be better. Everything about your entire organization will be lifted by his. presence. He's that impactful. That team was not very good to Tampa Bay Bucks before he got there.

And they won the Super Bowl the very first year. It shows, I think from a leadership perspective, if you identify and you can find and have like a talent scout's eye, I mean, you can change the trajectory of your organization in business by hiring people like that, by bringing them on board because they have the potential to lift the levels of everyone else. And I think, leaders that's one of our jobs right is to identify and find people like that and then provide the platform in the space for them to go to work which the bucks did for Brady and then you see the results and I just feel like that's another critical component to like you say letting them lead I feel like that's a big part of it as well exactly and look I mean

you play college ball your brother of course played for the Packers won a Super Bowl there at the NFL level and really at the Fortune 500 level what are the margins everyone's got good products everyone's got good management. I mean, you hold an advantage for a few months, maybe, if you got a good idea, it's constant. And you talk to these guys all the time. I do as well. And it's brutal. So what's going to be the difference? The difference is the guys who, if it's you versus your team, if it's you're the leader and it's adversarial and I need to motivate everybody out here, you're done by lunch. You're not going to win. It's over. There's more of them than you.

If it's adversarial, they're going to start undermining you and cutting corners and they're playing Sudoku during the day on their computers. They're not paying attention. You've lost them. What you really want to instill, if you can, is that and your high school coach clearly had this, this internal sort of policing where they simply don't want to disappoint you. And that's based on trust, respect, and really affection. And one of the points I make in this book is that, look, it's like being a dad. I became a dad five and a half years ago. He's downstairs.

That's why I'm, by the way, here in my bedroom because my kid is quarantined in my office. The other sacrifices you make, look, the kid can say when he's three or four, I hate you. Well, as a parent, you can't turn out and say, yeah, I hate you back. It doesn't work. You can't say that. So your people will not always like you, but you got to like them anyway. And if you don't like them, you're going to have a problem. But all those things come in, and what you hope to create is a situation where they simply,

don't want to disappoint you. And then your culture becomes their culture. And now they want to maintain it for themselves. It's not just a coach we're trying to please. This is our thing. And with a little guidance, they will start doing that work for the team, not just you. And that's when that's when you're very hard to stop. I'm with you because I've had that feeling so much where I would do anything not to let that person down. And that stemmed from the fact, I think it stemmed out of love, meaning I sense they had a love for me, a care. for me and my teammates, my peers. They wanted and did everything they could to get the most out of us.

And this is something you write about in this book, Let Them Lead, which is really good here. Beautiful cover, too. But you talk about the fact of that just the title alone shows you're setting the team up to be empowered, to be player-led in a sense. But the coach, the leader, has to create that environment. And so this is beautiful when it's working. Can you share how to go from, oh, great idea, John. I want to do this with my sales team. I want to do this with my team at work.

How do we go from idea to this, quote, letting them lead philosophy in the real world with an actual team in business? Great question, which is kind of the question, really. I would say this. There are currently two popular ways of going about this. One is the command and control. My way of the highway, these are the standards, boom, boom, boom, you know, do it or don't do it, and that's all there is to it. The other way is, as TV Wasick likes to say, it's kombucha machines, it's beanbag chairs, it's, you know, casual Fridays and Taco Tuesdays and all this cool stuff, and that's all wonderful.

The problem is, Ryan, neither one works. In the first case, they're going to tune you out. The modern employee is not going to put up with that very much. Look, your brother with the Packers, Vince Lombardi was no longer coaching that team. You can't do it that way anymore. So, and the second thing, bean bag chairs and kombucha machines, as Stevie says, what that gets you is people who like beanbag chairs and kombucha machine. I'm not saying those things don't necessarily help. Neither one of this is bad.

But my model is very simple. And it's a question I like asking. Who is your favorite teacher? You already said your favorite coach. And I've asked this question in English, Español, and Puerto Gays, in Vancouver, in Sao Paulo, and Chile, all over the world. And when I ask this question, people can come up with that answer in about three nanoseconds. I bet you already can. You already know your favorite coach.

We talked about him. He would certainly suffice for this. Your favorite teacher. Who was your favorite teacher? Dr. Modaf at Ohio University, a communications teacher. Communications teacher. Well, Ryan, what are we doing today? That was my major in college.

Yeah, organizational communication class. And you know, I actually got a C, but I probably worked as hard for that C as any grade I got in college, including many of the A's. but he was so good and made it made it made the theory and history of communication to a 20 year old fascinating which is almost impossible. So anyway, I definitely remember. In fact, I'd like to record one because he's now teaching somewhere else. But anyway, you're getting me going on good teachers, which are everything. But yeah, certainly I remember those classes.

I went to all of them because I actually wanted to be there. You wanted to be there. You had a lot to learn. you're inspired. Clearly, you already answered the question in part. Was this professor easy? Clearly, he was not in his name again, by the way. Dr. Modaf.

Modaf. D-A-F-F-F. DA-F-Modaf. He was clearly not easy. Did he care about you personally? I felt like he did. I mean, at least it seems so. Right.

He knew your name. He'd stay after class if you needed him. Extra help, all this stuff. Look, that's it. Where the command of control gets it wrong is they don't care about you. And where the beanbag chairs get it wrong is, What are your standards? So if you have B-Meg chairs and no standards,

hey, you're a nice soft A, and we all need those in college sometimes, and I took mine, but I don't remember those guys. They don't stay with you. If you're command and control and don't care, man, all you are is a jerk at that point. And those guys get undermined very quickly. You have to do what your favorite teacher did, which is set extremely high standards without apology,

but then do everything you possibly can to get your people over that line. And that means you got to care, you got to love them. And another great line from Steve Wasick, guess what? If you don't like your people, guess what? They already know. So you're not going to hide it anyway.

Another line from Abraham Lincoln, which I love, is I don't like that man. I need to get to know him better. So you have to like your people. And if you don't, you have to swap a few out. But it's amazing the ones who drive you nuts at first end up being your biggest backers. The closest guys from my teams are usually the ones I butted heads with. Those are the ones who invite you to their weddings. Now, Stevie and I did not but heads, but most of them I did at some point.

So what you do is day one, you set your standards. What does it need to be? And set them high. Let's all go out and be mediocre is not going to motivate anybody. And day one with this team that was 022 and 3 the year before, the worst team in America, coached by the worst player in school history. Ryan, this is a great combination. The coach with no goals, the team with no wins.

Yes, there's the combination I'm looking for right there. On day one, I told them two things. I said, we are going to be the hardest working high school team in the state of Michigan. That's got to get your attention, no matter how many, I can't promise any wins. But we're doing that on day one, and we are eventually going to win a state title. Won't be your team. But when we do it, that team will give you guys a standing ovation. Daniel Burnham, who basically built the modern Chicago, he said, make no small plans.

They lack the power to stir people's souls. First thing is, high bar. And on that, you're very impatient about behaviors, but you're very patient about results. Look, we sucked. We're 022 and 3. We're not, I mean, we play Trenton, prenatal state champions. They whip us 13 to 2. And I'll remind you, Ryan, this is hockey, not football.

That is not two touchdowns minus an extra point and a safety. These are an increments of one. So that's an old-fashioned butt kicking. But after the game, I said, we have two principles here. Work hard. Support your teammates. Did we do those two things? And they thought about them. They realized, yes, we did. Said, okay, then I'm cool. All right. So my standards are high. Work hard, support your teammates every minute, every day. No exceptions. That's behaviors. Results, we got to be patient. But two years later, we lost three to two in the original final at their place.

And Stevie's year, as the captain, we finally beat Trenton for the first time in 20 years in their building. So that's what it takes. So behaviors and results. behaviors, impatient results, it's going to take time to learn this stuff. And you've got to be patient. Okay, I want to dig into the book. So it's broken down in three parts. We've covered some of the parts here, but I'm going to dig into some other areas that we haven't yet. And part one's about changing culture or changing the culture, which is is a thing that a lot of leaders are going through. Perhaps you've gotten promoted or you got hired to a different company where you hadn't previously worked. In your case, getting hired to be a coach that was previously a really bad team, the worst team in the country. And I think that the first principle here that I wanted to cover is to make it special to be on your team, make it hard to be on your team.

And you referenced Navy SEALs, like how hard it is to become one of those. And I love this part. Share how to implement this as, let's say, a mid-level leader within a business. To make it special to be on your team, make it hard to be on your team. Like there's a selection process, so to speak. Al Clark was my mentor at Culver Academies in Indiana, middle of nowhere. This guy is a five-beta-capa math major from UNH, New Hampshire. He was All-American there, I believe, NHL and the WHA back then.

50 years ago came after him. Two bad shoulders couldn't play pro hockey. It's going to be a dentist until he gets a call saying start our program at Culver Academies. Again, 45 minutes south of South Bend. This is not a hockey haven by any means. This is basketball country. Got an outdoor rink and 12 Hispanic kids who'd never skated before, bought them skates in South Bend.

Three years in their third year with Gary Suter Moore and then eventually Gary Souter on the team, NHL rookie of the year, they are the state champions. And they've been the state champions ever since, eight years in a row. Then they sent their B team and now I think they send their C team in the state title. He won more games, 1,017 than any other high school coach in the nation, coach of the year nationwide. Quiet guy, just like me, of course. And I did the yelling for him.

But I asked him when I took over the team, the Huron Riverrats. I said, okay, Al, I'm in deep. I'm like the dog who chases the car. And I caught the damn car. Now what? I don't have keys, a wallet, or opposable thumbs. How do I do this? And he says, here's what you do at Huron.

You have to make it special to play for Huron. And I made a joke saying, yeah, well, we're already the worst team in America. That's pretty special. He ignores my joke. And he says, the best way to make it special is to make it special. is to make it hard. And that was the exact opposite advice that everybody else was giving me.

Everyone else was telling me you give them fancy sweats and a cool locker room and go on cool trips and cool buses. And we did a lot of those things eventually, but not at first. And I thought about it, and you brought up the Navy Seals example. The Navy Seals takes 6% of those who apply

and is not Pikes who are applying to be Navy Seals. Those guys are already self-selected. A lot of football players, in fact, in that crowd. They take 6% of those and three quarters of those, I believe, wash out. The Peace Corps takes one out of six, and those jobs pay crap, basically. And, you know, Navy SEAL, $54,000 a year. And if you're a famous Navy SEAL, you're probably a dead one. You don't want that, obviously.

So very demanding. You're not rich, you're not famous, and yet the wait list is incredibly long. Why? And the answer is, they're offering a mission. The difficulty itself is advertised as a plus, not a minus. They're unapologetic about their high standards. The New York Yankees, same thing. Harvard Law School, same thing.

The bar is extremely high. Hey, I'll give you Ohio State football. How's that, Ryan? He's extremely high, and you've got to play within that. So they don't apologize for it, and he's right. And then he said, once the players know that they have to do something that not everybody would do to make your team, they feel special to be on that team. And then with a little guidance, they will instill the culture themselves with those

who follow. The hardest year for me by far was the first year because I'm teaching everybody, seniors through freshmen. After that, I'm only teaching freshmen because the seniors, juniors, and sophomores already know how this program runs. That's how the New York Yankees run also. I was talking to Joe Torrey about this. I noticed that in other ballparks, other spring training facilities, and so I've been about half of the major league ones, the tigers, the Indians, and so on, hats are on backwards and shirts are untucked and sleeves are torn and all this stuff. It took me two or three days of the Yankees to realize that that never happens in the Yankee spring training facility in Tampa. And I asked one of the players, I said, why is this?

He says, because you're a Yankee. Because the AAA minor league ball player will kick the AA minor league ball player's butt for not kicking the butt of the single A ball player for wearing your hat on backwards because damn it, you're a Yankee. And I asked Joe Tori, what would ever happen if you saw a player this hat on backwards or shirt untucked? And he looked at me as though I had two heads. He said, and he's a nice guy. But he said, I would never see that because it would get corrected long before it ever got to me. Joe Tori messes with the lineup.

He doesn't mess around with caps on backwards. So once we had our culture going at Huron, the seniors instilled it. I had to do very little of that. So it becomes theirs. And now you've got a good thing going, because now we are truly all on the same team. Not me versus the players.

It's all of us against Trenton or pioneer or our opponents, but we are together. That leads me to one of the other principles, which is reduce your rules, but make them stick. Make your rules few, clear, and connected to your larger mission. They don't have to be easy to follow, but they have to be simple and within everyone's control. And then, as you mentioned, when your people start enforcing the rules, that's when the culture has changed. I love this part of the book because when you start stacking a bunch of rules, it's basically like if you have 20 priority, you have none, right? If you have 25 rules, you have none, right? You have to choose,

just like with your values, your shared values, your personal values, you've got to choose. You've got to make hard choices. Can you talk more about this in the, maybe the sports world and the business world when it comes to fewer rules, but make them stick? Absolutely. And look, I mean, you all joke about quarterbacks, right? If you have three quarterbacks, you don't have a quarterback. Right. So you have to make choices. They are tough. And you hit the nail on the head. your rules have got to be simple and few. They don't have to be easy, but they've got to be simple. I figured out my two rules, really principles, but I called them rules.

Leaving the Michigan Hockey Rink one night playing with Rob Palmer and some other former Michigan players, he played in the NHL, got his MBA, one of these stalwarts. And he said, his dad told him as a kid in Toronto, that all you have to do is work hard and support your teammates. And I got home and I wrote that down. I was not yet the Huron coach. I was a few months away from that. But I thought, if I ever become the coach, that's what I want to do. And that's all I want to do. And I told them that in a letter to them when I became the coach before I met them.

I instilled that every day, every single, every single day. I'm not kidding you. No exceptions. And Wask will tell you how manic I was about this. And I'd tell them, what's the first rule? And they'd yell it back, work hard. Second rule, support your teammates. And that's it.

Because almost everything you can think of falls under one of those two and off both and you can't tell me you can't tell me is working hard not important who can tell you that with a straight face who can tell you the straight face that supporting your teammates is not that big a deal right these are both obvious we can do them every day without exception not dependent on the opponent the weather the referees anything we're dealing with and that's got to be true in your company as well what do you control every day you don't control the stock price you don't control what general motors is going to do today you don't control the weather what the chinese are going to do all this You do control working hard and supporting your teammates.

And tell me that would not have an impact in your organization right now. If you knew every single day in your organization that your people are going to work hard and support your teammates, man, that solves a whole lot of problems right off the bat. But here's the catch to it. You gotta mean it. So if you beat a team six to one, they're supposed to beat, and I hear some sniping on the bench, our guy is coasting back to the bench on a shift, no, that is not, I don't care if we won the damn game.

I'm not going to be fooled by the numbers, the stock price, the quarterly returns, whatever you got. We did not do what we said we stand for, not just we're going to, this is who we are. This is our identity. So no, you ain't going to like Monday after that one. We're going to re-instill our values. The flip side is we got our butts handed to us by Trenton, 13 to 2. And by the end of that game, Ryan, we all knew their damn fight song. That's how bad that one was. 13 goals will do that. I know the fight song. We all know the fight song. And there's a phenomenal team. We knew that going in. That's where we were at that point. We had won three games already, but that's the best team in the state.

And that's how big the gap was. So when we got the locker room, these guys are throwing their gloves and sticks and they're cussing and saying, you know, no better than last year. And said, hey, stop. What's the first rule of here in hockey? And they mumbled it. They say, worker. No, no. What's the first rule?

We start yelling it back and forth. And I say, did we do that tonight? And they thought about it. And they thought, well, actually, we did do that tonight. We did it for 45 minutes, how long our games go. I said, that's really hard. When you're getting your butts handed to you, 13 to 2, and I'm not spinning that.

All right, that's hard to do. What's the second rule? Support your teammates. We start yelling that back and forth. Well, did we? I think about that, and they thought, actually we did. We supported the goal after every goal. We didn't point the finger at the defense for 13 goals.

We didn't point the fingers at the offense for only two goals for us. I said, right. It will never be harder to do these two principles than it was tonight, and you did it. Everything's going to be easier after this, but these are non-negotiable. Behaviors you can always control. Performance you can't, puck's bounce, so to football, so to stock prices. Weird things happen.

These days with COVID, staffing, supply chains, look, there are a lot of excuses already built in, but there's no excuse for not working hard. There's no excuse for not supporting your teammates. So we kept it simple, but those two things were non-negotiable. And when we beat them in our fourth year, four to three in their building, I went in the same locker room and I said, gentlemen, with a wink in my eye, because some of those guys had been on that team. And I said, what's the first rule of here in hockey? We all just laughed because that got us to actually beat the Trenton Trojans. And they went on to win another state title. That was not a cheesy team. So we didn't win a state title ourselves, but we're in that category.

But it's all based on two very simple but hard things to do. And don't forget, I have to do them also. I got to work hard. I've got to support teammates. I've got to apologize once in a while for snapping at a kid or one of those things. So it applies to you as well. I love the like it's a process oriented goal, right? And you can control every day how you show up when you have process oriented goals. You won't always control the outcome. You won't always control the performance. Things happen.

But you can control your attitude, your work ethic, how you respond to adversity. You can control those things. And I think that's a great lesson. And that applies worldwide, regardless of sports or off the ice in the business world, you can control those things. And so that's why I think setting process-oriented goals, values-based goals are really effective. Now, you have to stay consistent. You have to stay true to them. You have to live up to them.

It doesn't happen overnight. But I love that part. I'm going to jump to part two of your book, which is focused on building trust. And one of the sections is you can't motivate people you don't know. And I love this because I always use this, get to know you form, which then leads to a really long form one-on-one conversation after we both do some written work separately. And you write, leadership doesn't require rousing speeches. It requires you to get to know your people. When you do, you can make tough calls with conviction.

Your people will gain confidence. And I think while this, again, may sound obvious. It isn't. We've all had bosses who had no intention and didn't even try to get to. know of us. We were a number. We needed to produce something. And if we didn't, we got yelled at. If we did, okay, moving on to the next one. And I find the leaders that I want to commit to the ones that I love and think about are the ones that were like this, that they genuinely cared about me and they cared about getting to know about me. And this is a part of your book when

it comes to building trust. I'd love to hear more about this and how you implemented this, both sports wise and off the ice. Exactly right. And look, I mean, think back to your favorite teacher. or she knew you. Think about your favorite boss, supervisor, chairperson. They knew you, and they spent time with you outside, maybe a happy hour, maybe paintball, I don't know what it was. But there are a million ways to get to know somebody outside of the office. Those things always help. Even a chat by the water cooler. Much harder these days with COVID, I realize. These things all build trust. But I recall when I left my bank, I'll leave the name out of it, to a local bank. I asked the guy in the way out. He asked me, why are you moving your money? Not that I have a fortune, mind you, but I said,

goes, no, I go, they do. See ya. It was about that simple. I mean, your rates are all about the same. I mean, you know, but they got tutsy rolls at the counter. They know my name. The president comes out and talks to me, this kind of stuff. Yeah, it makes a difference. And it makes a difference to your people as well. You have to know them. Otherwise, why am I working that hard for you? You don't work that hard for strangers. And they tell you, by the way, if you ever kidnapped, this is an extreme case, hopefully should not happen on the job, but the Stockholm syndrome, If you ever kidnapped, the first thing you do is start telling your kidnapper about you. I've got a wife, I've got two kids.

I'm from Ann Arbor, you know, this and that, because you're harder to kill when they know you. Dropping a bomb in a city, not that hard. Okay, psychologically in many ways. But killing somebody you know, let's hope it's very hard. So likewise in the office, an extreme case, perhaps, Ryan. But if I know you, you're going to come with, you're going to turn around. If you know me, coach, I'm going to turn around like that. Let's talk.

You want some time after practice? let's get it now after you talk to me like this first of all by the way that's how you find out what the hell is going on with your team is these conversations you find out a lot more than you probably expected this is how it works if i have a question i don't guess about it i asked the captain or somebody to come in here said am i right about this and they'll say yeah because now we have a trust built up that i talked to them they talked to me and bobby chapius whose dad grandfather sorry was a heisman trophy runner up in 47 uh he said his favorite moments and he played for Wake Forest College. His favorite moments were after practice, I just pull some guys in and shoot the

breeze for half an hour just to hang out. But in that process, I learn about them and they learn about me. And now it's time for me to ask for something. Look, I need more. I need more to you, Bobby Chapius, and I know you and you know me. I help you with their homework at study table. All right. Now I need more. And here's what I need. Is Bobby going to respond? Oh, heck yeah. We're already invested in each other. And without that, you have nothing to draw on. Yeah. In the third part of the book, which is letting them lead off of the title, you write that the more power you give, the more power you get. And I think this is missed often from a leadership perspective. What do you mean by the more power you give, the more power you get? Well, first of all, as you pointed out, I don't start out with kombucha machines and beanbag chairs. We started out, it looks like a man in control at first if you didn't know better. So I got very high demands and so on but once they know those things and they can drive the car themselves then you hand the keys to them but only half you know they know how to drive the car so that's crucial

but the more i gave them the more the more responsibility they had for each other and they liked that we'd be working out on the football field and the ad might come down for a little chat and i'd say captains your team had i talked to the ad for four or five minutes and i'd come back and say you see what you did you didn't miss a beat and I love that about you guys that I can go away for five minutes and not even think about you guys slacking off or doing it wrong you guys did it better probably for each other than you did for me and that's the accountability you want the extreme case as you know too many penalties I would get out the rusty chair put it at Center Ice in the score sheet and call out number 17

Dan Sheldon two minutes tripping he had sit in that chair and everybody else including the coaches would skate all the way to the end hit the glass and skate all the way back. And somebody would say, why the hell are we skating? He got the penalty. Said, what happens in hockey? He gets the penalty. He's sitting down for two minutes.

You're skating. So if he's on our team, we got to skate for him. The guilt that guy feels, the accountability is overwhelming. And I don't have to say a word after that because his teammates are already giving him the death stare and he feels bad. The next game, we never had more than three penalties. One game, no penalties.

So that instills them taking over the team. Another example, my third year when Stevie was a junior. We had a 14 game unbeaten streak pretty doggone good. We're number four in the state. Lost two tight games to Trenton and to pioneer our two rivals. What are we going to do? I put the seniors in charge of the entire game. I called up the captain, Chris Fragner.

I said, hey, from the time you get there, the time you go home, you're in charge of the lineup, the pregame speech, shifting all the guys, the power play, the penalty kill, and talking to the Annabre News after the game is over. And they beat a very good team six to nothing, and the zero impressed me the most because they played team defense for each other. When you really get it going, they'll do that. And they want to do that.

Responsibility is far better than a beanbag chair. Responsibility motivates. Beanbag chair is nice, but responsibility motivates. All right, to close, I'm going to circle back to some of the other things Wasick said and then ask one final question. Ryan, we both knew this had to happen, didn't we? Off of that, this is a good part. I saved some good stuff for you. He said he's been a huge mentor for me and is the only mentor I've had who has had influence across all stages of my professional career.

And he also said, he's the best public speaker I've ever heard. Two really cool things. Off of that, when you're a mentor for somebody that is an extremely impressive leader in their own right, I have to ask you, John, what are some general pieces? of life slash career advice that you would give to somebody perhaps a little bit earlier in their career to help them leave their own debt in the world, to help them make an impact on other people. What are some general pieces you'd share? Great question. First of all, Stevie, thank you very much for those kind words.

Of course, I'm working for him sometimes these days at Insight Global, and that's pretty cool. He's been my boss a couple times. It's been interesting. It's a hell of a boss, by the way. I'm pleased to report. So the rules have switched. What would I say going out? I would say focus on yourself first. Don't worry about your boss. Don't worry about your colleagues in terms of what they're saying, what they're doing and so on. You know yourself. And I'd honestly start with work hard and support your teammates. Are you doing those things first? And let's not worry about the raises yet, the promotions. Let's do a good job first. If I'm doing those two things, all right, is that working or not? If it's not working at all, you might be in the wrong place with the wrong boss.

and sometimes you've got to move. But if you're doing those things well out of the shoot, chances are a lot of good things start happening. What boss does not want to have an employee who shows up every day doing those two things? So focus on the things that you can control and don't get caught up and all the other stuff. And also keep in mind, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

And Stevie's a great example. He was a good salesperson, a recruiter at InSET Global early on, but he was slow in his class compared to others to go to the next level. It took them, I think, twice as long as the other ones. And I said, hey, you know, are you getting better at your job? Beauchampi and every day you get better or you get worse. And I guarantee you he stole that from Woody Hayes.

So every day you get better, you get worse, are you getting better? All right, it's a marathon, not a sprint. And so he kept on doing it. And then he started getting some promotions. And then he started passing up all the guys who had been in front of him. Because I think back to our grinder thing early on, Scottie Bowman and guys like this and Bill Belichick, like Stevie knew both sides of the equation. And now he's a tremendous motivator.

And now he's, what, 34 years old and a vice president at Inside Global. 34 is pretty damn young, be a vice president of any $2.5 billion company. So it tells you that, what was that? That was, you know, eight, nine years. Not a big deal. So be patient with results, but not with your own behaviors. Love it. John, man.

I really appreciate you investing your time. It was cool when Megan connected us to do this one. I was looking forward to it and to dig it into your work. And just really appreciate it. I'd love for you and I to continue this dialogue as we both progress. The book is called Let Them Lead, Unexpected Lessons in Leadership from America's Worst High School Hockey Team to cover. Here it is for the visual people watching.

But I really appreciate it, man. Thanks so much for being here. Ryan, ditto to everything. We'll talk again soon. Thank you so much. Hey, you're one of my heroes, by the way. Love the podcast. Wow.

Well, thank you. It means a lot. I appreciate it, man. Thank you. All right. I really enjoy conversations like that one when we can bounce back and forth from the athletic fields or the hockey rink into the business world. And life in general. And John's certainly someone who does that well.

Taking a look at a few of my notes. First, be patient with results, not behavior. Turning around results takes time and patience, but changing group behavior. That's something that needs to happen. right now needs to be immediate from the start in order to change culture. And then reduce your rules, but make them stick. Make your rules few, clear, and connected to your larger mission. They have to be within everyone's control to follow them each day.

And when people start enforcing the rules themselves, now that's the signal of the culture changing. And the next two, make it special to be on your team. Make it hard to be on your team. The people who apply to be a Navy CEO or the Peace Corps, they're attracted to that difficulty. It's a feature, not a bug. They know that not everyone can do it, and that's what makes it special. Think about that as you're building a team and trying to change culture.

Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message, for telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show. I think it will help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that, and because you continue to write reviews on Apple podcasts and hopefully rating the show five stars, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.