The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Are you Effective or Infective ? Leadership Lessons from Coach Prime | Foundations Friday 81

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

Deion Sanders or "Prime Time" is one of the greatest Defensive Backs to ever play in the National Football League (NFL). In fact, he was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2011. In addition to being a professional American Football player, Deion Sanders also put in a respectable career in Major League Baseball (MLB).But that's not why we're here today. Instead, we're going to focus on Deion Sanders' (now Coach Prime) positive impact on Jackson State University and the coaches, staff, and players there. Coach Prime leads from the front in the show of the same name on Amazon Prime.Coach Prime's statement, "Are you effective or infective?", the title of this episode, comes from the last episode of the series where Coach Prime puts a vote up to this team and coaching staff to help deal with someone spreading negative vibes throughout the Jackson State University football family.So, hit play and hear more about how this decision went and how we can all benefit from asking ourselves, "Am I being effective or infective?" when leading or part of sports, project, or public safety teams.Remember...Have a plan to keep teams in syncStay informed with facts, not fearGet involved so you can make a differenceGodspeed,Kevin

Hello and welcome to the KevTalks podcast. This is the podcast for anyone interested in hearing industry-leading best practice processes, particularly from people in the healthcare, technology, and public safety spaces. Lessons learned are shared and knowledge passed on through facilitated conversations or solo episodes with host Kevin Pinnell. That's me. Kevin shares his 20 plus years of experience as a US Navy veteran, public safety professional, and healthcare IT program and project manager. In the end, this podcast has a little something for everyone, especially those who want to make progress in their personal and professional lives. Thank you so much for listening to this episode, for subscribing, and now let's hear more about this episode. Deion Sanders has nine All-Pro selections, 53 interceptions, was at eight Pro Bowls, played 14 seasons,

and had 22 touchdowns. All of these as one of the greatest defensive players, cornerbacks, in the National Football League. In addition to that, he played in Major League Baseball, where his average was.236. He had 39 home runs, 168 runs batted in, and his ops, or basically how well he performs at the plate, is.711. But we're not here to talk about prime time or, as is known now, coach primes stats in the NFL or the MLB. Instead, on this Foundations Friday, are you effective or infective? I'm here because I'm so impressed with how Deion Sanders has done as a coach, how he did at Jackson State University. And this is a quote from the last episode of the show Coach Prime. Coach Prime is a show on Amazon Prime that follows Deion Sanders as he takes over the

coaching role for Jackson State University. Jackson State University is a historically black college and university, or HBCU. And Deion Sanders goes there. He makes it better in many ways. He makes the young men better, the staff better, the facilities better. But really, it's his connection with people and the process he uses, which is no nonsense, which is from his many years at the highest level of the sport of football. And back to this quote, this, are you effective or infective? And what this comes from, this is a spoiler alert. So you haven't watched it. Stop this episode, go watch the last episode

of coach prime on Amazon. Then come right back to this spot in one minute and 37 seconds. For those of you that have seen it, you'll know what I'm talking about. So Dion's walking around. I think it was at homecoming and he heard somebody, someone in the family, he says, talking about how they don't want to be there and they don't like the team. And he says all this in front of and to his whole team and staff. And then he gets their feedback. He says, what should we do with this family member? Because the family member is here, right? So it's his football family. And he has some folks give their opinion, give them another chance, let them go. You got to cut it out like cancer. Everybody has a hard time, a whole gamut, right? And then he says, okay, if you want to give another chance, stand up.

If you want them out, stand up. And they do this vote and the get out wins. And then he looks at the person who it is and he says, get out. They voted. And the person's off the team. So right after that, they are interviewing Dion, Coach Prime. And he says, you got to determine whether you're effective or infective, right? And so it immediately made me think of project teams or programs or leaders and myself. Am I being effective in helping the team? Am I inspiring? Am I leading well? Or am I infective because my attitude's bad

or my home life's not squared away or I'm not sleeping or whatever it is? And it's a great, great, great quote and really a great thing to live, right? To always be thinking, am I being effective right now at home? Am I being effective at work? Am I being effective in the gym? Am I being effective at jujitsu? Am I being effective

in my friend circle? Or am I infecting people with my negativity, with my woe is me, with this is going so bad. And that doesn't mean that you can't talk to your friends or shouldn't talk to your family about bad times. But when it comes to giving feedback or, you know, being just the, you know, negative Nelly or whatever term you want to put, maybe don't spread that everywhere, right? So try and be an effective leader, an effective follower, an effective team member, and don't infect your team, whether it's a sports team or your project team or your crew on the fire engine or the folks in roll call or the other dispatchers or the folks on deployment. Don't infect them with negativity.

Don't plant the seed. Be effective. Lift people up. And thank you for lifting me up by being here on the KevTalks podcast. Check out more at KevTalksPod.com. Please leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. That really helps bump up the visibility of the show. Thanks, everybody.

We had a big increase in listens this week. I really appreciate your time. Again, KevTalksPod.com. I got resources, links to old episodes. You can subscribe on your favorite platform. Remember, everybody, have that plan so your team is in sync. Stay informed with facts, not fear or rumors, and get involved so you can make a difference, just like Coach Prime has made a difference in college football and the lives of

young men and women across the world. Godspeed.