 Jay Billis of ESPN has been one of the most influential people in my life and Jay has served as a friend and a mentor and Was even thoughtful enough to write the forward to my book raise your game and for those that don't follow college basketball just know that Jay is the face of ESPN College Game Day and part of Jay's responsibility with ESPN College Game Day is the day before the game He goes and watches both teams practice. He needs to get an idea for their personnel For their strategies and keys to victory to know as much as he can about them for calling the game the next day on air Well in early December of 2010 there was a tremendous amount of hype I've got a game with Duke facing Butler and the reason there was so much hype in this early season game where those were the Two teams that faced off previously in the national championship game where Duke narrowly escaped with a win And it's very rare in college basketball that the two teams That face off in the national championship play again in early December Well, Jay is a Duke alum So he decided to go watch Duke practice first and Duke is led by Hall of Fame coach coach K The winningest coach in college basketball and coach K was talking to the Duke team and said guys We are going to be fine tomorrow if you stick to the game plan because we clearly Have a competitive advantage. We are bigger stronger and more powerful than they are We're going to pound the ball down low and get easy dunks and layups We're going to out rebound them and we're going to contest every shot. Trust me We will be fine if you stick to the game plan because we clearly have the competitive advantage and Jay left that practice and was thinking This could be a bloodbath tomorrow coach K one of the best in the history of the game to ever pick up a clipboard and blow The whistle just told his team definitively why they have a competitive advantage But he needed to do his due diligence and go watch butler practice who at the time was led by Brad Stevens Brad Stevens is the current head coach of the boston Celtics and an absolute basketball savant one of the brightest coaches that i've ever met And coach Stevens is talking to the butler bulldogs and says guys don't worry We're going to be fine tomorrow if you stick to the game plan We will beat dupe because we clearly have the competitive advantage We are smaller quicker and faster than they are There is no way their big guys can keep up with us and transition. We're going to get a lot of fast break points We're going to put on a smothering full court press and there is no way their big men can get out to our corner shooters We're going to be fine tomorrow if you stick to the game plan Because we clearly have the competitive advantage And Jay left that practice and was thinking I've got no idea who's going to win this game Both of these brilliant coaches have the self-awareness and team awareness to recognize what they do really really well What their strengths are what gives them an edge and what gives them a competitive advantage and here's the thing They both were right And the reason I tell you that story is I want to make sure in your organization that you have great clarity On what your strengths are what gives you a competitive advantage and what gives you an edge But more importantly the reason i'm here today Is to convince you to make relationships and to make culture Part of that secret sauce to make your relationships and your culture with everyone within and around your organization Part of what gives you a competitive advantage And that is why i'm here today is to share some practical and actionable strategies on how you can create a winning culture Improve your impact and improve your influence Now before we do that It's important that we're all using the same terminology So what we need to do is is to to have a similar perspective and reference point is we need to define culture And this is actually a great exercise for you to do with your team And you can do it in a variety of ways, but i'll give you kind of an old school method Is you can pass out index cards and pens to everybody on your team and simply ask them to write down Their definition of culture Now because it's 2020 you got to ask them not to look anything up on their phone I don't want them googling anything. I don't want them reciting what they think You want to hear i want them to be real and i want them to be raw and i want them to write down how they Define culture and there is no right answer to this test I want to hear what your your teammates and your colleagues and your co-workers think And when you collect those cards inevitably what will happen Is you will see some similarities You'll see some key terms and some some phrasing that most people will put on their cards But here's also what you'll notice. There'll also be some differences There'll be some differences in perspective and terminology and what one person thinks culture is someone else on the exact same team May have a completely different perspective perspective or vantage point and there's nothing wrong with that But we have to understand if individually Everyone on your team defines culture differently. It's going to make it really hard to improve it collectively If everyone is defining it individually different, it's going to make it that much more challenging to improve it Collectively i'm going to share with you what i consider my definition of culture and and as i said before there is no right or wrong This is not me telling you what culture is. This is me sharing the lens at which i look through But i want to make sure that you and everyone on your team Has a a similar understanding and comprehension of culture and culture is really nothing more Than the collective beliefs and behaviors and experience that everyone in and around your organization has So let's look at beliefs first Many people use the terminology core values These are our core values and i'm a big believer that your core values should be your north star They should be your guiding light in every decision that you make They should be in perfect alignment and in harmony With your core values and with your beliefs But unfortunately that's where a lot of groups stop They've got the core values on their website. They've got them on their trifold brochure Some places you can walk in and they've got core values emblazoned in gold Behind the front desk, but just having those core values and beliefs not enough You have to ask yourself does every person on your team in your school In your organization or business Are they doing the things on a daily basis that are in alignment with those so now we have to look at behavior What is the behavior of every single person on your team? Every single day Is it congruent with your core beliefs? See we're either going to build culture or we're going to erode culture And this happens with every person on your team with every decision that they make And while we're certainly not concerned with perfection, we do want to make sure we're motivated by progress Which means it's so important for the vast majority of decisions made by the vast majority of your team to be in alignment With the culture that you're trying to create And then ultimately what is the experience that people have being a part of your team or organization If you're in the school system, what is the experience that your students have? What is the experience that your teachers have? What is the experience in the community and with the parents of the children that are in your school? If you're in the business world, how do your colleagues and co-workers feel about the culture that you all have created? How about your customers and your clients or all of these things in alignment? And the most important part of all of this is it has to be done consistently Culture is not something we can pay attention to just when we feel like it just when we want to Just when it's convenient Culture is an every day thing And one of the ways we can make sure that we heighten culture Is if you can get every single person on your team To behave in a manner that is in alignment with the core values Even when no one is watching A good friend of mine named Dave bullwinkled is a longtime scout for the chicago bulls And back in 2007 on a wednesday he he sent me a text and told me he'd be in town that coming weekend and asked if I wanted to go Watch saracuse Play at georgetown And he didn't have to twist my arm very hard as a basketball junkie To go back to the old big east and watch two national powerhouses collide Was a dream come true. So yes, absolutely coach. I would love to be there And I quickly checked and there was a 2 p.m. Tip-off and that worked perfectly with my saturday schedule So then in the follow-up text when I told him I'd be I'd be happy to join him He said I need you to meet me at the arena at 11 a.m And I said coach the game's not till 2 and he said no, I know I need you to meet me at 11 And I said well, why in the world would I need to meet you three hours before tip-off? And he said I need to watch the players to see how they behave when they don't think anyone is watching So true to form we show up at 11 a.m. And we enter the arena It was the mci center at the time in washington dc And and really the only people in the building were the building service staff and everyone that was on saracuse and georgetown And I watch coach bullwinkle take page After page of notes in a yellow legal pad On the handful of players on each team That he was scouting and if you go back and you look at the rosters of those two teams Each team had three or four players that had the potential of being a first round draft pick in the mba And he was looking to see how focused were they during the pregame walkthrough Were they listening to their coach with their eyes and with positive body language? Were they going through their warm-up and their stretching routine with great effort and focus? How did they treat the ball boy or the building service worker? Did they treat him with respect? Those were the type of notes that he was taking And what's important for you to understand Is that the mba has a pre slated contract scale for players drafted in the first round Which means there is no negotiation on your first contract your first three years salary or set based on where you're drafted If you are the number one pick in the mba draft you make x amount Each year for the first three years If you are the fifth pick in the mba draft you make y amount and so forth and the reason I tell you that Is that the way that that that salary scale is slated if you drop One position in the mba draft you lose between 250 and 400 thousand dollars a year per year on that first three year contract Which means if you drop two or three positions in the draft you will lose over a million dollars in salary in your first three years If you drop 10 to 12 Positions in the the first round of the draft you will lose several million dollars Now i'm aware that that that pay scale is most likely different than the pay scale that all of us are on But the reason i'm telling you that is of the three or four players on saracuse And the three or four players on georgetown that coach bullwinkel was taking notes on A couple of players significantly raised their draft status that day based on how they behaved when they didn't think anyone was watching And a couple of those players unfortunately Significantly lowered their draft status because they didn't take their warm-up seriously because they weren't respectful to a building service worker To a ballboy because they didn't have focus when they were going through the pregame walkthrough In their case, and i'm not saying this for dramatic effect Some of those young men lost millions of dollars based on how they behaved Before tip-off of a game So the reason i tell you that is i want to ask you a question And this is the perfect litmus test to see how sound Your culture is and the way you can tell how sound your culture is is ask yourself this question If you are the leader if you are an athletic director a school superintendent If you are a principal if you are a ceo Shoot even if you are a parent i'm the father of three is ask yourself. How does my team behave? When no one's watching If you are the leader of your organization, how does your team behave when you are not there? Now if you're worried that when you're not there that there is major slippage If there is a major slide in performance when the head person is not there Then you don't have a very sound culture things need to be fixed because leaders create other leaders Effective leaders know that they can step away to tend to something else And everything will be running smoothly They know that while they add tremendous value to their organization that if they stepped out They've groomed the leaders next to them thought leaders and decision makers who can keep this machine running If you are the principal of a school and and you can't come to school one day either You're sick or maybe you're off doing some professional development and everything falls apart the day that you're not there Then you don't have a sound culture and changes need to be made same can be said for a ceo And I certainly know the same is true for me as a father I want to make sure that my children are behaving appropriately whether i'm watching them or not And that is the ultimate litmus test Now when we talk about culture The foundation of culture is going to be relationships And there are three foundational relationships that each and every one of us needs to make sure that we pour into with great intention And the first is the one that quite honestly is most often overlooked and undervalued And that's the relationship we have with ourself Are you self aware? Are you self-discipline? When you make a mistake, which is inevitable do you have some grace and some self-compassion? Are you able to move to the next play or you keep dwelling on the fact that you made a mistake? But more importantly Are you making the time? And making is the key word With as busy as all of us are with everything going on in our lives You will never find time for anything if it's important you will make time for it. Are you making the time? To fill your own bucket on a regular basis Are you making the time to do the things the activities or invest time with the people that recharge your battery and that fill Your bucket are you making the time to do that? If you want to have a strong culture then you need to be able to do that There's an old adage It's much much older than I am that says you can't pour anything out of an empty cup Which means if your cup is empty you have nothing to give anyone else If you're the leader of the organization, you don't have anything to give to serve your team As a teammate you don't have anything to give the person to your right or to your left So it's so important That with intentionality and purpose we fill our own bucket first so that we can show up every single day Prepared and ready to pour into and to add value to our culture The next relationship is the relationship you have with those on your team Your colleagues and your co-workers Are you doing everything you can to empower them? To challenge them To love them To support them Do you make the effort to take friction off of their plate to make their job and their role in their life a little bit easier? Are you doing everything you can to pour into your teammates? and then lastly At those that you serve and the reason I have a question mark here is I know we have a vast audience You serve if you're in the if you're in the school system You are serving your students if you are as coach you are serving your athletes and your players If you're in the hospital you are serving your patients if you're in business You are serving your clients and your customers Who are the folks that you serve? And are you doing everything you can to serve them? to the best of your ability And are you anticipating their needs? Are you simply sitting back and making assumptions? See if you just make assumptions about what your folks need You're going to fall short. We need to make sure that we are constantly asking questions How can I help you? What do you need from me? What can I do to make your fill in the blank a little bit easier today? Because everything we do comes from a place of service and realize that if you are the leader of your organization Let's say for example, you're the ceo of a hundred person company. You don't have 99 people that work for you You work for 99 people. That's what servant leadership is all about It's our job as leaders to be serving everyone else And as we look down that pyramid it starts the foundation is making sure That our roots are strong that we have poured into ourselves so that mentally physically emotionally and spiritually if appropriate to you You are prepared to show up every single day as your best self and ready to contribute and to build And invest in your culture and then once you do that you'll have the exact same mentality with your teammates You will do everything in your power to serve your teammates And when you can do both of those things then collectively You'll have a lot less friction for those that you serve your members your patients your students your athletes Your customers your clients I've got a lot of favorite basketball players But if I had to pick one i'm going to pick steve nasch And one of the reasons steve nasch is my favorite basketball player of all time was because of his infectious energy I mean he was incredibly skilled don't get me wrong, but his infectious energy was I mean it was just palpable And steve nasch actually won back-to-back mvp titles in the early 2000s Which puts him in very very rare company and the first year That he won the mvp In the mba. He only led the league in two statistical categories Assists which most people can agree means he was a great teammate. He was a great leader He liked to share the sugar and pass the pill and give the ball to somebody else and let them score the final basket But he also led the league In touches High fives Fist bumps And pats on the backside How could I possibly know That steve nasch led the mba in high fives fist bumps and pats on the backside Well, it just so happens there was a research team from uc berkeley And they were conducting an official study because they wanted to measure if showing signs of enthusiasm Actually led to more wins on the court So they hired a team of researchers to watch every minute Of every mba game And make a tally mark every time a player gave a high five a fist bump or a pat on the backside Well, the phoenix sons who steve nasch played for at the time were so enamored with this study that they hired a full-time intern Just to count for steve nasch I don't know if any of you have ever felt like you've had a crappy entry-level job But can you imagine if that was your first job? Yeah, you see that guy over there every time he touches one of these big tall sweaty guys We need you to make a tally mark In the first game that the intern counted for steve nasch. This is in one regulation mba game He delivered 239 high fives fist bumps and pats on the backside. He was a furnace of human connection Now in a game like basketball And when we're not in the middle of a global pandemic When giving high fives and fist bumps and packs pats on the backside is appropriate It's been physiologically proven that you can actually transfer energy to another human being through physical touch You can actually raise someone's game with a high five a fist bump or a pat on the backside Just to be clear And to be completely hr compliant I'm not telling you that you need to be giving your students or your patients a pat On the caboose when they get ready to leave what I am telling you though is you need to figure out The digital equivalent or the emotional equivalent of giving a high five a fist bump or a pat on the backside What is something that you can do to make an emotional deposit? On a teammate or on those that you serve that would be the same thing that would give them the same emotional boost As a high five a fist bump or a pat on the backside. This is where technology can be our friend This is where a well-placed text message or or something on social can actually lift someone's spirits You can raise someone's game if you've got a teammate a colleague or a co-worker that had a rough day And you take 20 seconds to take a quick selfie video that says nothing more than I know today was tough But you're strong enough to get through this. I hope you know, I've got your back. I'll see you in the morning It takes 20 seconds out of your life But it's an influential and impactful deposit that you'll make into someone else The organizations that understand that are the ones that have thriving cultures So we have to find ways to make emotional deposits every single day Now here's an exercise that I want each and every one of you listening to adopt This is one of the things that I've done. I've done it in the sports world. I've done this in the corporate world I've done it in education and it's amazing how much this can heighten culture and improve team cohesion and camaraderie immediately It's called ten assists Here's what I want each and every one of you to do when you wake up in the morning I want you to put 10 rubber bands Or bracelets if you're somewhat of a fashionista on your left wrist And every time you give a teammate or those that you serve So this could be a colleague or a co-worker This could be one of your students one of your players It could be a customer anytime you give an assist and we'll define assist as anything that you do Above and beyond what you're expected to do. So this is extra. This is bonus. This is in addition to Anytime you give an assist To anybody on your team or that you serve you take one rubber band off of your left wrist And you put it on your right wrist But here's the rub You can't go home for the night Or you can't put your head on your pillow that night until all 10 rubber bands are on your right wrist Until you know for a fact that you've done nothing short of 10 tangible things above and beyond what you are expected to do To make an emotional deposit Into those that you serve or those on your team Now i'm willing to bet if you've made the investment to be a part of this series in this summit That you probably get 10 assists by the morning coffee break. I'm not worried about you But can you make this contagious in your organization if you are a principal? Can you make sure that every single teacher on your staff? With intention and purpose will go above and beyond what they've been doing and add 10 extra assists If you run a sales organization you have a sales team. Can you get them to do the exact same thing? See as leaders, it's not what you do It's what you can get others to do It can you empower and inspire others to do that? And then simply start running the math When you look at every single person on your team and you multiply that by 10 And they're doing 10 extra things above and beyond what's expected above and beyond what they were doing before Now you can start to see how exponentially this will move mountains Growing up in the basketball training space I was so fortunate to have been mentored by some hall of fame elite level coaches And they taught me a few very basic mantras early in my coaching career That I still use today. I use these in the the work that I do I use these even as the foundation of my parenting philosophy of my three young kids So these three coaching philosophies have such high utility They apply to everything that we do and the very first one is the is the creed of leadership Once again, it doesn't matter your industry your background or your vocation If you are in the business of serving others, you have to wake up every single morning and say it's not about me It's about you If you are a coach, that's what you need to say to your players If you are a teacher, that's what you need to say to your students If you are a principal, that's what you need to say to your teachers It's not about me It's about you and that simply means that we want to find out what is important to the other person And then we want to make that important to us by default And the way that we need to do that is we need to customize that message and customize that delivery We want to make sure that we are as intentional and as purposeful as possible when delivering that message I'm 44 years old when I was a kid. They didn't quite have all of the different Technologies with medicine as they have today when I was a kid You could put every single kid into one of two categories You had the kids that could swallow a Tylenol pill And you had to have the kids that had to have it smashed up in applesauce to take the Tylenol pill And I was actually one of the applesauce kids through an embarrassingly old age But the reason I tell you that is I want you to think of that analogy as a leader The first thing you need to figure out with every single person that you serve is how do they take their Tylenol? Can I give them the Tylenol straight? Or do I need to soften it and sweeten it with a little bit of applesauce? And what's most important as a leader it doesn't matter how you take your Tylenol All that matters is how they prefer to take their Tylenol and as a leader when you can be chameleon like enough To customize the delivery of every message for those that you serve everything will become so much stickier It's the glue that binds all of us because when you take the care to find out if someone likes their Tylenol straight Or needs some applesauce with it Unconsciously you're telling them I care about you And what's important to you is now important to me and that is a glue that will strengthen any human connection The next mantra that we have to have as leaders Is we have to connect first and we coach second and I put coach In a towel in quote marks because you can substitute that for anything you can substitute the word parent You can substitute the word, you know any industry that you're in You have to make the connection first before you attempt to do anything else Both of my parents were in elementary education for 30 years and they taught me firsthand They have to connect with the students first before they could even think about teaching them And we connect with the heart And how do we best connect with those that we serve? Go back to arrow number one is make sure that they know unequivocally That it's not about me It's about you. I am here to get you better I'm here to serve you I'm here to make sure that you can can achieve your goals and your dreams But we have to make that connection first. See if we flip those two around it's not sustainable See you can only hold someone accountable to the level of trust that you've built with them And the only way you can build a level of trust is by creating that human connection So we have to make sure that we focus on the human connection first and here's the beautiful part If you make the investment Of creating that connection first It makes the teaching it makes the coaching it makes the instruction It makes all of that easier There's a lot less friction when you care enough to make that connection first And the last of these relationship mantras Is to be the teammate That you want to play with If I asked each and every one of you right now and you can do this with your respective teams This is a really powerful exercise It's tell everyone to take out their their pen and their paper and I want you to write down a list I'm going to give you 30 seconds and I want you to write down a list Of the the traits that you want of the best teammates you've ever had It could be somebody on your team now or it could be somebody maybe you played little league with 30 years ago But I want you to come up with a comprehensive list Of the traits of the best teammates that you've ever had And you get them to write that down And then you tell them to look at that list and you simply say okay now I need you To do that list If this is what you expect of everyone else on your team, then this is what you need to bring to the table This is what you need to model You need to show up every day ready to do these things If you expect your teammates to work hard and to be enthusiastic, then you need to work hard and you need to be enthusiastic Now because everyone is an individual and I always want you to remain authentic That doesn't mean that you have to show enthusiasm the exact same way as a teammate You may you may show it in a different way, but anything that you expect of your teammates You have to make sure you are modeling So you need to be the teammate that you want to play with and that is always a quick Recalibration self audit that you can do If you have the humility to look inwardly and look at your daily behavior and ask would I want to play with me Think about that are are you behaving in the manner of those that you most closely work with be the teammate that you want to play with And all of these things fall under the umbrella Of behavior. I talked to you about how important it is to have these beliefs But we have to make sure we're living this stuff every single day We have to make sure we're we're having the behavior that is in alignment with these different beliefs And when it comes to behavior in your organization and on your teams and in your families There are only two options You either accept it or you correct it. There is nothing in between. There is no gray area Every single decision made every single behavior every single action on your team is either something that you accept Because it's in alignment with your core values. And if it's in alignment, then we want to praise it Because that which gets praised Gets repeated. We want to call it out. We want to acknowledge it so that we'll see more of it If for any reason we notice some behavior that is not In alignment with our core values is not congruent or in harmony with the culture We're trying to create now. We need to correct it We need to coach it And how do we do that? We go back to those three arrows We make sure that they know that we're making this correction because we care about them Because we're invested in their success and the collective good of the organization But those are the only two options. There is nothing in between So we've established culture and what the definition is and we've we've talked about the role That relationships play in that culture and and about the importance of making daily deposits from an emotional standpoint Because everything we do is either going to add value to or erode our culture So let's look at three keys to a winning culture And please know that when I say the word winning I'm not talking about the final scoreboard I've known teams that were maybe 500 in record, but you better believe they had a winning culture Because they had very strong core beliefs They had behavior that was congruent with those beliefs They had an amazing experience with everyone in that organization and on that team and boy did they over index They may not have had the talent to win more games than that But they got everything out of themselves and each other that they could have and that Is a winning culture The first puzzle piece Is role clarity This is one that we can't take for granted Does every single person on your team Know with great clarity exactly what their role is We don't want to make an assumption Here's another takeaway or action item you can do with your team And this one sometimes can be the biggest piece of humble pie that you'll have as a leader You pass out index cards again And you ask them to write down what they believe their role is What do they believe their role is on the team and ask them even further to write down what they believe The three most important things that they need to pay attention to to focus on or to accomplish each day What are their big three? And then you as the supervisor or the principal or the teacher or the coach you write down What you believe their role is and what their big three are And then as with all of the audits that I do I want you to compare those two sets of notes And what you'll often find is someone that reports to you directly and has so for years Actually believes their role is different than what you believe their role is And that's been just a thorn in the paw that we can now remove Because there's most likely been some communication issues and some frustrations Because I believe you're supposed to be doing this and you think you're supposed to be doing that We're not even on the same page. So we have to get crystal clear on what everyone's role is And then once we've got great clarity every member of the team they need to know their role They need to embrace their role and they need to work to star in their role to the best of their ability And we the most important part about roles is Your role on the team is not always what you want it to be It's what the team needs it to be for the team to be successful I spent most of my life in elite level basketball I didn't meet very many players that wanted to be the backup point guard They wanted to be the starter But their role on the team and the way that they could best serve the team was to be the backup And the ones that embraced that and said, you know what? I'm going to be the best backup point guard in our conference I'm going to be the best backup point guard in our state I'm going to be an all-american backup point guard because every single day I know my job is to show up to practice and to push our starting point guard as hard as I can And I'm going to relish that opportunity. I'm going to embrace it and I'm going to start it I'm going to be the best backup point guard that you've ever seen When you can get everyone in your organization to have that type of attitude From the top of the org chart and the ceo to lower levels on the org chart If everyone embraces their role with that type of commitment, then you've created something really special But not only do we have to crystallize the roles We have to make sure that they know that what they're supposed to do We have they have to know what those expectations are in those standards We have to be crystal clear with expectations and standards The other night I had my children over for dinner. I'm I'm very amicably divorced So I split time uh with my ex-wife and I had my kids over for dinner And that's not our actual family by the way. That's not what our dinner looks like, but at the end of dinner I asked my 10 year old son luke To clean the table And luke did what I think most 10 year olds would do when they're heard to clean the table He quickly gathered up the utensils and the plates and the glasses He feverishly threw them in the sink and he jetted off to his room to play on his ipad And I found myself really frustrated That's not cleaning the table Cleaning the table means you take everything you take the dishes and the glasses and the utensils And you rinse everything off and you organize them neatly in the dishwasher And then you take a chlorox rag and you wipe down The kitchen table and if you happen to knock any crumbs on the ground then you vacuum them up That's how you clean a table But then I started the chuckle His failure to do so was my fault. That was not his fault. All I said was clean the table I didn't give him any standards or any expectations So he did what he defined as cleaning the table And as a leader and as someone that's trying to create a strong family culture That was not his failure. That was mine I need to be able to articulate in this case what I mean by the word clean And be able to show him exactly what I'm talking about So it was a great learning experience for both of us and now moving forward We are 100 on the same page of what it means to clean the table The next key to a winning culture is accountability The most important part I want everyone on your team to know Is that holding someone accountable is something you do for them It's not something you do to them Holding someone accountable is the best gift that you can give them Because ultimately when you hold a teammate accountable a hold a family member accountable You're telling them I care so much about you and I care so much about us That I'm not going to let you slide I'm not going to let you get away with doing less than your best I'm not going to let you get away with having a bad attitude I'm not going to let you get away by stepping out of bounds I care so much about you and I care so much about us that I'm going to give you the gift Of accountability and ultimately that's what accountability is accountability is a gift Now it doesn't always feel that way when we're on the receiving end of it But if you can get everyone on your team or in your organization to realize that when a teammate cares enough To hold them accountable That is how you protect the sanctity of the locker room as we say that is how you protect your culture And average organizations have what's called vertical accountability That means the person at the top holds everybody else accountable You do what I say or you're in a little bit of trouble. That is mediocre at best What thriving organizations do thriving teams and remarkable cultures is they also have horizontal And diagonal accountability, which means everybody holds everyone accountable Not only does everyone hold everyone accountable They have an obligation to do so Because when they sign up to be a part of your team, they are signing up To trade some of the me for the we they are deciding to invest in themselves to make those around them better And in order to do that we have to hold each other accountable Which means it does not matter where you fall on the org chart If you are part of that team you have a responsibility You have a right and you have an obligation To hold everyone else accountable to the collective standards that you've created And when we can get everyone on the team to be just as open to receiving that accountability as they may be To delivering that accountability now we've got something special And what happens a lot of times when you're being held accountable by a teammate Is we often make a complaint or we blame or we make an excuse We resort and default to a trilogy of things that does not help the situation So we need to make sure that we create a culture that embraces accountability as a great thing See a lot of people hear the word discipline. This happens a lot with children Children hear the word discipline and they have a negative connotation of that word They believe discipline discipline means punishment I don't believe that at all. I believe discipline is the key to freedom That if you're willing to be highly self-disciplined you can have anything and everything that you want in life If you're willing to exercise that and I believe the same thing about accountability Accountability is not just about catching people doing things wrong It's also about catching your teammates doing things right And when you catch them doing things right you praise them you acknowledge them you call them out And you appreciate them with specificity in a customized way That makes them feel great about what it was that they just did to contribute to your culture And the last puzzle piece when it comes to building a winning culture Is communication I think I could make a very compelling argument That almost every single dysfunction With a group of people or even with two people Stems from lack of communication Miscommunication or poor communication Communication is the lifeblood that will keep your culture sound And when it comes to communication, there's a few things we need to think about The first is the unconscious message that we send through all of our communication We have to realize that what we say is only part of the picture Because people are going to read between the lines and they're going to understand the message that we're sending them Here's a perfect example At many of you that are in leadership roles, you have to delegate something to a teammate When you delegate an important task to a teammate, what is the unconscious message that you're sending them? Yeah, you're important to me I value you I trust you. I know that you're good enough to help me with this. That's why I ask you to do it When you send that as your unconscious message that is a glue that will strengthen your relationship But conversely and this happens a lot What happens if we delegate something to a teammate? And then we micromanage them We either literally or figuratively stand over their shoulder breathing down their neck Watching them cross every t and dot every i What's the unconscious message we're giving then? Yeah, the exact opposite. I don't trust you I don't believe in you and I don't think you'll be able to do this if I'm not standing right here That's like pulling the the thread out of the sweater That will create a disconnect and a divide and will erode any human connection And please understand this about human connection every time you come in contact with another human being only two things are possible You're either going to improve that human connection or you're going to erode it You're either going to add value or you're going to take it away Those are the only two things possible And to create winning cultures we have to be in the business of adding value to every human connection that we can as often as we can And it all happens through communication The other part of communication Is we have to understand that listening Is the most important part of that exchange I'm a professional speaker. I get paid to talk But what I talk about and the way that I talk about it comes down to the listening that I do ahead of time Because my goal is to customize every single presentation specifically for every audience I want to know what their challenges are what their pain points are what things are going well What things they need emphasized. I want to find out what is the exact terminology that they need me to use Because I don't want anything to feel cookie cutter I want to make sure that every presentation I give is highly customized and the only way I can do that Is by asking questions and listening When I do a pre-event call with a client, I'm not there to tell them anything I'm there to ask them questions and listen And the best coaches in the world the best teachers in the world the best parents in the world the best CEOs in the world That's what they do They don't tell they listen In the game of basketball a very mediocre coach Let's imagine that your team is playing some five on five And your point guard comes down and throws a pass to the wing and turns the ball over a mediocre coach will stop practice Will most likely berate that player for 15 seconds Tell them what they did wrong why that was a stupid pass and then resume practice That's not doing anything to build connection and that's not doing anything to develop that player A more seasoned than experienced and effective coach when the player turns the ball over will stop And will ask the player why did you make that pass? What did you see? See we have to realize as leaders Our people they don't want to disappoint us In the history of the game of basketball no point guard has ever come down the court saying I'm going to throw a turnover right now because I can't wait to see how mad my coach gets They don't do that at that point in time based on their basketball iq and that vantage point They actually thought that was the correct pass to make and in hindsight it wasn't so how can we turn this into a sticky Learning lesson How can we turn this into something that actually strengthens connection between coach and player instead of eroding it So a great coach will stop and say why did you make that pass? What is it that you saw that made you think that was the correct play and then listen to their answer And then say what is something you could have done differently now that we all know that that wasn't the right pass What's a different pass or a different play you could have made? Now i'm not suggesting that you have the time to do this every single time not every turnover during a basketball player Practice warrants a 10 minute back and forth discussion, but if you can do so strategically That lesson will become that much stickier for that player And that's what we're in the business of when we're trying to create winning cultures is we want to make sure that our messages are sticky So when it comes to communication It's vital that we understand with everything we say and do there's going to be an unconscious message And that we need to start paying more homage to the listening portion and less to the talking portion Prior to my time at demathe I served as the basketball performance coach at a very small school In rockville, maryland montrose christian, which is where kevin durant graduated from and one day Back in 2006. I was actually getting ready for practice And just thought it was going to be a normal day of practice And i'm getting myself together and and I walk upstairs from the locker room and I open the door And i'm standing 10 feet away from my idol I thought this was going to be a normal day of practice and I walk in the door and I am standing 10 feet away From the one person on earth that I would want to meet over anyone else I couldn't believe it I walk in that door at that small gym in rockville, maryland, and i'm standing 10 feet away from coach k The hall of fame coach at duke And I don't want this to sound over dramatic, but he was actually glowing like he is in that picture right there And I had an opportunity to talk to coach k for about 10 minutes And funny enough I didn't have the mindfulness or awareness then that I'd like to believe I have now Because in full transparency I don't remember a single word that either one of us said But I'll never ever forget how he made me feel He gave great eye contact with a warm smile. He had very open and positive body language He would ask me question after question and nod He made me feel like I was the most important person in that gym I was it The kid he was recruiting was the most important person in that gym, but that's not how he made me feel The unconscious message that he sent to me was that he valued me that he cared about my time and that I was important And I was raised very old school. I was raised that when someone goes out of their way to do something nice for you You hand write them a thank you note So I went home that night and I hand wrote him a thank you note Coach k you have no idea how much this meant to me. Thank you so much for your time It was so amazing to finally meet you. Just know you've got a lifelong fan I'll always be rooting for you and for duke and I put a stamp on it and I sent it off to Durham, North Carolina And I figured that would be that Well three weeks later I go to my mailbox And I get a letter back from coach k In essence saying the same thing That he was thankful to meet me. He was thankful that we got a chance to talk and he was incredibly supportive of me Do you understand the unconscious message that that sends? That the busiest and one of the most successful coaches to ever coach in any sport at any level Made the time To hand write me a thank you note How long do you think it took him to write this even if he's slow? Maybe 60 seconds Can we agree that over the course of our entire life 60 seconds is a little thing Well, this little thing had a profound impact on my life This little thing is the reason right now that I am relentless About returning voicemails emails Text messages and as many social increases I can because I believe if the busiest and arguably most successful coach in the history of team Sports can make the time to send me an absolute no one A a handwritten letter you better believe I can call you back You better believe I can return your email or your text message That little thing is the reason that I wake up every single day with the mindset that I'm going to have an attitude of gratitude I'm going to go through every day and tell as many people as I can that I appreciate them and that they've done a great job because if that coach If a hall of fame caliber coach can take time out of his day to tell me that he appreciates me You better believe I can do that for as many people as possible So when it comes to your culture When it comes to your team in making these types of deposits When it comes to your beliefs and your behaviors and your experience You just have to know that the little things make a big difference And an accumulation of little things can transform everything And with that I want to take a bow and say thank you all so much. I hope you enjoy the rest of this conference. Thank you