Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: BoSCA-Reagan Rossi VP of Athletics at College of Idaho and Drew Watson AD at Southeastern University "Navigating Tough Conversations - Strategies for Success"

Transcript

BONUS: BoSCA-Reagan Rossi VP of Athletics at College of Idaho and Drew Watson AD at Southeastern University "Navigating Tough Conversations - Strategies for Success" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  It's bonus time here in the Gill Track and Field Connections
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  podcast. For the last couple of weeks
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  we've been bringing you some amazing athletic directors from
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  around the country. They presented at the Bosca, the
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  Business of small College Athletics convention in July up
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  in Oak Brook, IL and I thought there were a few topics that our
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  track and field coaches on all levels, high school, college,
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  etcetera would receive value from in this time.
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  This week we've got A tag team, so we're going to be talking
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  about super important topic here, navigating tough
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  conversations, strategies for success. 2 amazing leaders right
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  here. They gave amazing talks.
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  You're going to enjoy this to help me.
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  Welcome Reagan Rossi, the VP of athletics for the College of
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  Idaho, and Drew Watson, athletic director at Southeastern
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  University. Perfect.
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  Yeah. We're taking it on the road.
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  I love it. All right, quick introductions.
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  Greg Rossi, vice president at Athletics College of Idaho.
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  A little bit of my background. I was a student athlete in the
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  NAI at Saint Amber's University in Davenport, IA Got my degree
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  in athletic training. Decided I really didn't want to
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  do that. So then I was like, wow, what am
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  I going to do? So I moved to Alaska.
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  It's what most people do when they don't know what they want
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  to do. I was I was a missionary for the
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  Presbyterian Church work with this church up in Skagway,
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  Alaska. If anybody's been up there
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  beautiful love. It was an assistant high school
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  boys coach, which was interesting.
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  So boys basketball. And then in the summer I took a
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  job doing helicopter tours. So I was a glacier tour guide
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  and I stood out on the ice all day and met my husband up there,
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  helicopter pilot, and then was applying for GA positions around
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  the country and I talked to Coach Corman, Todd Corman.
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  He said, well, I'm not at the school that you applied to, but
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  I'm starting a program at College of Idaho, which was
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  Albertson College. Then do you want to come be my
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  assistant for $2000? They said sign me up, I'm in.
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  Was there for a couple years, got married, husband and I had
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  job chase for a while. Spent a year at Georgetown
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  College in Kentucky, then Morehead State in Kentucky for
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  two years, got my master's. I got called to come back to
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  College of Idaho in 2001 as the head coach.
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  So I was head coach for about 13 years.
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  Last couple years I took on the role of the Associate AB, the
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  Title 9 coordinator. Don't ask me why I did that one.
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  And then got out of coaching after about 13 years as the head
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  coach and moved into full time administration and spent two
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  years just as the associate AD and then took on the AD role in
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  this starting my 9th year. And you are the first NAIA
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  athletic director that will serve in the the leadership line
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  for NACTA. I will, I will.
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  Thanks. Regan was just appointed 3rd
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  vice president at NACTA, so we're all very proud of her at
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  the NAI. My name is Drew Watson, I'm the
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  director of athletics at Southeastern University in
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  Lakeland, FL. My journey comes up through
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  being a Division Three student athlete in baseball and
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  basketball. I, you know, you, you talk about
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  why are we up here talking about tough conversations?
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  My journey with this was I played for a basketball coach in
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  college who had, who had trouble with this.
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  He was a sugar coater. And so if I went to him and say,
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  coach, I haven't been playing a lot.
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  Like how do I get on the floor? Oh, you're good, you're good.
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  Just, you know, keep, be patient.
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  You know, you'll, you'll get your time.
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  Now I, what I needed to hear was you need to hit the weight room.
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  All right, You need to, to work harder.
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  You're, you're or you're not good enough, right?
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  You're never going to play. Whatever it was, I needed to
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  hear it. So I determined and and I don't
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  know about you guys, but I, I've learned the most impactful
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  leadership lessons I've learned are from people who didn't do it
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  well. You know, you learn something,
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  you learn things from people who do do it well, but the more
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  impactful ones are the ones that don't, right.
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  So I got that lesson from my coach.
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  I'm not sure he would be happy to hear that, but I did.
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  And so I moved to, I was a, an assistant AD women's basketball
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  coach at what was Philadelphia Biblical University in
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  Langhorne, PA. Then I then I got, I, I moved
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  to, to Florida to become the women's basketball coach there.
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  I told them in, in the interview process, they asked me, do you
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  ever want to be in administration again?
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  I said, absolutely not. I will never be an, an athletic
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  director again. 12 months later, I was the AD at Southeastern
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  University because the AD left in August.
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  And, and so I stepped away from coaching two years later just to
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  do this. And you know, my, my, my tough
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  conversation journey started. It started way back in college.
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  But when I took over at Southeastern, it was, it was
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  just that we had a very, we had a very toxic culture.
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  And so I was everybody's colleague for the first year.
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  And then all of a sudden I'm the AD and those relationships kind
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  of fell off. Well, now he's the boss.
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  Now he's the guy we talked about.
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  I had a lot of a lot to clean up when I took over at Southeastern
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  because of the of the culture. So a lot of it involved these
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  tough conversations is. This Carver, I tell you, you
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  still have to hit the white ground.
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  Yes. We're done.
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  Thanks. Yeah, thanks.
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  So I will add that this that Regan and I are not experts in
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  this. OK, There are there are points
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  at this where I will tell you where I failed, but but it
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  really it really builds on what Kristen was talking about this
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  morning. She talked a little bit about
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  tough conversations and culture and we're really just expounding
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  on that a little bit. So let's go.
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  Let's. Hit it.
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  I love it. All right, so.
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  Yeah, so, so I think what what we want you to think about right
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  now is which emotion is more powerful in your mind and in
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  your heart? The excitement about being a
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  transformational leader who people trust or the fear of not
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  being liked by people. Now I have a personal philosophy
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  that I don't think any good leader, any good leader can be
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  successful if the fear of letting people down is a is a
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  dominating force in their career.
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  All right. So I think this is a very
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  impactful, very impactful subject for us as leaders.
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  Every now and then I have to remind myself that I'm I'm
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  actually not in the business of making friends.
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  Like sometimes it's like, well, if I was in the business making
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  friends again, I'd sell ice cream, right?
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  I'd make everybody happy. But but that's not what it what
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  I'm here to do. I'm here actually to do the top
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  one. And how do you help transform
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  the lives of your coaches, your student athletes, impact your
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  campus, your community? So I think sometimes when we
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  talk about that, we get to mission, vision and values,
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  right? Where do we start?
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  Where do we build these foundations?
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  So for US, college divided athletics, when I first took
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  over, we had a great culture. I was not stepping into a
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  position where it's like, man, there's a lot of clean up, what
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  are we going to do? We've got coaches who have been
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  there for a long time. We still do.
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  But I sat back for about a year and just kind of listened and
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  learned, which is funny because I've been there for a long time.
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  I really wanted to hear coaches. I really wanted to observe kind
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  of from a different lens. And then we did.
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  We went through the process, right, Like let's create our
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  mission statement. So for us, creating impactful
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  leaders in classroom competition, in community and
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  life, right? And then we said, well, how do
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  you actually do that? What does that mean?
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  And so we came up with kind of our formula like this is, and
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  this is I've been fortunate enough to present this to our
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  board because every now and then they put you on the hot seat and
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  you have to defend yourself a little bit, right?
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  So you're going to talk about a tough conversation is the one
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  who's spending all the money, the perception.
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  So we said, hey, look what we're doing though.
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  So our focus to creating our leaders is by academic
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  excellence, commitment, service, community engagement, leadership
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  development. Nowhere in there did I say
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  winning. I didn't say anything about
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  winning. But what we did was when we
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  started this with the coaches and when we got buy in.
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  You've heard a lot about getting buy in.
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  When we got buy in from the coaches on this, all of a sudden
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  retention is better, graduation rates were better.
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  We had less issues on their teams, less problems.
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  We have more academic awards. What did I I don't remember what
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  our number was more academic awards than we've ever had.
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  And then the byproducts that we actually want too.
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  And so when we started this coaches again, it was hard to
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  get them to kind of because we were doing well.
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  But if anybody knows me, man, I love to win.
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  I like come in with us. I, I want to win, but I want to
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  do it the right way. And so getting that buy in,
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  having that conversation headed in, everybody's one-on-one like
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  here's how we're going to do this.
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  And for football, if you have football, that was a hard sell.
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  But what I told them was if you do this right, if you look at
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  that bottom portion of your roster that we all know is not
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  going to play and you get the right students here, as opposed
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  to bringing in 60 kids a year, you can bring in 30.
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  There's perked up a little bit on that one.
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  They've retained. We haven't had the problems.
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  They're graduating their students by the way they're
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  actually went. So Southeastern University
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  athletics, you see our mission statement there.
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  I, I'm not going to read it, but I will say that the, the part of
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  that that says success in life means living with integrity,
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  discipline, maturity and professionalism.
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  If I'm not modelling that to my staff and the student athletes,
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  it's hard to, it's hard to have that as a legitimate part of our
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  mission statement. And so when when I think about
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  tough conversations, you know, I think it's all of that is part
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  of it, you know, because all of us have staff members who were
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  like, man, really wish you would be better at that.
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  But sometimes it's easier to let that go than to address it
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  because it's, they are really tough conversations to have.
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  All right, So we're going to go through three, three main
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  categories here when we're talking about tough
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  conversations. And the most important one for
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  me is honesty and be honest with yourself.
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  Those who can honestly assess themselves, their opinions and
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  their emotions, emotions is probably the most important word
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  in that sentence will be more impactful and just as important,
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  consistent and having tough conversations.
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  OK, so I want you to consider these three questions.
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  Is there any aspect of your decision making process that is
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  influenced by what people think of you?
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  Yes. OK, so yes, is the answer.
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  But to what degree are you influenced, right?
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  Because good leaders listen, right.
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  Good leaders take feedback and they process feedback and they,
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  they tailor decisions sometimes based on what that feedback is.
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  But is the the difference is, are you making decisions because
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  of those people, because you're afraid of those what those
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  people may think or how they will react?
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  Second question, when you see an issue with someone in your
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  department, do you address it directly or let it quote work
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  itself out? End Quote.
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  And I think this is easy for a lot of leaders to do because
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  we're all busy. Like you've got a varying number
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  of sports, you've got a lot going on.
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  And sometimes it's easy to just say, you know what, that that'll
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  work itself out. Like, I don't need, I don't need
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  to address that directly because you know what?
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  There's more important things going on right now which is not
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  true. Yeah, I got a tough lesson I
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  learned this year on this one. I haven't told you this one yet.
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  Oh, actually, I did. I called you.
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  I actually called you. So who gets Anonymous emails?
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  Yeah, I I get them and I don't send them, but I do get them,
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  right. And so I don't pay attention to
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  Anonymous. Put your name on it.
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  Step up. Put your name on it.
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  Then I'll respond. I'm not responding to Anonymous.
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  The mistake I made is I kept Anonymous in my head too.
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  So when I finally had the angry parent barge through my door and
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  he barged through the door, any time somebody is yelling at you
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  and says I'm not threatening you, they're threatening you.
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  So we have this. I listen.
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  I listen. The only acceptable answer is
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  you're firing that coach today. OK, well, that's not going to
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  happen. So.
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  So I listen to the parent. I called my president, Hey, you
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  talk da, da, da, da. The problem is when I met with
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  my coach, I've got this narrative in the back of my head
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  that I've known there's been some things, but nobody's
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  getting any. So I don't I'm not, I'm not
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  addressing it. I've kept HR up to date, like,
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  hey, I send them all these not addressing it, not addressing
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  it. So when I sit down with my
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  coach, he's never heard these things before.
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  That's my, that's my fault. HR is like, well, is this the
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  final straw? No, it's the first straw.
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  I didn't tell about the other two.
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  That's my mistake. So my big last, I called Drew
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  and I'm like, hey, I need some help.
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  I've screwed this up. I've really screwed this up.
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  And I've got a long time coach whose career's on the line who
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  now I've got HR and I've got a present and they're like, well,
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  is it time to move on? No, it's time to get to work.
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  3rd question is what do you do when you have an issue with
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  someone in administration? All right, because it's, it's
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  very, it's tough to have these conversations, but it's easier
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  with subordinates than it is with with supervisors or the
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  president all right So what do you do when that happens?
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  Are you direct but respectful? Do you complain to others or do
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  you push down the frustration and move on?
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  OK, so my theory, and this is this has come to me, you know,
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  developed over the last couple years, is a lot of the tough
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  conversations that that we have to have as athletic directors
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  come because there's people who take jobs in coaching and this
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  is a small college athletic problem.
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  I think so. So I take a job in coaching.
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  I'm like, yeah, I'm a head coach.
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  Let's go. Well, the budgets, I don't care
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  what the budget is. We're going to get this thing
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  done. You know, I don't care what the
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  travel is. We're good.
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  I just want to coach then year 2 and year 3 and year 4 and Year 5
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  and by Year 5, it's a grind. And all of a sudden they start
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  complaining. All of a sudden they start to,
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  to, to grab colleagues and go, what are, what are we doing
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  here? And so my, what I've come to is
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  that we all as leaders have to guard our heart when we enter
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  those situations. And when we start to have
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  frustration, we need to, we need to make sure that we're checking
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  ourselves. OK, let me have the right
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  conversations as I'm frustrated and not let this build up and
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  become resentful. And so when I when I asked this
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  question, I think it's important for us to not become a person
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  who needs to have a tough, tough conversation with us as in our
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  supervisor, our president or vice president, all right,
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  because we haven't handled our frustrations well, all right.
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  So sometimes that is having a tough conversation.
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  Hey, doctor, so and so and I'm frustrated right now.
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  And that's tough because I mean, there are there are so many
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  different types of presidents, so many different like it's been
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  mentioned throughout the last two days, like there's they've
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  got this idiosyncrasy or if they've this is tough to talk to
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  them about this or this is their area of challenger.
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  You know, we all have different challenges with that person
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  leading the university, all right?
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  But it's really important to be honest with those people, all
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  right. So the goal is to affect
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  positive change in a tough conversation.
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  But sometimes the first adjustment is is with the person
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  in the mirror, all right, Because your approach to a tough
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  conversation quite often determines the success and
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  failure rate of that conversation.
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  Effective leadership becomes a leading begins with leading
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  oneself. Have a plan.
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  Have a plan. Know what you want to talk to.
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  Know your points again, go through it with yourself.
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  Go through it with a trusted colleague.
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  We just heard in the last one, like think about what the
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  rebuttals are going to be or this morning when Jen talked
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  about that, like, what are the rebuttals going to be?
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  What are they going to come back at you with?
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  Right. It's not about making me feel
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  better. It's about helping this person
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  one, understand where we're coming from, 2 laying the
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  groundwork, and three, let's, let's set up that plan right,
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  Let's work together. Speak of making yourself feel
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  better. This is what something I did
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  young and when I was young in my career.
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  So I don't know if you've ever done this, but you get you get
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  ticked off at a coach. It's like 8:00 at night.
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  There are nobody's in the office except for you and you're you
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  sit there and you're like, you know what, I'll I'll take care
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  of this. Boom.
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  All right, I feel a lot better. And then the next morning you're
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  like, oh, shoot, you know, I shouldn't have done that.
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  So I I make sure I don't write emails to handle conflict
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  anymore. Or if I do, I don't put AI,
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  don't put an address on it. I just save it, read it, and
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  then I'll delete it the next day because that is never a good way
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  to have a tough conversation via e-mail or text.
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  Yeah, and help your coaches understand that too, right?
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  Tone gets lost in text, right? We've all gotten the hey, can we
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  talk? You're quitting you, you like
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  this is blowing up. I got to find like whatever did
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  I used to tell my student athletes the same thing.
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  Like, hey, coach, we need to talk.
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  It's pertaining to what? Like you can't even say like,
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  hey, I'm probably not returning. I would much rather have that in
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  a moment. And then we will follow up with
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  a conversation versus the, you know, you don't know what's
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  going on and you don't have the time to meet right now.
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  But all that usually happens is somebody's getting fired up on
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  the other end and they're playing that in the absence of
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  information, what happens? Negativity fills that void,
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  right? And so the argument starts to
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  build in my head and I'm geared up.
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  And usually when I sit down with the coach, they're like, oh, no,
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  that's not what I meant. Like, this is what?
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  It's not a big deal, man. I was all ready for that fight.
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  But so helping coaches understand that too.
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  You know, one thing we we haven't talked about this, but I
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  know you're a big Tim Omar guy. I'm a big Tim Omar guy.
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  So new kind of diversity, talking about generations,
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  right? And communicating to different
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  generations. That's been a big learning point
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  for me. And something that we're really
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  trying to help our coaches with too, is I've got a coach, my
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  admin assistant is 22. My oldest coach is my pitching
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  coach is 88. Yeah.
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  Yeah, he's still got it too. So you've got this whole range
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  of people that again, when you're thinking about how do you
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  talk to people, right? I've got to lay this out and
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  know exactly what I want to say because how my 88 year old is
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  going to respond compared to how my 22 year old shouldn't
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  respond, something's very different.
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  And so when you're talking about things and you know you're
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  bringing a tough conversation, carefully assess it for
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  accuracy. Make sure your facts are
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  correct. Don't go off.
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  Again, emotions, right? We all can go off.
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  Fly off the handle. Yes, I am on something that
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  somebody shares with you that might not be 100% truthful.
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  So you always got to get both sides of that.
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  So being in control of your thoughts, being in control of
• 19:54
  your emotions and don't be careless with your words, right?
• 19:57
  Obviously you've learned I'm kind of a smart ass a little
• 20:00
  bit. So I have to temper that back in
• 20:04
  these in these conversations and I have to make sure that I'm
• 20:06
  balancing my personality sometimes with when it's time to
• 20:10
  be serious. And when it's time to to joke
• 20:13
  around, giving genuine feedback, feedback is hard, right?
• 20:19
  I always tell students, like, the hardest thing to do is if
• 20:22
  you really want to know, walk through the door.
• 20:24
  It's the same thing for your coaches.
• 20:26
  If they really want to know the answers, the hardest thing to do
• 20:28
  is walk through the door because you have to be prepared for that
• 20:31
  feedback, right? It's no different than me
• 20:34
  walking into my boss's office when I'm fired up.
• 20:36
  Just like Drew was talking about, I'm fired up.
• 20:38
  I'm ready to talk about something.
• 20:39
  I need to be ready to hear Reagan.
• 20:41
  Here's how you've done it wrong and here's how we can do it
• 20:44
  right. And here's the adjustments we
• 20:46
  can make right, being truthful without giving all the details.
• 20:53
  So again, we all hear there's a lot of noise going on social
• 20:57
  media. There's always noise.
• 21:00
  So making sure that you're discerning the details and what
• 21:04
  you can share. And sometimes student athletes
• 21:07
  will come to you and they're like, hey, I don't want coach to
• 21:08
  know it was me. So now you've got to make sure
• 21:11
  that you're finding that this is truthful.
• 21:13
  Just not one student upset about playing time because it's
• 21:16
  usually playing time, right? So you've got to kind of go
• 21:19
  through your processes to make sure you're getting your
• 21:21
  details. But you can't always tell your
• 21:23
  coach like, well, this kid said that, right?
• 21:26
  Or this information is coming from here.
• 21:29
  And so making sure that you're getting those facts straight.
• 21:33
  And then how do we sit down and say, Hey, we're going to take
• 21:35
  this opportunity and we're going to grow from it, right?
• 21:38
  There's always, there's always a growth opportunity in this and
• 21:41
  there's always a challenge to grow.
• 21:42
  Right now I've, I've given one of my coaches who's going
• 21:45
  through a tough time, given a book, Hey, I want you to read
• 21:48
  this when I get back from vacation, we're going to sit
• 21:50
  down, we're going to talk about this.
• 21:51
  And then I started reading another book on vacation.
• 21:53
  I said, oh, I've got a better one for you.
• 21:54
  When I get back, I'm going to give you this one.
• 21:56
  And then we're going to read that and we're going to talk
• 21:57
  about that, right? So how do I put them in
• 22:00
  positions to be successful? And I can leverage some of these
• 22:03
  things that that are painful and hard to say.
• 22:06
  You're not in alone. I'm never going to leave you
• 22:09
  alone, but I'm going to help you grow through this, right?
• 22:12
  It's not catastrophic. It hurts, they always hurt.
• 22:16
  But how are we going to get through this together?
• 22:18
  And two things I would add there.
• 22:19
  One, I don't think you can get to the last line without the
• 22:22
  first line. If you go into a you go into a
• 22:25
  conversation emotional and just just wanted to get get, you
• 22:30
  know, a vent and get it off your chest.
• 22:33
  All right. I don't think there's a lot of
• 22:35
  leverage there for for growth because you have an approach.
• 22:38
  You haven't from the beginning of that conversation said the
• 22:40
  end goal. This is growth.
• 22:42
  So I need to hit point A point B, Point C to get to where I
• 22:44
  want to be. You just go and just vomit.
• 22:47
  All right. The other thing is you can be
• 22:49
  truthful without giving all details for me means I could be
• 22:54
  really upset with a coach and I'm frustrated, I'm angry and
• 22:59
  I've actually thought, you know what, I think it's time for them
• 23:01
  to go in that in that emotion, but I don't share all that with
• 23:05
  them when I bring them in my office.
• 23:07
  All right, I just say, you know what I was really frustrated by
• 23:09
  by your reaction to this situation or your actions in
• 23:12
  this situation going now it might be useful for some coaches
• 23:15
  to hear. I'm thinking of letting you go.
• 23:16
  All right, but typically not, you know, typically someone
• 23:20
  operating within the insecurity of about to be let go is is
• 23:25
  probably not a healthy situation.
• 23:27
  So I'm going to be truthful with Coach, but I don't have to give
• 23:29
  them all those details of what I was thinking in the in the
• 23:31
  moment. And then lastly, having plans,
• 23:36
  set yourself up for success. Know your audience, right?
• 23:41
  So body language, how do they come in?
• 23:47
  How do they sit down? Everybody's done that where
• 23:50
  where they're legs crossed, we closed, we open.
• 23:54
  And how are you presenting yourself, right?
• 23:58
  That's that's pretty important because there's always things
• 24:02
  that you might not know, right? So you've got to be prepared for
• 24:05
  the man. I didn't know you were going
• 24:07
  through some of these other things.
• 24:08
  We've heard, you know, over the last day and a half talk about
• 24:10
  relationships and knowing your coaches and setting your
• 24:13
  one-on-one times. And I set my one-on-one times
• 24:15
  with my coaches. It's your time with me, not my
• 24:17
  time with them, right? I will ask some questions.
• 24:22
  When I first started doing this, we'd never done this before.
• 24:24
  And every coaching department's like, what did she want?
• 24:27
  What did we do wrong? I think we did nothing wrong.
• 24:30
  This is this is how we're going to start this.
• 24:32
  So when I do have to have this tough conversation, I have the
• 24:35
  relationship that shouldn't come as a surprise.
• 24:39
  We should have laid some groundwork prior to this
• 24:41
  conversation, right? And then the right environment
• 24:47
  are they, you know, they just get back from vacation and
• 24:52
  you're going to hit them? Probably not.
• 24:55
  You also don't want to call him on vacation, right?
• 24:57
  Let him get back, let him get resettled.
• 24:59
  Give him a day, have some conversations, right?
• 25:02
  Say that I'm coming back from vacation.
• 25:03
  There's probably 1 waiting for me, right?
• 25:07
  Way, wrong way mood. Sometimes.
• 25:12
  Sometimes I hit you and sometimes you don't have the
• 25:15
  choice. Yep.
• 25:17
  Well, I had I had a football coach one time.
• 25:19
  Who I was having an issue with because every single thing like
• 25:26
  he, he would complain about everything, little stuff like
• 25:30
  one time he walked in my office and said, hey, did you know
• 25:32
  about the travel grant? And I said, no, I've never heard
• 25:36
  of the travel grant. Well, good.
• 25:39
  He said, good that makes me feel better.
• 25:42
  I'm like, what are you talking about?
• 25:44
  He goes, well, I, I, I figured that the administration was
• 25:47
  keeping from the football program this scholarship that we
• 25:49
  could give our players, like what is wrong with you?
• 25:55
  And so this was the kind of person I'm dealing with.
• 25:57
  So, so one time we had during COVID, we had our first game was
• 26:00
  cancelled. The other team, the other team
• 26:05
  had a COVID issue. And so he's complaining about at
• 26:09
  my office. Did you make sure that Yeah,
• 26:11
  yeah, I, I drove down there and I tested all their players for
• 26:15
  you. So I walk in, so I deal with him
• 26:20
  that day and I walk in, I'm standing in the back of the team
• 26:22
  meeting and he's he stands down there and he says, guys,
• 26:29
  adversity happens. It's our job to stare it in the
• 26:33
  face and to get over it. Don't complain.
• 26:37
  I mean, he completely, completely described it.
• 26:40
  Somebody he has not or was not. So I'm like, I got to talk to
• 26:46
  him about this because it was really frustrating to me because
• 26:48
  he's he calls me. He's he's one of those coaches.
• 26:50
  Do you ever have a coach where your phone rings?
• 26:52
  You're like, oh, no, I don't really have an hour to deal with
• 26:59
  this. All right, So I get him in my
• 27:02
  office and this this goes under, you know, know your audience.
• 27:05
  I get him in the office and I'm like, Hey, coach, you know,
• 27:10
  really great message. You delivered the team about
• 27:12
  this cancelled game. I really appreciated the way you
• 27:15
  you handled that for the in front of the team.
• 27:19
  However, I need to talk to you about something.
• 27:22
  Well, what's that? I don't think you practice what
• 27:27
  you preach. I think that you're, you're
• 27:30
  giving a message to your team that you don't do.
• 27:33
  You don't approach me that way. You don't approach people in
• 27:36
  this university that way. And I wish you would listen to
• 27:40
  what you're saying to them and act accordingly.
• 27:44
  Now, I would have loved him to say, you know what, you're
• 27:46
  right, you're right. I need to, I need to address
• 27:49
  that. I need to change that.
• 27:51
  But what he said was. Oh.
• 27:55
  OK, well, I'll just stop sharing my frustrations with you because
• 27:59
  you're the only person that I think I can trust with them.
• 28:02
  Like, oh, so you're going to turn it around like now you
• 28:04
  can't trust me with your frustrations like that?
• 28:07
  Like it was, it was a train wreck of a conversation, right?
• 28:11
  But what my point is, is that I should have known what I was
• 28:14
  walking into because of how I've, how he had, how he had
• 28:18
  conducted himself for the months ahead of that conversation.
• 28:22
  And I didn't all right. I was almost, I was almost
• 28:26
  surprised by his reaction. And I shouldn't have been
• 28:28
  surprised at all. I should have anticipated it
• 28:31
  and, and planned for my response to that reaction.
• 28:34
  Yep. Go back.
• 28:42
  All right, don't change it up. That's the Third Point.
• 28:46
  You need to be consistent in your messaging.
• 28:48
  So, and that's part of having a having a game plan.
• 28:51
  OK, So if my, if my first conversation with a coach was
• 28:55
  was whatever you fill in the blank.
• 28:57
  Subsequent conversations are built on the foundation of the
• 29:00
  first one. You don't change it up in the
• 29:01
  second one. So they leave the office and go,
• 29:04
  what the heck, Like it was this the first time, It's just the
• 29:06
  second time they're not even related.
• 29:09
  So, so it's important to stick to the plan.
• 29:11
  Don't go off the cuff again, that, that emotional, that, that
• 29:14
  emotion, the word emotion. I mean, it is, it is so vital in
• 29:18
  this, in these conversations to have control over your emotions
• 29:22
  because quite often the people you're talking to will not.
• 29:26
  So you've got to be the person in the room who has control.
• 29:29
  Your approach will be different for different people, but be
• 29:31
  consistent in how you communicate with your staff.
• 29:34
  All right. I've always told coaches, I'm
• 29:37
  sure you guys do too. Great coaches.
• 29:40
  Coach every player the way they need to be coached.
• 29:43
  Figure out how player A needs to be motivated and motivate them
• 29:46
  that way. Player B is different, motivate
• 29:48
  them that way. I had AI had a player come to me
• 29:51
  one time and said say that she's trying to have a tough
• 29:53
  conversation with me, which I respect and said she said,
• 29:57
  coach, I feel like you never yell at Sarah, but you always
• 29:59
  yell at me. I think you play favourites now.
• 30:02
  A lot of them say that, but rarely do they have the courage
• 30:05
  to come actually say that to you, which I really respect it.
• 30:08
  And I said, Erica, let me, let me ask you 2 questions and I
• 30:11
  think you'll understand. Number one, what happens when I
• 30:14
  yell at you? Oh, coach, it motivates me.
• 30:20
  I get fired up. I want to go out there and tear
• 30:22
  somebody up. I love that.
• 30:25
  What happens when I yell at Sarah?
• 30:27
  What happens if I yelled at Sarah?
• 30:29
  Oh, coach, she'd cry, she'd lose it.
• 30:32
  She wouldn't even be. And, and I just sat there and
• 30:34
  waited for a reaction. She goes, oh, thanks, coach, and
• 30:39
  she left. All right.
• 30:40
  So, so make sure that your approach in these situations is
• 30:45
  similar, that you know, you know who you're dealing with.
• 30:49
  All right. Now I will say, I will say this
• 30:52
  is 1. The last bullet point is one
• 30:53
  that I've learned acutely in the last three years.
• 30:57
  Be honest with everyone, not just those you tend to
• 31:00
  communicate better with while avoiding those who are more
• 31:02
  difficult. This is huge.
• 31:06
  There is someone on your staff you can think of right now that
• 31:09
  is harder to have a difficult conversation with than somebody
• 31:12
  else on your staff. It's a really like tough
• 31:16
  personality. You know, you're going to get
• 31:19
  pushed back where others will be like, oh, yeah.
• 31:21
  Thanks, Drew. Appreciate the feedback.
• 31:23
  I'll work on that. And others are just going to
• 31:26
  push back all day long. So I had, I had a situation
• 31:28
  where there was, I had a person like this on my staff and I just
• 31:32
  kept, I just kept waiting for it to get better and I didn't
• 31:36
  address it. Now I didn't realize till it
• 31:38
  blew up later that I had actually contributed to the
• 31:40
  situation because I didn't address it early on.
• 31:44
  All right. So it's important to make sure
• 31:46
  that you're having tough conversations with everybody in
• 31:50
  the department who needs to have a tough conversation, who needs
• 31:52
  to hear that, not just the people that it's easier to talk
• 31:55
  with those things about I'd. Talk about how I did this all
• 31:59
  wrong if you'd like to hear that story.
• 32:01
  Sure. Go ahead.
• 32:02
  Yeah. OK, so I had a plan.
• 32:05
  The plan had started months earlier about dismissing a
• 32:11
  coach. I had to sit on it.
• 32:17
  It was uncomfortable. This person was one of my best
• 32:21
  friends for 20 years. I took the job knowing that this
• 32:25
  was going to be a real possibility, that this was not
• 32:27
  going to work out. So set me up for months, five
• 32:32
  months, I had to sit on this. My we got a new president and he
• 32:36
  said, what are you going to do? And I said, well, you know,
• 32:40
  we've got a performance plan. And he goes, no, you're not
• 32:42
  hearing me. What are you going to do?
• 32:44
  I said, OK, I hear you. So the plan was to we're going
• 32:49
  to make it through the season. I did not communicate this with
• 32:52
  the coach. Obviously I was like, OK, we're
• 32:55
  like, so I was, I was pretty hell bent on making sure they
• 32:57
  made it like I'm going to do everything I can and we're going
• 33:00
  to make this coach good. Well, in January, we were down
• 33:06
  in a lobby talking about something dumb that we always
• 33:10
  talked about. We, you know, we're laughing,
• 33:14
  having a good time. He was about to head down to
• 33:16
  practice, women's basketball coach.
• 33:18
  And he looks at me and he says, you know, Reagan, I know you're
• 33:22
  not happy with where the program is, but I'm going to make some
• 33:25
  changes. This is January, so let me stop
• 33:33
  you right there. So I've been working with the
• 33:37
  president and we've been talking about this, and we're going to
• 33:41
  make a change at the end of the season.
• 33:44
  I start crying, he starts crying.
• 33:49
  I said you got a decision to make.
• 33:54
  You can tell me # sand I'm out the door.
• 33:57
  In which case I'll step in and I'll finish the season or you
• 34:00
  can finish the season out and you can announce at the end that
• 34:02
  you're you're moving on. You can retire.
• 34:06
  You can however you want to do it.
• 34:08
  I'll let you go out gracefully. Don't go downstairs and tell
• 34:11
  your kids right now. Go home and talk with your wife.
• 34:15
  We'll meet tomorrow morning. Tell me how this and we'll we'll
• 34:19
  figure out the path for the end of the year.
• 34:22
  Well, he went downstairs. He said, well, apparently I'm
• 34:25
  not going to be your coach at the end of the year.
• 34:27
  Practice is cancelled. And he walked out the door.
• 34:35
  I had to go off the cuff. I wasn't going to lie to him.
• 34:40
  I wasn't going to dangle the carrot like, oh, yes, I think
• 34:42
  you can do this, You're the best.
• 34:43
  It's going to be OK, Can do it, can do it.
• 34:49
  Wasn't going to lie to him. And so then the next day, again,
• 34:54
  because our department is is the family, we're very close.
• 34:57
  I know he had called everybody that night.
• 34:59
  So and I had to go door to door and talk to everybody.
• 35:02
  Like, hey, I know you, you talk with them.
• 35:04
  Like, are you OK? Is there there anything I can
• 35:07
  do? Can I answer any questions for
• 35:09
  you? Like, to the best of my ability,
• 35:11
  Again, personal issues. So I can't really talk about
• 35:13
  things. And some of my seasoned veterans
• 35:16
  who had been there as long as he had said, well, it's about time
• 35:22
  to that time somebody hold them account and say the same
• 35:24
  accountability structure the rest of us were held.
• 35:28
  So Reagan and I have disagreed on this situation and where we
• 35:32
  disagree is under the point of you can be honest with someone
• 35:35
  without giving them all the details.
• 35:37
  OK, so I think you were in a tough position because he's your
• 35:40
  friend. But I've had a similar thing
• 35:44
  happen and would I would not have said what she said.
• 35:48
  So I I would have said, I would have said, I would have listened
• 35:52
  and just said, yeah, coach, you know, we'll take a look at
• 35:56
  things at the end of the season and let him go to practice and
• 35:59
  continue on. OK.
• 36:01
  So, so I think it's a that's a good example for you all to
• 36:05
  think, OK, what would I do in that situation?
• 36:08
  All right, Because I don't think either one of them would have
• 36:10
  been wrong. All right.
• 36:12
  Now if you look back and you say maybe I go about it, watch this.
• 36:18
  PowerPoint. Before that, I might have had
• 36:19
  some steps in front of me where I could and not screw it up, but
• 36:23
  here we are. This is why I get to tell the
• 36:25
  stories. Here's how not to do things.
• 36:28
  Yeah. So I mean, it's it and and I
• 36:31
  think it's important for, for you to remember, for all of us
• 36:33
  to remember. If you, if you try and handle a
• 36:35
  difficult conversation and it goes South, it's it's a learning
• 36:39
  opportunity for you as well. It's not, oh, I better stop
• 36:42
  having tough conversations. Just make notes, grow from it,
• 36:45
  and move on. Good old coach Wooden, right?
• 36:51
  Treat them all equal, but you can't treat them all fairly or
• 36:55
  yeah, don't treat them all equal.
• 36:57
  So at the end of the day, I can't hold my swim coach to the
• 37:01
  same standard that I'm holding my football coach right now.
• 37:05
  They all have to recruit, They all have to fundraise, right?
• 37:11
  They all have to do community service.
• 37:12
  So they're non negotiables. But I'm not telling my swim
• 37:17
  coach you've got to raise $100,000 like I'm telling a
• 37:23
  basketball coach. I told my swim coach that she'd
• 37:27
  probably jump in the pool with about 50 lbs of weights and I'd
• 37:30
  begin with that. But again, it's, it's different
• 37:35
  for every sport. Again, we talked earlier like
• 37:37
  you have your, your marquee sports and then you have my next
• 37:39
  ones. But again, when, when we had
• 37:41
  this conversation about like, how do you make sure that
• 37:44
  everybody is on the same level? Well, they can't be on the same
• 37:46
  level. It's not going to happen because
• 37:48
  even Austin had this great conversation with our basketball
• 37:52
  coach last year and says, oh, you'll never be footballing
• 37:55
  fundraising. The gauntlet was thrown and he's
• 37:57
  going after it, right. They're not the same.
• 38:02
  There's no way just based on ticket sales alone, one can hold
• 38:07
  a lot more than the other. We're averaging 3500 for
• 38:11
  football. We're averaging 1500 for
• 38:13
  basketball. And you have a beer garden at
• 38:15
  the football stadium. We do have a beer garden pretty
• 38:18
  good too. I've never been in it.
• 38:21
  I just watch from afar and police it.
• 38:25
  But so, so again, I I can have that conversation.
• 38:28
  I do it. My one on ones.
• 38:31
  It's got to be consistent across board.
• 38:33
  So like I said, when I go door to door and I have that
• 38:36
  conversation that I had to have after we let the coach go.
• 38:38
  Well, yeah, this person had never been held to the same
• 38:41
  standard and they coached 2 marquee sports in their time
• 38:43
  there. He was a men's basketball coach,
• 38:45
  then he was a women's basketball coach and you've got other
• 38:48
  programs that are outperforming not just in competition, but in
• 38:53
  fundraising and in recruiting and in all the facets.
• 38:58
  So again, you can communicate at all.
• 39:01
  But again, I've got, you've got part time coaches that you
• 39:03
  certainly can't hold the same standard that you hold your,
• 39:05
  your full time coach to. Doesn't mean you don't have to
• 39:07
  recruit, doesn't mean you don't have to fundraise.
• 39:09
  I know you make $15,000 and this person's making $60,000 doesn't
• 39:13
  mean we don't have to do our jobs.
• 39:16
  It means that I get to get a little bit of grace for each
• 39:19
  program. All right, so we're just going
• 39:23
  to go through the objectives of honest communication.
• 39:27
  The 1st is improve relationships.
• 39:29
  So you're going to resolve, resolve a wrong.
• 39:31
  I offended you, you offended me. We won't we, we joke that we
• 39:36
  might develop like a, a marriage and family version of this
• 39:40
  session, but and then develop trust.
• 39:43
  I've found that it's, it's incredibly helpful and
• 39:47
  productive for a, for a coach to to go through something like
• 39:53
  this with me and to know that when they leave the office, like
• 39:55
  man, that was hard to hear, but he was honest with me.
• 39:59
  Like he's really invested in my growth and it so it develops
• 40:02
  trust. 2 It sets set and maintain your culture like we
• 40:07
  heard this morning. It sets clear and consistent
• 40:10
  expectations. I heard recently of a, of a
• 40:12
  leader who went when there's, when there's someone in their
• 40:15
  organization who, who doesn't operate consistent with their
• 40:18
  culture. It's just a simple conversation.
• 40:20
  Hey, we don't do that here. Like this is, this is, this is
• 40:23
  not something that we, that we do in our organization.
• 40:26
  And then you build trust through fairness and honesty.
• 40:30
  You know, I, I just feel it's very important that people leave
• 40:33
  your office and know you are truthful with them, no matter if
• 40:35
  it's a hard conversation or not. If they come in and say they
• 40:38
  say, hey, I, I want to build $100,000 batting cage, a
• 40:41
  batting, batting cage cover over the over the facility.
• 40:45
  Coach, that isn't going to happen.
• 40:47
  We don't have the budget for that.
• 40:48
  How? But how can we get there instead
• 40:50
  of going, yeah, keep, yeah, keep, keep plugging away at that
• 40:53
  coach. But I'm thinking like, no,
• 40:55
  that's that there's some things we have to do before that
• 40:57
  happens. Three, it modifies behaviour,
• 41:00
  perspective or situation. You can actually use a tough
• 41:03
  conversation to motivate because we all have blind spots in our
• 41:07
  leadership. And when someone who cares about
• 41:10
  us lovingly points that out or even not loving, like just just
• 41:14
  hit you, like, man, you got to get better at this.
• 41:18
  You know, it's hard to hear at first, but but it eventually
• 41:21
  turns to man, that's great to know.
• 41:23
  No one's ever told me that before.
• 41:25
  And there's been conversations I've had where in the moment the
• 41:28
  coach would go. No, I don't agree with you.
• 41:30
  I don't. OK.
• 41:32
  I just want you to think. Just think through it.
• 41:33
  Think about what I said and this particular coach, I'm thinking
• 41:36
  of it, it was like I was, I would look second day.
• 41:41
  Yep, he'll be in this afternoon. And like clockwork, Hey, I was
• 41:44
  thinking about what you said on Friday and I think you're right.
• 41:49
  I think I need to work on that. So sometimes people need to
• 41:51
  process. And so that's where blind spot
• 41:54
  mitigation comes in. All right, finally, the results
• 41:58
  of honest communication. You want to roll with this one.
• 42:02
  Yeah, they might not agree, but again, they'll know that you
• 42:07
  respecting them, that you care about them as long as you're
• 42:11
  truthful. I used to tell my little kid, my
• 42:14
  kids when we were growing up, we can deal with anything as long
• 42:16
  as the truth, right? Sometimes you forget the things
• 42:19
  that you learn in kindergarten. And I can deal with anything as
• 42:22
  long as the truth. And then you're united in the
• 42:25
  path moving forward, right? Hopefully.
• 42:29
  But again, if you do that, you're going to show respect and
• 42:33
  you'll gain the respect, right? I think one of the harder
• 42:37
  lessons that I had to learn again, it was kind of it, it's
• 42:41
  OK. I mean, where's the guy from
• 42:45
  Adrian who said they've got 50 some sports, like dude, So we,
• 42:50
  we looked it up. I was like, like, we have some
• 42:54
  sports that I don't necessarily care to go watch.
• 42:57
  I can't, I don't understand it. I don't know, I can't even look
• 43:00
  at your website. And like half of those I'm like,
• 43:03
  is this so good for you? But but it's OK to not know,
• 43:09
  right? That's what I'm saying.
• 43:10
  Like it's OK, but but I don't necessarily know a lot about
• 43:15
  lacrosse. I'm trying to learn the cross.
• 43:17
  I still don't get it. It's OK.
• 43:21
  It's OK to tell your coaches you don't have the answer.
• 43:24
  But I'm committed to finding out.
• 43:26
  And let's find out together, right?
• 43:29
  So if if you've got that relationship, you get to have
• 43:31
  that, that conversation, you get to be vulnerable.
• 43:34
  I find a lot of times if you can be vulnerable with your people
• 43:37
  and you can be honest with them, then those conversations go a
• 43:42
  little bit better because they, again, you and I have coached
• 43:45
  like it's, I will never ask my coach to do something I haven't
• 43:48
  done. I will be in the trenches with
• 43:50
  you. Oh, we'd eat with you, yes.
• 43:53
  Yeah. Thank you.
• 43:54
  Yeah. Well, and I, and I think
• 43:56
  vulnerability is important because any, especially if, if,
• 44:00
  if you have trying to have a tough conversation, it goes S it
• 44:02
  may be something that you didn't prepare for and to follow up
• 44:06
  with that person and go, hey, man, I didn't, I didn't approach
• 44:08
  that right. I didn't set you up for success
• 44:10
  in that conversation. One of the examples that I would
• 44:13
  have is is our coaches are are famous for how should I put it,
• 44:22
  Brittany? How should I put it?
• 44:23
  They, they, they, what they do is they Brittany?
• 44:26
  What are? They famous for they're they're
• 44:27
  passionate about their program, OK, but but they don't think
• 44:32
  they should have to do the the the auxiliary things.
• 44:35
  OK, So if the corner of of the soccer field per SE is all all
• 44:39
  trashed up and it's got it's got some some crap in the corner
• 44:43
  that needs to be addressed. Brittany, who do I call about
• 44:47
  that? Well, who do you call?
• 44:49
  Like we're Southeastern University, it's not Duke.
• 44:52
  Like we don't have a whole department to, to, you know, to
• 44:55
  clean this stuff up. So, so who do you call?
• 44:58
  You call you, you make a call to yourself and you get over there,
• 45:01
  you clean it up and you make the question is, where do I put this
• 45:04
  stuff? Not who cleans it up for me.
• 45:08
  And I never understood that. It really frustrated me.
• 45:10
  And so one afternoon I was, we were preparing for our first
• 45:14
  football game, you know, in Florida in late August.
• 45:16
  It's like 160° all right, And I, but, but as I walked around that
• 45:21
  week in in preparation, I noticed there were a, a lot of
• 45:24
  Hornets flying around the facility because nobody had
• 45:27
  addressed that. And B, there was there were
• 45:30
  weeds growing up between the cracks on the sidewalk and we
• 45:33
  have a grass berm on the South end of our field.
• 45:35
  The the grass was long. It was growing over all right.
• 45:39
  So I'm like, OK, I'm going to bring a blower and a weed eater
• 45:41
  to work on Saturday. I'm going to come early.
• 45:43
  I'm going to take care of it. Well, Friday, Friday we took
• 45:45
  care of the hornet's nest. We, we just drove around on the
• 45:49
  golf cart and, you know, climb these, climb the stairs and the
• 45:53
  scaffolding and just kind of, you know, it was, it was
• 45:55
  probably dangerous. I'm telling HR.
• 45:59
  The next day, the next day I had my weed eater out and I'm
• 46:03
  walking around the stadium. It is hot and I got mad.
• 46:09
  So my self talk is going this isn't my job, this is facility's
• 46:13
  job and it is facility's job. They are supposed to care for
• 46:16
  the stadium. But it hit me as my self talk
• 46:20
  wasn't very healthy that day. This is what the coaches feel
• 46:27
  like. They feel like I'm working my
• 46:28
  tail off to coach soccer. I shouldn't have to worry about
• 46:32
  the crap in the corner. And So what what that gave me
• 46:36
  was the opportunity, the next head coaches meeting to say, hey
• 46:38
  guys, let me tell you a story. So I told him the story I just
• 46:42
  told you and I said I understand what you're saying now.
• 46:47
  I understand how you feel. However, why was I out there?
• 46:53
  Because I'm passionate about this experience of our fans at
• 46:56
  football. And why do they care about the
• 46:58
  crap in the corner? Because they're passionate about
• 47:01
  their facility. We hire coaches because they're
• 47:04
  supposed to be #1 on the list of passion for their sport.
• 47:09
  And So what that means is sometimes we got to jump into,
• 47:11
  to areas we don't want to jump into.
• 47:14
  All right. But it's, it was really
• 47:15
  important for me to that, that day to tell that story and go,
• 47:17
  man, I feel you. Because I was really mad on
• 47:20
  Saturday. Like I wanted to call like, who
• 47:24
  do I call about this? I'm out here weed eating, you
• 47:26
  know, but but that wasn't the right approach.
• 47:28
  So vulnerability is really important because they if they
• 47:31
  know that you're being honest and vulnerable with them, they
• 47:35
  will be the same with you, if not immediately eventually I
• 47:37
  think. One of the other things is when
• 47:40
  when I have those problems, I call Austin.
• 47:42
  So first of all, he's laughing because he knows that's right.
• 47:46
  But we kind of ran into a similar situation with
• 47:49
  basketball this year. So we our facilities crew, we
• 47:52
  play Friday nights, Saturday afternoons.
• 47:54
  And so we got not a lot of time to turn the facility around,
• 47:57
  right? Facility says, hey, we can't
• 47:59
  cover your Saturdays anymore. We can either cover during the
• 48:03
  games, but we cannot clean the facility.
• 48:07
  And so he and I talked were like, again, we've got we all
• 48:11
  work long days and nights and like, I don't want to be there.
• 48:14
  My men's basketball coach says, coach, don't worry about it.
• 48:16
  We got it. We got national championship
• 48:19
  team. They clean the bleachers every
• 48:22
  Saturday morning. Guys go up, they do it.
• 48:25
  No done because he also wants the best facility and the best
• 48:29
  experience for his team. So once you start to establish
• 48:32
  those relationships, I think six years ago he would not have said
• 48:35
  that. But it's not my responsibility.
• 48:39
  Get it done, and now he wants what we want.
• 48:48
  All right, so another result is improved behaviour, perspective
• 48:51
  and engagement from your team if they they are aware of their
• 48:55
  issues. Hopefully you've got a staff who
• 48:57
  wants to work on those issues and this results of honest
• 49:01
  communication are that all right, your best people will
• 49:04
  rise to the occasion. All right, there's a dot dot dot
• 49:07
  there because the other side of that is you will find out very
• 49:11
  quickly the people who will not. And then you, you put them on a
• 49:15
  performance improvement plan or do do whatever you need to do.
• 49:18
  But the results of that tough conversation sometimes show you
• 49:21
  who's going to eventually need to go and who who is going to
• 49:26
  step up. Sometimes it's just easier to be
• 49:30
  kind than nice. The kind thing is to have the
• 49:34
  conversation. The kind of thing is to let them
• 49:38
  know what's going on, to be honest, to be truthful.
• 49:42
  It's not always nice, but it is kind because then everybody gets
• 49:46
  to make decisions with the same information and whether or not
• 49:50
  you're going to start, you're going to row the boat the same
• 49:53
  way, or if you're going to continue to row opposite because
• 49:57
  that doesn't work. So sometimes the kind thing is
• 50:00
  to have the hard conversation. And then, and if you think about
• 50:03
  kindness this way, if somebody's in a healthy spot, if they're
• 50:07
  exhibiting unhealthy behaviour, they don't want to be.
• 50:11
  And so if, if after like 6 years, I have a tough
• 50:14
  conversation with a coach who struggled with something for
• 50:16
  five of those years, like the answer is probably going to be
• 50:19
  why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me five
• 50:23
  years ago? You know, And so, so kindness,
• 50:25
  like I'm going to, I'm being kind by telling you.
• 50:27
  Now that's not an excuse, but it is, it is kind to to be honest
• 50:31
  with people. So end result of of tough
• 50:35
  conversation should be transformation.
• 50:38
  And and sometimes, you know, I think a transformation like
• 50:41
  transforming the people we're talking to, but but just as just
• 50:45
  as much, you're transforming yourself and challenging
• 50:48
  yourself to have these tough conversations.
• 50:51
  I brought up a president before you know, it's tough to talk to
• 50:54
  presidents sometimes honestly, because you're afraid for your
• 50:58
  job. And I'll give you an example of
• 51:00
  a guy at Southeastern. He was, he was chief of staff
• 51:05
  of, of the president's office and he was, he was in a
• 51:09
  situation where he was, he, he couldn't be forthright with the
• 51:11
  president. Well, he decides with his wife,
• 51:14
  they're going to take another job.
• 51:15
  They're thinking about taking another job.
• 51:16
  So all of a sudden he didn't give a RIP.
• 51:18
  All right, They're sitting in a leadership meeting and he
• 51:22
  decides he's just going to speak his mind.
• 51:25
  And he did. And guess what?
• 51:28
  He got promoted to a vice president literally because the
• 51:32
  president goes. I don't have anyone on my staff
• 51:34
  who tells me the truth like you do.
• 51:36
  You got a promotion All right, so that's one example.
• 51:40
  Might not work out the same for me.
• 51:42
  If I walked in I'll. Miss you most?
• 51:45
  Yeah. So I, I would say our challenge
• 51:50
  to you is this if think about is there someone in your experience
• 51:54
  of your life you need to have a tough conversation with?
• 51:59
  I would say for most of you the answer is yes.
• 52:03
  I think maybe first evaluate why you're why are you putting that
• 52:07
  off, but then start the game plan of how you're going to take
• 52:12
  care of it. Yeah, nobody likes
• 52:14
  confrontation, right? But the way that you're feeling,
• 52:18
  right, there's only one way to lift the weight.
• 52:22
  Walk through the door, right? You got to walk through the
• 52:24
  door. Questions.
• 52:32
  We can't be that good. Maybe talk about what you're
• 52:39
  having and the tough conversations of and how you get
• 52:42
  to that you're. Having to move to the president
• 52:46
  or whoever you want to take this one.
• 52:47
  Sure. We can both, yeah, we can both
• 52:49
  do this. Hopefully it's not a surprise to
• 52:52
  them, right. Sometimes when so I did have a
• 52:57
  president a couple years ago that, you know, students were
• 53:01
  just jumping straight over me to him and I was like, what do you
• 53:06
  need me for then? And and so I, I kind of kind of
• 53:10
  feisty. I said, is there not a chain of
• 53:12
  command that I should be worried about here?
• 53:14
  Like if, if every student that's upset and literally it was a
• 53:17
  playing time issue, jumps over me, goes to the president, bad
• 53:23
  mouths a coach. But at the end of the day, this
• 53:25
  I'm here to tell you the student athlete was not good and had had
• 53:30
  problems at her high school, which the parents called me
• 53:33
  about. I said, tell me about before I
• 53:34
  got here. I was like, oh, I don't know if
• 53:36
  I would do this jumps right over me.
• 53:39
  And and so I so I said the president.
• 53:41
  I said, so is there not a chain of command?
• 53:42
  He goes, no, any kid can come to me with their concerns and I
• 53:45
  will address them. So well, then I need to let my
• 53:47
  coaches know that because that's a game changer.
• 53:52
  I said, because if any student, and again, we've got 575 who's
• 53:58
  going to be upset, gets an audience with you and doesn't
• 54:00
  have to go through a process, doesn't ever have to communicate
• 54:02
  with their coach, doesn't ever have to communicate with either
• 54:05
  an assistant AD or an AD. And we can, we can talk through
• 54:08
  the process and what they've done.
• 54:10
  Then we then we need to talk about that.
• 54:13
  He said, well, not, not that. And I don't mean that.
• 54:15
  So that's exactly what you mean. And so sometimes it's, it's
• 54:19
  helping them understand what your role is too.
• 54:23
  Like, this is literally what my job is, is to help navigate
• 54:26
  these things, right? It's to help student athletes.
• 54:30
  I was just telling Kristen who presented yesterday, I said, you
• 54:34
  know, one of the conversations I have with recruits and their
• 54:37
  parents, growth happens when you're comfortable.
• 54:43
  If we're doing our job right, your child will not always like
• 54:46
  us. They should not because we're
• 54:49
  growing them. We're challenging them or making
• 54:51
  them think. We're making them do things
• 54:53
  they've never done before. And they are going to call you
• 54:55
  and they're going to tell you, I don't like this.
• 54:58
  And they're going to go on their whatever they've got.
• 55:02
  Your job as a parent is to listen, love, kick him back to
• 55:07
  us and tell him, hey, she said that's going to happen.
• 55:11
  And so I shared it with my president.
• 55:13
  Like, look, this is the process. If the student wants to get
• 55:16
  better, then I will help the student get better.
• 55:19
  But they can't just jump over me and expect we're going to fire a
• 55:21
  coach because this kid is 16th, 16th on our roster.
• 55:26
  And so, so sometimes we have to educate them.
• 55:28
  I'm like, here's the process of what we've told them.
• 55:30
  Here's what we've communicated with the parents during the
• 55:32
  recruiting process. Here's how we follow up with
• 55:34
  that, right? Here's our mission.
• 55:36
  Here's how we live into. It yeah, I would say get to know
• 55:45
  what would be most effective with the president or vice
• 55:48
  president and the way you do that.
• 55:50
  And the way I've done that is I try and get to know the people
• 55:52
  around him. And so if I have an issue, I'll
• 55:55
  call one of them and say, hey, how would you deal with this?
• 55:58
  This is really frustrating. And I and I every time I ask the
• 56:02
  question, I get good wisdom. Now I still have to make the
• 56:05
  decision to, to address it, but but it's, I think it's really
• 56:10
  important that you that you build relationships at that
• 56:13
  level so that you can you you have wisdom around you.
• 56:17
  So, and I think the other thing that's important is, is having
• 56:20
  someone in your life that will have a tough conversation with
• 56:22
  you because you may be all ticked off, you may not be in a
• 56:26
  healthy place and you're ready to burn the house down.
• 56:29
  I need to talk to the president. And this person, if you've got
• 56:32
  someone in your life will go, hey, Drew, you probably don't
• 56:37
  want to do that. Let's sleep on it.
• 56:39
  We'll talk tomorrow. And then it kind of it, it might
• 56:42
  dissipate, it might not. But the way I'm going to handle
• 56:44
  it would not be to burn the house down.
• 56:45
  It would be to to address it strategically with a plan.
• 56:49
  But that's hard. I think that's the toughest
• 56:51
  question. Like how do you address your
• 56:52
  boss? So you guys use this framework
• 56:56
  in, in your annual reviews as well.
• 57:00
  I had the pleasure of having the most uncomfortable conversation
• 57:04
  I've ever had in my life last year after having the best year
• 57:08
  I've ever had in my life as a fundraiser because I'm
• 57:12
  aggressively helpful. And so my, my president in my
• 57:17
  annual review said natural, aggressively helpful.
• 57:19
  Everybody doesn't love that. Let's discuss.
• 57:22
  First time ever I've had a boss tell me that I'm a little
• 57:29
  aggressive and so I wish I had known that like 25 years.
• 57:31
  How do? You how?
• 57:33
  Do you guys approach those kind of things?
• 57:35
  Do you use that framework within that context trying to cut
• 57:38
  things off? I think it always for me, it
• 57:42
  depends on what our culture is. If those like I'm, I'm sure
• 57:47
  there's not a piece in your culture there that says helpful
• 57:50
  or not helpful, overly helpful, not helpful at all.
• 57:52
  Like there's no scale. So you didn't know about it, but
• 57:55
  it, but if it's, if it affects our culture, that's, that's when
• 57:59
  I address it. So hey, you're, you know, you're
• 58:02
  not I, I stress all the time gratitude.
• 58:06
  So I would use it. If, if it's something that I
• 58:08
  stress one of our core values and they're not living up to it,
• 58:10
  that's when I would address it. You know, I think you, you used
• 58:14
  in your presentation today a couple times.
• 58:17
  We serve at the pleasure of the president and that's hard
• 58:20
  because he's asking you to be someone you're not.
• 58:23
  And so I, I think we all have this, we have, we come to
• 58:25
  junctures and I'm, you know, I don't want to, I, I'm just
• 58:28
  saying like you either adjust all of us or you say, man, this
• 58:33
  might, might, might not be the place for me because I, I like
• 58:35
  to be overly helpful, you know, And so I, for me, it, it just
• 58:39
  depends on, on relation to our culture.
• 58:43
  You know, we, we have 15 head coaches and you know, some are,
• 58:48
  you know, it was Brittany I were talking about the other day one
• 58:50
  one of them. And this, this isn't always my
• 58:53
  style. He, he just needs, a, needs a
• 58:55
  pat on the head right now. And then, Hey, you're doing a
• 58:57
  good job. And others of them, you know, if
• 59:00
  I did that, they'd be like, what's wrong?
• 59:02
  Like he, like I must be in trouble, you know.
• 59:05
  And so it's just, it just gets back to to that, to that factor.
• 59:14
  All right. Thanks, everybody.
• 59:16
  Appreciate it. Thank you.
• 59:19
  Good work. Let's work.