Latest / The Strength In Numbers Podcast / EP 15: Kyle Stark | Building a Development-Driven Culture (That Still Wins)

Transcript

EP 15: Kyle Stark | Building a Development-Driven Culture (That Still Wins) · The Strength In Numbers Podcast

• 0:00
  I'm going to define character as the very things that we believe
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  are are mission critical. They're things that lead to
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  winning, that increase our odds of winning.
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  I believe that you have to define character in such a way
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  that we see it as the ultimate performance enhancer.
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  The vast majority of us are spending way more time thinking
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  about ideas and tasks and what we need to do as opposed to
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  really starting from a place of know who do we want to be.
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  Now let's Orient everything around that.
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  If the time frame is we have to win sooner rather than later,
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  well, I'm looking for athletes that can be developed to reach
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  that within a year as opposed to three to four years.
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  So it shifts not what matters most to me.
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  It just shifts how far in that development timeline that
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  individual athlete is. Our group can impact, that can
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  impact, that can impact that. It's like we shouldn't be
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  selecting for that. We should be selecting for the
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  things that we've deemed very important but are going to be
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  harder for us to influence. Really what I'm doing is I'm
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  replicating myself. So I need to be really
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  intentional about what am I replicated.
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  And the only way that we can do that is if I know who I am, who
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  I want to be, and consistently commit to being that person.
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  If I'm looking at a player expecting them to change, that's
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  probably not going to happen. But I do think we can impact
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  them. I do think we can grow.
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  Welcome to the Strength in Numbers podcast.
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  I'm your host, John Bloom, and today's guest is Kyle Stark.
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  Kyle's the president of Stark Contrast, where he consults with
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  leaders from coaching, military, business, and other areas to
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  help drive leadership and culture.
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  Now, he previously worked with the Pittsburgh Pirates for 12
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  years, starting as the Director of Player development before
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  working his way up to assistant general manager and eventually
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  Vice president. This conversation is so powerful
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  and will force you to reflect. Do I have clarity in my
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  identity? Do I live my values out through
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  my decision making? Do I have to choose between
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  character and winning? How do I define success in my
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  life? Is my pursuit of success
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  deteriorating my relational skills?
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  What drives organizations to sustain success year after year?
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  You do not want to miss this one.
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  Enjoy the episode, Kyle. I'm, I'm, I'm super excited for
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  this conversation. You know, the, the couple of
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  times over the last year so that we've been able to connect every
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  time, it's just the conversations are filled with
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  wisdom and, and insights that I'm getting from you.
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  So I, I don't know this one, there's going to be another
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  great one that I'm going to walk away impacted from and, and
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  hopefully other people too. So I appreciate you being here.
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  Now, pleasure's all mine. I yeah, I enjoy chopping up this
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  topic. I've enjoyed chopping up this
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  topic with you, John. So I'm fired up to get a chance
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  to do it again. Awesome.
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  Well, for people that don't know who you are, could you just, you
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  know, real quick, give a background of who you are, what
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  you do, and then what drove you to do that?
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  Sure. Yeah.
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  So my backgrounds primarily in baseball, actually played
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  volleyball in college and then went to law school, started
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  coaching, coached in college at Saint Bonaventure University and
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  then wanted to work in in pro ball.
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  I joke with people I always wanted to be a big leaguer and I
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  realized much earlier than I wanted to that that wasn't going
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  to happen. So wanted to work in in
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  professional baseball. Got a chance to start with with
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  the Cleveland Indians at the time and worked with them.
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  And it was a cool time of both because they were going through
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  a rebuild and and started to turn things around.
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  But just really talented group of people, good front office,
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  just got exposed to a lot of good people, a lot of ideas and
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  different ways of thinking about things.
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  And then went to Pittsburgh, worked in Pittsburgh for for 12
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  years. I started as as the director of
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  development and, and oversaw our minor league system.
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  Eventually vice president of baseball OPS, oversaw scouting
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  and development, involved in a lot of different things.
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  Again, part of the rebuild. And then, yeah, I got fired in
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  the in the fall of 19 and my wife said, hey, can you take six
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  months before you jump into anything?
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  We need you around. Around the house where my wife's
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  a St. I just ran the house and has
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  made me a way better leader. We've got two boys, Chance and
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  Coop, and Chance was out of the house.
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  He's in the Marines. But Coop was still in the house
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  and and said, hey, can you stick around?
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  And COVID happened. Three months later, the world
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  shut down. We enjoyed spending time
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  together and I started having people reach out and say, hey,
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  what would you spend some time with, you know, with my team,
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  with myself, with my organization, whatever else.
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  And so now I, I consult work with, with coaches and leaders
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  in sport, military, business, education, variety of different
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  arenas. I'm merely focused on, yeah,
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  good leaders who want to drive great cultures and, and whatever
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  setting and are passionate about trying to, yeah, figure out this
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  crazy thing called excellence. And it's been, it's been a ton
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  of fun. That's awesome.
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  And you know, I wasn't even planning on asking this, but as
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  you as you, you know, you talk about starting at Pittsburgh and
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  spending 12 years there and really rising up.
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  I guess what's your perspective on, you know, sometimes early in
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  the career, it's like we've got to make a bunch of moves till we
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  can get to a spot where then we can have a little longevity
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  there. Versus for you, you know, kind
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  of early in your career finding a spot and just raising your
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  role within that specific organization and you know what
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  you have responsibility of and, and what the role is.
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  Yeah, I think it's a good question.
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  I think it it ultimately is that crazy question of how do we
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  define success and what what's that then look like as far as
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  our our pursuit? You know, I, I don't know that
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  my goal was ever longevity. I think my goal was probably
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  more around opportunity and a chance to do something
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  meaningful and fortunate to get some of those opportunities
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  early. But I don't know that my goal.
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  And that's not to say that shouldn't be some people's goal,
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  but I think when we have clarity of what is success for us, then
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  it allows us to make some career decisions accordingly.
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  The reality though is I think part of us has some strong sense
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  of what matters most to us. And then probably part of us is
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  drawn to maybe some other things.
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  And then maybe we've got a bunch of messages from the world
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  saying, well, you have to do XY and Z and those can be in
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  conflict. And so then it becomes kind of
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  but crazy, especially in the sports world, a crazy career
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  journey that we drag our families along with us.
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  And yeah, I think you can have some really cool experiences,
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  but I think it all comes back down to in terms of what matters
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  most to me. And then how do you make
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  decisions in alignment with that?
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  No, that's great. Now, one thing we've talked
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  about before is character development and and player
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  selection and and 11 quote when we had a conversation, I
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  remember it stuck with me. He said sometimes people have
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  the tendency to either quit too early or quit too late on
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  players. Can you can you dig into that?
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  Like what? What does that mean to you when
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  you say that? Yeah, man, I think, you know, at
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  the end of the day, if we're in coaching, we're ultimately in
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  this talent management space, right?
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  And so there's an element of selection, assessment,
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  selection. Then there's a, a, a piece of it
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  that's development in terms of trying to get the most out of
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  people. And that assessment selection is
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  not just on the front end that's ongoing every single day in
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  terms of who fits, who fits where, how do we best deploy
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  them. And then there's the development
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  piece though, of trying to get the most out of them.
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  Now, depending on the organization, depending on the
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  level, you may shift one side of that equation more so in terms
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  of it may be more of a selection organization, it may be more of
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  a development organization. I think knowing that is
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  important, you know, with that. But ultimately then it comes
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  down to this piece of having a good sense of where is this
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  player at? Is it worth the investment,
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  whether that's a roster spot, where that's time, energy,
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  whatever that may be. And I think all of us just have
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  a natural tendency one way or the other that again, if we're
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  probably more selection oriented, I probably, I
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  potentially can have a tendency to quit on a player too early,
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  write them off, not going to work.
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  And, and some of us, I'm more of a development guy at heart.
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  And so I probably ultimately always think we can get more of
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  that player and, and want to keep trying to do that.
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  I think it's just think it's important for us as coaches, as
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  leaders to recognize what's my bias there?
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  And then to make sure I'm complimented accordingly so that
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  we don't quit too early or quit too late and or to make sure
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  that just organizationally we're all aligned that at the end of
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  the day, we would rather quit too early or too late and be OK
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  with that. Our group in Pittsburgh, we
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  ultimately for the vast majority of our time there, we're OK
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  holding on to a guy a little too long.
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  And part of that was cuz we felt we had to, cuz we had to get the
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  most out of our players. We didn't have unlimited
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  opportunities to access to talent.
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  Yeah. Now if you know, like like that,
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  if, if we are in a place that is developmentally focused and
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  we're looking at, you know, selecting or evaluating players
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  to bring in to the organization and maybe they have the talent,
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  but but some of the there's a there's, there's a discipline
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  with the core values or or character piece of them.
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  How much can we change that person if we bring them in
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  versus just being only impact them like I guess the scale of
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  what we're, what we're willing to bring in and, and think we
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  can close that gap to what we need them to be at an
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  organization? It's a great question.
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  I think it's one that we wrestle with all the time as as coaches,
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  right. And and I think as you're
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  asking, and I probably hear two different questions to that.
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  There's probably the question of how much can we impact and
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  change? There's also the question of,
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  you know, what are we willing to tolerate or not, you know, so,
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  so I think I'll hit the first one and then we, we can go
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  wherever. But I think the, you know, what,
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  how much can we change? How much can we impact?
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  I, I worked with a guy in Pittsburgh for a long time, Doug
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  Strange, really talented baseball guy, good man.
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  And he used to always say to me said, Kyle, you can't, People
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  don't change. People don't change, people
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  don't change. And you know, we sold out to
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  creating a development organization.
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  And after we'd worked together for a few years, he, he said to
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  me, so you know, Kyle, I've evolved to my thoughts on this.
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  And he said, I still don't think people can change, but I do
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  think they can grow. And, and I think that sums
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  things up really. I think if I'm looking at a
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  player expecting them to change, that's probably not going to
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  happen. But I do think we can impact
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  them. I do think we can grow them.
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  I do think we can enhance some strengths.
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  I think we can probably help some weakness, weaknesses not be
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  stumbling blocks. But even within that, there's a
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  range of things that are easier to fix than others, right?
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  And I, I think, you know, there, there's and whether there's more
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  innate nature type of things are probably going to be harder to
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  change. And then it's more a matter of
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  working with them to make them not be a detractor or to
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  leverage that strength. And then there may be some
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  things that are, are more a function of environment that
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  were like in this environment, we'll, we'll be able to make
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  significant progress there. So I think it's the recognition
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  of and, and at the end of the day, I don't think we as coaches
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  or leaders should be looking at people saying, I want to change
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  that person. Like why, why would we be
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  bringing that person in? I think it's really about trying
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  to get the best version of that that person out, which means
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  really enhancing strengths and then making sure that some of
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  the potential stumbling blocks are are not derailers.
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  Yeah. And you know, one interesting
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  thing that like as you talk about that coming to my mind,
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  it's like as we look at the things we do need to develop,
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  you know, like you're saying, maybe it's something things are
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  easier to develop versus harder to develop.
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  It's like when evaluating sometimes it's like we look at
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  where they are now and how they fit and maybe where we think we
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  can get them. But like we should really look
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  at the different skills of how hard is it going to be to
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  develop that thing that they need to develop.
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  Yeah, we. And I think that that changes
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  how we bring people in. I, I just, I read something
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  recently that a study that showed that roughly 70% of
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  behavior is dependent on the environment you're in.
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  And I think a lot of times we're making decisions on can or can't
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  and we're like 70% of what we're seeing is going to be a function
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  of the environment that, that, that individual's in.
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  So we got to be aware of what environment are they in and be
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  very intentional about the environment we're bringing them
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  into. But I think along those lines,
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  I'll tell you a quick story. When we first, early on in our
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  time Pittsburgh, we were having some discussions on on the
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  assessment selection side, scouting side.
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  And we were talking through what mattered most more in this,
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  we'll say the head and heart space, right?
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  A head and heart space. So mind, character, those, those
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  types of things, makeup, general makeup.
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  And we made a list of all the things we wanted in the player.
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  And then we started going, I can impact that, I can impact that,
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  not I, our group can impact that can impact that can impact that.
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  And it's like we shouldn't be selecting for that.
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  We should be selecting for the things that we've deemed very
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  important but are going to be harder for us to influence,
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  which allows us then to potentially find some
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  undervalued players in spots because of the industry or
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  everybody else might be saying, well, I want this and we're not
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  seeing that player and we're like, yeah, but we can impact
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  that. We can influence that.
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  So what matters most to us and then how much can we impact it
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  needs to be put. Both of those need to matter in
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  the assessment space. I think I think that's such an
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  incredible way to look at it. And as you talk about some of
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  the like those qualities you want and, and as we're looking
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  at these players to see who is the best bits or where they,
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  where they currently sit at these certain attributes or
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  characteristics. I know you before you've
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  mentioned using behavior based interviewing to kind of try and
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  weed that a little bit. Can you talk about how you use
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  that to really find who people actually are beyond the, the
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  front they're going to put on when it's an interview or when
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  it's, you know, a selection process?
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  Yeah, I'd, I'd say two things that really evolved our process
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  in, in the space of, yeah, just trying to trying to more
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  accurately assess, you know, people.
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  I think the first one we hired Doctor Chris Johnson, like
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  actually from the Naval Special Warfare to help us with some of
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  the assessment selection space. He used to always tell our
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  scouts be curious about human behavior.
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  I think we're in a rush to label human behavior, but are we
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  really curious about human behavior?
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  I think it allowed us to maybe press pause on that evaluation
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  side and just keep assessing, keep noticing, keep drilling
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  down, keep trying to explain more why are we seeing what
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  we're seeing, and allowed us to just be really curious because I
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  think we're trained as evaluators to be decisive.
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  I would say the best evaluators, I think, are really curious
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  because they want to make sure they've got all the information
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  so that they can make a good decision.
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  So that's part of the second part of it, which ties into
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  that. You know, there's a lot of times
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  I'll, I'll help an organization with a, with a search for a
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  coach or an executive or whatever else and they'll say,
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  Hey, what questions should we be asking?
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  And I said, I can give you a list of questions.
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  I'm more passionate about trying to make sure you're curious
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  because if you're curious, you'll come up with some good
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  questions. You know, like we even started
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  this and and you asked the first question and then your second
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  question was I wasn't planning on asking this because you're
• 13:52
  curious, you're listening as opposed to if I got a list of
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  all the best questions in the world, I'm becoming mechanic and
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  robotic and I'm not being able to do that.
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  So you talk about being really curious to play off of what I'm
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  hearing so that I'm going deeper.
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  And then the behavior based piece of interviewing that is
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  less about what and more about give me examples of.
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  I think a lot of times when we're interviewing people, if
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  anything, we're having a values of an alignment discussion of
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  well, I think excellence involves hard work.
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  I agree. I think hard work it matters
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  too. And So what ends up happening is
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  we're just really kind of affirming each other's words.
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  And especially in the space where people are motivated to
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  get the job they're seeking, which obviously would be
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  athletes and coaches, they know the right answers to all of
• 14:35
  these things. As opposed to if I want to, if
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  I'm curious about what kind of work ethic, I might say, hey,
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  tell me what you do outside of practice to get better at your
• 14:44
  sport or, you know, tell me about your day, which leads
• 14:47
  into, OK, we've got these windows.
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  What are we doing with trying to improve?
• 14:50
  Are we going above and beyond? So really focusing on some
• 14:52
  behaviors which are going to reflect like things, you know,
• 14:56
  this best predictor of future performance is past performance.
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  So I'm looking for evidence of behaviors that I think are going
• 15:02
  to continue. Yeah, no, that's really cool.
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  And you know, one, one person I had on the podcast, you know,
• 15:07
  early one of the 1st guest, Tim Doyle, he's the head volleyball
• 15:09
  coach at VCU, incredible thinker.
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  And, and he is a similar thing where when he he has a, he has a
• 15:15
  different thing for both athletes and staff when he's
• 15:18
  evaluating recruiting and for like the the certain core values
• 15:21
  he's looking for a characteristics he's looking
• 15:23
  for. He has these all these questions
• 15:24
  under each core value to kind of bring out, you know, you know
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  what it is through that question and behavior and asking the
• 15:30
  athletes about different things. So yeah, that's really cool.
• 15:33
  Which, you know, jump in there real quick on that jump too.
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  Like I, I think that's, that's the, you know, people say, well,
• 15:39
  what do we need to do to try to hire?
• 15:41
  Well, to select well, I'd have to have clarity of what I'm
• 15:44
  looking for. I'd say most of us generally
• 15:46
  have an idea, but I don't know that most of us clearly know
• 15:50
  what we're looking for. You know, the clearer I am, the
• 15:53
  better chance I am, I am to, to be able to find it.
• 15:56
  So do I have clarity of what I'm looking for?
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  And then do I have a process? What's my how do I have a
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  process to help us increase our odds of finding it?
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  Not that be perfect. And I think most people
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  generally we're not crystal clear on what we're looking for
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  and our process isn't really a process to increase our odds of
• 16:15
  of success. Yeah.
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  And you know, one thing I was wanted to ask you about was one,
• 16:20
  how does a person first find clarity of their own identity?
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  But then also whether it's speaking more so like if you're
• 16:26
  the head cook or, or the person evaluating and deciding, like if
• 16:30
  you don't have clarity of your own identity, slash the
• 16:34
  organization's that or team's identity, the difficulty and be
• 16:38
  able to have clarity and, and the people you're trying to
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  bring in without first knowing who you are or, or what you're
• 16:44
  about and, and kind of your thoughts on that.
• 16:47
  Yeah, I mean, it's funny, you know, I'm a development guy.
• 16:50
  So I, I was obsessed with developing culture, developing
• 16:53
  great culture. As I evolved and grew as a
• 16:57
  leader and and then started being more in the scouting
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  space, I was around more people who challenged me to say, hey,
• 17:02
  you select culture. You're not just developing
• 17:04
  culture. Like then you're selecting
• 17:06
  culture based on who you're bringing into the organization.
• 17:09
  But again, it's a reflection. Ultimately, at the end of the
• 17:11
  day, of if I have clarity and we'll say culture or identity,
• 17:15
  ultimately I it's who I am, how we do things, right.
• 17:18
  So do I have clarity of who I am, what's important to me?
• 17:21
  How do we do things well, that's going to be involved.
• 17:23
  That's there's a selection piece of that and there's a
• 17:24
  development piece and we want to make sure that all of that is
• 17:27
  aligned around the same same effort.
• 17:29
  If I know I'm good at developing XI don't need to select for it
• 17:33
  because we can develop it. I need to.
• 17:35
  So that's where all of these things have to be connected and
• 17:38
  you know, we're leveraging all these resources and and parts of
• 17:41
  the system together to execute a common, common mission.
• 17:45
  But I think when you, you start as a leader, I, you know, people
• 17:48
  talk about, well, what's the identity of your organization
• 17:51
  that is starts with that, that leader's identity, knowing who
• 17:54
  am I? Because ultimately as a leader,
• 17:57
  I'm, I'm, you know, the power of, of, of modeling the behavior
• 18:01
  we want, we want to instill in others, you know, more as cotton
• 18:04
  and tot all those concepts. Really what I'm doing is I'm
• 18:07
  replicating myself. So I need to be really
• 18:08
  intentional about what am I replicating.
• 18:11
  And the only way that we can do that is if I know who I am, who
• 18:14
  I want to be and consistently commit to being that person.
• 18:17
  Know myself, like myself, like myself just means I'm secure in
• 18:21
  my own skin. And then go consistently be
• 18:23
  yourself. And so then we can unpack, you
• 18:26
  know, whatever part of that, but that know yourself, you know,
• 18:28
  ultimately is being very reflective on why do I do what I
• 18:31
  do? What's most important to me?
• 18:34
  How if I how have I defined success?
• 18:36
  How often do you feel like people don't actually know the
• 18:39
  answers to those questions or have that clarity?
• 18:42
  And they're more so like they're just doing and, and there's
• 18:45
  never, there's never that time where they step back and
• 18:48
  actually drill down like, what are the underpinnings of why I'm
• 18:51
  doing what I'm doing and like who I am and what I want to be
• 18:53
  about in the systems I'm operating with versus just like
• 18:56
  running in circles over and over and over.
• 18:58
  Yeah, I would say, I'm going to go extreme here.
• 19:01
  I would say 100% of us don't. And what I what I mean that is
• 19:04
  because if the answer is ultimate clarity of these
• 19:07
  things, I don't think any of us have ultimate clarity.
• 19:09
  Yeah, I think so. I think we have to think about
• 19:11
  it in terms of a continuum, right, 100% clarity.
• 19:14
  It's not am I clear or not? Because the longer I coach, the
• 19:17
  longer I'm alive, the longer, you know, I do these things, the
• 19:19
  more clarity I gain. So it's really just an awareness
• 19:22
  of where am I at in that continuum.
• 19:24
  And then am I intentionally trying to move that forward?
• 19:28
  Because any lack of clarity in my own head is going to get
• 19:30
  exposed at the next level and exposed at the next level, next
• 19:33
  level on down throughout an organization.
• 19:35
  And then we look up and like, there's no alignment.
• 19:37
  Well, yeah, that's because there's gifts and clarity.
• 19:40
  I would say the vast majority of us are spending way more time
• 19:43
  thinking about ideas and tasks and what we need to do as
• 19:50
  opposed to really starting from a place of know who do we want
• 19:53
  to be. Now let's Orient everything
• 19:55
  around that. Last thing I'll say on this, I,
• 19:58
  I think all of us has just had this conversation with a leader
• 20:00
  the other day. I think all of us as leaders
• 20:04
  probably exaggerating a little bit.
• 20:07
  Have a tendency to want to run, we have a tendency to want to
• 20:10
  go. We have a tendency to want to
• 20:11
  deploy, we have a tendency to want to solve.
• 20:13
  And some of that's our natural instinct, some of that is we're
• 20:16
  under pressure to have to get going.
• 20:18
  So, you know, rarely do we go, you know what, I'm going to sit
• 20:21
  in this for a little bit longer to make sure we're in a good
• 20:23
  spot before we go. I think that the typical
• 20:26
  response is we're close enough, let's go.
• 20:28
  But then we're never intentional about continuing to reflect, to
• 20:32
  refine and perfect that along the way.
• 20:34
  And we look up and we've got gaps.
• 20:35
  Yeah. And I think, you know, if I
• 20:37
  think for myself too sometimes like you're talking about we
• 20:39
  want to go, go, go or always want to run.
• 20:41
  It's like there like I guess there's the immediate
• 20:44
  satisfaction or result of checking set tasks off for
• 20:48
  accomplishing things, whereas getting clear on that day and
• 20:51
  spending that time you're you're not going to see some immediate
• 20:54
  thing probably happen. And I feel like sometimes it's
• 20:57
  like, I don't know if scary is the right word, but it's like
• 20:59
  hard, right? It's hard to step back and
• 21:01
  actually think deeply on on those things versus
• 21:04
  accomplishing some short term task.
• 21:07
  I just took a group through of high speed leaders in a really
• 21:10
  tip of the spear type of space. And we, we sat in, in some of
• 21:14
  these things for a little bit. Ultimately with putting together
• 21:17
  together our, our own development plan as we go.
• 21:20
  And that the general comment was, man, this is hard.
• 21:24
  Man, I, I thought I knew these things.
• 21:27
  Or one guy even joked. He says words are hard because
• 21:29
  it's one thing to like really know, but it's another thing to
• 21:31
  then be able to put it down on paper.
• 21:33
  So it's not an easy process. And into your point, we like to,
• 21:36
  we like to execute, we like to accomplish, we like to achieve.
• 21:39
  I was just laughing as you were talking.
• 21:41
  I think it's amazing to me probably how often, you know,
• 21:45
  we're like, we're celebrating because we we just get a job and
• 21:47
  we celebrate our first recruit and we're excited we got a
• 21:51
  recruit and then we look up potentially in a year and we're
• 21:53
  like, man, that wasn't a very good time.
• 21:54
  But at the time I was like, so fired up.
• 21:56
  And maybe, yeah, we would have hit pause a little bit more to
• 21:59
  work through these things a little bit more.
• 22:01
  It helps us, yeah, refine our process and how we're going to
• 22:04
  execute. This is so good.
• 22:06
  Earlier you brought up the question of, you know, deciding
• 22:10
  of, you know, if if we take those risks of people with
• 22:14
  maybe, you know, not having the character versus they have the
• 22:17
  talent. And I feel like that's, that's a
• 22:20
  lot of times people, people view that as an either or, right?
• 22:24
  We're going to bring in, we're going to win at a high level,
• 22:26
  we're going to bring in talent OR we're going to have high
• 22:28
  character and do things the right way.
• 22:30
  And all this. Why?
• 22:31
  Why does it feel like people think of that as an either or
• 22:35
  versus and and And how do we not view that as two separate things
• 22:40
  that can't coexist? Yeah.
• 22:42
  And I think it's a great question.
• 22:43
  And I think that's really the problem is we see those as two
• 22:47
  different ideas at odds with each other because of how we
• 22:50
  define those two things, right? So how do I define character?
• 22:54
  How do I define winning or success?
• 22:57
  You know, a lot of times I'll ask, I'll say like, how do we
• 22:59
  define character? And I think typically we put it
• 23:01
  into this box of nice, which, you know, nice doesn't help us
• 23:06
  win or we'll put in this box of doing good in other areas of our
• 23:10
  life That, and I haven't made sense of the idea that, well,
• 23:15
  actually how you are in other areas of your life is going to
• 23:18
  impact how you perform in the arena as well.
• 23:20
  So I haven't made those connections.
• 23:22
  I'm I'm seen as something else, but we haven't defined character
• 23:25
  as a key part of winning. If I see those as two different
• 23:30
  things, and while I'd like to have both at one point, I'm
• 23:33
  going to choose one or the other.
• 23:34
  And typically all honesty organizations swing the
• 23:38
  peninsula Megan forth, right? Like I'm a chase winning and
• 23:42
  then I take some chances and it bites me.
• 23:44
  So I'm like, I'm a sellout to kids of character.
• 23:46
  We swing the pencil and we end up doing this because I'm seeing
• 23:49
  it as this or that as opposed to saying I'm going to define
• 23:52
  character as the very things that we believe are are mission
• 23:56
  critical. They're things that lead to
• 23:58
  winning, that increase our odds of winning.
• 24:00
  I believe that you have to define character in such a way
• 24:03
  that we see it as the ultimate performance enhancer because
• 24:06
  ultimately, at the end of the day, these are then people that
• 24:08
  we can count on. They're dependable.
• 24:10
  They're going to get the most out of themselves.
• 24:11
  They're doing everything they can to be the best they can be.
• 24:14
  They're great team mates. All of the things that should be
• 24:18
  recipes to have a winning organization.
• 24:21
  I think the last piece I'll say on this ties into how do we
• 24:24
  define success? Am I winning in the short term
• 24:26
  or am I trying to win in the long term?
• 24:28
  And it's amazing too, how many times I'll talk with coaches and
• 24:31
  they'll say why, you know, I just, I just want to win.
• 24:34
  And I usually try to challenge this thought process two ways.
• 24:37
  One is I'll say, are you willing to lie, cheat and steal to do
• 24:40
  it? Well, no.
• 24:41
  Well then your number one goal is not just to win because if
• 24:45
  that was the number one goal that I would do whatever it took
• 24:47
  to to get that. So I'm already acknowledging
• 24:49
  there are some qualifiers on this playing within the rules,
• 24:52
  whatever that may be. So let's sell out to then.
• 24:55
  What is the recipe to increase those odds?
• 24:57
  The other thing that I just like to ask coaches, I want to win a
• 25:00
  ton too. Why do you want to win?
• 25:02
  Not because I think a lot of times what happens as coaches is
• 25:05
  we we wrestle with whether we should want to win.
• 25:07
  It's almost like we feel guilty to even want to win because it's
• 25:10
  this character piece and well, we got to think about long term
• 25:13
  of the athlete, all of these things.
• 25:15
  But it's because I'm seeing it this or this as opposed to if my
• 25:18
  I think the more important question we have to ask
• 25:20
  ourselves is why do we want to win?
• 25:22
  And if the answer is I want to win for myself, for to prove
• 25:26
  myself for, you know, whatever else, then it's probably going
• 25:29
  to lead us into some, some potentially bad choices, bad
• 25:31
  behaviors, whatever else. If I'm wanting to win because
• 25:34
  I'm wanting to set a standard for excellence for people, I'm
• 25:37
  wanting to help change the lives to put them in a trajectory to
• 25:40
  go win forever, not just in this environment for a lot for some
• 25:43
  of us. If I want to win because my
• 25:45
  faith is central to who I am and I want to glorify God in that,
• 25:48
  all of those things, that really is more a matter of why do you
• 25:51
  want to win as opposed to do you want to win or not?
• 25:54
  And, you know, one of the phrases you told me or said to
• 25:58
  me previously is about character being a competitive advantage
• 26:02
  that that phrase really stuck with me.
• 26:04
  But for for people that maybe are hearing this or you're
• 26:08
  talking to them and they're like, yeah, all, all that's
• 26:10
  great. But at the end of the day, like
• 26:12
  I need like I literally have to win this year or else I'm fired
• 26:15
  next year. And I don't see how that helps
• 26:17
  me do that right now. What would you say to them?
• 26:20
  Yeah, I, I would say at the end of the day, if we, if we're
• 26:27
  honest with ourselves as coaches, I'm looking for
• 26:30
  something I can, I'm looking for trust.
• 26:32
  The crazy thing is like we want the athletes to trust themselves
• 26:35
  so they can go be the best version of themselves.
• 26:38
  The athlete wants to trust the coach, the coach wants to trust
• 26:41
  their players. And a lot of times we make these
• 26:42
  decisions around these things. And so my question is, are you
• 26:45
  going to trust somebody? You don't know if they're going
• 26:47
  to show up. You don't know if they're going
• 26:48
  to do something that get some thrown in jail.
• 26:51
  You don't know if they're going to flunk out of school.
• 26:53
  You don't know, like ultimately, is that what you're wanting to
• 26:57
  trust in? And I think, you know, my
• 26:59
  experiences are there some players that have graced the
• 27:04
  face of the earth that were so talented that we could just
• 27:08
  trust their jump shot or their fastball or whatever else?
• 27:11
  I would say there have been the vast majority is not, that's not
• 27:15
  the case. If I'm just trusting in a
• 27:18
  specific physical dimension of the skill, there's going to be a
• 27:21
  breakdown a lot of times. So here's a way we we could
• 27:24
  frame it out. If at the end of the day, we're
• 27:26
  looking for, we can break it down to skill, mind, body and
• 27:29
  heart, generally different dimensions of an athlete.
• 27:32
  Ultimately, we want skill toughness, right?
• 27:35
  We want skill that can stand up to pressure, that can stand up
• 27:38
  to competitive environments that can show up at really high
• 27:41
  levels. Skills that tip of the iceberg
• 27:43
  underneath the icebergs where all these other things are,
• 27:46
  that's going to show up. And so if there is a lack of
• 27:48
  physical toughness, there's going to be a breakdown of body.
• 27:51
  I can't go out and and be skillful if there's a mind,
• 27:54
  mental conditioning, mental toughness, weakness there that
• 27:58
  you know, I can't handle pressure, you know, whatever
• 28:00
  those types of things, there's a breakdown in that skill.
• 28:02
  Same thing as a heart character of who you are.
• 28:05
  So any of those breakdowns, it's gonna show up on skill.
• 28:08
  And it's amazing how many times we're like, man, I can't believe
• 28:10
  you didn't execute that situation.
• 28:11
  It's probably not the skill broke down because of some of
• 28:14
  these other things somewhere along the way.
• 28:16
  And So what I would say to that, that's a long way, way of of
• 28:20
  saying to the coach, I understand the I have to win
• 28:23
  today. Well, then that better impact
• 28:26
  who you're bringing in. But selling out to skill as
• 28:29
  opposed to character isn't the answer.
• 28:31
  It's probably just selling out to more advanced skill that I
• 28:35
  don't have to develop as much. And and part of that skill is
• 28:39
  this underpinning of of skill, mind, body and heart, if that
• 28:41
  makes sense. Yeah.
• 28:42
  Yeah, No, for sure. I feel like I've seen it more,
• 28:44
  more like, I feel like the things you're talking about,
• 28:46
  right, the things under the iceberg are going to determine
• 28:50
  the ceiling of development. And it's like if we want to just
• 28:53
  take people as they are, then yeah, we need to bring in
• 28:55
  talent. But I could bring in something
• 28:57
  more talented. But the person that has those
• 28:59
  other things, again, like we talked about before, of knowing
• 29:01
  what we can develop or not, like they're going to be able to
• 29:03
  reach a much further point. And I feel like that's why we
• 29:05
  see, you know, the, the walk ONS or the the undrafted, you know,
• 29:10
  people that become the best players, I feel like because
• 29:12
  they have the underpinnings to develop them.
• 29:15
  So I feel like development is a skill and there's a lot of
• 29:18
  things that go into that. And I feel like we can just look
• 29:20
  at people they are, but like, development is a skill.
• 29:22
  And if we're just looking at potential of, you know, at
• 29:25
  length or athletic ability or these other things, then we're
• 29:28
  missing a whole lot of the picture of who of how they're
• 29:31
  actually going to get to what they can become.
• 29:33
  Yeah. And I and I think on that front
• 29:35
  like as you're talking there. So for me, if the time frame we
• 29:38
  have to win sooner rather than later, well then I'm, I'm not,
• 29:41
  I'm looking for athletes that can be developed to reach that
• 29:45
  within a year as opposed to three to four years.
• 29:47
  So it shifts not what matters most to me.
• 29:50
  It just shifts how far in that development timeline that
• 29:53
  individual athlete is. You know, I, I think two other
• 29:55
  thoughts on this as we're talking, one being as having a
• 29:58
  conversation with a group of scouts, a group of coaches and
• 30:01
  administrators one time. And we're having this
• 30:03
  conversation about how that it does take time to build a
• 30:06
  program to develop. No matter how quickly we see
• 30:09
  some programs have success in a season, that's not building a
• 30:13
  program. It means they had a good season.
• 30:15
  And a coach asked me, they said, well, what if you're, you know,
• 30:17
  you, your executive said, hey, you have to do it in a year or
• 30:20
  two, How would you adjust? I said I would not adjust and I
• 30:23
  would then probably get fired or we win fast enough.
• 30:27
  But I'm not going to. I don't think you can
• 30:29
  shortchange. We can do things better and more
• 30:32
  efficiently. That doesn't mean that we can
• 30:34
  short take shortcuts to just artificially, you know, it's not
• 30:38
  like we can take something and it normally takes 6, five years
• 30:41
  and say, well, we can do it in a year.
• 30:42
  That's that's not real. The other, the second piece of
• 30:45
  this, this, yeah, this development piece that I think
• 30:48
  we miss when we start talking about winning fast or the
• 30:51
  winning versus character, we forget that we are developing
• 30:54
  our jobs to develop A-Team. And I think a lot of times we
• 30:57
  look at players in isolation. We look at development
• 31:00
  isolation. And ultimately it's the
• 31:02
  collection of the players. That is our job in all of these
• 31:06
  sports that are team sports. And I think as as coaches, as
• 31:09
  leaders, I think we missed that. And so I'm going to take a
• 31:11
  chance on this talented kid. There's consequences to how that
• 31:15
  all fits in that locker room, in that clubhouse, on the court, on
• 31:18
  the field, whatever else. And I think a lot of times we
• 31:21
  just think it'll work out or we can do it.
• 31:25
  And, and sometimes there's some people that are really good at
• 31:27
  navigating some of those things, but they're very intentional.
• 31:30
  They know their culture, they know what they can do, they know
• 31:32
  what they can handle to bring that in.
• 31:34
  I think a lot of times we just miss, we're thinking about in
• 31:36
  terms of whether it impacts this players development and we
• 31:39
  forget the ultimate goal is the is the team.
• 31:42
  Yeah. Performance for sure.
• 31:44
  I mean, you know, like you're saying, sometimes there's a view
• 31:46
  where it's like 1 + 1 + 1's going to equal three if we're
• 31:49
  bringing these players. But really like there's a whole
• 31:51
  lot of other math going on in there of how they're all going
• 31:53
  to, you know, sometimes you bring the wrong people and it's
• 31:56
  going to become a negative, even if there's all these great
• 31:59
  individuals. Or you could go the other way
• 32:01
  too. You know, one of the, one of the
• 32:03
  cool things for me as I've this over this last year as I left
• 32:07
  college athletics and now I get to work with a lot of high
• 32:10
  school and middle school and, and youth athletes at a stage of
• 32:13
  their life where they are. Obviously it's a huge physically
• 32:17
  physical development stage for them, but also just who they are
• 32:19
  is young people, right? And and maturing youth athletes.
• 32:24
  How you know, as I see some of the things in college or pro
• 32:28
  people that we work with and it's like, OK, these are the
• 32:31
  maybe the the habits or characteristics that are
• 32:35
  problems for some people. Like what do we, what should I
• 32:37
  be instilling in youth athletes and how are we doing that like
• 32:40
  and building them? So then when, when they're
• 32:42
  older, like they are the people that are, you know, the, the
• 32:46
  conditional people of, of what we're, what we're talking about
• 32:48
  right now. Yeah, it's a great question.
• 32:50
  I think I when I, when you ask that question, I, I have two
• 32:53
  thoughts that come to mind. I think the first part is
• 32:58
  probably just a reminder of what what is our job really?
• 33:02
  I spent some time Tom Black, volleyball coach at Georgia.
• 33:06
  He he believes in that his job is to develop players to win in
• 33:11
  life, win for the long term. So he's thinking about my job is
• 33:14
  to prepare them. Yeah, we want to win and we want
• 33:17
  to do all these things in the in the three to four to five years
• 33:20
  that we have the athlete, but in such a way that it Tran it that
• 33:24
  it transfers and it sets them up for success long term.
• 33:28
  And I, I would argue unless we're having an athlete for the
• 33:31
  rest of our lives, for the rest of their lives, we should be
• 33:33
  thinking about that very thing of what am I?
• 33:36
  So am I teaching? I've heard some really good
• 33:39
  coaches say before that that we're not coaching skills, we're
• 33:42
  coaching people. We're in the people business.
• 33:44
  And that's all. To me, I'm just using
• 33:46
  volleyball, baseball, football, whatever sport strength and
• 33:48
  conditioning. I'm using whatever to teach
• 33:51
  these habits, to teach these behaviors that are transferable
• 33:54
  beyond sport. I've spent some time with some
• 33:57
  really talented people at successful, accomplished people
• 34:00
  in business who love hiring college athletes, former college
• 34:03
  athletes because of this, right? They, they know how to work on a
• 34:05
  team, they know how to work, they know how to grind.
• 34:07
  They know they've got disciplined, they're driven.
• 34:10
  You know that they know how to influence the people and they're
• 34:13
  left people on the right. So they've, they've created,
• 34:15
  they've already experienced these things and that's, that's
• 34:18
  transferable skill. So first thing I think about
• 34:20
  like what really is our job for as coaches?
• 34:22
  It's not just the immediate team in front of us that's setting
• 34:26
  them up for long term. The second part of this then is,
• 34:28
  okay, well, what are those things?
• 34:30
  I think we can sit here and have a good healthy debate what those
• 34:32
  are. You're gonna come up with your
• 34:33
  list. I'm gonna come up with my list.
• 34:35
  You're gonna call one thing one. You're gonna use one word to
• 34:37
  describe one. I'm use something different.
• 34:39
  I think generally that I'd tell coaches, I don't even really
• 34:42
  care what your list is. We can have debate whether it
• 34:45
  should be X versus Yi think the the key is, though, that we've
• 34:48
  got clarity on these are the the behaviors I want to create in my
• 34:53
  athlete, which ultimately I should see as these are this is
• 34:56
  the recipe for us to have success individually,
• 34:59
  collectively in the sport and carries over.
• 35:02
  You know, beyond that, the simple one that that anchored us
• 35:05
  in Pittsburgh was this idea of being a pro.
• 35:08
  The, the best compliment you can receive in in supposed to be
• 35:11
  called a pro because, and it has nothing to do with your ability,
• 35:14
  It has nothing to do with your performance, has everything to
• 35:17
  do with who you are and how you do things, which is these
• 35:19
  character things we're talking about.
• 35:21
  And so we broke that down into that pros are purposeful.
• 35:24
  They've got clear, they know who they are and they got clear
• 35:26
  intention for what they're trying to do with everything
• 35:29
  they're trying to do. So they're very purposeful.
• 35:31
  They've got passion for it and they're very purposeful.
• 35:33
  They're relentless. They're, they are going to do
• 35:35
  more. They're going to go further.
• 35:36
  They're going to when they face resistance, when they face
• 35:39
  boring, when they face hard, when they face whatever else,
• 35:41
  they're going to persist. They're going to keep going.
• 35:43
  And that can show up on the field in the weight room.
• 35:46
  It can show up in relationship, right.
• 35:48
  When things get hard, I'm willing to push and try to move
• 35:51
  our relationship forward. And then the last piece is the
• 35:54
  ownership piece that at the end of the day, I've got to be
• 35:56
  accountable. I've got to take ownership of
• 35:57
  this pursuit. I got to, I got to dominate the
• 35:59
  controllables and I've got to ultimately do my best with what
• 36:03
  I've got. All of this in the context of
• 36:05
  something bigger than yourself. So I, I say that as an example.
• 36:09
  I think the key though, is that I think too often as coaches
• 36:12
  will argue whether, you know, my fifth one is discipline.
• 36:15
  Well, my fifth one is what I mean.
• 36:16
  I pick your four or five. As long as we're really
• 36:19
  intentional obsessed with develop them and our and our
• 36:21
  young people, we're going to be very successful and we're going
• 36:24
  to ultimately my opinion, we you start talking about affecting
• 36:27
  change in our communities, in our country and our families.
• 36:30
  So. Yeah, you know it comes back
• 36:32
  again and we talked before the the clarity of identity and
• 36:35
  actually spending that time to to know what what's important to
• 36:39
  us and what are what are we going to make decisions through
• 36:42
  or or value. And the concept as we talk a lot
• 36:44
  about development here. You you mentioned before about
• 36:47
  getting them to their next dot in development.
• 36:50
  Could you talk about that? Yeah, it was actually a guy that
• 36:52
  worked with us, Dave Turgeon. He's the IMG baseball national
• 36:56
  team coach. And and he framed out his his
• 37:00
  way, his own interpretation of what we were talking about in
• 37:03
  development was just get him the next dot.
• 37:05
  And it was easy to kind of come to life in in professional
• 37:08
  baseball because you've got all these different levels and it's
• 37:11
  easy like an A ball to say I need to do all these things to
• 37:14
  get him ready to be a big leaguer.
• 37:15
  No, My jobs to get him to the next dot in development.
• 37:18
  So if you think about it, a development curve, which we can,
• 37:22
  we like to think it's nice and linear.
• 37:23
  It's not. As a coach, my job is to help
• 37:28
  get them to the next dot, which is ultimately my job is to
• 37:30
  prepare them for the next challenge.
• 37:32
  That's my job. And then once we get to that
• 37:34
  spot, it's preparing for the next challenge, get them to the
• 37:36
  next dot in their development journey.
• 37:38
  This does, I think this does one well.
• 37:41
  I think it does 2 huge things for us.
• 37:43
  I think 1 is it reminds me that I have a role to play within
• 37:47
  this athletes career, but I'm a part of a bigger operation to
• 37:51
  this. And that can be within an
• 37:53
  organization or it can even be like I'm in college and I'm then
• 37:55
  preparing them for the next step in their journey in Pro Bowl or
• 37:57
  whatever else it may be. Or I'm a I'm A8U coach and I'm
• 38:02
  preparing them for 10. But it's this reminder if it
• 38:05
  isn't about me, I have a role to play within this athlete's
• 38:08
  career. I think the second thing it
• 38:09
  does, which is huge, is it really gets us mastery focused.
• 38:13
  How are we constantly getting better and continuing to advance
• 38:16
  as opposed to the trap we fall into his coaches of deciding,
• 38:19
  can the guy play or can he, Can the young lady play or can't
• 38:23
  she? And as a coach, that then
• 38:25
  obviously is going to impact how I develop.
• 38:27
  It's going to impact how I coach.
• 38:30
  But if my sole focus is just on through the lens of what's the
• 38:34
  next dot, how do I get them to that next dot?
• 38:36
  I think it humbles ourselves and it helps us stay focused on
• 38:39
  mastery as opposed to falling in the trap of evaluating.
• 38:42
  Yeah, No, that's awesome. Earlier you, you, you mentioned
• 38:46
  how like if a, if a coach comes into a new place and they have a
• 38:49
  good year, that doesn't mean, you know, that was a, that means
• 38:52
  that you know, they successful year, but doesn't mean they
• 38:55
  built something or changed something.
• 38:57
  For, for the coaches that have had success like year after
• 39:00
  year, like consistent success at at a place, What do those
• 39:05
  coaches understand or get or, or have built to have that
• 39:10
  sustained success rather than, you know, the ups and downs and
• 39:13
  fickle natures of, of, you know, players coming in out that are
• 39:16
  good or bad, right? Those coaches, you know that you
• 39:19
  see, it was like it doesn't matter, like you know, they're
• 39:21
  going to be at the highest level of competition.
• 39:23
  Yeah, I, I think it's a great question.
• 39:26
  I think that's the thing we wrestle with, right?
• 39:27
  Like there's a, there's a wrestle of how do we win?
• 39:29
  But then there's really the wrestle of how do you win for a
• 39:33
  long time? I joke with coaches, I don't
• 39:35
  think, look, turning around a program's hard.
• 39:37
  I'm not saying it's not, I think winning for a long time is way
• 39:41
  harder just because when you have a lot of success, you lose
• 39:44
  people, people get complacent. You're getting everybody's best
• 39:48
  all the time, right? So there's, there's some reasons
• 39:50
  why that's really hard. And I think the ones that have
• 39:53
  figured it out and do this, I, you see some commonalities
• 39:57
  throughout. One, they know who they are.
• 39:58
  They know they have clarity of what their play is and how they
• 40:01
  want to run. It doesn't mean they're stuck in
• 40:03
  their ways. It doesn't mean you know
• 40:05
  whatever else, but they know who they are, who they want to be.
• 40:08
  The second part of that is they want everything revolves around
• 40:11
  that, right? So all the all the people,
• 40:14
  people are aligned, systems are aligned, parts of the operation
• 40:17
  are aligned around that. So it's like there's a
• 40:20
  connectedness and integratedness to the culture where everything
• 40:24
  is revolving around that. I think the third part of that
• 40:27
  is they are obsessed. I've been around a lot of people
• 40:29
  who really like to win. Those people who win for a
• 40:31
  really long time are obsessed and they are not.
• 40:35
  They are constantly looking for a competitive advantage.
• 40:37
  They're constantly looking for ways to get better.
• 40:39
  Their standards are through the roof.
• 40:41
  I think part of this is that you've got the, I mean, a huge
• 40:45
  part of this is you've got the right people.
• 40:47
  My experience, people that win for a really long time do not
• 40:49
  air on the side of highly relational, They air on the side
• 40:52
  of highly tasked, highly high challenged rallies.
• 40:56
  We've got to do both sides of that coin, right?
• 40:58
  But I'm saying here, these people have really, really high
• 41:01
  standards. There's no, that's good enough
• 41:03
  in that. And I think the last part of
• 41:05
  this that I would just say to this is, you know, I think a lot
• 41:09
  of times we think, well, people win, no question.
• 41:11
  It's a people business. The best ideas win, no question.
• 41:14
  You have to have good ideas. The people that went for a long
• 41:16
  time have systems they have, they have systems that allow us
• 41:21
  to stay connected, to be replicable and increase our
• 41:24
  chances of success and to really prioritize what matters most.
• 41:28
  And if you don't, you can have a good idea and win doesn't mean
• 41:31
  you're going to do it again the next year.
• 41:33
  You can have really great relationships, but if you lose
• 41:35
  someone, how, how, how do you navigate that?
• 41:38
  Or as the operation continues to get bigger, can you continue?
• 41:41
  Because you can't be unbelievable relational person
• 41:44
  with 100 people. So there's the systems component
• 41:47
  of this. You have to make sure that
• 41:49
  you've got a clear play, it's replicable and everybody can go,
• 41:53
  you know, run that as as part of the mission.
• 41:55
  Yeah. And as you talk about 1, like
• 41:58
  knowing yourself and then two that you've seen with more of
• 42:01
  the task driven versus the relational driven having
• 42:03
  success. Do you feel like those people
• 42:04
  that are super task driven in the highest standards know
• 42:08
  because they know themselves and know that's how they operate?
• 42:11
  They have an importance on fitting people in their staff
• 42:15
  that maybe feel that relational role a little more and kind of
• 42:18
  have a balance amongst the staff to to, you know, not just be the
• 42:22
  same as them. Definitely because I think the
• 42:25
  challenge with really high task, high challenge people is you can
• 42:29
  wear people out. I, I, it's a, it's a, it's a
• 42:32
  battle for me. My wife jokes with me about it
• 42:35
  quite often. You know, that is the challenge
• 42:38
  when you're constantly pushing, like we're never there, we never
• 42:42
  arrive. And there's this sense of so
• 42:44
  when you're constantly doing it, you can chew people up, spit
• 42:46
  people out and, or that person cannot feel valued as a human.
• 42:49
  And so we still have to to make sure that is part of this
• 42:54
  operation. So I need to be aware of it.
• 42:56
  Number 12, I need to then surround myself with people that
• 42:59
  can potentially compliment me or at least challenge me and say,
• 43:02
  hey, Kyle, you, you're going too far here or it potentially
• 43:05
  impacts the type of people we recruit or select into our
• 43:07
  program to say, hey, this is a better fit for our program.
• 43:11
  I think highly relational people can be extremely successful too.
• 43:14
  I've seen highly relational people win for a long time as
• 43:17
  well. It's not to say that they can't,
• 43:19
  but those that highly relational side all recognizes that if
• 43:23
  that's overplayed, we all love each other, but there's no
• 43:25
  accountability, there's no standards.
• 43:27
  And so we've got to make sure we're getting both sides of this
• 43:30
  coin and to make sure that our strength overplayed becomes a
• 43:33
  weakness that we we keep that in check.
• 43:35
  That's really, really good. What qualities for yourself do
• 43:38
  you feel have helped you be really successful in in your
• 43:42
  career, but it maybe hurt you in your personal life or family
• 43:46
  life? We're going to lay down the
• 43:47
  couch for this one. Well, I, I would say the first
• 43:50
  thing that I, I, I, the number one thing I attribute to success
• 43:54
  for me is, is my faith and both because I think it is a matter
• 43:59
  of clarity of what's most important.
• 44:01
  I think it's also a, it keeps me in check to make sure that the
• 44:05
  ego and, and whatever else is not getting out of whack.
• 44:07
  And I think I'd joke with people.
• 44:09
  I said the best, you know, performance manual is the Bible
• 44:12
  in my opinion. Strength in numbers is is second
• 44:15
  I. Appreciate that.
• 44:18
  But so that's number one, I think for me personally, in
• 44:21
  terms of some of the, of the things I think I, I joked, I
• 44:24
  think that the two things for me is drive and discernment.
• 44:28
  I think I am very driven and will continue to push and
• 44:31
  nothing's ever good enough. And there's got to be a way we
• 44:33
  got to get creative and figured out.
• 44:35
  And I think the discernment piece to be able to navigate
• 44:40
  complex situations and see what ultimately matters most and be
• 44:45
  able to then put a system in place to be able to to solve for
• 44:48
  it. Now both of those overplayed,
• 44:51
  the drive is I can chew people up and spit people out and
• 44:54
  people can feel either not seen and valued and or nothing's ever
• 44:58
  good enough. And that is, you know, my wife
• 45:01
  squared me up probably 3 or 4 years into my career, my time in
• 45:05
  Pittsburgh and she said you don't love people enough.
• 45:07
  And I'm like, well, where is that coming from?
• 45:10
  And her point was, look, if they if someone is contributing and
• 45:14
  as is a part of this process, you will sell out and pour into
• 45:18
  them and whatever else. But if not, then doesn't matter.
• 45:21
  And so it was a good, I was just, it was a good refrain for
• 45:25
  me to understand what if I'm, I'm getting out of whack?
• 45:27
  I think the discernment piece is I've had people say before, like
• 45:30
  Kyle, you're, you're on LMNOP and we're on C like, did you,
• 45:35
  We're not there yet. And so the ability, which I
• 45:38
  think again comes back to, am I walking in this with people or
• 45:41
  am I trying to drag people along?
• 45:42
  And at times, I think at times as a leader, you do have to
• 45:45
  drag. But if we're constantly
• 45:47
  dragging, then there's you're going to get really tired and
• 45:50
  and people will be like, this isn't worth it.
• 45:51
  When your wife told you that, that, that statement and you
• 45:55
  talked about being a reframe how, I guess, I guess what was
• 45:58
  maybe that process for you of shifting that mindset?
• 46:02
  Cuz you know what I mean? That, that sometimes comments
• 46:05
  are set or we're like, OK, we're going to change how we're doing
• 46:07
  things. But then you get caught back,
• 46:08
  caught back up in the work. So how, how do you not allow
• 46:11
  yourself to drift back into that and, and really shift your
• 46:15
  mindset and not just in a transactional way to treat
• 46:18
  people right because we want to get an outcome from it, but
• 46:20
  actually truly view it through that lens.
• 46:24
  Yeah, and I think it, it's a good question.
• 46:28
  You know, I think that there's an element for me on.
• 46:32
  Yeah, I, I think there's an element for me in terms of that
• 46:34
  wasn't the first time I'd heard something like that.
• 46:37
  It was the first time that somebody had squared me up
• 46:39
  between the eyes like that, which my wife can do, which I
• 46:43
  think is a great reminder for us as leaders.
• 46:45
  Do we have people in our lives that can do that?
• 46:47
  And, and I would say a can't just be your spouse or whatever
• 46:51
  because that's not fair to them. But in this case, I, it's not
• 46:55
  the first time I'd heard it. I very much respected respect
• 46:58
  her opinion. And I think the third part of it
• 47:00
  for me was the recognition of and I think that's where we get
• 47:03
  in trouble a lot of times where we make them this, we, we don't
• 47:08
  connect that feedback with our identity to make sense of it, to
• 47:12
  now have it be part of our fabric going forward.
• 47:15
  Right. So I think I'm this way or this
• 47:17
  is how I view the world or whatever else.
• 47:19
  And I get a piece of information or feedback and I like just kind
• 47:21
  of try to add it. Well, have I made sense of it
• 47:24
  within who I want to be? And if I haven't, then at some
• 47:27
  point my core, current core values are going to win out over
• 47:30
  that. And that's going to, it's going
• 47:31
  to become this or this or this and this.
• 47:33
  At some point it becomes this or this.
• 47:35
  And I go with what I've always done where for that specific
• 47:39
  challenge, it was this recognition of what matters most
• 47:42
  to you in life, what is ultimate.
• 47:44
  And so people do matter. That really does have to be a
• 47:48
  part. And rather than just give lip
• 47:50
  service to it, it's like, no, this has to be a key value in my
• 47:53
  identity. I think the last part of it with
• 47:56
  this is when I'm not able to integrate it in with who I am
• 48:00
  and who I want to be. Now, it's not a swing the
• 48:02
  pendulum back and forth, which I think we do a lot of times right
• 48:05
  as human beings. I, I go this way, went too far
• 48:08
  and I swing back the other way went too far and I come back the
• 48:10
  other way instead of saying no, What is the principle is
• 48:13
  probably a, you know, in between, you know, it's the
• 48:16
  tension between two competing ideas.
• 48:18
  That's probably where we need to be now.
• 48:20
  I'd rather bounce back and forth this way around that as opposed
• 48:24
  to go from this one to this one. And so that's where that one for
• 48:28
  me is. OK, How do I incorporate love
• 48:30
  within this high challenge piece?
• 48:32
  Well, for me, ultimately you start looking at love, which I
• 48:35
  think we, we bastardize. It's a combination of loving,
• 48:38
  kindness and truth. So the truth piece, the
• 48:41
  challenge piece is very much a part of love, but it's 1/2 of
• 48:44
  it. And so I needed to make sure
• 48:45
  that that was more complete. Yeah, because I think like
• 48:48
  you're saying if, if we really do, like if we're talking about
• 48:52
  staff we have or plays we have, if we really love them, like
• 48:54
  it's not just letting them be or like letting them be who they
• 48:57
  are and everything's great. It's like we see something in
• 49:00
  you because we love you and we know you are and we know what
• 49:02
  you can become. And we're going to challenge and
• 49:04
  push you to there while also walking beside you to get there
• 49:08
  at the same time. And I'm not going to only love
• 49:10
  you when you're scoring 20 and getting ten boards right.
• 49:12
  I'm going to let you regardless on that on that journey.
• 49:15
  Yeah, no, that, that's awesome. Yeah.
• 49:18
  This has been, this has been great, Kyle.
• 49:19
  You know, like I said at the beginning, I have every
• 49:22
  conversation that I feel like is, is so good with you.
• 49:25
  And this has been no different. I just think this stuff is so
• 49:28
  important beyond just sports, but just life, how we're
• 49:31
  interacting with people and leading people, challenging and
• 49:34
  loving people. I just, I'm, I'm grateful for,
• 49:37
  for your wisdom and what you're doing.
• 49:39
  The cool thing for me, John, well, first of all, I, I thank
• 49:42
  you and I, I, I love chopping this up with.
• 49:44
  I think there's a reason why we have good conversations when we
• 49:47
  got on the horn together and it's not just because of me,
• 49:49
  it's because of the two of us. I think the thing for me, the
• 49:53
  more that you know when I was in Pittsburgh and we started
• 49:55
  pulling from different arenas, you know, the special
• 49:58
  operations, military space, other sports business elite
• 50:01
  people in a lot of different fields and you start looking at
• 50:04
  this excellence is excellence like it's not some unique
• 50:07
  formula in this space. Now it looks a little bit
• 50:09
  different, but excellence is excellence.
• 50:10
  People are people. And so when I realized that for
• 50:14
  me it's, well, it's sport and life.
• 50:16
  It's like, no, sport is life, like life is sport as an
• 50:19
  example. But you can show up anywhere.
• 50:21
  And so then it's just starts to say, Hey, I, I don't care what
• 50:24
  arena we're in. This is the recipe, this is the
• 50:27
  framework. Now I got to figure out what
• 50:29
  does that look like for me? I look like for what does that
• 50:31
  look like for our, for our group?
• 50:33
  But then let's sell out to doing that as opposed to
• 50:35
  compartmentalizing and then falling into this or that.
• 50:38
  So, you know, it fires me up to get a chance to learn from a lot
• 50:41
  of different people and and you know, see all the different ways
• 50:44
  that we can, all the unique individual ways that we can
• 50:46
  bring this to life because we're all really different and how we
• 50:48
  execute. Yeah, I don't know if you've
• 50:50
  read Range by David Epstein, but that's one of my favorite books.
• 50:54
  And just lateral thinking and not getting stuck in our own
• 50:57
  trench. Like there's just so many good
• 50:59
  ideas from other places and we just stick to our own domain.
• 51:01
  Like we're living ourselves so much.
• 51:03
  Yep, I had ACEO say to me one time, he said I can call any
• 51:06
  CEO, Fortune 50 CEO in the country and I know exactly how
• 51:11
  they're thinking. Get a chance to talk to head
• 51:13
  coach or a general or what like. That's fascinating because now I
• 51:18
  start thinking about, well, I don't know your world, so I'm
• 51:20
  humble and I'm curious. And then I'm starting to look
• 51:23
  for the principal as opposed to just the method or the way of
• 51:26
  doing things. Yeah.
• 51:28
  And I think, I think it's so cool too, to see like even
• 51:31
  things like, I don't know, like something with music, Like
• 51:33
  you're seeing people that are really high level with music
• 51:35
  talking about or like judging or or coaching people.
• 51:38
  And you're like, I don't know the technicalities of what
• 51:41
  they're talking about, but I can tell that they are an expert and
• 51:45
  that they're a great teacher. And you can like see those those
• 51:48
  qualities without actually knowing the specifics of what
• 51:50
  they're, what they're, you know, teaching or talking about.
• 51:54
  And the crazy thing is, which is a great thing as we're talking
• 51:57
  about reminder for us as coaches, we spend so much time
• 52:00
  worrying about our technical tactical dope or our information
• 52:03
  like that's how we size each other up.
• 52:05
  The best coaches I've ever been around, they have they meet
• 52:08
  minimum competencies in that space, right?
• 52:10
  They're they're not not competent in that space, but the
• 52:13
  separator becomes what does what do good teachers do?
• 52:17
  What do good coaches do, what good, good leaders do.
• 52:19
  And it's just a great reminder for us on this journey we're on
• 52:21
  as coaches, like reading another book on technical, tactical in
• 52:25
  that space, while value added, these other attributes are the
• 52:29
  things we got to make sure that we're perfecting because that's
• 52:31
  what's going to show up. That's going to be the definite
• 52:33
  the difference in success and failure.
• 52:34
  No doubt. Well, Kyle, you know, if people
• 52:36
  listen, listen, you know, they wanted to learn more about your
• 52:39
  doing or reach out to you. Is there a place that they could
• 52:42
  go? I'd love to tell you yes, I'm
• 52:44
  not a social media darling or a wonderful marketer.
• 52:48
  The simplest place, I'm on LinkedIn.
• 52:50
  Feel free to ping me. Feel free to reach out to you.
• 52:52
  You can pass on my e-mail and cell phone.
• 52:54
  I'll talk to anybody and then hopefully more people reaching
• 52:57
  out to you too, John. So yeah, if somebody wants to
• 52:59
  talk, I'm game. I'd love this point to do an
• 53:01
  easy spot, but those would probably be the two easiest
• 53:03
  ones. Awesome.
• 53:04
  Well thank you again for doing this.
• 53:05
  This is great. Been a pleasure.
• 53:06
  Thanks, John.