← How Leaders Lead with David Novak
How Leaders Lead with David Novak
#276: Jason Garrett, 3x Super Bowl Champion and Former NFL Head Coach – You can lead from anywhere on the team
01:21:09
Listen to this leadership podcast with Jason Garrett, Former NFL Player & Head Coach, and see what it takes to build a strong team.
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- [00:00]
David Novak
Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of How Leaders Lead with David Novak. Today's episode comes just in time for the Super Bowl. We've got Jason Garrett on the show today. Jason is a former NFL head coach, a three time super bowl champion himself as a player for the Dallas Cowboys, and now he's a sports analyst for NBC. Throughout his entire career, he's learned that strong teams need shared commitment from everyone, not just the person in charge. And in today's episode, you're going to get inside his mind and really understand how he thinks about team bonding and empowering people to lead regardless of the role that they're in. Enjoy this conversation between David and Jason and be sure to stay tuned to the very end of the episode for the debrief.
- [00:51]
You know, I just learned in a couple of days, you're going to be interviewing for the Tennessee Titans head coach job. I got to tell you, I'm glad you didn't dump me.
- [01:00]
Jason Garrett
I wouldn't miss this for the world, David.
- [01:02]
David Novak
So is this a job you're really, really excited about, or is it just exploratory?
- [01:07]
Jason Garrett
You know, I love coaching football. I did it for a long time and feel really fortunate to have done it, and I love the job I have now. I mean, I work for NBC and, you know, I would do football night in America on Sunday nights, and I have a great group of people. And, you know, this. This just came upon me. Their general manager reached out and we had a good conversation, and he said, what do you think about, you know, coming down and talking to us about, you know, what your vision is for the Tennessee Titans? So I said, absolutely. You know, I've done this before. And like I said, I love coaching. I love being the head coach of the Cowboys. So this will be a fun opportunity. It's not like I was looking for this necessarily, but it came upon me and, you know, we're going to go down and visit. It'll be a fun. It'll be a fun day.
- [01:48]
David Novak
You won division titles as a Cowboy coach. You're the coach of the year. You know, you obviously have a great resume, but how do you personally get prepared for. For an interview like this?
- [01:58]
Jason Garrett
You know, I. I think more than anything else, you just have to think about it. You have to think about, you know, what your vision is for the team and what you want the team to look like. And that's something I talked to our guys about all the time when. When I was the head coach of the Cowboys. You know, that's what leaders need to do, first and foremost, regardless of what your profession is and what your line of work is, is you have to, okay, what's the vision? What do we want this to look like? And then you start thinking about, okay, who are the people that I want with me to make this vision come alive? And then you start thinking about the different steps you take. And, you know, in football, a lot of it is about personnel. So you study, you know, the Tennessee Titans roster, a lot of the guys I know from studying them in college or in the NFL, but you really hone in and say, okay, these are the pieces that I really like. This is the area where we got to get a little bit better. And then you go there on Friday and you're going to talk to the general manager, some other people in their front office, and you really share the vision. This is what I think. If I were the head coach of this team, this is what I think it should look like. These are the kind of people we want. I think some of these people are in house, whether it's on their staff or on their team. And then, hey, these are the steps we need to take to go get some other people to make this thing come alive. And, you know, a lot of it is, I was telling somebody the other day, you know, I interviewed for head coaching positions before I was a head coach. When you do that, you have a lot of ideas and you have. You do have a vision. You have, you've seen it done a certain way, and. And so you craft a message for people, and I think that's all good. Those are the experience you've had up to that point. But I was a head coach for nine years, and now I come back to this, and I have real life experience doing this.
- [03:47]
David Novak
Yeah, I bet there's probably. When you think about it and you had a great record, you know, what do you do over as a leader? I mean, you got to look at yourself and say, hey, you know, I did these things that were great, these things could be better. What would you do over.
- [04:01]
Jason Garrett
Well, well, that. That's something I talk to our team about and our coaches about all the time. We have to be honest and objective with ourselves, independent of the result. You know, you come in on Monday to evaluate the game and you won 40 to nothing. Everything wasn't great. You know, you come in on Monday, you lost 40 to nothing. Everything wasn't terrible. So how do we objectively analyze ourselves in these situation? And there are countless decisions, their interactions with people I wish I had over with coaches, players, decisions we made. There's a lot of good decisions we made. And then there's some decisions like, ah, that was wrong. And why was it wrong? I mean, I think that's the important thing. How do you not make that same mistake? And, you know, I think at times we weren't as disciplined as an organization as we needed to be. We said, this is the vision. We said, these are the kind of guys we want. And then you deviate for whatever reason, you go chase the shiny object and it gets you off course. And then you have to course correct. You have to say, okay, I saw what we did there. Okay, that was a mistake. Let's move on from that. And now let's go forward again in a disciplined fashion. So again, you make so many decisions. Some of them I thought were fantastic. Plenty of them weren't very good. But the biggest thing is learn and move on.
- [05:15]
David Novak
How do you prepare yourself for the outcome? I mean, you might get the job, you might not. I mean, how do you think about that? You know, because so many times leaders are so focused on what they want, it gets in the way of getting it.
- [05:27]
Jason Garrett
Yeah. You've hired so many people in your life, and I always think it's about fit. You know, there's a lot of qualified people who you talk to about jobs through the years. Right. But they just didn't fit with what you guys were doing, where they were in their career, maybe a cultural fit, whatever it is. And. And I think that's how you look at it. I want to present who I am, the best version of myself. Great vision for the franchise. If I were the head coach, and if it's something that fits with what they're looking for, fantastic. If not, that's fine, too. You know, I love what I'm doing right now, but I'm excited about the opportunity. I think it'll be a fun day.
- [06:01]
David Novak
Yeah, I think it will be, too, for you. It's interesting when you think about it. You were the coach of America's team. There's no team that gets more, more, you know, scrutiny than the Dallas Cowboys. And, you know, they have a. Had. Had had a great record in the past. I mean, now you're going to the Titans, which, you know, they had their ups there for a while, but they're in the dumps right now. How do you feel about a turnaround?
- [06:25]
Jason Garrett
You know, I'm excited about it. I'm excited about the pieces in place. You know, some of the guys they have on their team, they have a good young quarterback. There's a couple of guys on defense who are among the best in the league. And so you just start saying, okay, what do they have there that you like? And I think that's an important thing in leadership, too. I mean, sometimes you can, you know, can poison everything and. No, no, no, no. Let's look at this player by player, you know, and see what's good here. And I think there's a lot of good there. There's a little bit of a blank slate. They got a lot of salary cap room. Like I said, I love the general manager, Mike Borgonzi. He's been. Was in Kansas City for a lot of years. So he and I think have the same values about football and how you want to build it. So I think it's an exciting place and won three games this past year. Obviously not good, but there were some good elements in some of the other games that I think you can build on.
- [07:16]
David Novak
So it's in Nashville. Are you a country music fan or is this going to be something you're going to have to pick up?
- [07:22]
Jason Garrett
Well, as you know, I've lived in Texas for a long time, so I've certainly picked it up through the years, and. And I love going to Nashville. What a great town, right?
- [07:31]
David Novak
I mean, it's a fantastic town.
- [07:33]
Jason Garrett
Yeah. There are so many things that are exciting about this opportunity.
- [07:36]
David Novak
You know, I just learned that you're. You run a camp for kids in Princeton and you focus on leadership. And, you know. Where did you get this passion for leadership, Jason?
- [07:46]
Jason Garrett
Well, you know, if you think about it, I was a quarterback my whole life. You know, one of the most important qualities and all the best quarterbacks I've ever been around is they're great leaders. You know, they have a way of positively impacting people around them. And, you know, I always would say you get in a huddle with 10 other guys and you convince them that driving the football and making first downs and scoring points is the most important thing in the world, Right? And you get everybody to buy in and you go. And that's always something that appealed to me about the position. And so I always. I thought about it. I watch guys, I watch people, people who did it at a high level. And then when you become a coach, being a coach is a leadership role, whether. Whether you're a position coach or coaching the quarterbacks or an offensive coordinator, and certainly as a head coach. So it's been something that I've been drawn to. I've watched shows like this forever, you know, because I do think there's a lot of leadership that is transferable. People who are great leaders in different walks of life, you can learn a ton from them. And you know, you mentioned that the camp that we have, we do a leadership forum that I'm going to convince you to come to one of these years. But you know, we're, we have these great speakers, you know, guys from football, guys from business, and they talk about it and we have these really compelling conversations that I think everybody who walks out of the room, they're better because of it. Because I think everybody in some way is a leader in their life. First you lead yourself or lead your family or your church or in your community. So I think it's something we all can benefit from.
- [09:14]
David Novak
You won three Super Bowls when you were playing with the Cowboys. What's your favorite super bowl story?
- [09:19]
Jason Garrett
Oh, there's so many of them. There really are. You know, my first year with The Cowboys was 1992 and I was a fledgling pro football player. I was a third string quarterback and got fortunate to be part of a great team. And you know, you talk about leadership, you know, the leadership of Jimmie Johnson and Troy Aikman and the guys that we had on that team was, was pretty remarkable. My image of, of that first super bowl was in Pasadena. I don't know if you remember, we played the Bills and we really got after him. I think we beat him 51 to 17. And Troy threw four touchdowns and Michael Irvin was, you know, going crazy and our defense was unbelievable. And you know, just the feeling that everybody had because it was such a young team and there were just countless stories and everybody kind of looked around at each other, you know, after you win a playoff game and then you're figuring out you're going to the super bowl, like we're really doing this, you know, and you look back on that team, it's one of the best of all time.
- [10:12]
David Novak
Yeah. You know, what's something most people would never know about the super bowl that only players really get to experience?
- [10:19]
Jason Garrett
You know, it's really interesting. You know, I was fortunate to go to four of them. I went to three with the Cowboys and then I went to play for the Giants. We went there. We actually lost to the Ravens when I was with the Giants. But, you know, every super bowl experience is different. It's the thing that everybody is focused on throughout their career. If you're a player, a coach, being part of a Super bowl team, and there have been so many great players and coaches who haven't had the opportunity to go to One. And it's unique. You know, I think at some point you pinch yourself and say, we're really doing this. You know, I actually personally liked the idea of, you know, you stay at a certain hotel all week and then typically the night before the game you go to another hotel and it's secluded away from everybody else. That's where it really sinks in, you know. You know, one of the Super Bowls we had, Troy was our quarterback and obviously an amazing player, great leader. And at the time he was doing a, he was doing a commercial for, for some protein product. You know, it was a commercial where he's out running and he takes his shirt off and he continues jogging without his shirt. And it's the night before the game. Everybody's in the, in the, in the meal room and you can feel there's tension in the room. Everybody's like, ah, the super bowl, it's kind of a big deal. And everyone maybe is, is uncharacteristically quiet and you can feel the nerves of everybody and. But There are some TVs on and for whatever reason that, that, that commercial pops up and you know, you see Troy running and he takes his shirt off and guys just were absolutely dying. And it was one of those mo. It was one of those moments that I thought for whatever reason that commercial came up and it just kind of burst everyone's the air out everybody and made everybody relax. And sure enough, the next day we went out and won our third. So it was really fun.
- [12:07]
David Novak
And you, you've been on the field when the stakes are as high as they get. You know, what coaching would you give to leaders on how to better navigate big time pressure?
- [12:17]
Jason Garrett
You know, it's interesting, you talk about, about those Super Bowls and Jimmy Johnson was our head coach for the first two of those. And I'll never forget the meeting he had before the first Super Bowl. And you know, he said if I, he comes into the team meeting, there's what, whatever, 60, 70 guys in the room and everybody's excited about the opportunity, chopping at the bit. And it was our first one. And he said, hey, if I brought a 2 by 4, 10 yards long and put it in the front of this room on the floor and asked you guys to come down and walk across it. He said, I know a lot of you guys, you'd walk across, some of you guys would turn around, go backwards, some guys would do handstands, jump on one foot, whatever. He said, if I took that same two by four and put it 100 stories up between two skyscrapers and ask you to walk across. How would you walk across it? Then he said, it's the same two by four. Would you walk across it with that same confidence, or would you worry about falling? And he went on to make the point that he said, hey, if we have the Buffalo Bills on our practice field out here at Valley Ranch, I think everybody in the room feels pretty confident we'd beat him. But he said, just because we're going to the Rose bowl, there's gonna be 100,000 people, 100 million people watching, and we're playing for the championship of the world. He kept saying, it's the same two by four. And to me, that always resonated because, you know, in order to play your best, you just want to make it familiar. You want to be able to take practice to the game and treat this game like any other and just go out and execute. And that always resonated with me. I think it's a great image.
- [13:48]
David Novak
Oh, it's a great story. You know, you mentioned that 1992 team you had, Troy Aikman, Emmett Smith, Michael Irwin, some of the best to ever play the game. What did you lear them about? What it takes to be great.
- [14:01]
Jason Garrett
You know, if you reflect back on those teams, and I really credit Jimmy Johnson for this is the. Is the attitude and the atmosphere and the culture of hard work existed. You know, we were in that building on March 1, working out four days a week, lifting, running for months before we started doing football. And you lay this amazing foundation, and everybody was working together. And, you know, those days in the NFL are no longer. There's a lot of rules about when you can work out together and all of that, but, you know, just the idea that the bonds form through shared commitment, they last forever. And, you know, the commitment that we all made to each other and the hard work and all of that, you know, that led to some amazing success. And, you know, Michael Irvin really said it beautifully once. He said, if you don't work together, you never have a voice with your teammates. I don't care how many touchdowns you score, how many sacks you make. But if you haven't been in the trenches with your teammates, when it gets to a big moment, they don't care what you say. But when we've been together and we've been working hard together, those bonds are tight, and you have credibility with your guys, and. And I think maybe I learned more about that from those teams than anything else. How hard you work, how those bonds form, how connected you are and. And how that serves you through all the big moments. And now, hey, David, that's 30 plus years ago. And I see these guys now, you know, the teammates that we have, we're all really close, and the conversation just keep rolling like we're in the locker room together a long time ago. So, really, special teams to be a part of.
- [15:35]
David Novak
Yeah, I can only imagine that. And, you know, I can't wait to get into your professional journey. But first, I want to take you back. What's the story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today?
- [15:48]
Jason Garrett
Oh, I think so many. My mom and dad. I have seven brothers and sisters. We're all one year apart.
- [15:58]
David Novak
Oh, my goodness.
- [15:59]
Jason Garrett
Our names all begin with Jay, and it's Jim, Jane, Jennifer, Jeanine, Jill, John, Jason Judd. And my dad was a football coach forever. And so we moved around a lot. And, you know, talking about bonds formed, I mean, our bonds were close as a family because we moved around a lot. And you go to a new school or a new team and all of that. And so I learned a lot about teamwork from them. And, you know, the leadership that my mom and dad demonstrated, the examples they set, how hardworking they were, how generous they were. When you reflect back as an adult, you realize there probably were a lot of things going on that as a kid, you never knew about. It was just like, yeah, it's all good. And they always created that atmosphere. And I always say this, and I think you probably agree with this. You know, the energy of the leader pervades the group. Right. If the leader comes in and he's miserable all the time, the people feel that. And if they have great energy and they're positive, enthusiastic, everybody feels that, too. And that's the household I grew up in. And, you know, we played more football, baseball, basketball, wiffle ball, beach rugby than any team in the history of the world. That's what our upbringing was all about. And I wouldn't have traded it for anything.
- [17:15]
David Novak
Yeah, I always call that the shadow of leadership. Your parents cast that shadow, and it cascaded to all you with that first name, with J. That was pretty impressive how you rattled through all those. I hope you don't forget one someday. You get in real trouble now. Now, when you were in college, you were the starting quarterback at Princeton, and then you transferred to Columbia, where your dad got the head coaching job. You know, what was the biggest lesson you learned from that experience?
- [17:45]
Jason Garrett
Well, it was a hard decision. You know, I went to Princeton as a freshman, and I loved it. I had a great Experience there. My dad was coaching in the NFL. He was the running back coach for the Cleveland Browns. And he was at that point in his career where he wanted to be a head coach again. He had been a head coach in college for a few years early on. And so my brother John was actually a receiver at Columbia, and my dad took the Columbia job. And all of you remember this, but Columbia was really bad in football for a long time. They were in the midst of a long losing streak, and my dad was just confident enough to go in there and say, hey, we're going to turn this around. And my younger brother Judd was a really good running back in Ohio, and he was going to come to Princeton. And so we all decided, we're going to go there and play for my dad. And turns out my brother John broke his collarbone. I couldn't play because I transferred and Jud played freshman football. My dad went in there, the mandate was make changes. Let's make this a great program. And all of a sudden he started making changes and they didn't really like the changes he was making. I mean, he was trying to clean everything up. And so it ended up he was only there for, for one year. And so I transferred there and at the end of the season where I didn't play, I transferred back to Princeton. And so I think at the first time in my life, I realized, huh, you know, not all things are really fair. You know, you can be well intended and try to do things the right way, and sometimes, you know, you don't get the outcome that you want. And, you know, I learned a lot. You know, it makes you grow up a little bit and you adjust, you figure it out and you figure what the next path is and. Really excited to go back to Princeton. My two brothers came with me. We ended up playing together at Princeton. So it was an amazing experience.
- [19:28]
David Novak
That's great. And a great school, too. And. And you weren't drafted out of college, as I understand it, but. But you made your way into the NFL and you spent most of your career as a backup quarterback. What, what did you learn about leading in the background? You know, you weren't in the front. You're. You were in more of a supportive role, ready to chip in when it was time. But what'd you learn in that backup role?
- [19:51]
Jason Garrett
Yeah, I think the first thing is you have to be ready when you're called upon. I mean, that was my job, first and foremost. I'm the backup quarterback of Treyman Gets hurt. You got to be ready to go play and play well and the team can't skip a beat without you. But I always think that there's obvious leadership roles, the head coach, a coordinator, the quarterback, the middle linebacker, all of that. And, and it's critical for those people to embrace those roles. But I always feel like you can lead in your own way from wherever you are. And really it's just having a positive impact, whether it's by example, an encouraging word, enthusiasm, just your energy and all of that. And, and so that's what I tried to do. I just tried to be a really positive influence on the team. Be a great teammate, be someone that when younger players come in, they can look to you and, and you can help them, maybe show them the way. And you know, one of the great dynamics in the NFL, David, was I'm so grateful for my experience. I ended up playing 14 years and I reflect back on my rookie year. You said it. I was the fledgling quarterback, college free agent, signed for $500. You know, I was a four string quarterback my first year trying to make it. But there were guys that had played 10, 15 years in the NFL who took me under their wing. Stan Brock, starting left tackle, the New Orleans Saints for 12 years. Hey kid, you want to come to Thanksgiving dinner? I'm living down in New Orleans by myself in some apartment. And you know this guy, he's, he's one of the best players on our team. And he pulls you in and says, hey, you know, you're part of this thing. And, and you know, I'll never forget those guys just kind of showing me the way. And then when you get on the other end of it, you know, that's your responsibility to help those other guys, show them the way. And I always encourage that in our players to watch the older guys, listen to the older guys and encourage the older guys to have a responsibility to the younger guys. So I just feel really fortunate that way. And you try to be a great teammate, you try to learn from people and then when it's your turn, you know, you try to spread the knowledge and just really fortunate that way it.
- [21:56]
David Novak
Became your turn every now and then. Tell us the story about your best game.
- [22:01]
Jason Garrett
Yeah, the best game was probably Thanksgiving, 1994. You know, Troy Aikman got hurt and then Rodney Pete was our backup and he got hurt too. And we had played the Redskins the week before and, and here come the Green Bay packers on Thanksgiving three days later and we really have no other quarterbacks. I'm the third quarterback and I'm going to play in the game and you know, it's Brett Favre, it's Reggie White, it's this amazing team that they had. And all through the 90s we had these great battles with them and, and a lot of the games were played in Dallas and we beat them. We had a lot of success against them, but you know, they were really good that year. And you know, all of a sudden, you know, this third string quarterback's playing and it was, it was an amazing game. You know, we talked about teamwork and teammates before. You know, early on in the game it wasn't going great. And you know, the veteran guys, Michael Irvin, Emmett Smith, Darrell Johnston, all these guys, they really kind of hung with me. And by the end of the first half we started moving the ball a little bit and then came out in the second half and we just had a great day and we ended up beating them. And you know, certainly the most memorable game that I played in and the one where I had the most significant role, but my big takeaway is we had great leadership on that team and there were so many great teammates to make that thing happen, you know.
- [23:14]
David Novak
And then after, you know, you said 12 years playing in the NFL, you transitioned into coaching. And your first coaching job was at Miami under the head coach, Nick Saban. What did he teach you about leadership?
- [23:29]
Jason Garrett
Oh, it was an amazing opportunity for me. You know, I finished my last year playing. The last half of that year I was a backup quarterback for the Dolphins. And then Nick Saban was hired after that season and I got the opportunity to meet with him and interview and end up hiring me. And you know, I reflect back on that. You know, I had played 14 years in the NFL and you learn a lot. You've been around great teams, great players, great coaches, and you feel like you know something, but then you get in and you're on the other side. Now you're a coach. You're not just a quarterback or a player throwing his ideas out. You know, now you have a responsibility. You're coaching the quarterbacks, you're on the other side of the desk. And to have the opportunity to be with Nick, you know, he sat at the head of the table, the head of the conference table, in our staff rooms, and I sat right next to him. And the funny story is I got hired a little bit later than everybody else. And we had a meeting at 7:30 in the morning and there's 20, 25 coaches there and we walk in and there's this long conference table and I'm like, I'm Going down there. I'm going down to the end. And I sat in the corner seat thinking that he was going to be at the head of the table, and I was just going to kind of ease myself into it. He comes into the office, into the conference room from his office the other way and sits right next to me. I'm like, oh, God, I'm right next to the big guy. But it was an amazing vantage point just to see him run a program and no stone unturned. And, you know, we talked at the outset about vision, you know, the vision for the team. And he was so clean and clear about articulating that. But his greatness, people ask me this all the time, what makes him great? He was relentless. Relentless in holding everybody accountable to what the vision was, to the point of, hey, we're going to do everything the right way. How we dress for practice, everybody on time, how we do drills, how you finish drills, you know, how we have a top 30 visit of college players eligible for the draft, how we do the dinner, how we do the buffet lines, how we do the. You know, I mean, it was just amazing how detail oriented he was on everything, and he was relentless. And it was a great lesson for me when I became a head coach. You can speak all you want about the vision. It doesn't matter. You gotta make it come alive. And he's done an amazing job of doing that.
- [25:49]
David Novak
And you got the call in 2007 from the Cowboys to become their offensive coordinator, and you had some immediate success, and you started getting head coach, head coaching offers. I remember watching on television, reading about it, you know, but you didn't take them. You know, why'd you stay as an assistant?
- [26:11]
Jason Garrett
Well, you know, you've had those decisions, too. And, you know, you try to make decisions intellectually. You try to make them with your gut and your heart and what feels right. I'd been a quarterback coach in Miami for two years. I came to Dallas as the offensive coordinator. We had a great year. And then I had opportunities to go be a head coach. I'd been coaching for three years. I felt like I just started, you know, and I knew I had a lot to learn. I felt like we had a little unfinished business in Dallas. And the opportunities were amazing. It was. It was to be Baltimore's head coach or to be Atlanta's head coach. Amazing organizations, great owners, all of that. But, you know, at the end of it, my heart and my gut told me, hey, stay here. Learn and grow as much as you can. And, you know, you'll look back on those and say, what if? And all of that. But so fortunate to have the path that I've taken, eventually became the head coach of the Cowboys. And that was an amazing experience for me.
- [27:05]
David Novak
You know, there's a phrase I've heard you use, lead with performance. Say more about that idea.
- [27:11]
Jason Garrett
Yeah, well, again, you know that better than I do. You know, a great example of that to me was always Troy Aikman. And, you know, I mentioned that we have this leadership forum, and one of my favorite stories was, you know, this guy named Pete Carrill. I don't know if you know Coach Carrill, but yeah, you know, he was the coach of Princeton for 29 years, and people talk about the Princeton basketball offense. He's the guy that started all that. And he became a great friend of mine. And he used to come to our leadership, to our leadership forum, and we have a panel. And he was on the panel. Troy Aikman was on the panel, a couple other people, and people were talking about leadership and why it's important and this, that and the other thing. And I'll never forget, you know, he kind of listened and listened and listened, and finally he said something like, hey, is everybody done? Everybody done here? And we said, yeah, Coach, what do you have to say? And he said, hey, Aikman, Aikman, you were pretty good throwing that. Throwing that ball in that out route. You were pretty good throwing it right here, weren't you? And he said, yeah, you know, I was pretty accurate, Coach. He said, that kind of helped your leadership, didn't it? You know, and he just. He made an amazing point, you know, just this idea that, again, we can talk all we want about what we want it to be, but you have to perform. Performance matters. And that can certainly enhance your leadership and give your leadership credibility. And I don't know how much you're following the college football stuff, but there's a great story up in Indiana with Kurt Signetti, the head coach there. Incredible. Yeah, I had a chance to do one of his games this year, and we're talking in the production meeting before, and I'm in there trying to learn. I'm trying to learn as a coach from him. This guy's had so much success, and he's talking about. He has all the lingo and the sayings and all of this. And I said, coach, I want to interrupt you for a second. I hear all that, but I hear all that from a hundred other coaches, too, about how you're going to be tough and physical and relentless and you're going to play this way and all that. I said, the difference for me is you guys do it, you guys do it. This is how you play. This is how you play week after week on offense, defense, kicking game. You make it come alive. And you know, you talk about lead with performance, they perform. And you know, I said, how do you get that done? And he said, we just make sure we get it done, coach, you know, and just holding everybody accountable to it himself first, his coaches and all his players. And you can tell they have a great multi tiered leadership. They empower their leaders throughout the organization and everybody buys in. So ultimately that's what matters. You have to execute. If you don't execute in business, you're out of business. Right. And if you don't execute in football, you're not going to be there very long.
- [29:55]
David Novak
You know, vision without execution always, you know, it's nothing. Okay. You know, how do you, how do you drive an execution mindset into your, into your team or how would you recommend doing it in a business?
- [30:09]
Jason Garrett
You know, I think for me you have to be crystal clear as about what the expectations are and what the jobs are. Right? This is your job and we got to hold you accountable to it. And, and I think if you can get everybody understanding that, the accountability piece, we used to always say good teams have a head coach who hold everybody accountable. The great teams, the championship teams have the head coach, the coaching staff, the support staff, the players and everybody else connected with the team. They hold themselves and each other accountable. And so that's an important piece of it. If you can get everybody to buy in, to understand how important executing is, doing your job, all of that, all with the understanding that we're not perfect, we're going to screw up all the time. I mean, I can't tell you the number of mistakes I've made and the best players I've ever been around, the best coaches, but then the willingness to recognize it, be objective, take accountability for it, learn from it and move forward. And if you can create that culture, I think you have your best chance to succeed.
- [31:09]
David Novak
As you mentioned earlier, you had the great privilege of coaching the Dallas Cowboys, America's team. What was it like taking the mantle and leading such a iconic franchise? I mean, they've obviously had their problems recently, but over the recent years. But back then, I mean, you were, you, you. It's like taking over the Yankees.
- [31:33]
Jason Garrett
Well, no doubt it's, it's one of those franchise you mentioned, the Yankees. I always just say it's The. The Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankers, Manchester United, you know, these are. These are international brands. And you. You know, you have a choice there. You can turn away from the history and tradition, or you can embrace it. And, you know, I used to always tell our guys the standards are high. It's the NFL. It's the Dallas Cowboys. The greatest coaches. Think about the guys who coach there. Tom Landry, one of the greatest coaches ever, right? All the great, amazing assistant coaches, the greatest players. Look at all the hall of Fame players at every position. So you can run away from those standards or you can embrace them. And that's not living in the past. It's just understanding that this is where we are. These are what the expectations are. And really, it's your expectations for yourself and the approach that you take. And, you know, mentioned performance, you know, taking accountability for your performance. So, to me, it was always a privilege. We used to have a touchstone as players go out to practice, and we used to ask everybody to hit it. You say it's a privilege, not a right to play, coach and work for the Dallas Cowboys. And if you treat it as such, I think your actions will follow, you'll prepare the right way, you'll put your best foot forward, and then really, the results will take care of themselves.
- [32:48]
David Novak
But as a. And as the leader, you know, you are the new sheriff. Okay, you're now that. You're now the head coach. How did you go about developing your vision and how did you communicate it to the team?
- [33:02]
Jason Garrett
You know, like we talked. I was so fortunate to be a part of some amazing teams. So I felt like I know what it looked like. I know what it felt like. And again, you're not living in the past. This is the group of players and coaches we have now. But you can lean on. Boy, this is what greatness looks like. I saw Michael Irvin practice. I saw Troy Aikman practice, or Darren Woodson, or, you know, you picked the guy and the level that they practiced and prepared at and how they competed and how important it was and the sacrifices they made. So you try to convey that in a way to the group, and you certainly try to live that. You know, the example you set for everybody and what you do, and you try to empower leaders to take ownership of the team and all that. You know, the. One of the challenges is, you mentioned it's so high profile. There's a lot of scrutiny. So, you know, there's a big emphasis on focusing on what we need to do because it's easy to get caught up in the other stuff. When you win, everybody inflates it. When you lose, everybody. Everybody piles on. So how do we kind of lock in, focus on what we need to do each and every day to be our best? That might be the biggest challenge of all of it. And I used to always tell our guys, let's us as players and coaches, not contribute to the noise. Let's make sure that we stay focused on what we need to do to be our best. There's going to be a lot of people saying a lot of stuff about us, Good, bad, or indifferent. Let's lock in on what we need to do each day. And I think that was a big challenge when you're in such a high profile situation.
- [34:31]
David Novak
Hello, friends. Just reminding you to stay tuned to the very end of the episode. David and I are going to debrief the conversation that he has with Jason and give you some real practical tools that you can walk away and apply right away to your leadership and to your life. So stay tuned to the very end of the episode and enjoy the rest of the conversation with Jason Garrett.
- [34:51]
You know, when I always stepped into a new situation, I felt it was my. The number one job was to define reality for the team and then give people the hope that you could actually achieve it. What did you see as your number one task? As a leader?
- [35:05]
Jason Garrett
Yeah. At the end of it, the bottom line is you have to win, you know, and so I used to always, the first five minutes of our first meeting in training camp, I said, guys, the goal is this. Standing on a platform the first week of February, holding the trophy over our head, with streamers coming down and confetti all over the place and having these grins on our faces and all of that, okay? So put that in our deep recesses of our mind. That's where we're going. Okay? But here's how we get there. And so you pull them back into today. What do we need to do today to be great? And then show them that you have a path forward to achieve that. And it's hard to do, right? It's hard to do. I mean, there's one team every year, there's 31 teams that are disappointed. Right. And this goes year after year after year. And like I said, feel fortunate to be a part of four of these teams that went to this game. But, you know, I think you start there, but then you get everybody locked in and you hear guys like Coach Saban talk about the process. You know, Bill Walsh's book, the scoreboard will take Care of itself. John Wooden never talked about winning. You know, so you got to get everybody back into the mode of, we're going to get the right people together. We're going to be relentless in doing things the right way each and every day, and then ultimately, the results will take care of themselves. The results are real. If we don't win, we're not gonna be here. If you're not productive, you're not gonna be here. But the best way to win and be productive is if we approach it the right way each and every day and relentless in our pursuits. And I think that's what you try to convey to everybody.
- [36:35]
David Novak
You know, I've talked to a lot of great leaders and visit a lot of great companies, and they take the time to really articulate the cultural behaviors that they think are gonna lead you to victory, to get to that winning point. And is that something you do in football as well? Do you have four or five things, you say, this is it, and, you know, and if so, how'd you communicate them and then keep them front and center for the team?
- [37:01]
Jason Garrett
You know, one of the things that we always tried to do is we had a foundational word, and the word that we always talked about in Dallas, and really, it's something that I think is critical in any organization, is the word fight. You know, when players and coaches and staff members got to training camp, we always had a fight. Hoodie lying on their bed, and guys would wear it around. Simple word, fight across your chest. And then we talked about what that means. We want to be a team that fights. What does that mean? Fight to be your best every day. That's the highest standard. To be your absolute best every day. That's our goal, and you're not going to achieve it. But we want to fight to get there. We talked about standards, the highest standards. The NFL, the Dallas Cowboys, the Tennessee Titans, right? We're going to set the standards high as leaders. We got to fight each day to reach them, fight to get the job done, right? Everybody's got a job. We got to fight to get it done, and most importantly, fight for each other. So that was kind of the foundation of what we're trying to do. And for me, you could articulate that each and every day, where you had great examples of guys on the practice field or during the game or off the field, how. How they demonstrated that. So you reinforce that. But something I learned early on, as you talk about, you know, expectations, and we always. We always did it where we said, hey, players, this is what you can expect from us as coaches, and we go through that, you can expect us to keep the standards high, treat you with respect, coach you hard, all of these things, right? And then this is what we expect from you. And a lot of it was the inverse of that. But if you lay that stuff out right at the outset and you're crystal clear with it, you give them vivid examples of it. I do think that everybody understands. And then when things happen where you go awry from that, it's easy to bring them back. Hey, we talked about this on day one. You know, something else that we always tried to do is we tried to have the players by themselves, whether it's the captains or a leadership group, come up with like a player's. A player's motto or a mantra or something like that, and a player's creed, not unlike the Navy Seals or an ethos of something like that, and kind of get out of their way and say, what do you guys want our team, we talk about ownership. What do you guys want this team to be about? So try to do both of those things, and hopefully those standards are crystal clear for everybody. And then again, the key is holding everybody accountable to it.
- [39:30]
David Novak
You think about coaches, and stereotypically, you think about how some coaches are just never give you a compliment, you know. You know, I don't know if Bill Parcells is that way, you know, but I think he's kind of known for being sort of a curmudgeon. Never, you know, never. Never dueling out praise. And then you think of other. Other coaches who, you know, like you said, they recognize nice. Those behaviors, that performance that gets you the kind of fight culture you want. What kind of approach works today for the player is to displays. Player need the recognition or do they need the, you know, never get the praise? I mean, how do you look at that?
- [40:09]
Jason Garrett
Well, something I always said was, you know, ever since we were six years old, we wanted to play and coach in the National Football League. Now we're here. You know, let's not create a miserable environment. Let's not create an environment where everybody walks in like, oh, my God, I hate being here. You kidding me? We're playing and coaching the NFL. Let's make this great, you know, So I always believe that you want to have a positive, upbeat environment for people to live in and work in and function in. Now, having said that, you know, we've talked about this a lot. You got to keep the standards high. This is what the expectations are. These are what the standards are. And we're not going to be demeaning when we coach you, but we're going to be demanding. We're going to make sure that you're maximizing this opportunity and we're getting everything out of you.
- [40:54]
David Novak
I like that. Not demeaning, but demanding. That's a good phrase.
- [40:59]
Jason Garrett
And I think that's something that if you have the right kind of guys on your team, that's what they want. You know, the best players I've been around want to be coached and they want to be coached hard. And so if you can do that and tell them, why not just tell them to do it? Here's why this is important. I think you're going to get the most out of them.
- [41:17]
David Novak
Yeah. Speaking of players and developing players, what's your philosophy on doing it? I mean, how do you develop the talent that you have?
- [41:24]
Jason Garrett
Oh, it's critical. It's everything. You know, you have to identify players both in the draft and free agency, do a great job with evaluations, but then once you get them in the building, it's your job as a coach and as an organization to help grow them. Those are your most valuable commodities, your players. And so everything has to point towards their development. And something that I, we've always talked about was just the idea of being very intentional with each player's development. Like at the end of the season, we used to do something we called the plan, okay, we got to get David Novak better. Okay, so I'm coaching you and I say, okay, these are your three strengths. These are three areas where I think you need to improve. These are three ways that we're gonna do that. This is what you need to do in the weight room. This is what you need to do with your nutrition. I do that. But then we say, hey, David, you do that. You do a self evaluation. And so you do the same thing. And then we get together and we meet and hopefully those things are on the same page. And what we're doing for you is different than what we're doing for Jimmy or Johnny. We're having the same meetings with them and you show them a cut up and you show them the reasons why that. This is what I see. Is this how you see it? And you dig in on day one and say, how are we going to improve? What kind of drills are we going to do? What are the steps we're going to take? You know, I think coaches make a mistake and they say, okay, David Novak's a running back. So he's in the running back room and he's Just going to get better because we're going to coach all those guys. That, that's true. That's probably going to happen. But if you can be intentional, have the player be intentional, have the coach be intentional and maximize these opportunities, I think that's when you're going to get the best out of everybody.
- [43:05]
David Novak
Absolutely. And you know, you, you won three NFC division titles. You were named coach of the year in 2016. How did you personally define success in an environment where if you don't win the super bowl, it's a bust? I mean, like you said, there's only one of the 32 gets there. I mean, how do you, if you don't win it, how do you wake up and make yourself feel good about yourself?
- [43:28]
Jason Garrett
Yeah, you know, it's a hard part of the job and the winning is the bottom line. We all know that. And so you got to win or you're not going to have the opportunity to keep doing what you're doing. But I do think when you're in it, I think it's important to, to critically evaluate how you're playing independent of the result. I think that's what allows you to get better the most. And, you know, I'm sure you've had a ton of business meetings where you got, you know, they've signed on, you got the deal. But if you really reflect back on it, maybe that wasn't my best pitch and other times you didn't get the deal and you knocked it out of the park. Right. But you have to critically evaluate those things independent of the result, in my opinion. I think if you can do that on a consistent basis. Nick Saban was great at doing that. Sometimes he was critically so, I mean, incredibly critical of us when we won a game and then when we lost a game, much more understanding. This was good. This was good, you know, So I think over time, if you're really objective about how you're doing things along the way, that's what's going to lead to the bottom line of winning maybe more than anything else.
- [44:33]
David Novak
You know, you mentioned great coaches earlier. You know, the Nick Sabins, the John Wooden's, they, they have the process and discipline around what really matters, you know. You know, when it comes to winning in football, where do you think you, what's your ideas on process and discipline? Where do you have to have it?
- [44:52]
Jason Garrett
Oh, yeah, you have to have it in every aspect of it. And, you know, you think about building an organization and, you know, there's a great story that I can remember. We went up in 2016, we had the fourth pick of the draft and we took a whole group of people up to Ohio State. And you know, Ohio State had like five or six guys who were going to be first round picks and Joey Bosa and Ezekiel Elliot and some other guys. And, and so we took our whole staff up there to work these guys out, talk to coaches, spent time with them. And I had never been to Ohio State and I walked into their football offices and there was this two story atrium entryway. And I can remember looking at the floor and they had all these words like engraved on the floor. Excellence, performance, integrity, discipline, all of that. I'm like, you know, you're thinking about, when you're a leader, you're always trying to message. I'm like, that's interesting. And then kind of at eye level, they had these pictures of all the great Ohio State players through the years, names that were very recognizable. I'm like, ah, that's, that's really cool. I mean, amazing, these coaches and players who have been here. And then I looked up and like on the top of the second story atrium there was a quote by Woody Hayes, their longtime coach, and he said, you win with people, that's the takeaway. That's the takeaway. And that's such a simple thing to say. But if you can be really disciplined with the people you bring into your organization and you're really crystal clear as to what you're looking for, it's amazing how all these other things can follow from that. If you're bringing bad people who don't want to be part of a team, aren't willing to work, don't really care about each other, all of that stuff, you, you're gonna have a hard time getting any message to stick. But if you're bringing in the right kind of people who love football, wanna be part of a team willing to work for it, all of that, all of a sudden everything you say kinda kind of sticks. You can be a disciplined team, you can achieve some of the things you wanna achieve. So we always were very thoughtful about, hey, who we letting in the door?
- [46:59]
David Novak
So speaking of that, what would be the one question you'd ask, like a potential, potential first round draft pick? They come in, I mean, what would you ask them?
- [47:07]
Jason Garrett
Well, I used to ask two questions. You know, they have this amazing thing at the combine, Dave, and I'd love to have you be a part of it sometime. You know, it was like speed dating. Starting at 6 o' clock at night, a horn goes off and a Player comes into this hotel room, and you have the head coach, and you have coordinators and personnel guys and scouts all in the room. And the guy comes in and you got 15 minutes with him. At the 14 minute mark, another horn goes off, telling you, you got one more minute. Then the horn goes again, and everybody changes. And so we used to try to be really systematic. We did the position coach talk, and then the coordinator personnel guy and I used to always talk last. And I had two questions. My first question was, what's the biggest challenge you've had in your life and how'd you get through it? And it's amazing, the stories you hear. You know, some tragic stories, some really hard stories to the point where you say, how is this guy even in this room after going through that? But, you know, life's about adversity. The NFL's about adversity. You want to know if these guys can get through it. But my other question was, say the kid was from Ohio State. I would say, hey, there's 100 guys in Ohio State's program. We're going to ask everybody associated with the program, coaches, players and staff members, to rank the players 1 through 100, based on 1 criteria, how much they love football, and then provide the evidence for the love. One loves it the most, 100 loves it the least. So I would. I would ask him, I said, where does everybody rank you and what's their evidence? And invariably, the guy would say, oh, they ranked me 1, coach 1. I just have a feeling, ever since I was a kid, I love football. It's a feeling inside of me. I'm like, that wasn't the question. The question was, everybody else is ranking you how much you love football and what's their evidence? Do you get there early? Do you stay late? Are you prepared? Are you a great teammate? You're always working on your skill, whatever those things are, you're looking for evidence. And so to me, passion for the game, love for what you're doing is really line one. If you don't love it, it's too hard. And that's the only way you're going to get better at it. And so we always challenge guys about that. And not only the feeling of love, but love is an action, it's a verb. What do you do? What's the evidence? And so I think if you get through those two questions, you get a pretty decent feel for what the guy's all about.
- [49:28]
David Novak
No, I love both those questions. Outstanding. And leaders, as you know, you have to manage up and you have to manage down in your organization. And you worked with Jerry Jones. What did you learn about leading up, working with him? Not just managing down. You know, he's. He's, you know, reportedly reputedly a. A micromanager. Pretty tough guy to work with, but also supportive, I'm sure. I mean, what'd you learn managing up with him?
- [49:57]
Jason Garrett
Well, just an amazing experience, first and foremost. I learned so much from him about so many things, so I'm grateful for that experience, you know, but. But I do think if you're a head coach, you're not in charge. Ownership is in charge. General managers are in charge, so you have to lead up. And I think for me, it was always the importance of creating a crystal clear vision for the team. And if you can articulate it clearly, what you want the team to be like, what you want this thing to look like, who we want to bring in, and say it in a way that is compelling to people, they can see it in their minds. That's when your vision comes alive. And ultimately, Jerry Jones is the decision maker. He drafted the players, he signed off on, the free agents, all of that. So we had to do a great job saying, hey, you know something, with the ninth pick of the draft in 2011, my first year, Tyron Smith is the guy we need to draft. We need to draft this guy. And here's why. Bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup. You know, and if you can convey that in a crystal clear manner and be compelling, you know, I think that's important. So I think with personnel decisions and any decisions, it's incumbent upon you to be able to communicate and communicate well and have great reasons for why you want to do things. And I think that's probably the biggest lesson you learn, you know.
- [51:15]
David Novak
You know, being let go is one of the toughest things for anyone to deal with in life. And when your contract wasn't renewed with the Cowboys, how do you process that and move forward as a leader?
- [51:28]
Jason Garrett
It's a challenge. It is. Because so much of your life is invested in it. And, you know, as a player and as a coach, in order to be great at something, you got to dive into it and put your heart and soul and everything into it. And, you know, it takes over your life. And we always talk to our players and coaches about ownership. Take ownership of this thing. It's your team. Well, when you get relieved of your duties, it's no longer your team. And that can leave a real hole in your life. And I used to always Think when I was playing and coaching, understand that this isn't all who you are as a person. Don't let your entire life and your values, how you value yourself, be based on winning and losing a game. And so even though you're completely invested in your ownership and you're all in on it, you do have other parts of your life, and you do have value beyond this. Don't inflate your value when you win and certainly don't diminish your value when you lose. So I think that's important. But that is not easy to do.
- [52:32]
David Novak
No, it's not.
- [52:34]
Jason Garrett
It's not easy to do, and it's hard for all of us, regardless. And I think in a lot of ways, it's hard for players to transition. If you think about players who have. Their identity has been tied to playing football, and you're a football player, you're a great football, you're a Hall of Fame football player. You know, that's a big part of who you are. And to be able to wake up the next day and have a passion and a purpose for something, that's hard to do. So those situations are never easy. But, you know, you tell yourself that. I used to always say, you know, you make these talks to the team, sometimes you got to listen to your own talks.
- [53:10]
David Novak
I'd say the same thing, too. You know, sometimes I'm not very good at it either.
- [53:15]
Jason Garrett
Yeah, exactly. Right.
- [53:17]
David Novak
You know, speaking of transitions, in 2022, you joined NBC as a. As a sports analyst. What advice can you give others on. On how to transition? Well, because you obviously enjoy what you're doing now and you're having a good time doing it.
- [53:33]
Jason Garrett
Yeah, no doubt. I had a great opportunity. You know, Fred Gadelli, who's a, you know, one of the great football producers of all time, is a friend of mine, and. And he reached out and said, you know, what do you think about broadcasting? And I said. I said, what do you think about it? You're the expert. And, you know, and he gave me some great advice. I think you'll appreciate this. He said, we're doing the USFL down in Birmingham, Alabama. NBC is doing it, and there's going to be 10 games this spring. I think you should go down there and be our analyst. And he said, you're going to work with great people, some of the best people at NBC. It'll be a fantastic environment to work in. You'll learn a lot from them. You'll find out if you like it, you'll find out if you're any good at it, and most importantly, no one will be watching. And he was so true. I mean, he was dead on. And so, you know, I got into it about three or four weeks, and they said, hey, it's going well, and they offered me some more opportunities, and I'm grateful for those. And, you know, I think the biggest thing, you know, at that time, it was a risk. It was something that was completely different than I had done before, and it was just a willingness to say, eh, what the hell, let's dive in and do it. I trusted him. It intrigued me a little bit, and just a willingness to maybe try something new. And I'm grateful. I did. And NBC, they're incredible people, and I've learned so much, and I. I have a lot of fun doing what I'm doing.
- [55:03]
David Novak
Jason, you've mentioned grateful many times in this conversation that we've had. How important is just having gratitude in your life? How much does that play in and what makes you tick?
- [55:19]
Jason Garrett
You know, I can reflect back on my life, and when I've been at my absolute worst, I haven't had any gratitude. You start thinking about all the wrong things. You start thinking about what other people are doing. You start forgetting how fortunate you are in so many different ways. And if you can just bring it back to that each and every day, think about the family I grew up in. Think about the opportunities I had athletically and academically and the people I've had a chance to meet and the different things I've been able to be a part of and people to learn from and all of that. If you can really just honestly pull back, it's like, are you kidding me? This is ridiculous. And I've just been so fortunate in so many ways. And you know what I've always thought was it's incumbent upon you to take full advantage of these opportunities. Strive to be your best. You're not going to be your best. You're going to fall short. You're not going to be perfect. I got that. But fight to be your best in everything you do, to embrace these opportunities and show your gratitude for them. And so much of it. If you think about, like I said, talking about my parents, my brothers and sisters, my wife, friends, colleagues, coaches, teammates, all of that, I mean, I've just been so fortunate to be around so many people, and when I keep that in the forefront of my mind, I find I'm a much better person.
- [56:36]
David Novak
You know, Jason, it's been so much fun, and I want to have some more with my Lightning round of questions. So are you ready for this?
- [56:42]
Jason Garrett
Okay, let's go.
- [56:44]
David Novak
Three words that best describe you.
- [56:45]
Jason Garrett
Grateful is one of them. Driven is one of them. And hopefully somebody who strives to be a good person.
- [56:53]
David Novak
If you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be?
- [56:57]
Jason Garrett
I'd like to try to be the president for a day.
- [56:59]
David Novak
What's your biggest pet peeve?
- [57:01]
Jason Garrett
Access to things. Passwords. You know what I'm talking about. Every time you turn around, somebody's asking for a password.
- [57:13]
David Novak
Who would play you in a movie?
- [57:14]
Jason Garrett
Damian Lewis. He's a red headed guy. I love him to death.
- [57:18]
David Novak
Who's the best teammate you've ever had?
- [57:20]
Jason Garrett
This is not one word. Troy Aikman, Darrell Johnston, Michael Irvin, Mark Stepnoski, Mark Tuan. I mean, I can go on and on and on and on and on. A million of them. I'm leaving all of them short. But so fortunate to have so many great ones.
- [57:32]
David Novak
Best player you ever coached?
- [57:33]
Jason Garrett
The best player I've ever coached was probably Jason Whitten. Demarcus Ware, certainly right there.
- [57:39]
David Novak
Who was the first person to give you the nickname Red?
- [57:41]
Jason Garrett
Oh, you know, my nickname when I was a kid and people who know me since I'm really young is Skin S k I N. Cause I used to have a big afro when I was a little kid and I got it all cut off once and like, hey, you look like a skinhead. And so that stuck. Literally all my college buddies, all my buddies from growing up, but certainly the obvious nickname is Red. And I think probably my little league coach. It's when I was six years old, probably started calling me that.
- [58:11]
David Novak
Your favorite golf course to play in Long Island.
- [58:13]
Jason Garrett
You know, I just had the opportunity to play Shinnecock. Incredible.
- [58:17]
David Novak
What's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with work?
- [58:22]
Jason Garrett
How to get better in tennis.
- [58:24]
David Novak
What's the one thing that you do just for you?
- [58:26]
Jason Garrett
I probably do too many things just for me. You know, I try to work out. You know, I mean, just work out and stay in shape.
- [58:36]
David Novak
Besides your family and friends, what's your most prized possession?
- [58:39]
Jason Garrett
You know, probably our house. I don't know.
- [58:42]
David Novak
If I turned the radio on in the car, what would I hear? In your car?
- [58:45]
Jason Garrett
You'd hear probably Bruce Springsteen or Jackson Brown.
- [58:49]
David Novak
That's fantastic. What's something about you? Few people would know?
- [58:52]
Jason Garrett
I think probably people know too much. Hey, we're opening up a restaurant in Dallas. How about that?
- [58:56]
David Novak
All right.
- [58:57]
Jason Garrett
That's a good one. Called Cafe Luca. When you're in town. You got to come see us, man.
- [59:03]
David Novak
I will. What's one of your daily rituals? Something that you never miss.
- [59:07]
Jason Garrett
Yeah. Some form of exercise.
- [59:09]
David Novak
All right, we're out of the lightning round. Jason, just a few more questions. I'll let you go here. What would be the best pregame speech you ever gave? Does one come top of mind?
- [59:20]
Jason Garrett
You know, I have a great friend who is an amazing minister at the Methodist church here in Dallas who used to say, I have one sermon. I tell it 52 different ways. And I think that's a lot what coaches do, you know, my one sermon is all about being who you are, being the best version of yourself. And you try to tell it a million different ways. I can remember we played the San Francisco 49ers. It was my first year as the head coach. And one of my most memorable for me was we talked about California being the land of opportunity. And if you think about going back to the gold rush, right, 1849, people are going to California to find gold. And you think about every starlet, you know, in every small town all across America going to Hollywood, and you think about guys going to Silicon Valley and all of that. And we were going there, we were going to Santa Clara, California. And I talked a lot about opportunity and us being the best version of ourself to embrace the opportunity that we had to go play the 49ers. And I'll never forget it. We had a guy named Jesse Holly who made our team as a receiver. And you probably don't remember the story. He had an opportunity to do it based on a reality show. He had a chance to come to. Had a chance to be the 90th guy we bring to training camp from this reality show. And he turns out he makes our team. And so at the end of the game, we tie it up and we go to overtime. And in the second play of overtime, Tony Romo throws him a post. He was wide open, catches it and goes 60 yards down the field, gets knocked out of bounds at the two yard line. We're going to kick a field goal to win it. Overtime. I'll never forget when he gets tackled, he's. He's lying on the ground. He's like, california is the land of opportunity. You know, Jesse Holly went 77 yards. It must be a reality show. And here he was, he took advantage of. We ended up winning the game. So that one always kind of stuck out for me. I love it.
- [61:23]
David Novak
Now, now you, you and your wife, brilliant, you met at Princeton. What role has she played in all you've been able to do in your career.
- [61:31]
Jason Garrett
She's been amazing. You know, like I said, I met her probably when I was 20 years old, and we've been together for a long time. And you think about all the different paths you take, all the different ups and downs you have. I told you, I was a fledgling football player. I went down and I was part of the Saints team on their practice squad my rookie year. Then I got cut. I played in Canada. I played in the World League. Finally, I go to Dallas. All the while, she's in law school and, you know, just kind of staying with me through all of that and believing in me and instilling belief in me. And, you know, when things were tough, she was there. When things were good, she was a huge part of why they were good. And, you know, so she's meant everything to me.
- [62:14]
David Novak
So, Jason, what do you see now as your unfinished business?
- [62:18]
Jason Garrett
Well, again, you know, a couple of years ago, we were on the beach, and Brill and I, we're talking to this woman and her daughter. The woman was probably in her 70s, daughter, maybe in her 40s. And we asked them, I said to the daughter, I said, where do you live? And she said, you know, I used to live in la, and now I live in the present. And I was like, huh? You know, I said, that's really good. And, you know, that's really what I've always tried to do. You kind of live in the moment, embrace the opportunities. So, you know, this opportunity came upon me to go interview with the Tennessee Titans, so I'm excited about that opportunity, but, you know, I don't have regrets about things. You look around and see what you want to do, and the most valuable commodity we have, as you know, is time. So you want to make sure you're using your time wisely and you're embracing the right thing. So, you know, depending on what presents itself, I'll try to dive in and take full advantage of whatever those opportunities are.
- [63:21]
David Novak
Jason, you know, we're having this podcast here on leadership. I understand you're going to do one. I'm not going to look at you as a competitor, because we're, like, spreading the word. You know, we're trying to help people. But tell me about it.
- [63:33]
Jason Garrett
You know, it's a really fun project. We're calling it Coach to Coach. And, you know, I've talked to four head coaches, guys who are really good at what they do, and the conversation isn't about last week's game or next week's. Game or how their quarterback is playing. It's really about all the stuff we've been talking about. It's about, you know, building an organization and creating a vision and hiring people and handling adversity and all of that. And so I sat down with Andy Reid and Sean Payton and Dan Campbell and Dan Quinn, guys that, you know, in some cases I've played for or coached with or played with and in other cases have gone against, and guys I really respect as people respect his head coaches and maybe most importantly, respect his leaders. And the conversation was probably a little bit like our conversation where we sat for an hour and we just talked about their journey and their path and some of the wisdom that they can share with people. And, you know, it was a really fun project for me to do. I learned so much from them. And I think anybody watching in any field of leadership, I think they can benefit from it. So we're really excited about it. We're proud of the work. You know, the guys at Intersport in Chicago have done an amazing job with the production of it. So we're excited about it.
- [64:50]
David Novak
Fantastic. I can't wait to listen to them. All right, last question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader?
- [64:58]
Jason Garrett
You know, I think the biggest thing is you have to lead yourself, and you have to try to get yourself in order. And then I think that's when you can most positively impact other people. And I think when you have stresses of leadership and there's pressures to succeed and all of that, sometimes you can lose sight of that. I know I did at different times. So just remind yourself that you're more than the entity that you're leading and don't have your value for yourself. Be so determined on the results and the outcome. And I think that's what gives you the great starting point. And then I think what we talked about, you know, having a vision for what you want it to look like, bringing the right people in, holding people accountable, empowering people, all of those things. You know, ultimately, leadership to me is about. Is about being a great servant. And you hear people talk about servant leadership, but, you know, when I became the head coach of the Cowboys, I got a great email from Jimmie Johnson, who was our head coach during the super bowl years, and he said, congratulations. Now it's time to get to work. Understand your number one job as a leader is to create an environment where everybody can be their best. And that's what it is. It's not about X'S and O's or plays your call. It's everybody in that building creating an environment where they can be their absolute best. And that's when you'll be your best. So I focused on that more than anything else, and I think that's probably the one piece of advice that I'd give to anybody.
- [66:23]
David Novak
Well, Jason, I want to thank you very much for all the great insights you've had on leadership. You're a hell of a person, and I'm so glad I got to know you better. And, you know, I know our listeners are going to learn a lot from this conversation, so thank you very much.
- [66:38]
Jason Garrett
Well, David, I'm a huge fan of yours, and I'm getting you up to our football camp this summer. Get ready. Okay. My friend.
- [66:50]
David Novak
David, Jason Garrett's got me fired up about the super bowl, about potentially taking over as the head coach and the Tennessee Titans. I live in Nashville, so it would be excellent if he would bring his compelling vision to our town.
- [67:03]
Yeah, you'd need a coach there in Nashville for sure. You certainly got rid of a really good one who's taking the Patriots seriously. How do you feel about losing Mike V. After. After the performance since he's had as a Pat? I mean, come on, that was a bad move by the ownership there. Of course, I probably won't get those guys on the podcast.
- [67:25]
Well, you got Jason Garrett, and that's a pretty good git. I'm excited to break down some of the key points that he talked about in the episode and that you two really discussed so that our listeners have something practical they can take away and apply to their own life and to their own leadership. So, David, the first concept that I love, I loved many of the concepts, as I do in every single one of our episodes. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You've heard me say that before. But I loved when Jason talks about the story that Jimmy Johnson had around managing pressure, that that analogy of the two by four, he says the two by four is the same whether it's on the ground or whether it's 100 stories in the air. So it's the same two by four. Can you execute when the stakes are a little bit higher? So when you think about high stakes moments in your career, David, you've never played in the super bowl, but you've had some super bowl esque moments in your career. How do you stay grounded and focused and confident that you know what to do to get it done?
- [68:20]
Yeah. And just to be clear about what that analogy was, is that you Know, he's saying that if he asked these players to walk across this board when it's on the ground, they could do head flips and handstands and, you know, you know, waltz and pirouettes, they would have no problem. But you put it up 10,000ft, man, you'd be afraid that you might fall. And he said, let's play like the, let's play like that, two by fours on the ground, you know, and that's how we're going to really perform, and that's what you really have to do. You know, the more pressure you put on yourself in high pressure situations, the worse most people generally do. You know, one of the things we tried to train people to do at Young brands was to untry, literally untry, let your talents take over, be free. In golf, you know, all the mental performance coaches talk to you about, you know, visualize what you want to have happen, you know, breathe so that you calm your, your, your mind. Think about if you've got a nine iron that you got to put on the green to make sure that you're in position to win. Think about the best nine iron you ever hit in your life, you know, but be so positive about bringing your full potential out and don't be worried about the outcome. So many times people worry about the outcome so much, it gets in the way of the performance that they, they need to have to get the right outcome. And. But I think Jimmy Johnson's analogy that Jason Garrett talked about is great. He said, we know, and we, back then, he said we knew the Dallas Cowboys, if they played the Buffalo bills, you know, 10 out of 10 times and they both played to their best abilities, Dallas would win 10 times. The only thing that would keep them from winning is if they didn't play like they usually do. So he reminded people, just play like you usually do. You know, use the skills that you have and perform at your best using those skills that you have, not worrying about what the hell's going to happen if you lost on the biggest stage. So I think that's how you get really ready for those moments. Now the other thing you have to do to get ready for those moments is be prepared. He also told them, you know, you put in the hard yards, you put in the work, we're ready, nobody should touch us. And, you know, so if you put in the hard work, then it all becomes mental. Are you going to bring your mental game into play? And that's what I think Jason understands so well, and he learned that with the great analogy that he still uses to this day, which I've used four or five times since I heard it that Jimmy Johnson gave him. I love that analogy.
- [71:00]
It's so good. It reminds me a little bit of what Rory McElroy talked about in your episode with him. He said the. The greatest players don't rise to the level of their goals. They fall to the level of their systems, and systems being how you prepare for a game. So if you've worked hard on your preparation and your systems, then you can untry in those high pressure moments and trust that your preparation will. Will lead you to where you want.
- [71:23]
To go and just let it go. Be free. Everybody talks about being free. Well, you can be free when you know you have the capability and you rely on that capability and you trust that, that you can execute the skills that you've prepared so hard to have.
- [71:36]
David, are you going to Nashville to interview for the head coaching job for the Tennessee Titans? Because you sound an awful lot like a football coach right now.
- [71:45]
I like to think that I might have been a halfway decent coach, but I don't know anything about football. You need to know what you're talking about to be a good coach in the episode.
- [71:52]
It's clear, too that Jason Garrett had this incredible camaraderie with his teammates when he played for the Cowboys. And it's straight clear. And if you remember back to that early 90s era Cowboys, they had an incredible bond. I mean, you've got Troy Aikman, Emmett Smith, Michael Irvin, Deion Sanders, Jason Garrett. That team bond led them through some really tough situations and it's what kept them going when things got really hard. And when you think about this idea of team bonding in a business setting, how can you encourage authentic team bonds without it feeling cheesy or gimmicky and without making people walk across coals to show that they're committed to the team?
- [72:32]
Yeah, well, that's something that I think every leader really wants to get. I think the key to bonding is shared experiences. I think as a leader, what you have to do is you have to bring the team together and have them go through the same things together, go through those experiences together so that they can look back on that experience and say, we did this and because we did that, we're going to be able to do this. And, you know, it just. It works that way. You know, I was very lucky. In fact, I talked to this guy this past week, Larry Sen. Larry Sen is the father of culture. And when I was the head of KFC I had a lot of really great ideas, but I really didn't have the process to put in place to really execute the culture because I was more of a one man band. I was out there giving the big speech and doing my own personal recognition. But I was doing it with a, you know, with an organization that had 200,000 people, you know, and it's like, you know, one leader can't impact anybody by himself. So how do you really build not only team bonding, but bonding throughout the organization? You build a culture. And Larry Sin knows how to build cultures. And one of the things that he had is he had a number of exercises that he took people through that created team bonding and, you know, from the basics of just talking about three things about yourself that no one knows and sharing that with your teammate. From doing learning about the mood elevator, learning about the accountability ladder, you know, learning taking the Fs exercise where you, you know, count the number of Fs in a paragraph where everybody gets it wrong. There's all these exercises, but they created shared experiences with the team and you learn so much about each other because you did them. Now you can have formal training like that, which Larry really helped me with my organization and one of the reasons why we created the global culture that I think really helped us drive compounded growth year after year at Yum Brands. But you also need to take your team together and see things together. Like we used to do bus rides where we would go from restaurant to restaurant, go into competition and look at the competitor, go back into the bus ride and, you know, go back in the bus and talk about what we, what we learned. We liked that so much. Then we started doing with customers. We had the customers go into these different concepts and then they would talk to us about what they liked about the different concepts. But it was a shared experience that we always went back to. We did best practice visits. We went to Walmart and Southwest Airlines and Cisco, and we went to these great companies and we said, what did we learn? And then we could hearken back to those great, great processes and the great learnings that we had. But the best thing that I ever did to drive team bonding was just do exercises on how to reveal your own self awareness to other people. And when you do that and you open yourself up, oh my God, you found pay dirt.
- [75:28]
David. That reminds me of last summer. We invited some of the educators who are part of our Lead for Change student leadership program. It's for middle and high school educators all across the country. And we brought them together to pour into them, but also to allow them to help us make the program better so that we can continue to reach more educators, so that we can reach more students and drive more impact. And it's interesting, we thought that that experience would be more about the educators pouring into us. But what we do a lot as a team, what we find ourselves talking about a lot, is the shared experience of being there with the educators who are our customers, and hearkening back, like you said, to some of the insights and thoughts that they shared that we would never have known had we not invited them in. But that was one of those sort of cool core bonding experiences, if you will, that really allowed us not only to understand each other more, but to also get incredible insights from our educators and is really something that I think we'll look back on for a while to come.
- [76:27]
Yeah, and I remember John Hamilton, who runs Sleep for Change, and Sarah, you guys were talking about when this teacher said that and that teacher said that, and that's a shared experience that, that really, you know, created a tremendous bonding. And the same thing happened when we went to the Wendy Novak Diabetes Institute together and we talked to the doctors and, you know, and so, you know, but we didn't do it one, you know, one person by themselves. No, we took the team together and we experienced it together. And as a result, you know, we're able to really, you know, see it all together. And when you see it, then it's creates a memory and memories stick. And those memories are things that really create the kind of bonding. And, you know, Jason Garrett, he'll talk about how he was in, he came in on Thanksgiving Day and they're playing the packers and the whole team got behind him because he'd been, you know, he'd been, you know, you know, preparing for this moment and they beat the packers. And that's when the packers had a phenomenal team. So, you know, that. But it was that shared teammate experience that helped them create a culture that, that really was put into work when it was time to perform on that Thanksgiving Day.
- [77:40]
David, that brings me to the next topic that I want to talk about. And it's something that is, is very apparent in, in Jason's leadership philosophy. And it's this idea that you can lead from anywhere on a team. You just talked about that game, that Thanksgiving game where they beat the Packers. He's the third string quarterback and he's stepping in and leading this team to victory against the packers, who were quarterbacked by Brett Favre at the time. And you Know, he hadn't been the starting quarterback, obviously, because he was third string, but he still led in his own way from that place. And that allowed him to show up in that big moment and have the trust he needed to take the team to victory. He talks a lot in the episode about how everyone is a leader in some ways. So I'm just curious, like, for the people who might not see themselves as a leader, what would you say to them?
- [78:28]
Well, my mantra at Yum Brands was, be the leader, act like the leader. You can lead wherever you're at. You know, that's true. I mean, if you're an admin, you can be the best admin. You can show everybody how to be the best administrative assistant there is. You know, if you're the janitor, you know, you can make sure that the floors to cleanness. And it really lays out the fact that this is a company that believes in quality. And if everybody does their piece of Yum Brands, well, we all add up, and we all get great growth. And that's kind of the mentality that I think we really wanted to have. You know, Jason Garrett should get together Pat Kelsey, the Louisville Cardinals basketball coach. Those two guys are so fired up and love leadership so much. But. But Pat Kelsey said something which I'll never forget. Crush it where you're at. Whatever job you have in the organization, just crush it where you're at. When you crush it where you're at, people are gonna notice your performance, and you're gonna move up when you have that opportunity. And that's how he became an assistant coach when he didn't have the experience of a lot of other assistant coaches. So, you know, you can lead from anywhere if you have that leadership mindset, you know, it's gonna pay off for the organization, and it's gonna pay off from you.
- [79:46]
I also. David thought about drink. Coach Drinkwitz at Mizzou. We could toss him in that group of Pat Kelsey and Jason Garrett. He talks about the power of positive energy exchange, and that's something that Jason mentions, too. It doesn't matter what role you're in. If you bring positivity and impact to people around you in a positive way, that goes further than you could really ever imagine.
- [80:07]
Because people remember that, yeah, leadership is contagious. You know, positive energy lifts people up. Negative energy brings people down, down. When you bring that positive energy to work, it's hard to be around somebody positive and stay negative without sensing that you're an Eeyore. And nobody wants an Eeyore. We do not want EOS ers on our team. We want people who are positive, focused on making it happen, no matter where they're at. And that's what Jason Garrett recognizes. And I think that's why he was such a great coach. Now, this is a guy who run three division championships and was the NFL coach of the year, so he knows what he's talking about.
- [80:42]
He also has three super bowl rings, so he doubly knows what he's talking about.
- [80:48]
Well, he knows what it takes to win for sure.
- [80:50]
Well, David, that does it for our episode today. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead with David Novak. Stay tuned next Thursday, and we will see you then.