← How Leaders Lead with David Novak
How Leaders Lead with David Novak
3 More Questions (Rocky Collis) with David Novak and Koula Callahan
Loading summary
Transcript19 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:04]
B
Welcome to How Leaders Lead. I'm Kula Callahan, here to bring you another edition of three More Questions with David Novak. David, it's great to be back with you. How are you today?
- [00:12]
A
I'm doing great, Kula, and it's good to see you as always.
- [00:16]
B
Today we're debriefing your conversation with Rocky Collis. He's the CEO of Mustard, which is a revolutionary sports coaching app that is democratizing the world's best coaching the. So they create products where people at home or at their local field can get the experience of being coached by one of the best coaches in their sport. So basically, kids will go to their field, take a video of them performing whatever their sport is, and then submit it to the app and they get immediate coaching back within about 30 seconds on things they can do to improve and drills that'll help make them an even better athlete. It's an incredibly interesting and fun idea and this conversation with was a blast listening to how Rocky has just thought about this process and product for years and brought it to life with success.
- [01:01]
A
And one of the big thing that's they're really excited about now is what they're doing in golf. Basically, people can send their golf swing in and then the leading golf coaches in America will get back to them with feedback and tell them what they should be doing. And that's fantastic because it's going to be a great value and you're going to be getting feedback from coaches like Mark Blackburn, who's the number one coach in the world and works with players like Justin Rose. And Justin Rose is a, is a huge backer of Mustard as well. And in fact, when he was at the Masters, he carried a big Mustard golf bag because he's one of the celebrities, sports celebrities that's supporting the program and they have all kinds of top athletes that are, are really behind this initiative. And you know, these startups, they need to have outstanding leaders, they need to have outstanding management. And you know, Rocky is, is a person who is a great leader. He was a lawyer, but he's very general manager oriented, really has a great eye for talent and is really trying to build the infrastructure within the team to, to set them up for future success. So I was really impressed with Rocky and how he's building the organization.
- [02:24]
B
Without any further ado, let's get going. Question number one, it's clear from the episode that Rocky loves the startup world. He got into startups because of his deep desire to change how the world works for a startup to be successful. Rocky Says that mission is the most important thing. But he also really values the metric but of wins above replacement. Now, wins above replacement is a famous baseball metric where you can evaluate a player's success based on their statistics above and beyond what their replacement would do. David, I'm curious. How could leaders use this same idea to evaluate talent for their organization?
- [03:02]
A
Well, I think you really want to look at your organization and see every job that you have as a cherry. I mean, this is a great opportunity for someone to come in and really make a difference in your company. And when you're evaluating your talent, whenever you're going to go outside and bring someone in, you want to ask yourself, what gaps can they fill that we don't have? What do they do distinctly that will give us an opportunity to become an even better company? And I think what great leaders do is they always feel like they're just one hire for making their company better. And how do you make your company better? You bring in people that can do better than the people that they're replacing, and you bring in people that bring unique skills that will certainly up your game.
- [03:52]
B
Well, you mentioned earlier that Rocky was an attorney, and in the episode, he mentions that the reason he just wasn't satisfied being, you know, even a successful attorney was because he believed that that firm could hire any other great attorney and basically get the same result. So he really values this idea of success, seeing a problem and being able to create a unique solution to it and really change how that industry functions. And so I'm so inspired by this mentality that he has about wins above replacement. What can we do in the coaching world that is above and beyond what anybody else is doing?
- [04:27]
A
Yeah, I think Rocky's probably being a little humble about himself being a lawyer. You know, I don't think every lawyer basically can perform at the exact same level, and I'm sure he was outstanding at that. But I think the big thing that Rocky wants to do is, is make a difference in the world and do something that will make the world a better place. And that's always something that drives every successful entrepreneur.
- [04:50]
B
Question number two. One of the key principles of Mustard, obviously, is coaching, not only through their app, but it's a key part of their culture as well. Rocky stresses the importance of his employees being able to first coach themselves, then coach people below them in the organization, and also coach people above them in the organization. I love this idea of self coaching and the. The priority that Rocky puts on it. David, I know you wrote a book on this very topic. What's the most important aspect of self coaching and how can leaders develop that skill?
- [05:23]
A
Well, I actually wrote that book with Jason Goldsmith, who's the co founder of Mustard. And you know, Jason is a professional coach and works with great athletes in every sport. He helped Jason Day and Justin Rose become number one in golf and he has athletes that are going to the Olympics this summer. So he is really a fantastic coach. But I think self coaching is really critical because if you can't really coach yourself to success, if you can't look at your own strengths and areas of opportunity and be self aware enough to take your performance to the next level, it's hard for you to coach other people. Now the most important aspect of self coaching in my mind is that you as a leader take accountability for developing yourself. Yeah, we all want to have coaches help us get better and people that can raise the bar on us. And that's something that we all want and we all need it. But in a lot of cases, you don't get it. So what do you do? Just sit back and wait until this magical coach comes into your life? No, you got to take accountability for being a coach and coaching yourself and building high self awareness, which I think is the biggest thing that you need to do before you can really coach yourself. You got to get feedback on what you're good at, what you're not so good at, and then start crafting a plan to leverage your strengths and make sure that your, your gaps or areas of weakness do not derail you.
- [06:58]
B
One of the things you and Rocky talk about in the episode is the value of your 3 by 5 card exercise. And Rocky even said that he his 3 by 5 card as the background on his computer. So it's just this constant reminder of here's where I am today and here's how I can be even better in the future. And incorporating those practices into your daily routine will help put you on the trajectory of just continual improvement for yourself, which ultimately helps you continuously improve in your organization.
- [07:29]
A
Well, that's one of the things that we wrote about in our book Take charge of you, which was this three by five card where you really assess who are you today and how can you be more effective tomorrow. And you know, I do that every January and then I put it on my refrigerator and, and I take stock of how I'm doing throughout the year. And I think that's something that can help everybody. So the big point I, I would really want to leave with everybody here is coaches are great, we all want them, we all need them. But there's no coach that that should be any better than you at developing yourself if you're really self aware and you really take the action to get better.
- [08:06]
B
Question number three. Part of the magic of Mustard is that individuals can get coaching from some of the greatest coaches in the world. I love you. And Rocky's discussion about how you can scale a great coach like a Tom House, who is a renowned pitching and quarterback coach. Now, it's not realistic for someone like Tom House to coach thousands of athletes at a time. Yet Mustard's been strategic in the way that they scale the greatness of their coaches like Tom to democratize coaches for athletes everywhere. David, how do you think about scaling the genius of one person throughout an organization and to thousands of customers?
- [08:43]
A
Well, I think number one, you got to use technology like Mustard is doing. I mean, this is a great product idea because they are leveraging technology to bring it to the masses, to bring this outstanding coaches to the masses. But there's also a very, I would say old school or traditional way to do exactly that. When I was president of kfc, I really wanted to create a powerful culture. And you know, I had some really great thoughts on what we should be and how we should work together. But I was just one person. But I ran into this guy named Larry Sin, who was actually the father of culture. I mean, this is a guy who's been named the father of culture because he was the first to talk about it. He'd learned so much about it. But what he had was a process that you could use to scale culture. He had all these exercises that you could do with your team to make people self aware and figure out how they could really make your culture work. And I told him about the things that I knew that would drive behavior and drive great results in our company. And for example, one of them was accountability. People taking accountability for what they do. Well, he had a great training exercise on accountability called the accountability ladder. Another behavior that we had that was key in every one of our very successful restaurants was having positive energy. Well, he had this exercise called the mood elevator, which really helped people get their mood up when they went to work so that they could have positive energy. Well, anyway, we had eight how we work together principles that we wanted to cascade all around the world. And Larry had these great exercises around each one of them that we could then take to every level of our organization. So we started out with this idea for what our culture could be like, but then we had exercises that we could cascade throughout our organization. And by cascade, I mean get my direct reports aligned and then get their direct reports aligned and then go to the next level and the next level and go all the way to the front line of your organization with your culture. And that was kind of old school because it required training and, you know, people coming together to get that training back then. But it worked and there was nothing like it. And it also was a shared experience that helped us move forward as one. So, you know, I think, in summary, number one, use technology if you can. Number two, recognize that if somebody has a great idea in your organization, scale it by cascading it and let the next level know. And then the next level know and the next level know, and sure enough, you're going to have a lot of people know it after you're done. And that's another way to scale it.
- [11:54]
B
I know you said that's old school, but there really is nothing like a shared experience with your team to cement an idea and get people to actually execute on it, especially when it's aimed at creating a healthier, more collaborative culture where everyone counts. So, David, you say it's old school. I'm not saying it's old school. I'm saying that that's a tried and true thing, that humans everywhere really value a shared experience where we all learn and grow together.
- [12:21]
A
Just because you say it's old school doesn't mean it doesn't work. So I agree with you 1,000%.
- [12:30]
B
Well, that does it for our episode of Three More Questions for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to Howley Lead. We're on a mission to make the world a better place by developing better leaders. And if you carve out a little time with us each and every week, we'll help you build the confidence you need to lead well.
- [12:45]
A
And coming up next on Halleaders Lead is Charlie Scharf, the CEO and president of Wells Fargo, a bank that is really on the move.