Ryan Hawk (2:42)

You, along with tens of thousands of.

Sponsor/Advertiser (2:45)

Other learning Leaders from all over the.

Ryan Hawk (2:46)

World, will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your Week off.

Sponsor/Advertiser (2:53)

Right. You'll also receive details about how our book the Score that Matters will help you become a more effective leader. Text Hawk to 66866.

Ryan Hawk (3:03)

Now on to tonight's featured leader.

Sponsor/Advertiser (3:05)

Jeff Jansen is the founder and president of Janssen Sports Leadership Center. Their mission and purpose is to develop world class leaders who are committed to a lifetime of service and success. Jeff is also the author of the seven Secrets of Successful Coaches. During our conversation, we discussed the commitment continuum. How to get your teammates to go from resistant or existent to committed and compelled. Then the use of personal and team audits, figuring out where you currently are and how to get to where you want to be. Then Jeff tells a cool story about Walt Disney and the attention to detail.

Ryan Hawk (3:50)

Shown by the people who work for the Disney companies. A really cool one about going on a Disney cruise.

Sponsor/Advertiser (3:57)

And then we close with the seven characteristics of the world's most successful coaches. Ladies and gentlemen, this one is so good.

Ryan Hawk (4:06)

Jeff really knows his stuff.

Sponsor/Advertiser (4:09)

Please enjoy my conversation with Jeff Jansen.

Ryan Hawk (4:16)

Let's jump right to it. I have used your commitment continuum quite a bit. Whether it's speaking or advising or consulting with leadership clients, I think it's brilliant and portable from the sports world and definitely to the business world. Can you first describe the origin story behind the commitment continuum, what it is, and then we'll dig into it?

Jeff Jansen (4:41)

Yeah, I'd be happy to. I mean, I, I started my career at the University of Arizona, more in the sports psychology realm. So I got an opportunity to work with 20 plus teams there, some of them with Lou Dolson and his basketball teams winning national championships and other teams like women's soccer, just starting for the very first time. So you get to see a continuum of, you know, high performing cultures, cultures just starting out, cultures that are struggling a bit. And you just started to see, okay, there's different levels of commitment that are being shown by the athletes, shown by the coaches, shown by the support staff, everyone involved in the program. And it just started making some sense to me. Okay, there's these different levels of commitment that are out there. So I started to put that on a continuum from, you know, far left side or as I would look at it, the resistant people, just the coach wants to go in one direction and for whatever reason, this person has their own agenda. They're not fitting in, they're going a completely different way and they're often vocal about it, which is a problem. You up from that a little bit. I call the, the reluctant people. So they still aren't bought in, you can kind of see it in their body language. You can see it by maybe rolling their eyes. They may not be as vocal about their displeasure, but you can tell they're not bought into this either. Then there's the athletes that I would call existent. They're there, they're. Some coaches call it stealing scholarships. If they have a scholarship that they're basically up space. Another coach called them sandwich eaters. Hey, we're going to eat the sandwiches there, but we're not going to give a whole lot to your team. We're just existing. And usually what I say is the biggest contribution they make to your team is showing up in your team picture. It's like, yeah, I guess that person was on our team, but they were kind of dead weight. They really didn't give us anything. They filled out a uniform, but their head, heart and soul weren't there at all. Up from that then are the compliant people. And I, I have a check box to symbolize that one because to me they're the box checkers. If they're told to run eight laps, hey, they're going to go run those eight laps. But as soon as they get to that eighth one and that finish line, they're stopping because hey, I did the bare minimum of what you asked, which is good. Hey, you did what was asked. But they're other directed and other motivated. They, they need other people to tell them what to do and what direction to go. They're not self motivated and don't have that initiative, but they do enough. They're kind of the obedient soldiers to, to do what's asked of them. Up from that then are what I call the committed people. Their heart is into it. They will put in extra time, they will go the extra mile, they'll run eight and a half laps and they see, okay, I need to invest in this. And the more I invest, the more I get out of this. So they're, they're bought into the training, they're bought into the leadership, the culture, the coaching. Then there's a special level that I would say is even above committed that I say is compelled. These people are on a mission. They're there not just for something to do, but to do something. They take advantage of everything that's there and not only do they do that themselves, but they lift other people up and they say if we're going to be successful we've got to at least have a team that's at the compliant level. And if we've got resistance and we've got reluctance and we've got existence. They're hurting us, they're dead weight. They're keeping us from going where we're going and they're going to constructively confront those people and say, ah, we can't have that. You got to at least be bought in to the bare minimum of what we're asking of you. And as you know, being in the sports world, there's a fine line between being compelled and obsessed, which is kind of going overboard now. And the obsessed people, they are all in, but a lot of times it's more for themselves and it's just this insatiable drive. But they forget about, I've got to have some balance, I've got to have some recovery. I have to develop a working relationship with my teammates and not just pound them over the head all the time with stuff. So that's what I see with coaches a lot of times is there's a very fine line between what it means to be compelled and what it is obsessed. And you can easily cross over that line, especially if they are just focused on the outcome and don't realize, okay, the process stuff, I need to develop the relationship if I'm going to really go hard on people. So what that does is that as people go through that, there's certain teammates or certain co workers that kind of come to mind as, oh yeah, that person's pretty existent or that person's reluctant or that person is committed. So it helps us understand that there's different people with different levels of commitment. And then we find in the sports world you may have someone who's really committed to practice but reluctant when it comes to the weight room or being in condition or having the diet that they need. So we can then say, hey, we love your commitment in this area, but we need more from you in the way your, your diet is right now. That's what's really hurting you. So it helps take this nebulous concept of commitment and helps give it a structure and a framework that we can now dive into. We can look at ourselves, we can look at our team, and then we can hopefully start moving people up the commitment continuum without sending them over the deep end to the obsessed level. So that's, that's the 30,000 foot view. Try to cr crash course everything that goes into it.

Ryan Hawk (10:14)

Okay, so good, let's get practical with the commitment continuum. And I've actually done this, but now I'm doing it with the guy. So maybe you can, you can make this even better. You're working with an svp. So this is the person who is leading leaders and those leaders that they're leading directly may be leading other leaders and eventually individual contributors within let's say a Fortune 500 company. And you run an audit of everybody in your organization, of this SVP's organization and you place them in one of the sections of the commitment continuum. And usually when this happens, it's certainly great when you get compelled and committed people, we love that. But in the real world, as you've done this in sports, you've done this in businesses, you'll find that you do unfortunately will have some resistant and reluctant people on most teams, but you'll also find a lot of existent and compliant people. I feel like that is a lot, that happens a lot. So let's start with resistant and reluctant. Is this simply like fire them, get rid of them? We'll start there, then we'll go to the next sections of how we handle them. But let's say we have done the audit of our entire organization and we have some people who are resistant and reluctant. What do we do?

Jeff Jansen (11:30)

Yeah, and I want to even take you back a step before that is I think the leader needs to do an honest self assessment of where am I on the commitment continuum before I even look at any of the people on my team. Because where you are on the commitment continuum has a big bearing on where your people are on the commitment continuum. And if you're just in the compliant level, yeah, you may not have many committed people or compelled people because they're like, well here's our leader and our leaders, you know, coming in at 9:05 and taking a two hour lunch and they're kind of packing out, you know, about 4:30 or so. So I mean they're barely compliant. So why should I work as hard if my leader isn't doing that? Or as I said before, if you're in the obsessed category, you may be driving people away because you don't respect them as individuals. You don't see them as people outside of the employee role or the, the athlete role that they have for you. So I think that's the most, not the most important step, but a very early step that must be taken before you assess your team and is honestly assess yourself. And if you've got some people you trust, some other leaders, ask them where would you put me out in the convention? Okay, I'm just going to ask them.

Ryan Hawk (12:47)

And why, how do you make sure? Because some people have these rose colored glasses about themselves. I would call that having a lower level of self awareness. So you would enlist the help of others maybe in some form of a 360 review of where do you put me honestly on the commitment continuum? Because I think it's important that you, that I'm glad you brought that up. It's a really important point because if you're too far obsessed or you're just compliant and people can see that. Yeah. That's going to have an impact on the rest of the organization. Okay, good point. Now let's, let's, let's get back to resistant and reluctant people. Okay. We find them on the team. Is this a simple cut them, let's get out of here. Or, or what do you do?

Jeff Jansen (13:28)

Yeah, I, I think the first important thing is to understand why are they there.

Ryan Hawk (13:35)

Yeah.

Jeff Jansen (13:35)

And it's different for different people. What I tell most athletes when they come to a team, think about when you signed with your team. You were wearing their gear. You put it all over social media, you signed your letter of intent. You were so excited to be there. You were at least committed legally and also in your heart, but probably compelled. And then what happens over time is a lot of times needs aren't met. Oh, I thought I was going to go and be a starter and I thought I was going to go and be a prime time person and now I'm sitting the bench for the first time in my life. So playing time needs might be not met or what was sold in the recruiting process of this is a great culture and I'm going to be a players coach. And then they actually get there and it's like, oh, that's not what you told me in recruiting. So what happens is people start to drift down the commitment continuum and they may start committed and that's kind of like compliant after a couple weeks and still needs aren't getting met. And then they could drift to existence and then they may drift down there. So I'm sharing that example because I think you have to understand why is the person resistant? Why is the person reluctant and are those solvable, fixable, reasonable issues within the culture of our team and the philosophy of my own leadership. And if those are maybe there was a breach of trust or maybe there was just is a misunderstanding. And if we can have a conversation that says okay, right now and and we utilize this tool, hey, right now I'm sensing you're kind of in the reluctant resistant area and I'm wanting to understand why, why, why are you there? And if it's something we can fix, then hey, you know, we might be able to do that, or you know what, I don't know if this is going to change a whole lot in this next year or ever. And that's. Then we have to have that understanding. But I have to have you, at least at the compliant level. Our team and our culture needs to have you at the compliant level. If that's something you don't think you can do, given how this is going and how this will continue to go, if it's not a fixable issue, then let's have this hard but honest and frank conversation right now. So I think it is really looking at the why. And if you can pinpoint that why and focus your attention and work on that and see if that's solvable and fixable, maybe it's a patience thing, maybe there's some skill deficiencies. I need to see you do these two things better. And if you can do these two things better, then hey, you may have that leadership role or you may have that second string or first string role in that. So I think a lot of it is a conversation. And finding out why are you there and can we collectively do anything about.

Ryan Hawk (16:28)

Really illustrates the difference between a really effective and healthy good culture versus one who maybe it's not. And that is the leader has open dialogue, open lines of communication with the members of their team. They do a self assessment. Hey, let's, let's just put this commitment continuum up on the board. Where would you put yourself? And then let's dig into it. Let's dig into why. Maybe you started here, farther, right? And then you moved here to someone who's less committed because your needs weren't met or breach of trust. And let's get that out on the table. I think this is definitely not only a sports thing, this is a, a business world thing as well. Open lines of communication, addressing the issues head on, being direct. And by doing it that way, you have a shot. You have a shot actually, I think to move people right forward on the continuum to be more committed versus just saying, oh God, what a bad attitude. Let's just get rid of them. Like, no, I mean, as a leader, there are countless stories out there where you've taken somebody who was resistant and reluctant and all of a sudden they could become a team captain in a few years if they've grown up or if you've done a good job of working with them. So I'm sure you have countless examples of that. And I. That's leadership, Jeff. Right? That is leadership is getting somebody to move from that area to another. Anybody can, not anybody, almost anybody can coach the superstars who are intrinsically motivated, who are the Kobe's of the world who just say I'm obsessed with playing basketball and I'm going to do whatever I got to do to be great. But it's harder for those who maybe aren't as talented and aren't as committed naturally for you to get them to become more committed I think is a true act of leadership.

Jeff Jansen (18:13)

Yeah, I mean that's what I talk about. The art of leadership is identifying where people are on the commitment continuum, understanding why and is there anything that I can do do that's going to make it easier for them to want to move up the commitment continuum, to want to buy in. And a lot of that, as I said with the initial one, is a lot of times the credibility of the leader impacts the commitment level of the athlete or the staff member. And it's obviously there's a perception there this the athlete or the staff has to perceive the leader as someone who's credible, who cares about them, who knows what they're talking about, who's as committed as they are, if not more so. So yeah, if, if you buy into the leader, if you buy into the vision, if you buy into the, the vision, the, the culture, the standards, all those things, you're going to be more likely to be committed. But if you're not bought into those things or those things are not serving your personal needs, then it's easy to drift down that commitment continuum and you have to have a discussion, hey, are we a good fit for each other? And if you're not, if we're not a good fit, then you know what, there may be another business or there may be another team, as we know with transfer portal and all that stuff going on, there may be another fit for you. But right now this is the culture that we're having. We'd love to you to be a part of it. We've got to have you at least at the compliant level. And then I think you give them a time period. Hey, we, we're going to give you two weeks, two months. A lot of times in the business world you get the six month performance review kind of thing or 90 days, whatever it may be and we'll reassess this. Here are the things that we need to see from you. Here are that we'll try to give you based on this conversation that's here and hopefully we can get you up to that compliant level. If we don't see that within this Time period. Then you know what? You're not a bad person, I'm not a bad person. This is just not a fit. And maybe you can find a better fit for what it is that you want. But right now where you are, your behavior, your attitude isn't a fit for us. But we'll give you some time to.

Ryan Hawk (20:18)

Hopefully work on that again, vividly clear communication and expectations. So we all know where we're at. Always know where you stand. We always know. I think that's a. Okay, let's go to those. This is, I think, common where when they do the audit of their team members, they check the box of being existent or compliant. And we're going to have some of those. And as you said, you want to get people at least up to compliant, but they're. Let's say we got a decent number of people hovering at the existent, right? They're just kind of eating sandwiches. They show up for the team picture and then we have the compliant. Those are the people who are checking the boxes. They'll do what they're supposed to do, but that's about it. So how do we get people who are existent and compliant up more forward on the commitment continuum?

Jeff Jansen (21:03)

Yeah, exactly. And I've got the commitment continuum, the athletes commitment manual. And that's exactly what we do in here, is we do this kind of bar graph to see where they are. And as you said, for some teams, you know what, we have too many resistant, reluctant people. But that's not most of them. Most of them have too many existence and too many compliance. So it's too many just. Just box checkers or sandwich eaters, as we're saying, they're just kind of going through the motions. Okay, I gotta show up for work, I gotta show up for practice, I gotta do this report. I gotta go lift. And they're just kind of going through the motions like an automaton. Their heart's really not in it. They're not attacking the weight room. They're not looking to get better, they're not doing extra stuff. And that's really what I've done with some teams is say, you know what? But we don't have all these problem leaders leading in the wrong direction. We just have too many people that are just doing enough to get by. And what we need to do is figure out how can we re engage you. How can we get you excited about doing this again? How can we. I was at North Carolina's field hockey practice the other day yesterday and beautiful day. They've got a Great stadium. And I'm just like, I get to be here right now. I get to be with one of the top ranked teams with a beautiful thing, with a great coach, with a great team, I get to be here. And I was wondering how many of the athletes during that practice were thinking, I get to be here versus I have to be here. We've got this practice and she's got a great culture, Aaron does a great job with her team. But you know, you look at any practice you go to, you look at any work environment, how many people in that work environment are saying, I get to be employed at Google or I get to be employed at this company, I get to work on things that are making a difference in the world. I get to work with these co workers and have this amazing environment. Or is it, damn, I gotta get up and I gotta go to work again and I gotta deal with this jerk over here. And that's part of it is trying to reframe is this a get to job or a have to job? And part of that is your own mentality and mindset.

Ryan Hawk (23:21)

Obviously I love the idea of I get to, man, how cool is it that we get to do this or that we have the opportunity to be here right now. So if somebody's existent and compliant, what are some strategies to move them forward, to be more committed, even compelled?

Jeff Jansen (23:41)

Yep. And I, I think again it's looking at their individual goals and needs. What is it that would excite you? What's something that, that you could do that we could do that maybe hasn't been done before and that would leave a legacy and that would be a great challenge that we would love to embrace. So I think it's looking at what's possible if we could get your further full investment in what we're doing. So it again, it's coming down to those individual needs and how those then hopefully align with and, and fit with and propel the group needs in those sit. And it's, you know, for some people it might be a money thing, for other people it might be a status thing or a job thing or just more attention. Sometimes it's just a pat on the back and a mention in the blog that goes out once a month or so. Hey, we really love the way this person contributed to this project. So I think it's again, tailoring individual needs. You're probably familiar with the five love languages out there of different people respond to different things. Well, I think it's the same thing with employees. Some love personal intention mentioned, some are There for the money. Some want to advance their careers to the next position. So it's like, hey, you know, do you, do you want to be a manager at some point? And if you're going to be a manager, you're going to have to be the person who's leading the charge in this, not the one that we got to constantly prod and remind and refocus in what we're doing.

Ryan Hawk (25:11)

Love it. So the people who are committed and compelled for them, we want to keep them there, right? We, they're super valuable members of the team. We want to make sure they don't slide backwards to being just compliant or existent people, which can happen. So what are some strategies or ways that you keep people who are committed and compelled in that, in that zone?

Jeff Jansen (25:36)

Yeah, I think keeping them challenged, find that challenge. Most of them are competitive people and by having metrics and certain things of whether it's in the business world or in the sports world, of, hey, we're trying a third down conversion rate to use your football stuff there. Hey, we're trying to be the best in terms of third down conversion. So I think giving them some metrics that are there because they love to test themselves and they love to get better and they love to be their own best or they like to be the best in the conference or be the best of any team that has ever been here. So I think you give them these measurable challenges. I also think you put them in leadership positions. I think that's absolutely critical that you have your most invested people, you're committed, you're compelled people in positions of leadership and to say, hey, just like me as a manager, as a coach, I'm trying to bring out the best in people. I'm trying to understand what makes people tick. Can you help me do that? Because if it's coming from someone within the team itself, a lot of times those player led teams or those teams that are just led by internal people are the ones that are the most successful. Because now we've created a culture of people who are understanding what this standard is. They're establishing that standard, they're embodying that standard, they're encouraging that standard. When they see that from teammates and they're enforcing that standard and saying, you know what, this is the minimum standard, this is the compliant level. We need you here. If we're going to have any chance of success, we need you at least here. But if we really want to be successful and compete against the best people in our industry or the best people in our conference or nation or whatever it may be, we've got to go at a much higher level. That's a great thing. Don Plitz White is the coach at Minnesota women's basketball and as she's taken over Minnesota now, she's trying to elevate them into the top half and, and even more so in that conference. So what she's done is she's looked at the stats of the top half teams and what they're shooting and what they're holding defenses to. So she's got these metrics now that says, hey, if we're going to be one of the top half teams, this is the level of performance that we've got to do in our games. But then we got to bring that into practices too, and into the weight room. This is the standard if you want to be at this level. This is the standard standard we all have to compete to and we all have to hold each other accountable to.

Ryan Hawk (28:04)

You mentioned you would put those people who are in the committed and compelled boxes into leadership roles, whether it's on a sports team or in the business world. And you've also written a manual about holding people accountable. And I think that's certainly what leaders, that's a part of a leader's role is holding others accountable. Teammates, sometimes even their boss, as well as others within the organization. But you've also written about the fact that people don't necessarily enjoy this element. Some do, but that's probably a smaller group. But a lot of people there, they can hold themselves to a high standard, but they don't always love what goes into. Maybe they're friends with the people and it makes it odd or it makes it tough, but people don't always enjoy this element. What are some ways you help these committed and compelled people become good or great at holding others accountable?

Jeff Jansen (29:04)

Yeah. And just to reinforce that fact, one of the things that we do with our leadership academies, with our college athletic teams is we do a 360 degree evaluation of the leaders. And I can almost guarantee you for most of the leaders, holding their teammates accountable is usually the skill that their teammates and their coaches and they themselves say is the toughest one for them. So it's exactly why I wrote the how to Hold People Accountable manual, because most people don't like those conflict situations. I don't really like them myself. So I probably wrote this manual for me too to get some of this out of it. And what I did is I put together seven different steps that if you can put in these layers or these steps that are there, you then have the credibility, the foundation, the basis to do that. And the last step is enforcing the standard. And I think so many people think, okay, if I'm going to hold people accountable, I have to go right to step seven and I gotta let people know they aren't getting the job done and you've got to do more and you suck. And they just go in this negative, I've got to go to step seven And I'm like, no, you know what? If you invest the time to put in, in the first six steps and those are things like, okay, what is our vision overall and how does this behavior line up with this goes back to am I embodying the standards myself? If I'm not doing that, I've got zero credibility to tell somebody else to work hard. When I, as I said I'm coming In late, taking two hour lunches and knocking off at 4:30, I have to look at what are the standards that we have set for our team. Have we really clearly set those? Have we communicated those effectively to people and have we gotten their buy in and understanding of those standards? If we don't have any of that, you can't tell people, hey, you were supposed to do this. They'd be like, nobody really mentioned that to me. Especially if you're a newcomer or a first year freshman coming in. That's one of the things that we do is have the senior leaders sit down and say these are the expectations and standards when you come into this program so people are clear about what those are. And then as I said, I think you have to have that metric system that way to evaluate these things. So have we hit the standard? Did we allow Ohio State to shoot above 40% against us or did we force them to take some tough shots and not do that? So not only do we have these performance metrics, we also have behavioral metrics of did we meet our behavioral standards? Did we sit in the first three rows of class? Did we introduce ourselves to our instructor ahead of time? Did we let them know we have a trip coming up and that we would be missing their class? So all of these expectations are clearly communicated. And then I think the one of the biggest areas of holding people accountable that's ignored is not only calling people out when they don't hit the standard, but praising people when they meet and exceed the standard. The old John Wood and hey, he gave three positive instructional comments to every one criticism that he gave. Hopefully leaders are calling out the good stuff. When people do meet the standard and exceed it three times as much as they're letting people know, hey, you didn't meet it. And I, I love the phrase, we're not calling you out, we're calling you up. We're calling you up to this standard that we clearly communicated that everyone bought into that the leaders themselves are doing that. We know if we hit the standard, we position ourselves to get to the level that we want to. So it's all of these important steps that I think have to be thought through, put in place, embraced, lived before we have that credibility. And then you can say, you know what, One of the things we said is that going to class regularly was going to be important thing. And we spelled that out, we talked about that at the beginning of the year and we said that was our minimum expectation. And right now you've skipped two classes. So I'm not calling you out for me personally, I'm calling you out on behalf of the team and the things you agreed to to, because this is the level we need to get to where we want to go and have the reputation on campus that we want to have. Wow.

Ryan Hawk (33:24)

Okay. You mentioned seven steps. The last one enforcing the standard. But the first ones, let me make sure I got some of these. Clearly understanding what the vision is. What's our vision exactly? Am I embodying the standards myself? Have we clearly set standards? Are the expectations clearly set? There's performance and behavioral metrics. Again, clearly communicated expectations praise people when they meet the standard. We're not calling you out, we're calling you up.

Jeff Jansen (33:51)

And did we get buy in? Did we get buy into those? Do people embrace those standards? Do they understand why that standard is in place? It's not just I'm going to come up with this standard or this is my way of things that need to be done. This is like, okay, well, if we want to be one of the top half of the teams in the Big Ten 10, we then need to be having performance levels at the top half of the team of the Big Ten. So this is why this standard is set, because this is what it will take to get there. So there's, it's not an imposing of the standards, but it's a, oh, this is what we need to collectively do to get to that level. So there's buy into it.

Ryan Hawk (34:33)

I love it too, that, the behavioral part, Jeff, I think that's huge and that this is, is, it's, it's really an all the time thing. I, I, I recorded yesterday with Anthony Pompliano, I remember, and he showed up early and he's really big on being on time or being early. I am, too. We both learned that playing football from our coaches. If you're not early, you're late. So on time is late, that type of thing. By the way, you showed up early to this meeting, and I think that's a discipline thing. I think that also goes into sitting in the first three rows of the classroom, introducing yourself to your teacher. Right. People say, what does that have to do with winning games? Or what does that have to do with my team? I think it has everything to do with being a part of a team and winning games, because all of those little things add up to the big things. And the same is true in the business world. Do you do the basics, the foundational parts? Right. You show up early, you're prompt, you respect people's time, you look them in the eye, you shake their hand, like you get on the plane to go see them if you need to, like those things. Some say, oh, that. Those are just little details. I don't know that matters. No, that's all part of the standard. That's all part of living up to the standard, that all those little details add up to the big stuff that eventually helps you win games, hit the revenue target, exceed whatever goal set for you. And I, I think that's a big element too, that you talk a lot about, Jeff.

Jeff Jansen (35:58)

Yeah, I mean, I, I've read a lot about Walt Disney and him going into his parks and there might be a tree with 10, 000 lights. He notices, oh, you know what? We've got one light out over there. Let's get that fixed before we open up. And I was fortunate to go on some Disney cruises with my kids. And I would be up early morning reading, and there would be Disney staff members polishing the railings of all of these different areas. And it was just like, it's that level of detail and that level of just, we're going to put on a great show, and these are our standards. And it just kind of reminded me that, yes, the, the. The best teams understand that the little things are the big things. And if we stop doing those things or if we stop holding each other accountable to those things, we're going to start to erode within. Our standards are going to start to fall. And other teams who want it more than we do, they're going to set higher standards. And that discipline, as we know, in stressful situations and pressure situations, that discipline to come up with the right behavior or be in the right place at the right Time with sport being a game of inches if you weren't where you needed to be exactly at that right time, I just tweeted out. Or with X now, Gino or the best teams don't practice until they get it right. They practice so much that they know they won't get it wrong. They practice to the level that it becomes an ingrained habit of. Of this is how we're going to respond versus, oh, we got it right one out of ten times. Well, no, that's not going to work against South Carolina. When you play them.

Ryan Hawk (37:41)

How do you think, Jeff, you get someone like the person who waxes railings, or maybe the janitor, or the people who do these jobs that are not glamorous for most, maybe they're lower paying, potentially manual labor. Sounds like in a lot of these cases. How do you. You get. Get people like that to be so committed that they care deeply about those railings looking perfect or about all the trash and the carpet looking great and the bathrooms spotless? Like, how do you build a culture where. Where it goes all the way to that level of the person washing the rails on a Disney cruise?

Jeff Jansen (38:21)

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple things there. There. There's one story that triggered, as you said, that is they were talking to a custodian in a hospital hospital and, you know, just spotless rooms. And they said, why do you do this? And he's like, you know, my role is just as important to the surgeons. If I don't have a sterile environment that they're working in within this situation, then these people could get infections that could kill them. So I see my role in this whole thing just as valuable as everyone else is. Now, do I get paid that way? Compared to the surgeon? No. But I. I play a valuable part in something that's bigger than me and that is important. So I think it's really important that you help everyone understand your role is just as important as everyone else's, even though financially you may not get that. I remember one thing. When I was with the University of Arizona and their softball program, Mike Andrea was super successful. Eight national championships. And the thing that he would always do is make sure that every time they won a national championship, everyone who touched his program in some way was going to get a championship ring because he appreciated them. So the groundskeepers were getting championship rings. The support staff were getting championship rings. The sports media, the media relations person was getting a championship ring. So the academic advisor, I mean, you name it, anyone who had any kind of impact on his program, whether it was directly on the field or all the myriad of ways that student athletes, you know, have to succeed. He made sure that those people got championship rings. And I think that attention to detail on his part and that appreciation for the role that we all played in that he sent a message that said, you are all valuable in what we are doing. Yes. I mean, certain players were doing great things and he would recruit them there, but everybody had a role that he appreciated. So I think that appreciation goes a long way as well.

Ryan Hawk (40:33)

It's so big. Again, we get back to being an effective communicator as the leader, showing care and love for everybody's role and not necessarily saying like, well, these are the MVPs, so I'm just going to take care of my. The MVP or the MVPs of the team. I'm going to the groundskeeper. Hey, thank you, thank you, thank you for making this a beautiful place, a great place for us to play. In fact, we just won a championship. And here's your ring. Hey, thank you for helping us. Academic coordinator, you're a part of this. And I think that's so crucial, man. As the leader does it themselves. The leader shows how much they care and love for everybody on the team and that they highlight those roles. Did you hear the same one? And this may have been made up, but I think it was a janitor in Houston for NASA and they're going around asking questions and it was like 1965, and they said, hey, what do you do? And this is the guy who's a janitor. And he said, I'm helping put somebody on the moon. And it's the same type of. The fact that he understood, yeah, I'm not the scientist or the engineer. I'm cleaning up after those guys. I'm helping put somebody on the moon. And it's like that type of. Of mentality where everybody takes pride in their work. Everybody tries to live up to the standard, regardless of how much they're paid or if they're written about in the newspaper, any of that type of thing. And I, I think as a leader, those are the things we need to be thinking about within our businesses. How am I being an effective communicator and clearly communicating to each person the value that they bring to this team and how and why their role is so important. That's how you get the people taking great pride in making sure those railings on the Disney cruise are spotless and look beautiful while you're sitting out there in the morning reading a book. I Think that's so cool, man.

Jeff Jansen (42:26)

Yeah, exactly. And just to go back. Yeah. That same janitor that I talked about in the hospital, he felt like he was saving lives. So it's the same thing. I am a part of something that's so much bigger than all of us, and I am a vital part to that. And the rest of the world may say, well, you're just a janitor, you're just a custodian. And this person's like, no, I. I am doing something. It's the old cathedral story with the bricklayers. They, you know, are you laying bricks? I'm building a wall or I'm building a cathedral. If you can help people see they're contributing something that is long lasting, that's meaningful, that's bigger than themselves, then people, I think will be willing to be committed and compelled because they know they're making a difference. They know their work matters.

Ryan Hawk (43:10)

Matters. I want to focus on one more manual before we run for, for this first conversation, Jeff, the team Captain's leadership Manual. Whether it was sports or business, I feel like when I do the compare and contrast of the most effective teams, the teams that won and that I think did big things together versus the ones that didn't. And I've been on winning and losing teams in sports and in business, I feel like they were players, player led teams empowered by great coaches, but player led teams where the players held each other accountable, the players set the standards and the players got after it. And by players, I don't just mean sports. It's also happened in the business world, especially when I was leading sales teams at LexisNexis and Elsevier Clinical Solutions. And to me that's a big element of this and you go deep on this stuff. So if we could start high level on the team captain's leadership Manual, this is like the complete guide to developing team leaders whom coaches respect and teammates trust. Big work. Word there. Can you go deeper on the team captain's leadership manual and what that entails?

Jeff Jansen (44:12)

Yeah, I mean, really, it's. It came about because I heard all of these coaches kind of saying, we just don't have good leadership this year or when they did have those successful seasons. As you said, you know what, this was a player led team. I could kind of sit back because I knew they were going to set the standard. I knew they weren't going to let people get crazy on Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights. I knew, knew that they were fully bought in and they weren't going to let crap happen in the locker room or outside of it as well. So it started to look at and saying, you know, there's nothing really that develops them. I always talk about it as the Magic 8 Ball theory of leadership development. A coach would go in and say, are we going to have good leaders this year and just shake the Magic 8 ball and leave it totally to chance and just cross their fingers? Oh, I hope they step up and lead. It's like, no. Mike Fox, who is the baseball coach at Carolina, said, hey, you know what? My best seasons occurred when my best athlete was also my best leader. So what we should do is create a leadership academy, which Carolina did 21 years ago. Now that we put in those younger athletes who were really talented and we said, we're going to develop you much like the minor leagues develop people. We're going to develop you over time so that by the time you're a junior, senior, you may be that best athlete and best leader and you're going to have a huge ripple effect on everyone else. So I started to put together this program and it's 10 module program. The first part of it, if you're going to lead people, which goes back to my first question before the commitment continuum. Can you lead yourself first? Because if you can't lead yourself, you're going to have no credibility, trust, respect with any of the people that are supposed to follow you. So we've got to make sure we look at, as I said, commitment is one area we look at. Are you committed or compelled? Because if you're not there, you're probably not going to have your team following you. Composure, when the stuff hits the fan, and we know the stuff is going to hit the fan in athletics, we know it's going to hit the fan in business, we know it's going to hit the fan in life. Are you someone who can maintain your own poise and composure and not let that situation depress you or just have you go crazy or mad? Can you roll with the punches? Because when crap happens, we look at our leaders and are they freaking out? Oh, God. And then we got to freak out. This must be really bad. Are leaders saying, hey, you know what? Yeah, it's not what we prefer, but here's our plan, here's how we're going to get through that. So composure is a big thing that we teach kids. If you want to be a leader, especially when things aren't going well, you have to step up and do that. Confidence is a huge one. You know that as an athlete, confidence for a lot of people goes up and down, depending upon was I successful, was I not? It's a big roller coaster. So we talk about you have to maintain your own confidence. And you got to find four sources of confidence confidence that when you're struggling with it, you can go to these not only for yourself, but you can use these for your team. And then the fourth one for leading by example, is character. People look at what you do and they decide, can I trust you? Are you going to do the right thing? Are you going to do the harder right thing or the instead of the easier wrong that's there? And I think, as I tell coaches, a lot of times, if you look at a coach's commitment, confidence, character and composure, a lot of adults struggle with that. That let alone, you know, whether it's a high school kid you're dealing with or a college kid or even a professional kid, a lot of them are going to struggle with those. But we've got to have our commitment, our confidence, our character, our composure, at least at a solid enough level that people then are going to see that and respect that. So we spend our first level, we have an emerging leaders program. We spend the first part of that really teaching kids, hey, if you're going to lead, you got to lead the person sitting in your own chair first, and that's enough of a challenge for a lot of kids there. Then once they can do that, which that takes some time and obviously steps forward, steps backward in that, now they have the foundation, credibility to open up their mouth and be respected. Because teammates see, hey, you're leading yourself effectively enough. And now what we do is we break that into kind of what I talked about before, that encourager. When you see good commitment, confidence, character and composure from your teammates, mates, we're going to call that out, hey, great job. And when you don't see that, then we have to have an enforcer and say, hey, we need more from you where I know you're frustrated, but pouting on the end of the bench, that's not really good for you. That's not helpful for our team. You become a distraction. We've got to have you handle those situations better. And then we go into things like servant leadership. If you're going to be a leader, it can't be about you. Your stats, your social media posts, all that, that. You've got to understand what's going to be best for this group. You've got to build the confidence of other people. You got to take people from different backgrounds, different personal goals, different personalities, and you got to Try to meld them into a common goal. And what you're trying to accomplish, you've got. When they're having rough days, you got to figure out, how do I refocus them back onto the task at hand? And then last but not least, as I said, that enforcer role that we talked about before, that how to hold people accountable manual that so many people struggle with, you have to. When you don't have the behavior that you need or the standards being met, you got to figure out ways that are going to call people up to those standards and let them know we need more from you. So that is a whole other training thing that we do with people to help them, then not just lead themselves, but now how do I lead a team? And then we've got a whole culture manual as well, too. How do we work with the coaches so that we build this kind of culture that people want to be a part of and people thrive in? So it is a layered process that, as you know, takes time and takes an investment versus just, oh, I hope we have good leadership this year. I hope we have a good culture this year. It's like, no, it's the same thing with your, your physical skills or with football plays. You can't just show up on game day and say, say, well, I hope our plays work today when you haven't even run any of them in a practice setting.

Ryan Hawk (50:27)

Man, I would have killed for this. When I was in college, I was probably a little bit too immature to fully be committed, but I hope that I would have, looking back, but not only because it would have helped me be a better teammate and team captain of my football team and probably helped us perform better, but it would have really helped me early, like, in my life. I, I think this podcast has played a huge role in helping, but I didn't have any of that type of stuff and maybe just wasn't as common. It certainly wasn't where we went. There wasn't any leadership meetings. It was just strictly, we're going to watch film, we're going to get ready for the next game, we're going to practice, we're going to lift weights. And it was just all that. And I feel like times have changed. I feel. Feel like coaches are much more astute when it comes to developing their people, to caring about their culture, to developing leaders, to being much more intentional by bringing in somebody like Jeff Jansen to say, hey, help me work with my team, help me develop leaders, as opposed to just saying, wow, we got a great. We got Tim Tebow this year we're good, you know, or whatever. And I, I think that's because most of us need it. I'm curious how receptive of our 18 to 22 year olds when you or your team come in and body language, does it take some time to, to win them over? Are they initially skeptical? Oh God, I just want to go eat food and watch a movie. What's it like from a receptive standpoint with these college athletes?

Jeff Jansen (51:57)

Yeah, I think the, the thing that we've done is we've made this opportunity, this leadership academy, a privilege that they get selected for, that they can apply to, to and they have to say, this is why I feel like I would be a good fit. So this is an honor that they get to do. It's a get to versus a have to. To go back to what I talked about there before. And then I think what we really do is we make this so relevant to their lives, to the things they're struggling with, to the teammates that maybe aren't all bought in and how do I get them bought in or to the, the conversations that are having happening in the locker room that are kind of going in the wrong direction or could be trashing a coach and they're like, this isn't helping us at all. So we make it so relevant and practical to the challenges that they're immediately dealing with, giving them real world strategies that other athletes have used. And then I think the other thing that so many of them see is both, boy, if I can go and learn these things now and come up with these skills and be able to put these on the resume and have a 360 degree evaluation done by my team and by my coaches and create my own leadership development plan. I have so many kids say in their interview, they spend half their interview time talking about their leadership Academy experience, the 360 that they had done. And most employers are saying, our CEO hasn't even had a 360 done and you had that done at 20 years old and you've got your own leadership development plan and you know your strengths and this is how you're working on them. It just blows employers away. So that's the other thing is not only do they see the immediate relevance and impact of working on these things, but they also see, hey, this is going to help me get a job. And this is, as you talked about the beginning, this is going to help me in a family situation, this is going to help me in a church situation, nonprofit, whatever it is, is, it's going to help me deal with people. And guess what? We're going to be doing that our entire lives, that's for sure.

Ryan Hawk (54:04)

Man, I would love to hire a kid who's been through all that and could speak to it and, and like with excitement in their eyes like, like you are.

Jeff Jansen (54:11)

Yeah, of course it's always employers away because they're like my manager hasn't done that, my CEO hasn't done that. And here's a 20 year old or 22 year old kid coming in and they've had all this training and they have this self awareness and, and they know they've applied these leadership things in a highly competitive setting and they've gotten feedback on it from other people. This worked, this connected. And you know what, you tweak this a little bit or you try to develop a better relationship with us, we'll respond better. So now they're educated and they're equipped.

Ryan Hawk (54:43)

How many teams are you guys working with? College students?

Jeff Jansen (54:46)

Carolina was the first school 21 years ago to really start a comprehensive leadership academy. So through the years then we've had various schools from Stanford to Michigan. We've got it now in high schools. And I've done something also where I called lead the leaders, where I will train usually athletic directors or coaches at the high school level or at other colleges who can then implement this curriculum with people as well. So you know, it's, we've had, boy, we've had at least probably 70 or 80 schools that have done our complete entire leadership academy. And it always depends upon who kind of the AD is as. You know, if there's an AD change or somebody goes then hey, maybe this isn't the priority it was for the other, the other people. But you know, Carolina's been one now that with 21 years. Lehigh University, they've got a great person there. Julia Mari, they've used our curriculum for 16 years with all their athletes. So yeah, it's something that if, if leadership is a priority, you can't just do that magic eight ball thing. You've gotta implement it into your culture and have a systematic process to teach it.

Ryan Hawk (55:58)

Love it. Jeff, you think about all of the amazing leaders that you've gotten to work with over the years. I'm curious, what have you found to be some of the commonalities among those leaders who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time?

Jeff Jansen (56:16)

Yeah. So one thing, Greg Dale, who's a, a great friend of mine, worked at Duke University, unfortunately passed two years ago. We wrote a book together called the Seven Secrets of successful coaches that has since gone out of print. But what we did is we looked at those coaches that just were getting it done at a high level and their athletes respected them and would, would run through walls for them. So the ingredients that we found. So we were looking at the coach ks, we were looking at the Roy Williams, the Mary Wise, who's the volleyball coach at Florida. A a lot of different coaches across sports. Marty Schottenheimer is one. Knowing your football stuff, he was a guy that we looked at as well. And what they had is number one. They were character based people that they were people that athletes could trust and just people that were going to do the right thing. Yes, winning was important to them, but they were going to win in the right place way. The commitment level we've talked about the commitment continuum already. High levels of commitment. These people were bought in. Yeah, sometimes they would probably get too obsessed every now and then but they were definitely compelled at what they, at what they did. They were competent, they knew their X's and O's, they knew how to work with people. They understood how to run a program versus, you know, something long term versus a short term kind of thing thing. They cared about their people. They really genuinely, yes, they wanted to win, but they cared about their people as individuals and they stayed connected with them throughout their lifetimes. They would go to their weddings, they would celebrate their birthdays. Mike Andre, I mentioned him before. I get a text from him on my birthday. And anyone who's ever played or worked with him always gets a text on their birthday. So there, there's a caring that transcends that space. Sport. They are a confidence builder. They do as we talked about before, they bring out the best in people. They're great communicators which you mentioned in that communication part is not just talking but also investing the time to listen. They would have a lot of time where they would really connect and listen to their athletes and not just go to sport. That was one thing I learned from Pat Summit is you can't go to sport right away. You got to always find out how they're doing as an individual individual and how they're doing in classes and all of that. And then there's a consistency. There's a consistency in who they are, there's a consistency in their philosophy yet they'll adapt. And there's a consistency in how they handle discipline issues that they're not going to have double standards for certain people because they're more talented. So it's those seven characteristics and we once asked an athlete, hey, you know, out of all those seven, which one would you say is more important? And, and what we say is those seven basically give credibility to the coach that you're going to buy into them and you're going to want to follow them and be committed to them. And the athlete kind of said, well, that's at like asking me if I need air or water more to live. I, I, I need them both, I need them all. And that's the thing with credible coaches is they're really solid and strong on all seven of them. You can't be, you know, good on at five of them and then horrible at two of them. You, you can't be competent but not care at all about the kids or the people that you're working with because then people see through that and they're like, well, I'm not going to follow you. So that's what we've done then in developing coaches is taking a look at, they get an opportunity. How would your athletes rate you in terms of your character, your competence, your communication, your confidence building all those seven that we talked about there? And it gives them then a competency based model that they can look at. And we do 360s with coaches there as well. And it's sometimes eye opening for them because they think, well, I really thought I was coming across that way. But now when I get this feedback from my team, there's a couple areas I need to work on.

Ryan Hawk (60:25)

Wow, Jeff, this is killer, man. I really appreciate it. I originally read all this@jansen's.jansensportsleadership.com right? Is that the place you send everybody? I know there's a lot of front office executives, college coaches, high school coaches that listen to this as well. And I think this is, this is applicable outside of the sports world. It's just a leadership in general thing. So I'm really appreciative of you being here and I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man.

Jeff Jansen (60:52)

Yeah, that sounds great. I appreciate what you're doing and getting this information out there. I mean that's really why, why there was a book, I think it was Leadership Lessons from West Point and one of the guys was saying, hey, at West Point I have to prepare people to go stand on a corner in Bosnia or Baghdad or somewhere where all heck is breaking loose and they have to step up and lead people in a life and death situation. Now I don't have many life and death situations that I'm working with in college athletics or in the business world, but we never know where these leaders are going to go on. One of the neatest notes I got was from a kid, a kid who played volleyball at North Carolina and she said, guess what? I am now the head of a school in Memphis, Tennessee and most of these kids parents have never gone to school to college before. And I'm having this chance to really give them a vision about you can go to college and give them the schools. And you know what we're using, we're using your commitment continuum here to help kids invest in that. And I'm just getting goosebumps now thinking and yeah, that's what this is all about. Yeah, it's nice to win a national championship and, you know, do all those things. But I'm doing this for the impact of 40 or 50 years after they leave college than the four or five years they might be there.

Ryan Hawk (62:13)

That ripple effect, man, that's the juice. And it is so awesome to see the ripple effect of people that you impact and then the people they impact and the people they impact and they impact and it just goes on and on and on. So cool, man. All right, Jeff, thank you so much, man. I really appreciate this.

Jeff Jansen (62:29)

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Sponsor/Advertiser (62:34)

It is the end of the podcast club.

Ryan Hawk (62:37)

Thank you for being a member of.

Sponsor/Advertiser (62:39)

The end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a Note ryan@learningleader.com Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Jeff Jansen. A few takeaways from my notes. The commitment continues. Continuum. It goes from resistant to reluctant to existent to compliant to committed to compelled, slash obsessed. Now we first have to do an audit of ourselves. Where are we on that continuum? And then we can do that for each member of our teams. The goal is to get each person closer to becoming committed, committed and compelled then. I really enjoyed Jeff talking about Walt Disney. The little things are the big things. He experienced this firsthand when he went on a Disney cruise and saw the workers polishing the railings on the cruise.

Ryan Hawk (63:32)

Ship early in the morning.

Sponsor/Advertiser (63:33)

The same is true for the janitor mopping the floor at NASA. There's a story about President John F. Kennedy. In 1962 he was at NASA and.

Ryan Hawk (63:42)

He asked the janitor, janitor what he.

Sponsor/Advertiser (63:44)

Was doing and the janitor replied, quote, I'm helping put a man on the moon. The leaders, us, we should be praising everyone involved in the mission and celebrate their role and its importance, regardless of if it's seen as the high paying doctor or the person cleaning the room and then holding your teammates accountable.

Ryan Hawk (64:05)

This is a great quote.

Sponsor/Advertiser (64:06)

We're not calling you out. We're calling you out up. The encourager and the enforcer help raise the standards and encourage others to aim higher. That's the role of the leaders on great teams. We're not calling you out, we're calling you up. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader show with Jeff Jansen.

Ryan Hawk (64:34)

I think he'll help you become a.

Sponsor/Advertiser (64:36)

More effective leader and because you continue to do that and you also go to Spotify and Apple podcasts and you choose to subscribe to the show and you rate it hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review. And by doing all of that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.

Ryan Hawk (64:53)

And for that I will forever be grateful.

Sponsor/Advertiser (64:56)

Thank you so, so much.

Ryan Hawk (64:58)

Talk to you soon. Can't wait.