Sunday - 9:12 a.m.

This morning I read the introduction of a great book, Brave Enough by Cheryl Strayed. I underlined, highlighted, and wrote a few notes (again) in a different color pen than I had in the previous reads.

Here are the notes that popped out.

“Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe.”

The following quote she recalls from a book called A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle:

“Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.”

Back the Cheryl Strayed…

“I’m always with you.”

BE HERE NOW.

“I think of quotes as mini-instruction manuals for the soul… I believe in the power of words to help us reset our intentions, clarify our thoughts, and create a counternarrative to the voice of doubt many of us have murmuring in our heads — the one that says You can’t, you won’t, you shouldn’t have.”

Conversations we have with ourselves usually turn out to be conversations other people are having with themselves, too.

“Most of the quotes included here feel to me more like conversations I was having with myself that turned out to be conversations other people were apparently having with themselves, too. For every quote in this book imploring you to accept and forgive and be brave (enough), to be kind and grateful and honest, to be generous and bold, Im imploring myself to do the same. In other words, I’m not trying to be the boss of you. I’m attempting to be a better boss of me. These quotes are who I am, yes, but they’re also who I’m trying to be - a person I fall short of being on a regular basis.”

WE ARE ALL VERY MUCH STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS.

Never give in…

“The best quotes don’t speak to one particular truth, but rather to universal truths that resonate — across time, culture, gender, generation, and situation — in our own hearts and minds. They guide, motivate, validate, challenge, and comfort us in our own lives. They reiterate what we’ve figured out and remind us how much there is yet to learn… they lift us momentarily out of the confused and conflicted human muddle. Most of all, they tell us we’re not alone. Their existence is proof that others have questioned, grappled with, and come to know the same truths we question and grapple with, too.”

Unreasonable Hospitality Notes (Part 6)

RELATIONSHIPS ARE SIMPLE. SIMPLE IS HARD.

It’s easy to be someone’s partner during the good times, but it’s most important during the hard ones.

Drink your best bottle not on your best day but on your worst.

After a setback, I’d tell the team to go ahead and wallow. “Guys, this sucks. We’re working so hard, and we care so much, and still - today didn’t go our way. Let’s allow ourselves to feel the disappointment; it’s real and we don’t need to pretend it’s not.”

Don’t care so much about the mission that you forget to take care of each other.

You have to learn how to embrace tension.

Don’t go to bed early… Don’t leave work if you’re harboring feelings of frustration or resentment toward a colleague or the job itself; make sure to talk things through before heading home.

People usually want to be heard more than they want to be agreed with. You show respect by taking the time to listen.

To break stalemates, try swapping sides. It’s easy for passionate people to get entrenched in their respective positions. But you can’t help but connect with a position when you’re arguing for it, and swapping sides tends to jog you out of a stubborn focus on “your” idea. You can stop worrying about winning and can start thinking about what’s right for the organization.

Sometimes the only way to proceed in pursuit of a good partnership is to decide that whoever cares more about the issue can have their way… But you can’t abuse this rule. You can’t pull the “It’s important to me” card too many times.

HAVE YOU TRIED YELLING AT HIM?

Cultures based on abuse and harassment and manipulation are not only awful and unethical, but unstable and inefficient… But that doesn’t mean your culture should be 100 percent sweetness and light.

Managing staff boils down to two things: how you praise people and how you criticize them. Praise is the more important of the two. But you cannot establish any standard of excellence without criticism, so a thoughtful approach to how you correct people must be a part of your culture, too.

ONE SIZE FITS ONE… There’s not one-size-fits-all approach to managing people.

The Five Love Languages: (1) Acts of service. (2) Gift giving. (3) Physical touch. (4) Quality time. (5) Words of affirmation.

Certain expressions of love work better for some people. The same is true of tough love. There are people for whom a polite correction will not land; those people need a little fire.

IF YOU’RE GOING TO LIE TO ME, I WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU. You’re incredible, and I love what we’re doing here, but you need to decide right now what kind of leader you want to be. If that’s how you’re going to operate, you can do it without me.

You have to know the people you’re working with. Some people are totally pragmatic about criticism; correct them privately and without emotion, and they’ll receive the reproach in exactly the spirit in which it’s offered… Other folks are sensitive to criticism. This isn’t necessarily a negative characteristic - it’s usually an indication they want to do a good job and feel deeply wounded at any suggestion that they haven’t. But those people are going to react, no matter what you say or how gently and diplomatically you say it, so you’d better spend some time planning exactly how you’re going to deliver the feedback. And you’d be wise to budget time to spend with them afterward, so you can sit with them and let them know that they’re still loved… Then there are people who can’t or wont’t hear what you’re saying unless it comes with a little thunder. If your reprimand is too mild and conversational, they won’t believe you’re serious. With these people, you’re going to have to get into it a little bit, even if that’s not your usual managerial style.

Even this kind of reproach needs to be delivered privately and without emotion. Your voice may be loud, but your words need to be measured. You can be emotional about the situation, but that doesn’t have to come through in the delivery. You’re still criticizing the behavior, not the person, and a raised voice doesn’t mean losing control and raging. In fact, you absolutely CAN’T lose control and rage.

Ther’re on'e tough-love language that will never, ever work, and that’s sarcasm. Managers, especially young ones, will sometimes try to shroud criticism in humor because they’re insecure about delivering a rebuke. But sarcasm is always the wrong medium for a serious communication. It demeans the person who’s receiving the criticism, the message you’re delivering, and, frankly, you as well.

Most of us have no difficulty at all in delivering praise… But it’s hard to criticize someone. I spend a lot of time with my managers talking about criticism - how to deliver it, how to receive it, and maybe most important, how to think about it. We all want to be liked, and when you give someone a note about what they could be doing differently and better, you run the risk of losing their goodwill.

There is no better way to show someone you care than by being willing to offer them a criticism. It’s the purest expression of putting someone else’s needs above your own.

Praise is affirmation. Criticism is investment.

No matter where you are in the hierarchy you have to be able to receive criticism. It’s natural to bristle a little when you come up short, especially if you take pride in your work. But if your response if consistently defensive, if you always push back or insist on justifying your mistakes, people are eventually going to stop coming to you with notes. You’ve made it too unpleasant for them to continue, and they’re going to stop investing in you - and you’re going to stop growing as a result.

Unreasonable Hospitality Notes (Part 5)

I came to see my four-star inexperience not as a weakness but as a superpower. My inexperience enabled me to look critically at every step of service and to interrogate the only thing that mattered: the guests’ experience.

Most of time time, excellent training makes you better at what you do.

Think critically about the rules you are enforcing. Are they good ones or not?

When you ask, “Why do we do it this way?” and the only answer is “Because that’s how it’s always been done,” that rule deserves another look.

KNOWING LESS IS OFTEN AN OPPORTUNITY TO DO MORE.

When you get too caught up in showing your prowess - “Look at what we can do!” - you’re losing focus on the only thing that matters, which is what will make your customers happy.

Create a genuine relationship, and do what you need to in order to connect with the people you’re serving.

HIRE THE PERSON, NOT THE RESUME.

A leader needs to be able to trust that their team will operate on the same level as they do.

Get people who are excited about what you are up to, then teach them what they need to know.

They started all new hires at the lowest position in the dining room. This helps with the weeding out process. If someone balks at it, they probably won’t work out.

CULTURE CAN’T BE TAUGHT - IT HAS TO BE CAUGHT.

How you choose which people to invite onto the team is crucial to success.

HIRING IS SUCH A SOBERING RESPONSIBILITY. When you are hiring, you’re hiring not only the people who are going to represent and support you, but the people who are going to represent and support the team already working for you.

Morale is fickle, and even one individual can have an outsized and asymmetrical impact on the team, in either direction. Bring in someone who’s optimistic and enthusiastic and really cares, and they can inspire those around them to care more and do better. Hire someone lazy, and it means your best team members will be punished for their excellence, picking up the slack so the overall quality doesn’t drop.

The best way to respect and award A-Players on your team is to surround them with other A-Players. That’s how you attract more A-Players.

You must invest as much energy into hiring as you expect the team to invest in their jobs. You cannot expect someone to keep giving all of themselves if you put someone alongside them who isn’t willing to do the same. You need to be as unreasonable in how you build your team as you are in how you build your product or experience.

YOU’VE GOT TO HIRE SLOW.

It’s more detrimental to saddle yourself and your team with the wrong person, suffer the damage they do, and then end up right where you started three weeks later.

When you hire, you should ask yourself: “Could this person become one of the top two or three on the team? They don’t necessarily have to be all the way there yet, but they should have the potential to be.”

Hiring was hard before we got the culture of the restaurant fully dialed in. When we had an opening, I’d find someone good to join the team - not necessarily impeccably trained, but energetic and enthusiastic about the mission. But even if that person was all charged up when they got hired, the residual negativity of some of their colleagues would eventually infect them… Three or four times, I hired someone I thought showed promise. But they’d last only a month before the flame of their enthusiasm dimmed and died, and then they’d quit… So the next time a position opened up, I didn’t race to fill it. Instead, I waited until another position came open, and then another, and then hired three great people, all at the same time. Instead of one new person cupping their hands, trying to protect the tiny flame of their enthusiasm, that little crew brought a bonfire no one could put out… In the years to come, I would tell every group at their new-hire meeting, “You are part of a class, just as if you were starting college. Lean on one another; support one another.” But the first time I ever gave that speech, it was to those three. I wanted them to know that if they approached their shared experience as a team, the impact they could have on the restaurant would be profound.

The people getting the most out of their lives are the ones who wear their hearts on their sleeves, the ones who allow themselves to be passionate and open and vulnerable, and who approach everything they love at full-throttle, with curiosity and delight and unguarded enthusiasm.

You want people who are uniquely themselves. So many young coaches are still trying to figure out who they are - all too often pretending to be things they’re not in order to fit in. Be unapologetically invested in the things you care about. Don’t let other people’s cynicism or bad attitude distract you. Set your own tone.

SYNCHRONIZED - a great term for teams learning to play together with pace and precision.

Dancers learn choreography so their movements are precisely coordinated with the people on either side of them, and that’s all some of this stuff is - choreography… Practice it. And practice it. And practice it.

MAKE IT COOL TO CARE… We were overachievers - we cared - and we were proud of it.

When you find a group that cares about the same things you care about, you don’t have to hide your passions.

WORK WITH A PURPOSE, ON PURPOSE.

Don’t try to be all things to all people… If you try to be all things to all people, it’s proof that you don’t have a point of view - and if you want to make an impact, you need to have a point of view.

Language is how you give intention to your intuition and how you share your vision with others.

If you want to be the best in the world, you have to be authentic.

The bigger you get, the smaller you have to act. The smaller you are, the bigger you have to act.

Try having your assistant coaches serve the student managers for a change. See how that brings them together and let them have fun with it.

Create a culture based on teaching and learning. Hire those who are curious about what they don’t know and generous with what they do know. Find passionate people.

If players and coaches are living in constant fear of being caught in a mistake, you’re not going to get their most realized, relaxed selves.

No matter what you do, it’s hard to excel if you don’t love it.

You have to be able to tap into what’s important about your job.

When I encounter someone who thinks their work doesn’t matter, it’s usually because they haven’t dug deep enough to recognize the importance of the role they play.

Without exception, no matter what you do, you can make a difference in someone’s life. You must be able to name for yourself why your work matters. And if you’re a leader, you need to encourage everyone on your team to do the same.

CHOOSE A WORTHY RIVAL: another company that does one or more things better than you, whose strengths reveal your weaknesses and set you on a path of constant improvement.

SUCCESS COMES IN CANS… FAILURE COMES IN CAN’TS…

Leo had always been full of great ideas, but he was also the squeakiest wheel, the person on the staff who never failed to let you know why what you were doing was fundamentally flawed and never going to work. He completely transformed once given an ownership role, as if he hadn’t wanted to commit to greatness until he was in charge… THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE LIKE THIS…

WHEN YOU GIVE PEOPLE RESPONSIBILITY, THEY BECOME MORE RESPONSIBLE… At least the right ones do…

OWNERSHIP PROGRAMS… Let them choose them… Don’t randomly assign them… They have to be invested in them and care about them or what the hell is the point? Participation is strictly on a volunteer basis. All you can ask if that they are interested and curious and have even the first inklings of passion for it.

Refusing to delegate because it might take too long to train someone will only get in the way of your own growth.

While it does take more time to fix someone else’s mistakes than to do it yourself in the first place, these are short-term investments of time with long-term gains. If you insist on a manager having previous managerial experience, you’ll never be able to promote a promising server into the role. By definition, then, it’s impossible to promote from within if you wait until an employee has all the experience they need. Often, the perfect moment to give someone more responsibility is before they’re ready. Take a chance, and that person will almost always work extra hard to prove you right.

If we were trying to encourage people to take a shot, we couldn’t penalize them if they didn’t succeed; we simply found another area where they could invest their time. It’s always been my belief that “It might not work” is a terrible reason not to try an idea, especially one that has the potential upside of making the people who work for you more engaged with your mission.

THE BEST WAY TO LEARN IS TO TEACH. Make teaching part of your culture. Onetime presentations is much less of an obligation than taking over an ownership program - and it’s fun. As more and more members of the hourly team led classes, they acted more like leaders.

BASICS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING: (1) Tell them what you’re going to tell them. (2) Tell them. (3) Tell them what you’ve told them.

Public speaking is a leadership skill. Being able to communicate your own excitement is a powerful way to engage the people who work for and with you, and to infect them with energy and a sense of purpose.

Getting people to change their behavior is hard. Sometimes you need to give them a taste of what it feels like to get them hooked… This doesn’t mean being exploitative - pay people for their time. But don’t be afraid to make participation in a program mandatory… Some people need to contribute to know how good it feels when they do…

The best way to introduce a new employee to your culture is to have them work side by side with someone who believes in it.

When a new reservationist was hired at Eleven Madison Park, we asked them right away to do one thing to make the reservationist’s office better. This was a mandate, not an invite, though they could decide what to do and how big or small… We had to show them, right off the bat, that we meant it when we said collaboration was welcome. Otherwise, even a real self-starter might hesitate before jumping in: I wonder whose toes I’d be stepping on if I were to fix that nightmare of a bulletin board…

NEW PEOPLE HAVE THE GIFT OF FRESH EYES AND CAN SEE ALL THE WARTS YOU’VE LONG STOPPED SEEING.

A lot of good comes from empowering the most junior staff.

Make it clear - if you have an idea for how we can improve, I want to hear it.

The first time someone comes to you with an idea, listen closely, because how you handle it will dictate how they choose to contribute in the future. Dismiss them that first time, and you’ll extinguish a flame that’s difficult to rekindle… Someone may approach you with an idea you’ve heard before, or one you’ve already tried; don’t automatically reject these. Maybe they’ve thought it through in a way you didn’t previously, or circumstances have changed and you’re no longer too far in front of the curve for it to work… Someone may even come to you with an idea that’s just plain dumb. That’s an opportunity to teach - to listen, and then to explain in a respectful way the idea is unlikely to work, so that the person leaves both encouraged and educated. Remember: there’s often a brilliant idea right behind a bad one.

GREAT LEADERS MAKE GREAT LEADERS

Two responses are possible when you realize that perfection is unattainable: either give up altogether, or try to get as close as you possibly can… It may not be possible to do everything perfectly, but it is possible to do many things perfectly.

Here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter if you recognize the food critic coming into your restaurant. No football team phones it in for twenty games, then steps it all the way up for the Super Bowl. Similarly, you can’t be a mediocre restaurant three hundred and sixty-four days a year, then transform into a great one the day the critic happens to come in… You can’t suddenly become something you’re not.

Wiggled fingers… Straight chop… Twist of a fist… These are all signs and signals used by servers in a restaurant…

Precision in the smallest of details translates into precision in bigger ones.

PEOPLE CAN FEEL PERFECTION... (And imperfection)…

If you’ve corrected a guest because you don’t want them to think you’ve made a mistake, you’ve made a much bigger mistake. If hospitality is about creating genuine connection, and if that connection happens only once the guest has let their guard down, shaming them makes it highly unlikely you’ll ever be able to get that connection back again… Make sure you serve your guests and not your ego… BEING RIGHT IS IRRELEVANT…

THEIR PERCEPTION IS OUR REALITY.

Saying sorry does not mean you’re wrong.

Unreasonable Hospitality Notes (Part 4)

Never waste an opportunity to gather intel before your first day on the job.

Every head coach needs somebody with the balls to tell them when they’re not being their best… Somebody who will tell them when a certain player needs some love - or when he’s being too intense - or when he’s being unfocused. You also have to know how to say it. Messages that aren’t received aren’t delivered.

MESSAGES THAT AREN’T RECEIVED AREN’T DELIVERED.

WHEN THE STUDENT IS READY, THE TEACHER WILL APPEAR.

Bad organization creates friction. Sometimes there are lots of standards in place, but no real system to communicate them. This will lead to a lot of inconsistency.

If (in a restaurant) the managers can’t agree on how they want a tray carried and communicate it to the people carrying them, what hope could there possibly be for the larger vision?

When your organization is making more people mad than happy, you have issues.

When you take over a losing team, they’ll mostly just need to be brought along. They need to feel seen and appreciated. They need expectations to be clearly laid out and explained. They need discipline to be consistent. They need to feel like vital and important parts of an exciting change, not obstacles in the way of making it happen.

THE FIRST PRINCIPLE IS TO TAKE CARE OF ONE ANOTHER.

You need systems in place so everybody knows what they are supposed to be doing and how they are supposed to be doing it.

TEAM FIRST - be clear about what your job is - which is to do what’s best for the restaurant, not what’s best for any of you. More often than not, what’s best for the restaurant will include doing what’s best for you. But the only way I can take care of all of you as individuals is by always putting the restaurant first.

Some of the best advice I ever got about starting in a new organization is: Don’t cannonball. Ease into the pool… No matter how talented you are, or how much you have to add, give yourself time to understand the organization before you try to impact it.

YOU WON’T ALWAYS AGREE WITH EVERYTHING YOU HEAR, BUT YOU HAVE TO START BY LISTENING.

Time spent with people goes a long way. It shows them you care about what they think and how they feel and makes it that much easier for them to trust that you have their best interests in mind.

You choose your team. Even if you inherit them, you decide if you want to keep working with them or not.

A LEADER’S RESPONSIBILITY IS TO IDENTIFY THE STRENGTHS OF THE PEOPLE ON THEIR TEAM, NO MATTER HOW BURIED THOSE STRENGTHS MIGHT BE.

You can’t be afraid to have difficult conversations… To hear difficult things… To say difficult things…

Criticize the behavior, not the person. Praise in public. Criticize in private. Praise with emotion. Criticize without emotion.

Receiving praise, especially in front of your peers, is addictive. You always want more.

Establish a regular rhythm for giving praise.

You have to be as thoughtful about criticism as you are about praise. People in your organization should come to you if they think we could be doing something better, and they should do so well before their frustrations reach a boiling point.

When young managers take the reins of power - and most managers are young when they start because of how little money they make - they want to be liked. They work with people a ton of hours. They often have drinks together after work. It’s normal to want to be seen as part of the group. So when somebody comes in with an unironed shirt, you let that minor infraction slide in the interest of creating a friendly environment - both for the person in question and for YOU. You don’t say anything. And you continue to not say anything… By day 20, you start to take those wrinkles personally. The reality is that this guy has ironed the shirt because nobody has said anything. But in your mind, he’s not ironing his shirt because he doesn’t respect you as a manager, or the restaurant, or the other members of the team. That shirt becomes a neon sign for you saying he couldn’t care less… Your resentment festers - and by the time you finally get around to it, it feels personal and emotional… Spoiler - this conversation you end up having isn’t going to go well… THERE ARE WAYS TO AVOID MOMENTS LIKE THIS… Many of these confrontations can be avoided with early, clear, and drama-free corrections.

Every manager lives with the fantasy that their team can read their mind. But in reality, you have to make your expectations clear. And your team can’t be excellent if you’re not holding them accountable to the standards you’ve set. You normalize these corrections by making them swiftly, whenever they’re needed… AND MAKE THOSE CORRECTIONS IN PRIVATE.

Correct an employee in front of their colleagues, and they’ll never forgive you. The wall of shame that goes up may mean they can’t even absorb what you’re telling them. Issue the same correction in private, though, and it’s a different exchange.

It’s a leader’s job to give their team feedback all the time. But every person on the team should be hearing more about what they did well than what they could do better, or they’re going to feel deflated and unmotivated. And if you can’t find more compliments to deliver than criticism, that’s a failure in leadership - either you’re not coaching the person sufficiently, or you’ve tried and it’s not working, which means they should no longer be on the team.

Consistency is one of the most important and underrated aspects of being a leader. A person can’t feel safe at work if they’re apprehensive about what version of their manager they’re going to encounter on any given day. So if you’re the boss, you need to be steady.

Every once in a while, you’re going to mess up. When you do, apologize. There’s an inherent intensity that comes with being passionate about what you do, and on occasion, it can get the better of you.

THIRTY MINUTES A DAY CAN TRANSFORM A CULTURE.

When initiating change, I look for the best lever, whatever will allow me to transmit the most force with the least amount of energy. And there’s no better lever than a daily 30-minute meeting with your team.

A daily 30-minute meeting is where a collection of individuals becomes a team. The way you run the meetings can set a tone that is as important as what is being said. Attendance should be mandatory. Meetings should start on time. And they should last exactly 30 minutes.

There should be no ambiguity about what we expect the front-line guys to know.

The notes for those meetings should be thoughtful and presented well.

YOU CAN’T STAND IN FRONT OF PEOPLE AND TALK ABOUT EXCELLENCE IF YOU’RE NOT MODELING IT YOURSELF.

If done right, these meeting can fill the gas tank of the people who work of you right before they go out and fill the gas tank of the people they are working for.

COMMUNICATING CONSISTENT STANDARDS WITH LOTS OF REPS IS IMPORTANT. A good manager makes sure everyone knows what they have to do and makes sure they’ve done it - that’s the black and white part of being a leader. But a huge part of leadership is taking the time to tell your team WHY they’re doing what they’re doing. Use those meetings to get into the why.

Speak about the spirit and culture you’re trying to build. Inspire and uplift the team and remind them what we’re striving for. Celebrate wins, even small ones. Publicly acknowledge when someone on the team is crushing it.

Meetings should follow the same template so everyone knows what to expect. Start with housekeeping. Always talk about something that inspired you.

IN ORDER TO BECOME A TEAM YOU HAVE TO STOP, TAKE A DEEP BREATH, AND COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER.

How connected you are as a team should be more important than anything.

Employees who aren’t succeeding tend to fall into two camps: the ones who aren’t trying, and the ones who are. The end result may be similar, but the two need to be handled differently. HELP THE PEOPLE WHO ARE TRYING.

Sometimes you need to slow down in order to speed up. It’s possible for expectations to be too high. Sometimes you have to solidify your foundation.

Sometimes going too fast will slow the whole operation down. Sometimes you squander momentum trying to do too much too soon.

First, communicate clearly what you expect them to learn. Then hold them accountable.

The point of these tests isn’t to fail people or call them out. It’s to make sure they know what to do.

Be consistent. Do what’s fair. Do what’s right.

Make it the kind of program you WANT to be a part of.

Unreasonable Hospitality Notes (Part 3)

Don’t just give advice. Always take the time to explain why.

Remember this. When you give people a real sense of ownership, they will give more of themselves.

Whatever terrifying statistic you’ve heard about how many restaurants fail in the first year has a lot more to do with the people who open restaurants without understanding the business part of the business.

Waiting doesn’t have to dim your ambition or hamper your progress. Trust the process. The right way to do things starts with how you polish a wineglass.

DON’T FIRE FELIX - notoriously disrespectful to coworkers and often nightmare to work with, but are considered unfireable because they are so beloved by customers.

Just because a few regulars love an employee doesn’t mean they should be allowed to erode the foundation of everything you’re trying to build.

Always make the charitable assumption.

In too many organizations, the people at the top have all the authority and none of the information, while the people on the front line have all the information and none of the authority. Taken too far, corporate-smart can turn into restaurant-dumb.

TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER FIRST. That doesn’t mean it’s only a manager’s job to take care of the hourly employees. It’s everyone’s job to take care of everyone.

Managers are employees, too. That doesn’t mean they’re automatically right or should be allowed to fire loyal, long-standing employees on a whim. But if you take care of your managers and give them what they need to be successful, you put them in a better position to take care of their teams.

It can be hard to spend 12-15 hours a day executing someone else’s vision knowing they have so little trust in you.

The Rule of 95/5: Manage 95 percent of your business down to the penny. Spend the last 5 percent “foolishly”. The last 5 percent will be some of the smartest money you’ll ever spend.

A few times a year, spend a truly obnoxious amount of money on an experience for the team.

Some coaches/people in positions of leadership won’t say it, but you can clearly feel it. They don’t respect you or anybody else in the program. In their view, it’s all about them. Everybody else is just there in service of him and his career.

Never forget how much of an impact - for good or bad - a gesture by a leader can have.

RUN TOWARD WHAT YOU WANT AS OPPOSED TO AWAY FROM WHAT YOU DON’T WANT.

IF YOU WANT THEM TO BE THERE FOR YOU WHEN YOU NEED THEM, THEN YOU NEED TO BE THERE FOR THEM WHEN THEY NEED YOU.

“I don’t want to have to spend my whole life convincing you what I do is as important as what you do. If it’s not a partnership, then I don’t even want to start down this road.”

Unreasonable Hospitality Notes (Part 2)

Intentionality isn’t a luxury or a business requirement - it’s a requirement.

Intention means that every decision matters, from the most obviously significant to the seemingly mundane. To do something with intentionality means to do it thoughtfully, with clear purpose and an eye on the desired result.

Prioritize the people who work in your organization over everything else.

Hire great people. Treat them well. Invest in their personal and professional growth. And they will take care of the customers.

Think about this when starting out your career. It’s easier to learn the right way to do things at the high end than it is to break bad habits. You can always take it down a notch later, but it’s much harder to go the other way. This is true in basketball as well. Always tougher to get a team to play tough and physical and pressure the ball later in the season if you started out being soft and passive at the beginning.

There’s great power in being the underdog. Wear your outsider status like a badge of honor.

Dining room managers would trail people in the kitchen when they first started with the organization. The idea was for them to get an idea of what actually goes on and gain a healthy respect. They performed mundane, physical, dirty duties like deveining shrimp for three hours and getting up to their elbows in shrimp guts.

Two things happen when the best leaders walk into a room. The people who work for them straighten up a little, making sure everything’s perfect. And they smile, too.

Simple gifts have the power to blow people’s minds. Systemizing it has power. And the more normal it becomes for you to give these simple little gifts, the more extraordinary it can be for the people receiving it.

All it takes for something extraordinary to happen is one person with enthusiasm.

Let your energy impact the people you’re talking to, as opposed to the other way around.

When somebody believes in what they’re saying, after a while - so will you.

Never forget how much your trust means to people.

Developing a sense of ownership in the people who work for you will go a long way.

Language can build culture by making essential concepts easy to understand and teach. Develop phrases around common experiences, potential pitfalls, and favorable outcomes. Repeat them over and over. Use them in text messages, emails, meetings, etc.

CONSTANT, GENTLE PRESSURE. Everyone in your organization should always be improving a little bit at a time.

BE THE SWAN. This phrase reminded them that all guests should see was a gracefully curved neck and meticulous white feathers sailing across the pond’s surface - not the webbed feet, churning furiously below, driving the glide.

MAKE THE CHARITABLE ASSUMPTION. Assume the best of people, even when (or perhaps especially when) they aren’t behaving particularly well. Instead of immediately expressing disappointment with an employee who has shown up late and launching into a lecture on how they’ve let the team down, ask first, “You’re late - is everything okay?” When somebody is being difficult, it’s human nature to decide they no longer deserve your best service. Take a minute to consider things you may not have considered. Maybe the person is being dismissive because their spouse asked for a divorce. Maybe they just found out a loved one is seriously ill. Perhaps this is a person who actually needs more love and more hospitality than anybody else in the room. When you start focusing on extending the charitable assumption to the people around you, you will start giving it to yourself a bit more as well.

There are certain concepts you should introduce people to on their very first day in your organization. Think about them ahead of time. The importance of these meetings is that they send an immediate signal: There’s a certain way we do things here, and it’s bigger than teaching you how you move through the dining room or how to prepare a dish. Make sure everybody introduces themselves with a line or two. These introductions are also a message. The fact that the head of the company is willing to use at least half the meeting to take time to hear from everyone individually will make a big impression.

One thing to have in your organization: The idea that taking care of one another will take precedence over everything.

After those introductions, walk people through the phrases and the roles they play in the culture. Show them right away that these words matter. DON’T FOCUS ON THE WHAT - FOCUS ON THE WHY.

A “cult” is what people who work for companies that haven’t invested enough in their cultures tend to call the companies that have.

When your bosses walk in, you should want to hustle a little harder - not because you are scared, but because we want them to see we are on top of our part of the process.

Unreasonable Hospitality Notes (Part I)

Never forget the amazing impact you can have on people’s lives when you give them a sense of belonging.

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

The human desire to be taken care of never goes away.

The best interview technique is no technique at all. Simply have enough of a conversation that you can get to know the person. Do they seem curious and passionate about what you’re trying to build? Do they have integrity? Are they someone you can respect? Is this someone you can imagine yourself and your team happily spending a lot of time with?

Service is black and white. Hospitality is color.

No one who ever changed the game did so by being reasonable. You have to be unreasonable to see a world that doesn't exist yet.

Whether a company has made the choice to put their team and their customers at the center of every decision will be what separates the great ones from the pack.

Technology today is incredible, and it has enhanced much about our lives. But the human being is getting left behind because of this technology. How many times do you see a group of people together at a dinner table and everybody is staring at their phones? Don’t forget about people and about the human connection that makes life meaningful and special.

How do you make the people who work for you feel seen and valued? How do you give them a sense of belonging? How do you make them feel part of something bigger than themselves? How do you make them feel welcome?

How you serve your people is just as important as how how you play.

People will forget what you do and what you said, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.

Book List for Athletes and Coaches

In no particular order, a list of some of the best books I’ve read over the past 10 years. I’ve only included books here that I’ve personally found value in. Will update in the future with a “Best of” or “Top 10” list. I think there is something in here for everybody trying to get better at something.

Winning the Mental Game by Dr. Amber Selking

You Win in the Locker Room First by Mike Smith and Jon Gordon

How Champions Think by Dr. Bob Rotella

Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris

Give and Take by Adam Grant

The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh

The Magic of Thinking Big by Dr. David Schwartz

Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Awareness by Anthony De Mello

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

The Little Book of Talent by Daniel Coyle

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

The Champion’s Mind by Dr. Jim Afremow

Mind Gym by Gary Mack

The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy

Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

Atomic Habits by James Clear

The Mindful Athlete by George Mumford

Brave Enough by Cheryl Strayed

The Fear Book by Cheri Huber

Winning Ugly by Brad Gilbert

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield

Mastery by George Leonard

The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey

The Inner Game of Golf by Timothy Gallwey

Stories That Stick by Kindra Hall

Chop Wood Carry Water by Joshua Medcalf

The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster by Darren Hardy

Thoughts from Debbie Millman in the book Tribe of Mentors

“Busy is a decision… Of the many, many excuses people use to rationalize why they can’t do something, the excuse ‘I am too busy’ is not only the most inauthentic, it is also the laziest. I don’t believe in ‘too busy.’ Like I said, busy is a decision. We do the things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is shorthand for ‘not important enough.’ It means you would rather be doing something else that you consider more important… If we use busy as an excuse for not doing something what we are really, really saying is that it’s not a priority.”

“You don’t find the time to do something; you make the time to do things.”

“We are now living in a society that sees busy as a badge… The problem is this: if you let yourself off the hook for not doing something for any reason, you won’t ever do it. If you want to do something, you can’t let being busy stand in the way, even if you are busy. Make the time to do the things you want to do and then do them.”

“There is no shame in feeling shame… Almost everyone does.”

During one of her interviews with a guest named Dani Shapiro:

“… we started to talk about the role of confidence in success. She went on to state that she felt that confidence was highly overrated. I was instantly intrigued. She explained that she felt that most overly confident people were really annoying. And the most confident people were usually arrogant. She felt that overexuding that amount of confidence was a sure sign that a person was compensating for some type of internal psychological deficit...”

 “… Dani declared that courage was more important than confidence. When you are operating out of courage, you are saying that no matter how you feel about yourself or your opportunities or the outcome, you are going to take a risk and take a step toward what you want. You are not waiting for the confidence to mysteriously arrive. I now believe that confidence is achieved through repeated success at any endeavor. The more you practice doing something, the better you will get at it, and your confidence will grow over time.”

 

“You don’t just find and get a great job. You find and win a great job against a pool of very competitive candidates who may want that job as much, if not more, than you do. Finding and winning a great job is a competitive sport that requires as much career athleticism and perseverance as making it to the Olympics… There is very little luck involved. Winning your great job is about hard work, stamina, grit, ingenuity, and timing. What might look like luck to you is simply hard work paying off.” 

Questions to Ask Yourself:

  1. Am I spending enough time on looking for, finding, and working toward winning a great job?

  2. Am I constantly refining and improving my skills? What can I continue to get better and more competitive at?

  3. Do I believe that I am working harder than everyone else? If not, what else can I be doing?

  4. What are the people who are competing with me doing that I am not doing?

  5. Am I doing everything I can – every single day – to stay in “career shape?” If not, what else should I be doing?

“No one cares if you are a people person. Have a point of view, and share it meaningfully, thoughtfully, and with conviction.”

“I do not believe in work-life balance. I believe that if you view your work as a calling, it is a labor of love rather than laborious. When your work is a calling, you are not approaching the amount of hours you are working with a sense of dread or counting the minutes until the weekend. Your calling can become a life-affirming engagement that can provide its own balance and spiritual nourishment. Ironically, it takes hard work to achieve this.”

“… if you are looking for work-life balance in your 20s or 30s, you are likely in the wrong career. If you are doing something you love, you don’t want work-life balance.”

“Avoid compulsively making things worse.”

Thoughts from Terry Crews in the book Tribe of Mentors

“I’d rather die doing something I feel is great and amazing rather than be safe and comfortable living a life I hate.” 

“The more you run from your fears, the bigger they get, but the more you go into them, the more they tend to vanish life a mirage.”

“There is a big difference between intelligence and wisdom. Many are fooled into thinking they are the same thing, but they are not. I have seen intelligent serial killers, but I’ve never seen a wise one. Intelligent human beings have been given this trumped-up position in society where, just because they’re intelligent, they are to be listened to, and I have found this is extremely dangerous. I was in a Christian cult along with other very intelligent people but, looking back, if I had heeded wisdom, I would have seen we were all on the wrong path. Intelligence is like following a GPS route right into a body of water until you drown. Wisdom looks at the route but, when it takes a turn into the ocean, decides not to follow it, then finds a new, better way. Wisdom reigns supreme.”

“Every mistake I have ever made in business, marriage, and personal conduct was because I thought if I didn’t do or get this now, it was never going to happen. It’s like most clubs in LA. The trick is to keep the line long at the door, while the club itself is half empty. The ‘aura of exclusivity’ is really code for ‘bad atmosphere.’”

“To do what you desire to do, you have all you need.”

“As a football player, I was told to work hard to compete against the other team, some perceived future threat (new draftees, age, or inquiry), and even my current teammates. As an actor, you are told to look a certain way or do things you don’t agree with in order to ‘compete.’ This competitive mindset destroys people. It’s the scorched-earth way of thinking, and everyone is burned.”

“Creativity operates differently. You work hard because you’re inspired to, not because you have to. Work becomes fun, and you have energy for days because this life is not a ‘young man’s game.’ It is an ‘inspired person’s game.’ The keys belong to whoever is inspired, and no specific age, sex, gender, or cultural background has a monopoly on inspiration. When you’re creative, you render competition obsolete, because there is only one you, and no one can do things exactly the way you do. Never worry about the competition. When you’re creative, you can, in fact, cheer others on with the full knowledge that their success will undoubtedly be your own.”

“Every relationship I have in my life, from family and friends to business partners, must be a voluntary relationship. My wife can leave at any time. Family members can call me or not. Business partners can decide to move on, and it’s all okay. Bu the same is true on my end. If I say I’m ready to move on and someone doesn’t accept that, now we have a problem.”

“You won’t take a bullet for pleasure or power, but you will for meaning.”

“One wrong person in your circle can destroy your whole future.”

Five Stages of Tribal Development

In their groundbreaking book, Tribal Leadership, management consultants Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright lay out the five stages of tribal development, which they formulated after conducting extensive research on small to midsize organizations. Although basketball teams are not officially tribes, they share many of the same characteristics and develop along much the same lines:

STAGE 1 – shared by most street gangs and characterized by despair, hostility, and the collective belief that “life sucks.”

STAGE 2 – filled primarily with apathetic people who perceive themselves as victims and who are passively antagonistic, with the mind-set that “my life sucks.” Think The Office on TV or the Dilbert comic strip.

STAGE 3 – focused primarily on individual achievement and driven by the motto “I’m great (and you’re not).” According to the authors, people in organizations at this stage “have to win, and for them winning is personal. They’ll outwork and outthink their competitors on an individual basis. The mood that results is a collection of ‘lone warriors.’”

STAGE 4 – dedicated to tribal pride and the overriding conviction that “we’re great (and they’re not).” This kind of team requires a strong adversary, and the bigger the foe, the more powerful the tribe.

STAGE 5 – a rare stage characterized by a sense of innocent wonder and the strong belief that “life is great.” (See Bulls, Chicago, 1995-98.)

All things being equal, contend Logan and his colleagues, a stage 5 culture will outperform a stage 4 culture, which will outperform a 3, and so on. In addition, the rules change when you move from one culture to another. That’s why the so-called universal principles that appear in most leadership textbooks rarely hold up. In order to shift a culture from one stage to the next, you need to find the levers that are appropriate for that particular stage in the group’s development.

Surround Yourself with People Who Help You Regain Focus and Confidence

Surround yourself with people that have the ability to help you regain your focus and confidence. Sometimes we get overwhelmed – that’s part of being human – and when that happens it’s nice to have a somebody who can be a beacon for you, somebody that helps you get on the right path.

There will be plenty of moments when you don’t believe in yourself. It helps to have people around who do. Sometimes we think we need to shut out the world and figure everything out ourselves when we’re struggling. But it really does help to have somebody there to help you and to have the courage to reach out to those people when you are struggling.

Two Theories of Learning from Josh Waitzkin and Carol Dweck

The following is taken from The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. Waitzkin was the subject of the film Searching for Bobby Fisher.

Developmental psychologists have done extensive research on the effects of a student’s approach on his or her ability to learn and ultimately master material. Dr. Carol Dweck, a leading researcher in the field of developmental psychology, makes the distinction between entity and incremental theories of intelligence. Children who are “entity theorists” – that is, kids who have been influenced by their parents and teachers to think in this manner – are prone to use language like “I am smart at this” and to attribute their success or failure to an ingrained and unalterable level at a certain discipline to be a fixed entity, a thing that cannot evolve. Incremental theorists, who have picked up a different modality of learning – let’s call them learning theorists – are more prone to describe their results with sentences like “I got it because I worked very hard at it” or “I should have tried harder.” A child with a learning theory of intelligence tends to sense that with hard work, difficult material can be grasped – step by step, incrementally, the novice can become the master.

Dweck’s research has shown that when challenged by difficult material, learning theorists are far more likely to rise to the level of the game, while entity theorists are more brittle and prone to quit. Children who associate success with hard work tend to have a “master-oriented response” to challenging situations, while children who see themselves as just plain “smart” or “dumb,” or “good” or “bad” at something, have a “learned helplessness orientation.”

In one wonderfully revealing study, a group of children was interviewed and then each child was noted as having either an entity or learning theory of intelligence. All the children were then given a series of easy math problems, which they all solved correctly. Then, all the children were given some very hard problems to solve – problems that were too difficult for them. It was clear that the learning theorists were excited by the challenge, while the entity theorists were dismayed. Comments would range from “Oh boy, now I’m really gonna have to try hard” to “I’m not smart enough for this.” Everyone got these problems wrong – but evidently the experience of being challenged had very different effects. What is most interesting is the third stage of this experiment: all the children were once again given easy problems to solve. Nearly all of the learning theorists breezed right through the easy material, but the entity theorists had been so dispirited by the inability to solve the hard problems that many of them foundered through the easy stuff. Their self-confidence had been destroyed.

What is compelling about this is that the results have nothing to do with intelligence level. Very smart kids with entity theories tend to be far more brittle when challenged than kids with learning theories who would be considered not quite as sharp. In fact, some of the brightest kids prove to be the most vulnerable to becoming helpless, because they feel the need to live up to and maintain a perfectionist image that is easily and inevitably shattered. As an observer of countless talented young chess players, I can vouch for the accuracy of this point – some of the most gifted players are the worst under pressure, and have the hardest time rebounding from defeat.

How are these theories of intelligence programmed into our minds? Often subtle differences in parental or instructional style can make a huge difference. Entity theorists tend to have been told that they did well when they have succeeded, and that they weren’t any good at something when they have failed. So a kid aces a math test, comes home, and hears “Wow, that’s my boy! As smart as they come!” Then, next week Johnny fails an English test and hears “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you read?” or “Your Mommy never liked reading either – obviously, it’s not your thing.” So the boy figures he’s good at math and bad at English, and what’s more, he links success and failure to ingrained ability. Learning theorists, on the other hand, are given feedback that is more process-oriented. After doing well on an English essay, a little girl might be congratulated by her teacher with “Wow, great job Julie! You’re really becoming a wonderful writer! Keep up the good work!” And if she does badly on a math test, her teacher might write “Study a little harder for the next one and you’ll do great! And feel free to ask me questions any time after class, that’s what I’m here for!” So Julie learns to associate effort with success and feels that she can become good at anything with some hard work. She also feels as though she is on a journey of learning, and her teacher is a friendly assistant in her growth. Johnny thinks he’s good at math and bad at English, and he focuses on quick results as opposed to long-term process – but what happens when he does badly on a hard math test down the line? Will he be prepared to learn the right lessons from life’s inevitable challenges? Un fortunately, he may not.

It is clear that parents and teachers have an enormous responsibility in forming the theories of intelligence of their students and children – and it is never too late. It is critical to realize that we can always evolve in our approaches to learning. Studies have shown that in just minutes, kids can be conditioned into having a healthy learning theory for a given situation. In one study, children were given different instructions about what the aim of their task was. Some kids were told that solving certain problems would help them with their schoolwork in the future, and other kids were told that they would be judged based on their results. In other words, half the kids received “mastery-oriented” instructions, and half the kids received “helplessness-producing” instructions. Needless to say, the kids who were temporarily mastery-oriented did much better on the tests.

So how does all this affect us in our day-to-day lives? Fundamentally. The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety. The hermit crab is a colorful example of a creature that lives by this aspect of the growth process (albeit without our psychological baggage). As the crab gets bigger, it needs to find a more spacious shell. So the slow, lumbering creature goes on a quest for a new home. If an appropriate new shell is not found quickly, a terribly delicate moment of truth arises. A soft creature that is used to the protection of built-in armor must now go out into the world, exposed to predators in all its mushy vulnerability. That learning phase in between shells is where our growth can spring from. Someone stuck with an entity theory of intelligence is like an anorexic hermit crab, starving itself so it doesn’t grow to have to find a new shell.

In my experience, successful people shoot for the stars, put their hearts on the line in every battle, and ultimately discover that the lessons learned from the pursuit of excellence mean much more than the immediate trophies and glory. In the long run, painful losses may prove much more valuable than wins – those who are armed with a healthy attitude and are able to draw wisdom from every experience, “good” or “bad,” are the ones who make it down the road. They are also the ones who are happier along the way. Of course the real challenge is to stay in range of this long-term perspective when you are under fire and hurting in the middle of the war. This, maybe our biggest hurdle, is at the core of the art of learning.

Bob Knight: Losing is for... Losers

The following is taken from Bob Knight’s The Power of Negative Thinking: An Unconventional Approach to Achieving Positive Results.

I have seen all kinds of books about winning, often by athletes or business executives whose lifelong record of victories (or profits) is dubious. 

I haven’t seen one intelligent book yet about losing.

There should be one, because every coach – every person – has to deal with losing. The first essential to have in place – in your mind, at least – is a plan to recover after a loss, to learnfrom a loss, to eliminate those things that caused a loss.

Learning from a loss doesn’t make it a good loss. Late in our 1975-76 season at Indiana, I’m absolutely sure that Al McGuire, whose Marquette team was No. 2 in the country at the time, was being honest, and not trying to play head games with our team, when he said it would be best for us, as far as winning the national championship was concerned, to lose a regular-season game, to take off the “pressure” of a long winning streak. I didn’t agree with Al, then or now – 37 years later.

And I’m sure the players on that 1975-76 Indiana team are as proud as their coach that we were the last major college men’s team that never for the “pressure” off. Every champion since has lost at least two games.

But I always felt that when you did lose, it was imperative that you learn from the loss. Why did we lose? If we lost simply because they had better players, we’d need to recruit better players. But the vast majority of time, it’s going to go back to mistakes. That’s where constant focus has to be. 

Coaches often inwardly if not publicly blame a loss on a bad call, an injury, or something unusual that happened in the game, when the real reason was mistakes. A typical press-conference comment from a losing coach is “They just shot lights-out,” when the real reason “they” did was his defense allowed them to get good shots. Or “We couldn’t hit a thing; our shooting was really off tonight,” when the truth was “we” took too many bad shots, “we” did not work to get good shots – any team is always likely to miss bad shots.

Every team must play with confidence, but losing is a potential reality you’d better be thinking about – in a season, or in a game, any game, just as a banker or broker had better be thinking about downside risk in any investment.

And let me be clear: Preparing not to lose is designed to aid and abet winning. The object here is to win. It’s not a character fault to detest losing.

You constantly hear that losing is a part of sport that you have to learn to accept. I made a conscious effort after losses to acknowledge what the other coach or team, or a specific player, had done especially well, but it probably isn’t surprising that I don’t buy the inevitability of losing – ever! I never wanted to be – or to depend on – a person who isn’t bothered by losing. To me a good loser is probably someone who has had too much practice at it.

Bill Walsh on the Cultural Conscience of Organizations

“I believe that every organization has a cultural conscience that it carries forward year after year. That ethos may be good or bad, productive or unproductive. Some leaders are able to create the former, others the latter. But productive or unproductive, it exists, and it is guiding ongoing personnel and informing new arrivals as they come on board.”

- Bill Walsh

Nine Steps for a Healthy Organization

The following is taken from The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh.

People matter most – more than equipment, investors, inventions, momentum, or X’s and O’s. People are at the heart of achieving organizational greatness. Too often aggressive leaders forget the human part of the equation – the most important part. Let me suggest nine steps you can take that involve treating people right, for having a healthy heart in your organization:

  1. Afford each person the same respect, support, and fair treatment you would expect if your roles were reversed. Deal with people individually, not as objects who are part of a herd – that’s the critical factor.

  2. Leadership involves many people, each with their own need for role identity within the organization. Find what a person does best, utilize and emphasize it, and steer clear of his or her weaknesses.

  3.  Demonstrate a pronounced commitment to employees by providing a work environment that enables them to achieve their maximum potential and productivity.

  4. Acknowledge the uniqueness of each employeeand the need he or she has for a reasonable degree of job security and self-actualization. You don’t own him or her.

  5.  The most talented personnel often are very independent minded. This requires that you carefully consider how you relate to and communicate with this type of individual. Creative people usually bring a passion to seeing their ideas put into play as quickly as possible. They must be helped to understand that not every idea is appropriate and that coming up with a new concept is just the state of a process that includes evaluation, comparisons, practicability, and more. But be careful not to quash an idea-friendly environment in your organization.

  6. While at times a divergence may exist between the good of the group and the good of the individual, in a best-case scenario the group’s and the individual’s “good” should be the same. When this is not the case, you are well served to explain the reasons behind the divergence to the person who feels badly treated – for example, when he or she is passed over for promotion. (For me, occasionally a player wanted to play one position when, in fact, he was better suited to another. I attempted to explain this to the individual whose goal was being denied. You may have an individual who similarly needs direction to play to his or her strength within your organization. And you may have to explain how this benefits the goal of the team.)

  7. People are most comfortable with how they are being treated when their duties are laid out in specific detail and their performance can be gauged by specific metrics. The key is to document – clarify – those expectations. In my initial year at San Francisco, our starting quarterback, Steve DeBerg, was outstanding in many areas. The category that he came up short in, however, was critical – throwing interceptions at important junctures. It cost him his job because it was right there on paper, a quantifiable statistic that verified what I already knew. In a very easily seen way, he could be shown where he was underperforming.

  8. It is critical that employee expectation levels be reasonable, attainable, and high. While you should exhibit flexibility in the work environment to accommodate the needs of employees, you should be inflexible with regard to your expectations of their performance.

  9. Establish a protocol for how members of the organization interact with one another. This is essential to preventing compartmentalization and “turf protection.” Let them know their first priority is to do their job; their second priority is to facilitate others in doing their jobs.