Coaching Coaches

My guest today is Daniel Coyle, best-selling author of The Talent Code, The Culture Code, and his newest book that was released this week, The Culture Playbook: 60 Highly Effective Actions to Help Your Group Succeed.

In this episode, Daniel shares insights he’s learned about how to build a strong culture, what some best practices are around hiring and team building, and what he’s learned from consulting with the Cleveland Guardians.

My co-host today is Oliver Winterbone, Director of Coaches and Executives at Wasserman, one of the premiere talent management companies in the world. He previously worked for the Oklahoma City Thunder and University of Florida Men’s Basketball program in various roles. The Athletic named him to their NBA 40 under 40 list earlier this year.

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My guest today is Paul Oyer, a professor of economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He’s also the author of An Economist Goes to the Game: How to Throw Away $580 Million and Other Surprising Insights from the Economics of Sports.

Paul and I start with the most insane statistic I have come across in my entire life. Then we blow through a number of topics, including gambling, the NIL, the effects of conference realignment within college athletics, public financing of private stadiums, why coaches get huge buyouts, and most importantly, why I was serving a huge need by reselling a boatload of UF football tickets when I was in undergrad. This was a fun conversation on the future of sports related to a number of topics with a bright mind and I hope you enjoy the episode.

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My guest today is Francesca Gino, a professor at Harvard Business School focused on why people make the decisions they do at work, and how leaders and employees have more productive, creative and fulfilling lives.

Harvard is well-known for their case studies being used by colleges and companies all over the world, and when I saw she wrote a case study on Steve Kerr, I had to get her on the podcast. Our conversation today starts with lessons learned from studying and talking to Coach Kerr. Then we shift to the topic of her best selling book, Rebel Talent: Why it Pays to Break Rules in Work and Life. She was one of the most impressive people I’ve talked to before, and if I haven’t convinced you to listen yet, know she had just finished a session teaching an NBA staff on various topics.

My co-host today is Oliver Winterbone, Director of Coaches and Executives at Wasserman, one of the premiere talent management companies in the world. He previously worked for the Oklahoma City Thunder and University of Florida Men’s Basketball program in various roles. The Athletic named him to their NBA 40 under 40 list earlier this year.

Mo Cheeks national anthem clip

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Today’s episode features a conversation between Jeff Seder and Meb Faber on The Meb Faber Show podcast. In my last episode with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, we touched on the incredible story of Jeff Seder and how utilizing data led him to go all-in on American Pharoah and later tell his employer, “Sell your horse, don’t sell this horse.” Wise words considering the horse would go on to become the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years.

Meb was kind enough to allow me to release the episode on my feed here for you to listen to.

That being said, if you enjoy the episode and want to repay the favor to Meb, or are looking for a podcast on investing and what’s going on in the economy, whether it’s the freakonomics of weed, what in the world is going on in the housing market, or hearing about the impact of the Russia/Ukraine war on geopolitics, be sure to check out and subscribe to The Meb Faber Show. And if you want to test it out, he released an episode yesterday with some of the best clips from this year.

Now enjoy this conversation between Meb Faber & Jeff Seder.

Other episodes from The Meb Faber Show I’d recommend:

• Gio Valiante

• Richard Thaler

• Dan Ariely

• Leonard Mlodinow

• Dan Cooper

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My guest today is Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life.

I’m not sure if there’s someone whose work is more fascinating to me than Seth. His first book, Everybody Lies, looked at how our Google searches reveal our true selves with topics like racism, child abuse,

This book looks at what the data says on how to live a better life. We touch on parenting, finding a spouse, being a sports fan, what sport your child should play if they want the best chance to get a college scholarship, and how much of an athlete’s success is nature vs. nurture. His work is as fun as it is insightful and I’m sure you’ll love this episode. Note this does contain some mature content towards the end of the episode.

Resources:

Jeff Seder’s appearance on The Meb Faber Show

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Today’s episode features a conversation my good friend Preston Greene recently had with world champion cyclist, Shane Perkins. Preston is the strength coach for the University of Florida men’s basketball team and one of the most well respected strength coaches in all of college athletics. Shane is a professional track cyclist who won the Bronze Medal in the 2012 London Olympic games and also won 2 world championships.

In this episode, Shane talks about how he trained his mind and mentally prepared to perform, the importance of being coachable as an athlete, and what separated the great coaches from the others in his eyes. He also touches on how to handle success, managing who is in your inner circle, and the importance of patience, persistence and hard work.

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My guest today is David Shaw, head coach of the Stanford football team. In this episode, he talks about what it’s been like to coach players like Andrew Luck and Christian McCaffrey at an elite academic institution like Stanford and lessons he’s learned working with guys like Brian Billick and Jon Gruden. Coach Shaw has been pursued by NFL teams and shares advice on how he thinks about his professional career, what makes him happy in life, and what one NFL GM said was the reason he pursued him.

We don’t discuss it in the episode, but last year ESPN did a segment on his brother’s battle against a rare, aggressive skin cancer, and the hail mary blood marrow transplant Coach Shaw was able to provide his him, which saved his life. It’s one of the most moving stories I’ve seen and I urge you to check the link in the show notes to watch and consider becoming a borrow marrow donor by going to bethematch.org.

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Click HERE to watch the video referenced in the intro.

My guest today is Dr. Michele Gelfand, a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Gelfand is a cultural psychologist and uses field, experimental, computational, and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture--as well as its multilevel consequences for human groups. She’s also the author of Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World, which is the focus of our conversation today.

Coaches at all levels talk about building and creating the kind of culture that can produce wins, but what does that really mean? There is no one better to talk to about that than Michele. In this episode, she explains the framework she uses in the book to understand the difference between tight and loose cultures. She covers how social norms dictate whether a culture leans either tight or loose and the advantages and disadvantages of each. The episode is full of examples of companies and how they fit along this spectrum, including United Airlines, Uber, and her current work with the U.S. Navy.

Where to contact her: Twitter | LinkedIn | Website

Her Harvard Business Review paper on the Amazon/Whole Foods acquisition

(2:21) - How she became a cultural psychologist

(3:38) - What led her to write Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World

(7:00) - How social norms help define cultures

(9:00) - The strengths and weaknesses of both tight and loose cultures

(12:20) - Advice for coaches on self-diagnosing where they fit on the tight-loose spectrum

(17:10) - Examples of organizations and where they fit within this framework

(24:30) - How to use this framework when hiring or looking to decide what organization is the best fit for you

(27:00) - How to handle your culture leaning too far to either end of the tight-loose spectrum

(29:30) - Her work with the U.S. Navy and how they are trying to implement some looseness within their culture

(37:30) - Parenting advice based on the tight-loose framework

(41:30) - End of episode questions

1.    What’s 1 book every coach should read?

• You Gotta Have Wa by Robert Whiting

2.    Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast? 

• Carol Dweck

3.    What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year? 

• Meditation

4.    What’s popular advice you hear people say that you think is wrong?

• Get to the task when negotiating. Her research shows that you actually need to get to know the person first so you signal that you respect them and gain their trust.

5.    What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this?

• Continue to search for your passion

6.    What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it?

• Trying to get her paper on this topic published in Science. She got through it by having fun and saying she’d wear a costume if the paper was approved to be published

“All cultures have both tight and loose elements, but we could think about cultures in terms of their default. Do they lean tight or loose on this continuum?”

“What we know from our research is that groups that get too extreme, either too tight or too loose, actually are really dysfunctional and that applies to nations, to organizations, and I would imagine also to sports teams. And for different reasons. When you have a lot of super tight rules, people feel uncomfortable questioning them. They feel like they’re walking on eggshells. Then we have less chance for catching mistakes and being willing to express them. And on the flip side, when you have too much looseness, it’s total chaos. I think back to the definition of social norms. Then we have no ability to coordinate and it’s a mess, and…we need some degree of both in any social system.”

“So I think that’s a really important thing, this kind of tension between freedom and rules and constraints. And I think that the best, most healthy systems are able to be able to adapt to the context and deploy tight and loose when necessary.”

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My guest today is Becky Burleigh, the head soccer coach at the University of Florida. She’s also the co-founder of What Drives Winning, which unites the top minds in sports. In 25 years at Florida, she has led UF to a NCAA Championship, two NCAA College Cup appearances, 14 Southeastern Conference titles and 22 NCAA Championships berths. She has 507 total wins, putting her third all-time in Division-1 soccer.

In this episode, we discuss what it was like to get the UF soccer program started in 1995 and winning a national title a few years later with stars like Abby Wombach. We talk about how she focuses on not just developing the player but developing the athlete as a person. Then we dive into how meeting Brett Ledbetter led her to team up with him and start What Drives Winning. There aren’t many coaches who are better to listen to from if you want to learn about how to help your players become better people.

(1:35) - Why she started DJ’ing

(3:30) - Early years growing up in Tarpon Springs, FL

(6:00) - Starting the UF soccer program at the age of 26

(10:10) - Importance of having her parents support in her career

(11:14) - When she decided to have a personal Board of Directors

(13:10) - Winning a national title in the third year at UF

(14:45) - Coaching Abby Wombach

(16:10) - Striving to win another national title

(17:17) - Focusing on personal development as much as player development

(19:30) - Meeting Brett Ledbetter and then launching What Drives Winning

(23:52) - What she’s learned from former UF & current Chicago Bulls head coach, Billy Donovan

(25:30) - What she’s learned from Cal Berkley head coach, Jack Clark

(26:00) - The future of What Drives Winning

(27:40) - Her typical schedule and balancing coaching and What Drives Winning

(29:58) - Evolving as a coach over time

(31:15) - The three team values: courage, team-first, and growth

(34:15) - What she would tell herself if she could go back to her first day coaching at Florida

(34:40) - Focusing on personal growth

(35:45) - What she’s learned from Dr. Jim Loehr

(37:00) - Lessons for other coaches based on her starting and finishing a season in 2020 amid COVID

(40:15) - Favorite moment(s) of her career: alumni weekends

(41:20) - End of episode questions

1.    What’s 1 book every coach should read?

• The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr

2.    Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast? 

• Nick Saban

3.    What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year? 

• Everything!

4.    What’s popular advice you hear people say that you think is wrong?

• Coaching is easy

5.    What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this?

• “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

6.    What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it?

• When one of her players took her own life after graduating from UF.

“Here at the University of Florida, it’s always got to be in the conversation, right? I mean, people don’t come to Florida to not compete for national championships. So, I think every year the goal is the same if you’re an athlete at Florida, pretty much in every sport. I think the bigger question is just like, what are we doing and how are we developing in terms of that path to get there?”

“And that quote is, “Who are you becoming as a result of the chase?” And I think that’s a really important question because we’re all going to strive really hard for our goals. But in the end, sometimes we’re going to hit them and sometimes we’re not, but who we are becoming is a constant.

“I feel like everybody has to run their own race when it comes to your career and what you’re doing. And as soon as you start to look at something someone else has, then what you’re doing becomes diminished.”

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My guest today is Anson Dorrance, UNC Women’s Soccer Head Coach. He has won 22 National Championships and is the first coach in NCAA history to win 20 championships coaching a single sport. That is correct - 22 national titles. And as impressive as that is, his approach to coaching, competitiveness, and character development of his girls is even more impressive.

In this episode, we discuss why he doesn’t think you can teach leadership, why he thinks it’s so important to take personal ownership of your own outcome and learn to handle adversity, and how recruiting has evolved over the years. He also talks about his relationship with coaches outside of women’s soccer, including Dean Smith, Pete Carroll, and Terry Liskevych.

(1:25) - Why he doesn’t believe you can teach leadership

(10:40) - The impact the helicopter parent has on children now

(15:20) - How recruiting has been effected by this change

(22:55) - His core values for his program

(24:25) - His focus on competitiveness and the competitive cauldron

(31:25) - How he became good friends with Pete Carroll

(40:39) - The importance of personal development

(46:30) - The core values he has for the program and how he’s matured as a coach over his career

(56:50) - How he approaches character development and winning

(1:01:25) - End of episode questions

1.    What’s 1 book every coach should read?

• The Man Watching: Anson Dorrance and the University of North Carolina Women's Soccer Dynasty

• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

• This is Water by David Foster Wallace

2.    Who is one person you’d want to hear as a guest on this podcast? 

• Marcelo Bielsa - Manager of Leeds United

3.    What’s one area you’re looking to improve in over the next year? 

• Construct a strategy to fit his roster this coming year, which has no seniors left

4.     What advice do you have for young coaches who are listening to this?

• Be a continuous learner and pick a mentor that is in an environment similar to yours

5.     What’s the darkest moment you experienced professionally and how did you overcome it?

• He was sued by a former player and her parent and was really criticized by the media.