Today, we're joined by Joe Bohringer, a longtime Major League Baseball executive and executive leadership coach, whose career spans more than three decades inside professional sport.

Joe has spent over 30 years working in high-stakes environments at the highest levels of baseball, including senior leadership roles with organizations such as the Chicago Cubs and Seattle Mariners. Throughout his career, he has worked across scouting, player development, and the front office which has provided him with a rare, holistic view of what sustained excellence actually requires. 

Today, Joe brings those lessons into the corporate world and other professional sport arenas working with executives and leadership teams to help them build high-performing, values-driven organizations. Joe is also the author of Winning, Inc.: A Championship Handbook for High-Performing Leaders, where he distills decades of real-world experience into nine practical principles for leaders who want to win consistently without losing themselves or their culture in the process.

In this conversation, we explore what truly separates elite performers and organizations over time. Joe shares why high performers are wired for continuous growth. Drawing from his book Winning, Inc., he unpacks several of the nine core principles that guide high-performing teams, including the idea that winning isn’t normal and people drive process.

Here's some notable highlights from our conversation:
[5:36] — High Performers Are Wired to Grow

[8:56] — Finding the Right Environment and Support

[12:38] — Influence of Business Background

[17:20] — Winning Is Not Normal

[24:28] — Upholding Standards By Managing Discomfort

[32:09] — Helping Teams Get Unstuck

[37:50] — The "4 Hats" Leaders Wear 

[42:50] — People Drive Process

[47:28] — Selecting the Right People

[52:40] — Information Connectors

[58:06] — Taking Ownership of Culture and Defining Right

[1:03:10] — Achieving Hard Things Requires Commitment

[1:07:47] — Leaving MLB On Your Own Terms

Learn More About Joe:

• To learn more about Joe's work and coaching, check out his website here: https://jbexecutivecoach.com/
• You can also stay up-to-date on Joe's work and thought leadership by connecting with him here on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-bohringer/

 Learn More About Zach:

• If you’re a collegiate or professional coach striving to win more and live better, it's not too late to sign-up for a free coaching call this month where I can share helpful resources and explore how to best support your coaching journey. You can sign up for a call here: https://calendly.com/zachbrandon/discoverycall
• For more practical tools and mindset stories, you can subscribe to my free newsletter here: https://winningwithwords.beehiiv.com/