The DeadThree Coaching Show: Leadership and Team Development

Your team will make mistakes the minute you tell them to move. What you do next decides your culture.

We are not judged by our mistakes. We're judged by how quickly we fix them and whether we repeat them. In episode 136, I break down WE 5 from Kyle McDowell's Begin With We: we own our mistakes.

Last week was about getting your team to take action. This week is what comes right after. Punish the mistake and the movement stops. Make people hide it and trust dies.

McDowell tells the Ford story. Every week, every executive status report came in green while the company lost billions. Alan Mulally said: red, yellow or green, I just want the truth. Mark Fields finally showed the first red. Instead of getting hammered, he got help. A few weeks later the reports looked like a bag full of Skittles.

Fields later became CEO of Ford.

In this episode:
- Resiliency: how quickly you get back to your baseline
- Why this show is called DeadThree, and what happens to your best shooter when you pull him after one miss
- Shout praise, whisper criticism
- The program review where every team hit 30 or 40% and everyone clapped
- The day I deleted every shoe on shoes.com, and why I still remember how my boss Keith made me feel
- McDowell's three kinds of mistakes: careless, malice and good faith. Most leaders respond to all three the same way.
- If you treat a good-faith mistake like malice, you'll never see initiative from that person again
- Four sentences of ownership, and why your team can't fix a problem they don't know exists

Your move this week:
1. Show your team a red. One thing you got wrong or one thing that isn't going well. Say it out loud: here's why and how it happened, here's how and when we fix it, here's what we do so it doesn't happen again.
2. The next time something breaks, catch yourself before you ask who. Ask what happened. Then ask why five times.

"You need to be tough on the problem, but you need to be easy on the person." — Kyle McDowell

Chapters
00:00 WE 5 of the Begin With We series
00:58 "It's a WE thing"
06:46 WE 5: we own our mistakes
07:07 Resiliency and your baseline
09:57 Recap: WE 1 through WE 4
10:38 Your team moves, your team makes mistakes
12:46 Punish the mistake and the movement stops
13:57 Why it's called DeadThree
17:13 Shout praise, whisper criticism
19:12 Dare to fail greatly
20:59 Everything is green
24:19 Ford: red, yellow or green
27:24 Mark Fields shows the first red
27:49 Assess it, own it, fix it, don't repeat it
28:39 The day I deleted shoes.com
30:30 Talking to one, coaching all
34:11 Three kinds of mistakes
35:47 Good faith treated like malice
37:34 Four sentences of ownership
40:25 Two actions for this week
41:35 Tough on the problem, easy on the person
43:02 Stack it up, and a look at WE 6

Mentioned in this episode:
- Begin With We by Kyle McDowell
- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
- The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni
- Multipliers by Liz Wiseman
- The 4 Disciplines of Execution
- Robert F. Kennedy, Alan Mulally, Mark Fields, Don Meyer and John Wooden

This is WE 5 of 10 in the Begin With We series. Catch up with episode 132 (The One Standard That Holds Up Every Other Standard), episode 133 (Who Sets the Temperature on Your Team?), episode 134 (Built or Destroyed One Commitment at a Time) and episode 135 (We Take Action).

If this one hit, send it to the leader on your team who still asks "who did this?" first.

Find out where your team stands. Take the free 30-question SDE assessment and download the SDE Playbook at https://deadthreecoaching.com/sde-assessment

Your team isn't stuck because of bad ideas. It's stuck because everyone is waiting for permission.

Taking action and making mistakes is OK. Being idle is not. In episode 135, I break down WE 4 from Kyle McDowell's Begin With We, and I'll be honest: this is the one I struggle with most.

You can set great standards. You can lead by example and keep every commitment. If nobody on your team is willing to move, try or risk, everything you've built is a well-organized parking lot. Ideas, strategies and plans, parked and going nowhere.

McDowell tells a story about a leader named Bob. Bob heard a talk on culture, loved it and wanted to bring it to his team. First, he said, he'd need to ask permission. Permission to talk culture with his own team.

Who's stopping you? Nobody.

Bob is in every company, at every level. Senior leaders waiting for permission to do the very thing they were hired to do.

In this episode:
- Why being idle feels like caution and prudence, and why it's really a choice
- The question Jesse Itzler asks his kids every night at dinner: "What did you fail at today?"
- The best restaurant in the world, and the man in the back of the room who said, "That looks exhausting"
- What happens to people when you ask them to do less than they're capable of
- Why nobody pays for average
- Why "we've always done it that way" should be considered profane, and what Northwestern basketball teaches about losing cultures
- The one question to ask about every process on your team: would I keep doing this if I owned the company?

Your move this week:
1. Name one thing you've been waiting on permission to address. A process that makes no sense. A conversation you keep putting off. An initiative sitting in the parking lot. Get it done. You are the leadership.
2. Have one conversation with your team that gives them permission to act. Not a policy. Not a memo. Tell them: if you see something to improve, go do it.

"Taking action and making mistakes is OK. Being idle is not." — Kyle McDowell

Chapters
00:00 WE 4 of the Begin With We series
03:10 Why this is the WE I struggle with most
04:22 Taking action is OK, being idle is not
04:48 Ben Newman and stacking days
06:30 Recap: WE 1, WE 2 and WE 3
08:23 A well-organized parking lot
08:56 Books, people and the risks you take
13:26 The enemy of action is being idle
14:09 Shawshank and asking permission
15:19 Who's stopping you?
17:04 Bob is everywhere
21:55 Mistakes are inevitable
22:45 What did you fail at today?
24:39 Write this down
25:15 Being idle is a choice
27:09 "That looks exhausting"
29:25 Asked to do less than they're capable of
30:31 Nobody pays for average
32:35 The status quo sandwich
33:45 "We've always done it that way" should be profane
34:21 Northwestern basketball and a losing culture
39:22 If I owned this company
42:57 Two actions for this week
45:13 The parking lot's full

Mentioned in this episode:
- Begin With We by Kyle McDowell
- The Standard by Ben Newman
- Mindset by Carol Dweck
- 2 Second Lean by Paul Akers
- Don Meyer, Jesse Itzler and Ed Mylett

This is WE 4 of 10 in the Begin With We series. Catch up with episode 132 (We Do What Is Right, Always), episode 133 (Who Sets the Temperature on Your Team?) and episode 134 (Built or Destroyed One Commitment at a Time).

If this one hit, send it to the leader on your team who's still waiting for permission.

Find out where your team stands. Take the free 30-question SDE assessment and download the SDE Playbook at https://deadthreecoaching.com/sde-assessment

Your team is keeping score. Not on your title. On whether you did what you said you'd do.

Your credibility is your brand, and it gets built or destroyed one commitment at a time. In episode 134, I break down WE 3 from Kyle McDowell's Begin With We: we say what we're going to do, and then we do it.

This is the principle that decides whether the first two are real. You can do the right thing and lead by example in every meeting. Miss the delivery, and none of it counts. Follow-through is the proof.

In this episode:

• The Friday-at-3 moment every team faces, and the engineer who shut it down with "Ain't nobody going anywhere. We said we would do this."
• Why your clients are grading your delivery right now, and how a team climbs from a D-minus to an A-plus
• The two kinds of trust every team runs on, and what breaks when either one is missing
• Why your employees are your first customers
• Why most follow-through failures come down to clarity, not character
• The three things every meeting has to end with

Your move this week:

1. End every meeting with who's doing what, and by when. Confirm everyone heard it the same way. Put it in writing. Run it for 30 days and watch what changes.
2. Find one commitment you made and didn't keep. A deliverable, a conversation, a check-in you cancelled. Close it this week.

"Be a leader. Do what you say you're going to do, then demand the same thing from your team." — Kyle McDowell

Chapters 00:00 The Sunday-afternoon culture test 
02:44 Recap: WE 1 and WE 2 
04:32 The leader who had integrity and modeled it 
07:12 WE 3: we say what we're going to do, and we do it 
09:00 Friday, 3 p.m.: "Ain't nobody going anywhere" 
10:52 Your credibility is your brand 
12:51 "Always delivers" or "seldom delivers"? 
15:18 Follow-up and follow-through set you apart 
18:08 Confidence is keeping the promises you make to yourself 
19:59 How your clients grade your delivery 
22:08 The two levels of trust 
28:56 High-integrity teams can't deliver bad service 
32:37 Your employees are your customers 
33:57 Ambiguity is the enemy of execution 
35:40 Who's on point, what, and by when 
39:46 Two moves for this week 
43:25 Three lines to lead by, and what's next

Mentioned in this episode:

• Begin With We by Kyle McDowell
• The Athletics of Business podcast with Ed Molitor
• The Standard by Ben Newman
• The 4 Disciplines of Execution
• John Maxwell and Ed Mylett

This is WE 3 of 10. Start with episode 132 (We Do What Is Right, Always) and episode 133 (Who Sets the Temperature on Your Team?). Next up, WE 4: we take action, and the most dangerous word in any organization.

George is back with the second principle from Kyle McDowell's Begin With We: We Lead By Example. Using Einstein's line that example isn't the main way to influence people, it's the only way, he breaks down Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, a software engineer named Z who reset her team's standard on a Friday afternoon, and the question every leader has to answer: are you the thermostat, or are you the thermometer?

In this episode

• Recap of WE One — we do the right thing always — and why it means nothing on a poster or an email signature
• WE Two: we lead by example, opened with Einstein's quote that setting an example is the only means of influencing others
• Current reality and compelling vision, and the Chris Collins / Northwestern basketball turnaround
• Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls: the hotel room story from The Last Dance, and the moment Jordan chose not to walk in
• Thermostat versus thermometer — who sets the temperature in your organization, and who just reports it
• Z, the software engineer who reset her team's sprint standard on a Friday afternoon: "ain't nobody going home"
• The standard you set is the standard you get — Jordan on why a great player lands on a bad team
• Small standards that are really big standards: punctuality, cameras on in meetings, Danny Hurley's intensity at UConn
• The mirror test — your words and actions get replicated by your team whether you like it or not
• Two actions for the week: a 48-hour audit, and closing one gap

It's been a year since the last episode. George is back, and he's not easing in.

This one breaks down principle one from Kyle McDowell's Begin With We — the standard that has to hold before any other principle in your organization works. Trust, the John Lucas story, the Tylenol crisis, and twenty years of watching corporate America choose low standards over high ones.

Corporate America isn't broken because of bad people. It's broken because of bad standards. George connects that idea to a story from John Gruden about looking left and right in the locker room, the difference between a me culture and a we culture, two distinct types of trust, and a leadership crisis that turned into a case study in doing the right thing under pressure.

If you lead a team, run a company, or are just trying to figure out why your workplace feels off, this one's for you. Get the book. Run the mirror test. And find the one standard you're holding your team to that you're not holding yourself to.

In this episode:

• Why bad standards, not bad people, are what actually break workplaces
• The 10 "we" principles from Kyle McDowell's Begin With We
• The difference between a me culture and a we culture
• Two types of trust, and why you need both
• A crisis-response case study in leading by example
• Company, client, crew — the only three things that should matter
• The mirror test: how to find where you're not modeling your own standard

Mentioned in this episode:

• Begin With We by Kyle McDowell
• The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni
• The Multiplier by Liz Wiseman

Get in touch: deadthreecoaching.com

In this episode of the DeadThree Coaching Show, we kick off 2026 by finishing a two-part conversation about getting into uncomfortable rooms—and more importantly, what it takes to stay there, grow there, and eventually belong there.

Getting access is only the first step. High performers separate themselves by what they do after the door opens.

This episode breaks down three defining principles that will shape who rises and who stalls in 2026: bringing value before validation, letting the room raise your standards, and earning belonging through repetition. These aren’t motivational ideas—they’re execution standards.

Using real leadership moments, business examples, sports analogies, and lessons from Gary Vee, Ben Newman, James Clear–style systems thinking, and years inside software and IT organizations, this episode challenges leaders to stop seeking approval and start earning relevance.

This is a message for leaders who are done being comfortable—and ready to raise their operating system.

You’ll hear:

• Why getting in the room is easy compared to earning your place in the room
• The hard truth: high-level rooms reward value and humility—not insecurity or performance
• What “value before validation” actually looks like in leadership conversations
• Why elite rooms expose your gaps—and why that’s a gift, not a threat
• How the right rooms raise your standards without saying a word
• Why belonging is built through consistency, reliability, and follow-through
• The real difference between inspiration and transformation
• Why 2026 will separate people based on standards, not goals
• How discipline, consistency, and preparation become your identity
• Why leaders don’t rise to the level of their goals—they rise to the level of the rooms they consistently sit in

Core Principles from This Episode

• Bring value before you seek validation
• Support momentum instead of dominating conversations
• Let the room raise your standards
• Treat every room like a classroom
• Belonging is earned through repetition, not one big moment

Three Questions to Take Back to Your Team

1. When I walk into important rooms, am I focused on being impressive—or being useful?
2. What gaps are the rooms I’m in currently exposing about my preparation, discipline, or consistency?
3. If my standards matched the rooms I want to be in, what would I need to upgrade immediately?

Identify one room that represents your next level in 2026—a client, a mentor, a leadership table, or a conversation that makes you uncomfortable.

 Don’t wait to feel ready. Show up prepared. Bring value. Be consistent.
 Let the room raise you—and earn your place through repetition.

This year isn’t about pressure.
 It’s about opportunity.

Join the Conversation:

👉 Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube for more leadership and high-performance insights.

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deadthreecoaching
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gevjen

👉 Join our community and connect with leaders focused on growth, discipline, and execution.

• Website: https://deadthreecoaching.com
• Encouragement Course: https://deadthreecoaching.com/encouragement
• Community: https://community.deadthreecoaching.com

As we close out 2025 and look straight at 2026, this episode is a line in the sand.

Growth does not happen in familiar rooms. It happens when you intentionally place yourself in environments where you’re uncomfortable, challenged, and not the most experienced voice in the room.

In this episode, recorded on a cold Missouri walk, I unpack a core principle that will define elite leaders in 2026:

You don’t grow by preparing longer. You grow by exposure.

Drawing from coaching basketball, leadership work, and real-world business environments, this conversation challenges you to rethink how—and where—you pursue growth.

This is Part One of a two-part series focused on entering rooms you don’t feel ready for and learning how those rooms shape who you become.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why staying in the same rooms guarantees stagnant growth
• The difference between humility and insecurity when stepping into elite environments
• How to treat every unfamiliar room like a classroom—not a performance
• Why exposure beats preparation every time
• How the right rooms recalibrate your standards and expose blind spots
• The leadership discipline required to stop waiting for permission

If you’re serious about making 2026 a defining year—not just another calendar flip—this episode will force you to confront a simple but uncomfortable question:
What rooms are you willing to put yourself in this year?

Because the truth is this:
If all your 2026 rooms look like your 2025 rooms, nothing changes.

Key Takeaway:

The right rooms will stretch your thinking, recalibrate your standards, and force you to close gaps you didn’t even know existed.

This episode sets the foundation.
 Part Two will focus on what happens after you enter the room—how to create value, how to stop being invisible, and how to belong without losing yourself.

Three Actions to Take Today:

1. List the Rooms: Write down three rooms, environments, or conversations that make you slightly uncomfortable—and commit to pursuing access to one of them in Q1.
2. Audit Comfort: Identify one area of your life or leadership where you’ve been too comfortable. That’s your growth gap.
3. Change the Question: Stop asking “Am I ready?” and start asking “What would this room teach me?”

If this episode challenged you, share it with someone who needs to hear it.
And if you’re building toward something bigger in 2026—join the conversations we’re having, connect with us, and stay close.

The room will raise you—if you’re willing to walk in.

In this episode of the DeadThree Coaching Show, we start with a Duke vs. Florida basketball moment and turn it into a leadership blueprint for IT teams and organizations. Duke guard Isaiah Evans was 0-for-7 from three. Game on the line. Instead of going away from him, Coach Jon Scheyer drew up the final play for Evans — and he buried the game-winning three.

That decision wasn’t just about X’s and O’s. It was about belief, confidence, and the energy a leader chooses to bring to their team.

We break down why your team’s confidence and energy are a reflection of you — not your slide decks, not your strategy documents, but your daily presence. Using lessons from Duke basketball, High Performance Habits, Ego Is the Enemy, and Beyond the Hammer, he walks through three non-negotiables every IT leader (and any leader) must master to build elite, high-performing teams.

You’ll hear:

• Why belief in your people matters more than their last “miss”
• How Coach Scheyer’s decision to trust an 0-for-7 shooter is the model for how we lead at work
• Why your team feels your energy long before they hear your words
• How your emotional state becomes the culture your team lives in
• The three energy standards every leader must own:
  1. Leaders go first – you are the power plant, you generate energy
  2. Emotional calibration – your internal state becomes the team’s external behavior
  3. Consistency of presence – reliability and steadiness are your competitive advantage

This episode is for leaders, coaches, and managers who are tired of reactive, low-juice teams and want to create a culture where people feel trusted, valued, and ready to take the last shot.

Three Questions to Take Back to Your Team

1. Where am I withholding belief from someone on my team because of a recent “miss”?
2. What emotional ripple do I leave behind after meetings, stand-ups, or 1:1s?
3. If my team copied my energy this week, would we be playing to win or just trying not to lose?

Call to Action

This week, pick one teammate and intentionally “draw up a play” for them — give them a visible opportunity, tell them you believe in them, and support them through the outcome. Win or lose, you’re building a standard of belief and energy that your whole organization will feel.

Join the Conversation:

👉 Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube for more leadership and high-performance insights.

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deadthreecoaching
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gevjen

👉 Join Our Community and connect with like-minded leaders focused on growth and execution.

• Website: https://deadthreecoaching.com
• Newsletter: https://deadthreecoaching.com/newsletter
• Community: https://community.deadthreecoaching.com

In the last episode, we named the silent accountability crisis—those moments when projects stall, standards slip, and no one speaks up. In this follow-up conversation, we tackle the next hard question leaders are wrestling with:

Drawing from years in the IT and software space, this episode breaks down why so many leaders unintentionally suffocate initiative, why teams stop thinking for themselves, and how to shift from control to clarity, trust, and ownership. You’ll hear practical stories, from coaching athletes to leading technical teams, that show exactly what happens when leaders cling to control versus when they create space for people to own the work.

This is December’s work: reset, realign, and raise the standard without burning people out.

🔍 In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why micromanagement is usually a fear problem, not a “bad boss” problem
  – Fear the job won’t get done.
  – Fear mistakes will reflect poorly on you.
  – How that fear quietly kills ownership and initiative.
• The difference between control and clarity
  – Why “overchecking” shows up when expectations are fuzzy.
  – How replacing control with clear outcomes, support, and recognition changes the game.
• How elite leaders create extreme accountability without hovering
  – Building systems and standards so strong that people want to deliver.
  – Using the 10–80–10 idea: align on outcomes, let the team execute, then refine together.
• Why your team feels like they’re “leaf blowing in a hurricane”
  – Confusion, chaos, shifting priorities, and constant noise.
  – Why people don’t fear accountability—but they do fear being judged in a storm you created.
• What people really want from work (beyond the paycheck)
  – Feeling valued, trusted, and empowered to figure out the “how.”
  – Why trust-in-action looks like: “Here’s the goal. I believe in you. Go own it.”

🧭 Three Clarity Checks for Your Team

Bring these into your leadership meeting this week:

1. Does everyone know the goal in measurable terms?
   – What does “winning” look like this week, not just this year?
2. Does every person understand how their work connects to the mission and the next key win?
   – Can they clearly explain why what they’re doing matters?
3. Does everyone know how they’ll be recognized when the team wins?
   – Are you celebrating the right things loudly and consistently?

✅ Three Actions to Take This Week

1. Trade one area of control for clarity.
   – Pick one initiative where you routinely step in and replace that behavior with a clear outcome, timeline, and definition of done—then step back.
2. Spot and stop “leaf blower in a hurricane” behavior.
   – Identify one chaotic pattern (conflicting priorities, constant change, noisy environments) and calm it so your team can actually execute.
3. Have one ownership conversation, not a compliance conversation.
   – Sit down with a high-potential team member and say:
   “Here’s what winning looks like. Here’s why it matters. I believe you can own this. How do you want to approach it?”

Join the Conversation:

👉 Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube for more leadership and high-performance insights.

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deadthreecoaching
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gevjen

👉 Join Our Community and connect with like-minded leaders focused on growth and execution.

• Website: https://deadthreecoaching.com
• Newsletter: https://deadthreecoaching.com/newsletter
• Community: https://community.deadthreecoaching.com

How many times have you sat in a meeting, watched a project completely miss the mark, and silently thought:

No urgency. No honest ownership. Just quiet avoidance.

In this episode, we kick off December — the reset and realign month — by naming what’s really happening in so many organizations:
 a silent accountability crisis.

You walk through what you’re seeing across IT, software, and beyond: overwhelmed leaders, drifting teams, eroding standards, low execution, and cultures that quietly accept “good enough” as the norm. You contrast that with how elite athletic programs operate: clear standards, direct accountability, and leaders who say, “This one is on me.”

This conversation is a call for leaders to reset their personal and team standards in the final month of 2025 and intentionally raise the bar going into 2026.

🔍 In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• What the “silent accountability crisis” looks like in real teams
  – No one speaking up, no one owning the finish line, and projects that linger instead of ship.
• Why it’s not a “people problem,” but a leadership and culture problem
  – It’s rarely about laziness. It’s about cultures that stopped expecting ownership and leaders who stopped demanding it.
• How elite teams treat standards differently
  – Stories from the court and the office:
  – Why “we’re tired,” “we’re sick,” or “we just came off a holiday” can’t become permission to lower the bar.
• The difference between punishment and accountability
  – How to position accountability as care, belief, and development instead of fear and judgment.
  – Why encouragement and accountability must travel together.
• The real cost of letting things slide
  – Execution stalls.
  – High performers burn out doing everyone else’s work.
  – Culture shifts from excellence to survival without anyone saying a word.
• What elite accountability actually looks like
  – It flows up, across, and down — rooted in trust, growth, and shared standards.
  – It sounds like: “This matters, and I am responsible for it.”

🧭 Questions to Reflect On This Week

Use these with your leadership team or in your journal:

1. Who consistently delivers without needing to be reminded?
2. Who is hiding behind “busy work” instead of real outcomes?
3. Where have you personally let the standard slide because it seemed easier not to address it?
4. Where in your team have you confused “kindness” with avoiding hard conversations?
5. If your culture is what you tolerate, what have you taught your team is acceptable?

✅ Three Actions to Take Today

1. Name one standard you’ve allowed to slip — and reset it clearly with your team this week.
2. Have one honest accountability conversation with someone who is capable of more and tell them that you believe in their potential.
3. Define what “doing your job” really means for your team in Q1 2026 — in simple, concrete terms.

🔗 Join the Conversation

👉 Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube for more leadership and high-performance insights.

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deadthreecoaching
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gevjen

👉 Join our Community and connect with like-minded leaders focused on growth and execution.

• Website: https://deadthreecoaching.com
• Newsletter: https://deadthreecoaching.com/newsletter
• Community: https://community.deadthreecoaching.com