 Fine TuningIf you’ve ever seen the movie Miracle, about the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, then you have a pretty clear picture of what coach Herb Brooks valued. He was never enamored with having the most talented players. His focus was on picking the right ones - and right only pertained to his opinion, not the media. When his selection process was over, the roster confused almost everyone who watched it come together. Future NHL stars were left off while college kids nobody had heard of made it. The logic wasn't obvious, but Brooks knew exactly what he was building.
Brooks never wanted a collection of the best individuals. He wanted people who could each, individually, commit to a standard of play, preparation, and sacrifice that he had defined long before the team was selected. Once chosen, Brooks would crush them physically, running them until they couldn't stand. He would press their true commitment by challenging their identities before he challenged their skills. A subtlety in Brooks’ approach is that he never asked them to follow each other. Instead, he asked each of them to follow something bigger. And because every single player on that roster eventually bowed to the same standard, twenty guys who didn't particularly like each other became one of the most unified teams in sports history. They didn't find alignment by looking sideways at each other. They found it by looking up at something fixed, demanding, and non-negotiable. That's the thing about standards. When they're real, they do the heavy lifting. You don't have to manage people with each other. You just have to make sure everyone is committed to the same standard. Why Should We Care? Most people think culture is built through relationships. And relationships matter, but they alone don't hold a culture together when things get tough. The relationships need a shared standard that each person has individually accepted as their own too. The clarity this provides is critical. It never drifts. If your standard is tied too closely to other people, then your ceiling is whatever the room produces. When the room is tired or tempted to cut corners, then the standard moves with it. And so does your identity. Standards, as we all now, are the standards. They don’t move. They don't have good days and bad days. They don't soften when things get hard or tighten up when people are watching. They are fixed. And the only way a team actually holds a standard is when each individual on that team has made a personal decision to be accountable to it because they've decided that's who they want to be. This is where individual excellence and team culture stop being separate conversations. Your personal standard is the building block of everything around you. How you prepare when no one's watching you. How you respond when you're corrected. Whether your effort changes based on the score. These aren't small things. These are the things that tell everyone around you what the real standard is. People believe what they see far more than what they hear. Brooks didn't stand in front of that team and talk about unity. He stood in front of each individual player and demanded something specific. The unity was a byproduct of what each man chose to give despite what it cost him. Your standard is your identity and your identity is your culture. REAL TALK - Action Steps The Tozer quote is convincing because it removes excuses. You don't get to point at the environment and explain away your standard. Here's a good place to start down that road.
Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!
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 Be Curious, Not JudgmentalThere's a scene in Ted Lasso that stops me cold every time I see it.
Ted, the relentlessly optimistic football coach who jumped into the world of English soccer, is at a pub with his boss. In walks Rupert, his boss’ smug, condescending ex-husband. Eventually, he challenges Ted to a game of darts, in another effort to humiliate him. Rupert’s arrogance is palpable. He's confident he already knows who Ted is - a joke of a coach, an embarrassment of a man, and completely out of his league in all facets of his life. Ted, who is as comfortable in his own skin as anyone, is an agreeable accomplice. His awkwardness and humility are easily mistaken for weakness. As the game is playing out, and Rupert is gaining confidence, Ted shifts the entire story line. Just before his final throws, Ted opens up. He tells Rupert that guys have been underestimating him his whole life. For years it really bothered him. Until one day, driving his son to school, he saw a line painted on a wall: "Be curious, not judgmental." He liked that, Ted recalls. And then, it hit him. Every single person who had ever written him off had one thing in common. Not one of them had ever been curious. They thought they had it all figured out, so they judged everything and everyone. To close his sidebar Ted looks at the board with a half-smile and shrug. "Because if they were curious," he says, "they would've asked questions. Questions like - have you played a lot of darts, Ted?" … as he throws a triple twenty. "To which I would've answered - yes sir. Every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father, from age ten until I was sixteen, when he passed away." A deep breath is followed only by his final toss: “Barbecue Sauce.” Bullseye. Why Should We Care? The speed by which judgment can take place is part of the problem. It’s fast - real fast. Draw the conclusion and move on. Curiosity is slow, also part of the problem. Our brains are built to categorize quickly. We want to size people up, file them away, and move on. It's efficient. Unfortunately, it's also almost always incomplete. We see the surface and assume we understand the depths. We see someone's decision and have no idea what options they were actually working with. Leaders who lead from judgment create cultures of fear. People stop being honest. They hide struggles, mistakes, and uncertainty because they know, or assume they know (after all isn’t that what’s being modeled for them?) exactly how it will be received. But leaders who lead from curiosity create safety. The simple act of asking a question or two or three before forming an opinion signals to people that they are worth understanding. That signal changes everything. The understanding most leaders never grasp is that curiosity isn't just about how you see others. It's about how you see yourself. The most self-aware leaders in any room are the ones who stay curious about their own blind spots, their own assumptions, their own defaults. Judgment closes the loop. Curiosity keeps it open. And the best growth in people, teams, and organizations almost always happens in that open loop. REAL TALK - Action Steps The shift from judgment to curiosity isn't a personality trait. It's a daily practice. Here's a few ideas on where to start.
People are more than what they look like at first glance. Judgment stops at the surface. Curiosity goes deeper. And the leaders who stay genuinely interested in people, in context, in the full story are the ones people trust, follow, and give their best to. Be curious, not judgmental. Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!  The Last LieArthur Ashe had every reason to believe he did it himself.
Overcoming harsh odds often does that for us. Like growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia or being the son of a simple, humble park worker. Ashe wasn't supposed to be playing tennis. He wasn’t supposed to be on the main courts. And he certainly wasn't supposed to be winning. But by 1975, Ashe had become the first Black man ever to win Wimbledon, defeating Jimmy Connors in what many still consider the biggest upset in tournament history. Ask Ashe how he accomplished such a monumental feat and he would rank his contribution near the bottom. He would be relentless in naming the people who made him - Ron Charity, the man who first put a racket in his hand or Dr. Robert Johnson, who funded all of his travel, housed him, and coached him for a decade. He didn't mention those men as footnotes. He insisted they were the story. He carried a deep belief that his gifts were not his own to claim. They were given. And with that understanding came a deep, unshakable obligation to use them well, share them generously, and never confuse what he'd accomplished with who he was. Late in his life, after a blood transfusion had given him HIV, after his body was failing and the world was watching, Ashe was asked if he ever questioned God for the hand he'd been dealt. His response says everything about his perspective on life. He explained, “If I’d asked ‘Why me?’ about AIDS, I'd have had to ask ‘Why me?’ about Wimbledon too. Both were gifts I didn't earn. Both belonged to something bigger than me.” Why Should We Care? C.S. Lewis wrote that the last principle of hell is the belief that "I am my own man." It sounds like strength. It's dressed up as power, self-reliance, the rugged pursuit of excellence … And in small doses, it's useful. But taken to its logical conclusion, this mindset becomes a prison. When we fully convince ourselves that we are the sole authors of our own success, we cut ourselves off from the very things that make sustained excellence possible. Things like honest relationships, genuine gratitude, and the humility to keep working to grow. The tension every serious leader has to navigate is real. You have to develop yourself. You have to do the hard work, build the discipline, and own your growth. No one can do that for you. But the moment that pursuit tips into "I am my own man," you've crossed a dangerous line. You start protecting your ego instead of building your character. You stop believing in anything bigger than the accomplishments on your resume. And quietly, without even noticing it, your growth stalls and complacency sets in. The best leaders carry a tension that lesser leaders can't hold. They are fiercely committed to their own development and deeply aware that they didn't get here alone. They push hard and stay grateful. They believe in something bigger than themselves without using it as an excuse to stop working. That's not a contradiction. That's excellence. REAL TALK - Action Steps This isn't complicated, but it is convicting. Here are three things you can focus on today to be a little more aware of who is lifting you up.
Lewis was right. Fear doesn't last. Only love does. And the fastest way to get trapped in fear is to convince yourself that you're the whole story. Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon. He also knew exactly who helped him get there. That combination of fierce competitiveness and genuine humility is rare. But it's the only version of excellence that actually lasts. Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!  Return On InvestmentFred Rogers didn't pass the eye test for a leader. He had no corner office, no title worth bragging about, and no noteworthy prodigies he was responsible for. What he had was a television show, a nice cardigan, and a true conviction about how to treat people.
What most people don't know is that Rogers was deeply intentional about every relationship he built and not in the manipulative way many leaders attempt to gain trust. He kept a mental list of people who had impacted him. He wrote personal, handwritten letters to them often out of nowhere, years after their last interaction. He didn't tally what people owed him. As a matter of fact, he never seemed to be keeping score at all. In a world that measures everything, Fred Rogers was stubbornly, consistently unmeasurable. People who knew him well said the same thing - you always felt like the most important person in the room. That wasn't a technique. It was the natural output of someone who had genuinely stopped calculating and started caring. He was the epitome of a ‘there you are’ person rather than a ‘here I am’ person. The 100/0 Principle is a simple guide to all relationships. You view the relationship as 100% your responsibility and expect 0% in return. When we remove the expectation of receiving, we are more free to give. As long as there is a thought of a return on investment, the percentage will always fall below 100% and our relationships will be left wanting more. Why Should We Care? Return on investment is a brilliant concept for capital. You put money in, you measure what comes back, and you make decisions based on the math. Clean. Logical. Efficient. It fits nicely in a spreadsheet. The problem is that we've snuck it into our relationships, and it's slowly poisoning them. If we’re not careful we will start keeping unconscious ledgers on people. Who showed up for us, who didn't, who gave more than they got, who owes us something - all become unconscious scoreboards. We invest our time and attention with one eye always on the return. The moment a relationship stops paying off, we begin to withdraw. Unfortunately, we fail to realize the people around us always feel it. They may not be able to name it, but they know immediately when they're a transaction. They know when your generosity has strings. They know when your loyalty is conditional on performance. The moment they sense the ledger, the trust is already gone. Deep relationships that last through real adversity, produce real loyalty, and create the kind of team or family culture that actually works. And, something that cannot be built on a return on investment framework. They are built on something fundamentally different. Generosity without guarantee, presence without performance metrics, and commitment that doesn't recalculate when the numbers shift … those are the real lifeblood of relationships and a championship culture. Fred Rogers didn't write those letters because he expected something in return. He did it because he understood that people are not investments. They are ends in themselves. And leaders who genuinely believe that build something that no spreadsheet can quantify and no competitor can replicate. REAL TALK - Action Steps Here are a few ideas to keep the idea of return on investment out of mind while you’re building relationships and your team:
Decide on your commitment to the people in your charge and then honor it. Not because they've earned it yet, but because you've decided who you are as a leader regardless of the return. Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!  Demanding or DemeaningWhen you take over a new team or program, there are typically one of two reasons: the previous coach left for a better opportunity or the previous coach was fired. The latter was the case for the two and fourteen San Francisco 49ers in 1979. The organization was a mess and the locker room was a disaster. Most leaders would charge into the situation with brute force, calling on fear to push people harder and harder until the necessary changes were made. But, Bill Walsh isn’t most leaders.
To be clear, he was relentlessly demanding. He identified thirty separate physical skills required to play a single offensive line position, then built a drill for each one. He required tucked shirts, punctuality, no profanity, and no sitting during practice. And, everyone, from Jerry Rice to the receptionist at the front desk, was held to the same non-negotiable Standard of Performance. Nothing was beneath his attention and nothing was acceptable at less than full effort. But most noted by his former coaches and players was his ability to do so without degrading people. When something went wrong, there was no finger-pointing, no public humiliation. It was direct and matter-of-fact, always citing the mistake followed immediately by the correction. He critiqued himself just as hard as he critiqued anyone else. Walsh understood something that too many leaders never fully grasp. Demanding more from someone is an act of belief. When he believed in a player, like a third-round draft pick named Joe Montana that most scouts had written off, he made sure in word and deed that the player knew exactly how much he believed in him. Demeaning, on the other hand, is an act of contempt. They can look almost identical from the outside but they come from completely different hearts. One says I know you're capable of more. The other says Is that all you’ve got? The standard is the same. The words and impact are not. Why Should We Care? The power leadership offers doesn't build our character as much as it exposes it. The pressure of a struggling team member or a repeated mistake is when our real heart posture shows up. And you can bet the people we lead feel it, even if they choose to not articulate it. They instinctively know the difference between a leader who pushes them because they believe in them and one who tears them down because they don’t. The real danger for the leader is self-deception. It's easy to convince ourselves we're just "high-standards" people while our ego is actually just running on emotion and pride. Demanding behavior that comes from a humble, others-focused heart builds people up. The exact same behavior, sometimes the exact same words, coming from a judgmental or self-serving heart tears people down. Our people know the difference, even when we don't. And this doesn't just apply to how we lead others. It applies to how we lead ourselves. When we pursue excellence in our own lives, we have to monitor our inner dialogue. The principle doesn't change. Demanding without demeaning, even with yourself, is a posture of belief and dignity, not punishment. Heart posture is the lens through which everything else gets interpreted. REAL TALK - Action Steps You already know whether you lean toward demanding or demeaning. You can feel it. The question is what you do with that knowledge. Here are three things you can act on today:
The line between demanding and demeaning is rarely visible in the moment. It lives in our why, the intentionality and posture of heart we carry into every interaction. An uncompromising standard and genuine dignity for people are not in conflict. Real excellence is built on both. Guard your heart, lead from it well, and the standard will take care of itself. Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here! |
About bcI'm a teacher, coach, and parent seeking excellence while defining success on my own terms. Archives
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