373 | Your First Step to Self-Discovery with Julia Ann Weaver!

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Welcome to positive talk radio. Our goal is simple to explore evolving ideas, one conversation at a time. So stay with us. As right now we present

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Are you a former ball player? Do you remember what it was like to have that special lingo that you would use? And only ballplayers used it? And then things we've got a coach with us today a coach, a mentor, a, a,

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somebody and an author, and does some really cool things. And with with both as a coach where she was a division one, women's basketball coach and Division One is a big deal, by the way, if you don't know. And she's also an author, and she's really worked with people who she who really care about her and she cares about them and really does some great things with them. And her name is Julia Weaver, and she is right there. Julia. How are you today? Hello, I'm doing great. How are you? I'm dandy. Thank you, and you just moved to a new place. Did I did I live at the beach now? Love it. Oh, very good. Now, are you a

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snorkel? inist? Do you do snorkel? Or scuba dive or any of that? No, none of that. I rarely, we'll probably even go into the water with all the creatures now. Nowadays. Not very fond of that. Isn't it amazing? When you when you look at maybe a drone or a helicopter up above? And you see these people in the water and there's these big fish that are like swimming right next to them and right around him and stuff. It's amazing where people don't get don't don't have an accident out there. I know. Right? It's yeah, so it's true. All the kite surfers and in all the people that I see way out in the ocean. I don't know how they do it. But I all the credit to them. Well, you know it just wear your number 50 sunscreen and go relax on the beach and enjoy them. That's what I'm talking about. With a good book. Absolutely. Speaking of good books, we you got a good book out. This has been out just a little while tell us about it. I have Yes, I published in March of this year. So 22 Not too many months ago.

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And it's called hoop speak. So you spoke of that earlier about lingo and language of the language of basketball. And so I took the language of basketball to explain leadership concepts. So I actually like to call it a leadership book with a basketball twist. That's, you know, with a leadership plot twist. That's how I have explained it to people in the past. And it's really a fundamental, a fundamental book, you know, it's really for new leaders. Even veteran leaders will certainly find information in it. But it's a lot for new leaders to just get the fundamental fundamentals of leadership and leading and begin to develop their own strategy. So the subtitle is the X's and O's of leading through the language of basketball. So it's a it's basically a guide, if you will. Well, and I'll tell you, leadership is something that very, very rarely is inherited, or you're just the habit, it is a skill, that like, like anything else, it's a major skill that you need to learn, and to be a good leader to get the results that you're looking for, for your organization. And for the people that you're working with. And it's and it's hard to be it's do you find that, that not everybody is cut out to be a leader.

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I believe that for sure that I think people get put into positions a lot of times because they're high performers, and they're not necessarily understanding the role of the leader and how to go from a peer, you know, to a supervisor. And so there's a lot of challenges with that. And, you know, I think it takes a lot of

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letting go of your ego to be a great leader, I'll just be honest. And there's a lot of skills, like you said, there's so many skills, you know, empathy and emotional intelligence and, you know, influence, there's just so many skills that a leader needs to be successful. I'm constantly amazed that corporations or large companies will promote people because they've been as an example, in my world, they were a great salesman. And so they do this, Hey, he's a great salesman, he shouldn't be able to do be a sales manager and manage other salesmen and do that but I find that that most of the time, people that are great salesmen they I have a natural

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Gift for it. And they don't necessarily understand how complicated it is. And to teach it to somebody, that's, that's a bit of a problem for some folks. Absolutely. And I'll go back to my basketball days, and I even believe that not the best players always make the best coaches, I think some of the people that are role players or you know, even sit on the bench, you know, learn the game, a lot more in depth, and it doesn't come so easily to them. And you know, as far as their skill and so I really believe that, you know, people that are not the best players can make really good coaches, honestly, not saying that the best that great players have not become great coaches. I'm not saying that at all. It's just, you know, it's this the same thing in leadership, too, that not your best performers are always going to make the best leaders. And so it's a whole completely different mindset. And I really appreciate you putting it into really basic terms with the hoop speaks. Now some of the what are some of the terms that you use? In the in the book to describe the development or being a great leader? Hmm, that's a great question. I have lots of terms, and they are as far as basketball terms, you know, I can relate them to, you know, thinking about if you are on a bid, let's say you're on a big project, so you're in a leadership position, and you're on a big project and your, your team is not doing well, they're weary, they're tired. And you need to call a timeout, a timeout, just like, you know, you would if you were watching your players run down the court and you're seeing that they're not, they're not functioning, right. They're not, they're not running the plays, you know, you're calling a timeout. So what do you do in a timeout, you get people together, you refocus. And then you go back out there, and you know, you perform, and maybe you need to run a full court press, you know, what is a full court press? Well, that's all hands on deck, there's a situation that I have in my book, where, when a fortune 500 company needed to call a for call a for full court press, good gracious, I can't speak, full court press Say that three times fast, right? Because of 911. You know, they had to get all hands on deck. And so I would relate that to a full court press that they needed to turn, you know, defense in the offense, they were winning the load on the defensive, and they were behind, and they needed to put it full court press on so they could get, you know, back on offense, that, you know, those are just a couple of terms. Thinking about things that you may do as a leader and thinking about fouls, you know, your

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couple of files, personal files, technical files, flagrant files, of course, there are going to be probably files that you may, that you may create, when you're when you're training, coaching, leading people, but I always encourage you, especially in this book, to stay away from the flagrant files, you know, definitely stay away from those those can be detrimental to to you, and your team.

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Well in there, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a certain style, where you solicit the help, and get everybody, you know, organized in the sense that it's very much like a basketball team where you've got five players. And, you know, I heard one time long time ago,

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a player by the name of Spencer Hayward was playing for my beloved Sonics who have now left town. And I don't know if you remember that name or not, but I know, he was he was a powerful word. And he was a very gifted shooter. And, and after the game was over, they lost this particular game, he scored 30 points,

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and the other and they were interviewing a member for the other team. And they said, Well, you know, we don't have to, we don't worry about him. Because he's gonna get his points. Our job is to keep everybody else from getting their points, and then we will win. And that's exactly what they did, because they worked as a team to, and they had a clear, concise goal of what they were going to do. And so they achieved that goal, because they work together at it, rather than it being a one man show. I'm gonna score my 30 points, and the rest of you guys are gonna have to figure it out. So that's an important aspect of leadership, isn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. I goal setting is huge. And, you know, right now is a great time to be thinking about your goals, everybody, you know, there's a new year coming up.

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And this is a great time to start thinking about, you know, the kind of goals that you want to set for yourself, are you do you want to be a leader? You know, and what kind of skills do you want to develop as a leader to develop your team? Because it is really about team development. So also in the book, I go through, you know, some components of what a team goes through when it's developing. It's

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A model maybe you've heard of Bruce Tuckman, the Tuchman model,

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forming, storming, norming and performing. And you know, all teams go go through that. And it's a, it's a great thing to think about. Where's your team right now? If you were looking at your team, are you still in the forming stage? Or New? You're early in the process? Or are you storming and storming, storming is good, I'm not saying that storming is a bad part, it's just a win, lots of things are going on. And you know, maybe you're not firing on all cylinders, you're not quite synergistic yet. So you're still working through some of that. And then you get to the norming stage. And, you know, norming, is when you're really starting to jail and things are getting easy, conflicts are getting settled pretty quickly, the leader is not as involved in much in as much in that part. And then to the performing stage where you're just a well oiled machine, and everything's running, you know, the coach is sitting down, if you like about a basketball, you know, they're sitting down, just watching the the game going on, you know, and then you but you may go back to storming because Oh, so a couple of your people got into foul trouble. So you know, you have to go back to the storming stage. But it's all about like moving through those stages, and not staying too long. In one. So that's, you know, how your team develops as part of how the team develops, talk about in the development of your team? Because if you're in the beginning stages, and what's that, what's the first one again, forming, forming, forming, and you, for whatever reason, your turnover remains high, you can, there are some organizations that never get out of the forming stage, because they can't keep good people. Is that true? That is true. That is very true, especially right now with lots of, I guess, layoffs, and you know, the great resignation, I guess they call it, and there's, you know, a lot of that has happening, where they're not getting past that, that stage where they can get their team formed. So you might want to think about, you know, getting in smaller teams, so that you can at least take some of your performers, you know, some of your people, your players, I'll say, or associates, you know, to get them through that stage, so that they're not stuck in forming, because you're not going to get much work done, if you continue to stay in forming,

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it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Because you can't, you can't, you can't grow and grow in your expertise as a team. If if everybody if you're, as an example, if you're playing on a basketball team, and people keep quitting or get hurt, and, and you have to bring in new people, and you kind of restart every time you have to do that. Absolutely the same kind of concept, you know, every year when teams lose their seniors, or they lose players to go to the NBA, or they you know, people get hurt, or whatever it is, you do have to start over again. And the new freshmen are coming in, they've got to learn the system. Same thing in business, it's same thing in you know, an organization, they've got to come in, they've got to learn the, you know, the culture, they've got to learn the organization. All of that happens, it's just a matter of the team, helping the leader and the leader, guiding the team and guiding people through that those phases. In your work, I know you talk with, with executives and CEOs and and people like that, how do you talk to them about the culture that they may be creating, either on purpose or inadvertently,

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we talk a lot about culture, because I think culture is extremely important. And you know, what they've got to be aware of what type of culture they are creating, or not creating? Maybe it could be, you know, both sides, are they creating a, you know, a safe environment, you know, for people to speak up for conflicts to happen, and for people to, you know, figure those out on their own and for the team to, you know, figure that out, as they go through that maybe that storming phase. And, you know, it's important to know what their culture looks like, and then what they want it to be, you know, how they want it to be.

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You know, it's, it changes your strategy. There's

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a quote,

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Steve Drucker in my, in my book, you know, stret culture eats strategy for breakfast. You know, you can, you can have the best strategy going on, but if you don't have the culture to go along with that, then you can, you know, you can forget it. It's Peter Drucker, sorry, not Steve. Steve, Peter, sorry about that. Okay.

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So how do you create a positive culture?

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I think through engagement, lots of engagement. I think that is huge. For a matter of fact, I think it's one of the I use it as the triple

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Read, you know, the Triple Threat position of basketball, I think it's a huge component of a great leader, to have the ability for engagement, and to get everyone on your team engaged. So finding different ways to get people engaged and having one on one conversations and not forgetting about those and keeping people informed and communicating. You know, communicating when things are going great, but also communicating when things aren't going as well as they could be. I think that's huge for creating the culture that you want.

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And the culture that you want is one where it's inclusive, and everybody is, it's feels a part of the team. And feels important to because now, I know that you know, this, that

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we did a survey, they do surveys all the time, about employee satisfaction. And and pay is not anywhere near the top of what drives an employee to be satisfied. Like inclusiveness being part of the team, feeling like they're making a difference, all of those things. Those are emotional things, rather than going to getting your paycheck every other Tuesday, or whatever it is. Absolutely, yeah. So yeah, benefits and pay are not at the top, having a good manager is at the top or having a good leader is definitely up there. You know, people, people leave organizations because they don't have a great relationship with their leaders. And, you know, that's, I think that's a huge part of it, but absolutely inclusive, and making sure that you are providing an inclusive and psychologically, culturally and socially and emotionally safe space for people to, to be who they are, and to develop and develop all of your employees to and all of your associates and all of their players. That's one of the things that that I I reiterate to, you know, people that I'm coaching, is to make sure that you're developing everyone on your team, you know, your bench players, the people that may not be your high performers, but you still you still need everybody, you chose them. They're there for a reason you are on your team. And I think it's the leaders responsibility to make sure that they are developing all people on their team.

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This is this is a loaded question. I

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want you how do you keep a leaders ego in check?

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Oh, gosh, how do they have to do they have to do that? I mean, I mean, well, feedback, you know, feedback is a huge part of being a good leader, good being able to give it and also receive it. And I think in that culture that you want to create that you should create a culture where feedback is welcome. And, you know, if you are doing something that has impacted the team in a negative way, or impacting the organization and negative way, then you know, that needs to be that needs to be brought up.

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It does, but there are lots of executives that don't listen to that advice, even when they get it.

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Well, there's a you know, there's ways you can deliver feedback. And I think the best one is to really be specific about what behavior they're doing, how it's impacting either you as a person, the employee, or the organization. And, you know, you can say it over and over again. And, you know, people leave organizations too, because it's not safe or it's not, you know, not for them. And that happens. Yes, indeed, do you? Do you ever encourage senior managers to actually learn where the lunch room is?

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And to go learn where the lunch room is so that they can go visit it from time to time?

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Because it seems to me that the best way for for people to recognize that we're all just people, and we're all trying to do the best we can, is to sit down and have lunch with people or when they're in their off time and and and to take some of the criticism because there are companies that have got the you know that everybody's got a employee suggestion box.

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Have you ever been with a company I have that has an employee suggestion box and whether they want to or not, it gets emptied twice a year?

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Probably so yeah, I guess so. Yeah, it's, I hope they've read some of them and take some of them to heart.

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Most of the time if they get emptied twice a year. Yeah. It's because some Secretary did it and they just get dumped. But and that doesn't breed a good culture.

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Not that they're not if it's a suggestion box is full. That's there's feedback right there.

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It shouldn't be full, you know, in all those things that they're talking about in there should not be a surprise when they open it. They

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If you've got a culture of,

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you know, quality, a quality culture that you're really trying to create it your organization or your team or your business, whatever how big or small it is? Do you ever get pushback when when an employer will say, now, we don't need to create a culture here, we just, they just need to do their job. And

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why is that? Why all the time, because it's about the, it's about the metrics, it's about the money, the ROI, all of that. And so a lot of times, leaders don't think about the people that the human capital that they have, they're just thinking about their capital gains and their capital assets and,

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and they're not going to be as access as successful as the ones who are caring about the people and the capital gains and the capital assets. If they don't, if they don't take time to develop their people,

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they're not going to be successful, doesn't that go hand in hand?

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In the end, you can develop quite an organization. And

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if you do it right, and then you can keep your turnover down. And then your training costs are lower than the performance level is higher, and it becomes high more productive. And you can make more money that way. But why is it that some people have a tough time? Do they not see it? Or do they just don't know how to implement it?

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I don't know. It could be a little bit of both. Actually, that's in my book, too. You just use a basketball term a turnover?

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Yeah, a turnover, you know, you need to, at the very last sentence in one of my paragraphs, there's, you know, you need to ask the hard question, why are people leaving? Why are people leaving? And I think more importantly, you know, and also, why are they staying, you know, what is important to them that makes people stay? And then, of course, important, if you're having a lot of turnover, you really need to investigate what is going on? And are you as a leader, part of that, of that issue? And that's, you know, a hard question to ask, you know, we seem to have had an epiphany in the last year and a half of people have, because there's a COVID. And we kind of shut down and then once we came out of it, a lot of people had gotten used to working out of their home, or had done other things, and they didn't want to go back to the way things were, isn't that why we have the great resignation.

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There's a lot of that, and there's a lot of what's the trend now, or the the big buzzword now is quiet quitting, that people are just doing, they're doing the very basics, and, you know, not not going home, but not going home that want to go home, you know, and because we're not creating a work life balance, and there's a lot of things that are that are going on now that, you know, people are either slowly returning to the workforce, you know, even in a hybrid model. And I think we learned a lot though, from people being remote. And actually, because I feel like because I was a part of this is that they found a lot of efficiencies when people went remote. And so I think that's part of the reason why there's been some of the layoffs

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is because finding those efficiencies with people being remote,

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you know, definitely helped the organization. But then they had to get rid of a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, I noticed that. And the other thing is with unemployment, as low as it is at like three and a half percent or whatever it is, it's hard to get a staff, it's hard to build a good staff, because people are going to come in and applying because there are an abundance of jobs everywhere. So it makes it it makes it tough leader to be able to staff them, their their, their progress or their, their, their shop or wherever they are with great people that they can progress with over time.

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And there's definitely been an upheaval of, of the whole workforce in the last couple of years. Been a lot of change. I think we've learned some good lessons, but I still think we have some work to do.

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By the way, we're talking with Julia Weaver and if you want to follow along, you can go to Weaver's strategic partners.com And you can find out all about her and her book which is called hoop speak, which takes the language of basketball and aligns it with leadership concept, ideas and examples. So in your book, I know you give us a lot of examples of great leadership and how to use a basketball terms and in to make it work. Can you give us a few more examples? Sure. I'll be happy to there's lots of good stuff.

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I know one of the things is an assist, you know, everybody knows what an assist

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is and as a leader or you know, even as a teammate you want to, to assist other players and help them score. And

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I would always tell my players to always throw a pass that people could catch. And so I think it's important that you know, when you are throwing a pass a bounce pass a chest pass, or even a skip pass, that, you know, you're throwing them a good opportunity. And so get over relate it back to leadership. So what kind of passes can you make to people that, you know, can set them up for success? You know, if you need to throw a bounce pass, but then to score an easy layup? What would that mean, in leadership? Well give them a project that can help them be successful, really quickly, just like a quick win, you know, just a quick score.

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You know, just like a like a layup, a beat. Or if you're, you know, have to do a skip pass, maybe you're skipping over someone to pass it to another person. Because you've got to develop all your people, just like I talked about earlier. You don't want to just develop your high performers and spend time on your, you know, not so high performers, you want to spend time with everybody. So, you know, making passes and helping assist people in, in scoring. That's, that's one important aspect. And

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I would like to, for everybody to change the term. Everybody knows that short term, low hanging fruit, right? Oh, yeah, I know. Yeah, low hanging fruit means that easy score. So let's let's, you know, agree as a group here to change that to a fast break. Fast Break is the new term for low hanging fruit. So we're going to score fast break, you know, okay, let's take take this project, this is going to be an easy project for us to quickly get some return on investment, you know, just to think about things in a different in a different way. And if everybody on your team is using that terminology, it helps to build that camaraderie, you know, that team, we were team development we were talking about earlier, Kevin, part of that is creating a language that everybody can, everybody can understand. And basketball to me seemed like a very simple language. You know, everybody knows what Assist is, and anybody can call a time out.

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Everybody knows what a PASS is. You know, it's, it's all of that together. Now, do you use the term three point shot or 3.3? Point baskets or three point line? Anywhere? I use? Yeah, three pointer.

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Yeah. And I compared it to Steve Jobs, you know, has the rules of three. So a lot of things come in rules of threes, like, you know, there's the three little pigs, the three musketeers, lots of things come in threes. So in leadership, you know, thinking about if you're writing a memo, or you're writing a, an email, just put three bullet points, people can remember things in threes. So, you know, one of the questions I asked in the book is, you know, how can you score a three pointer today? Or what's your three point message that you're going to send out to someone?

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I got one, I got one. I think I think that you this is I'm sure this is in the book. And if it's not, we can do an addendum. Okay. All right. I'm just coming up with a second edition next year, so maybe I'll put it in there. Oh, that'd be great. You ready for this one? I'm ready. Okay, the free throw.

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Because a free throw is an easy shot. It's 15 feet from the basket. There's nobody guarding you. You're there all by yourself. There is no, I never understood why professional basketball players could not make a free throw in some of them. But some of them were like a 90%. And some of them were like like Shaq O'Neal. And Wilt Chamberlain going back into the day. They they could not make, it's because because they didn't practice it enough. And so

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when you take the simple things that are a free throw, or a layup, that they're easy, but they but you, they have to be practiced. And you have to try to take them as seriously as everything else. Is that good? Cool? Would you put that in your book? Actually free throws in the books?

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Yeah, already got it. But good thinking there, Kevin. Yeah, free throws kind of like a layup. You know, yeah. How do you set someone up for a free throw? And part of the free throw is the building a routine. So I know that, you know, my routine, when I was standing at the line was, you know, flip the ball or about two three times flipping again. And that was why so you get yourself into a mindset. So that's how I compare the three points. I'm sorry, the free throw. And setting someone up for a free throw to is given them a free shot. And even if they miss it, it's okay. You still set them up. They're still had an opportunity. And you know, maybe they'll get another opportunity but I like how you're thinking Kevin, and hopefully you can help them score. Literally

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Which is why I really liked the concept of the assist. Because a great leader doesn't care who gets the credit, right? It's all about giving out those assists. And if they if they can assist somebody else to get credit, or maybe make get a promotion or to make more money, then they become a leader that is worth something.

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Yeah, I think the best leaders create more leaders. And I think that's the ultimate test to being a great leader, as how many leaders are, you know, I'm gonna say, leaving your organization to become other leaders. Because there's that ego again, that, you know, we think that we have to keep everybody but I think you create leaders, and, you know, they go on and do good things. It amazes me that there are leaders that they they find a really good, you know, diamond in the rough, and then they take that diamond, and they polish it, and they may create it, and make it a really, really shiny piece. And then then they expect it to stay happy with a secondary role, because you created this shiny piece, but now they want to be you and to go create their own shiny pieces. Absolutely. That's when you have to let them go. It's okay, if they even leave the organization, you have to you have to let them go.

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It's just like, in coaching, you know, a head coach and assistant coach and assistant coach aspires and learns to be probably wants to go on and be a head coach somewhere. They just learn everything they can learn from from those coaches. Did you ever run across an assistant coach that basically said, No, you know, I'm really happy to being an assistant coach, and I really don't I have heavy and heavy Are they as effective as an assistant, as somebody who's motivated to become a head coach?

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Actually, the person I'm thinking of is probably better than the head coach, but just aspire to not take the wanted the responsibility of being the head coach of slings and arrows.

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Of having your name on the door game brings its share of slings and arrows, yeah, but just prefer that, you know, behind the scenes, but knew the game better than anybody else. And, you know, what, if they took over the program or took over the game, they would be great. It's just a matter of, you know, just didn't want that ultimate responsibility, I guess. And that's okay. And those people in your organization are vital.

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Because if they, especially mid management, and that kind of stuff, if they're happy with where they're at, and don't want to be in the boardroom with, with the big guy, and they, but then they enjoy their job, then they can become very productive people. Absolutely. You can just find other ways to develop them, meet them, give them you know, maybe they want to develop a different skill, you know, just developing more breadth, I guess, instead of depth and, you know, go into hierarchy. They just, you know, maybe they want to a project management position or an IT degree or you know, something, something else, you just, you still have to find ways to develop them though.

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So, let's talk about Julia, shall we?

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To ask you, we're a

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you went to college, and you were a

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basketball player on the women's team, and you've made a lot and you're a defensive specialist and you're a light for a small forward, what we would call a smartphone, or you call it a three position or whatever. And, and then you left school that you got out of school. Did you start coaching right away? Were you offered a coaching position right now? I have a college. I did. Well, I stayed at UNC. I was played at UNC University, North Carolina, Greensboro. And I stayed there actually for two years to coach under the head coach. So I learned, you know, as a player, and then I wanted to stay and learn more from the coaching side. And then so after those two years, I did leave and go right into coaching. And then where did you coach after that? I went to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. That's right. And

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Cornell University has got some pretty smart people there. Did you? Did you get that some egos and think that they're smarter than, than all that? Oh, they're very smart. Absolutely smart. That that was very intimidating for me at first, but they they were it was a wonderful experience. I loved being at Cornell, the very it was so different, you know, I guess I went to a state school and go into an Ivy League school was just, you know, so much different just the atmosphere and just the intellect of, you know, not only my players that played with me, and just the whole university was just a great experience. That would be here. It's a beautiful campus too. Oh,

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specialism I would say I might be biased. But I'd say it's the most beautiful of the Ivy's.

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And and so you did that. And then at the five years came, and you've been coaching for five years. And so then what did you decide to do after that?

35:16  
Well, I've got my master's degree while I was while I was coaching at Elmira College, which is right there, you know, just outside of Ithaca, and decided maybe there's something else out there besides basketball. And so I decided to move back home and just worked in retail for a little bit, actually, just to figure out what I wanted to do. And then I got a position at the Center for Creative Leadership. And that's in Greensboro, North Carolina. And that's where I really began to hone my leadership muscle and my facilitation muscle and learn so much about leadership and coaching and leader development. That that's, that was a great experience, learning all of that. So that's why I put these two together. I mean, I had the basketball background, and then I got the leadership background. And I thought, why not try to mash these together in this in this book. And that's really where a lot of it came from. I think I think it's a really cool book, and it's easy to read. And people can understand the concepts in it. And the concepts are very, very sound.

36:22  
And fundamentals, it's all about the fundamentals. You know, you tie in, especially in basketball, I think I think basketball is more fundamental driven. Why, you know, I can't really say that, but I just did, I guess so.

36:37  
It seems to be that basketball is very fundamental, driven.

36:42  
It's, it's like Washington repeat Washington repeat. Like, like you were saying the free throws. You do the same thing every time a jump shot? Yeah. Oh, that new book, by the way. Jump shot.

36:53  
Oh, well, it's just the shot. Yeah.

36:56  
Shooting or the shot? I don't really actually say the jump shot. Yeah. Is arguing with the referee in your book? No, definitely not. Oh, getting a technical. There's technical files in there. But really just about, you know why you should stay away from them? Yes. Well, you know,

37:15  
getting into an argument with the boss would be like arguing with a referee. Probably. That's a good point. Maybe that'll be in second edition? Well, I don't know that that's a positive. That's true. Yeah, it does happen, though. It does, especially when you think you're smarter than the boss. Yeah. And you tell them that that's could be a bad thing. Right? Could be sometimes. Yeah. Well, maybe I'll put that in the book. We're staying positive. This is positive talk radio here. Exactly, exactly. So now, let me let me ask you, you you've written this book. And I do you got a second one coming? And are you are you doing coaching and, and mentoring for corporations? And that sort of thing? I do. Yeah, my Weaver strategic partners is my coaching business. So I do coach leaders, you know, do facilitation

38:05  
of different different types of training different guests programs, and also in developing some programs out of hoop speak, where hoop speak would be, you know, the book that they get.

38:18  
And then within that, we would, you know, have some training around that and start helping leaders develop their own X's and O's. That's really the premise of it, you know, developing your own strategy for becoming a leader. Now, what does a facilitator do? I've heard the term, and I know, kinda, I think, but what what, in your world? What does a facilitator do? Well, there's a couple of things, you know, I can facilitate, like, if, if you like, let's say, for your radio show, if you got your people together, and you want to have a strategic planning session, but you didn't want one of your, one of you to lead it because you would be biased or you would, you know, not be able to handle the conflicts or whatever that would be something that you might call in an outsider to do. So that would be something that you know, I could do to help with strategic planning, help a team development, you know, you have a new team and you want somebody to come in again, you don't want to you want somebody else to come in and outsider to give,

39:17  
you know, to give some advice back and unbiased and then there's also the facilitation side of a, an actual training program where you would like let's say, I had a, I had a course on emotional intelligence. So I would facilitate that for people that were in my class or in my Zoom class or whatever. I'm the asking questions and promoting their learning and putting people in groups and you know, all of that. What is that?

39:46  
You just said?

39:48  
What intelligence? Emotional Intelligence? Yeah. What is emotional intelligence? Oh, gosh, we could spend like two or three hours on that. I know, there are there are books written about that.

40:02  
Emotional intelligence

40:05  
as was broken down into four different components, and but I think one of the most important ones is self awareness. And that's part of, you know, knowing what emotions drive you, you know how and how you are, how you interpret your own emotions, and the emotions of others. So, you know, I think that's important for a leader to be able to do as well to, to channel their own emotions know, their emotions know, their triggers, but also on the other side is knowing what triggers others. And I think a highly, highly qualified or a high, a high level, person with high, high emotional intelligence is going to be successful, especially as a leader.

40:48  
I have the toughest time with people who say, you know, this is just how I am. And I know that I have this about myself and, and my, that I this is what triggers me and or that's what triggers me and, and then somebody who is younger than me tells me what to do or what you know, and they say they understand their their own

41:12  
emotional intelligence, but they don't. Because if, if it was counterproductive when they change it

41:21  
Well, they probably aren't as self aware as they think they are taking an emotional intelligence assessment might help them gauge where they are in that in that process, because it's not just about self awareness is about managing those emotions. So when you have those emotions, how do you manage them? How do you manage those stressors is about relationship building, it's about social awareness. Social awareness is probably one of my favorites. You know, it's like walking into a room and having really exciting news, but everybody there is, you know, blah, because they just heard something about, you know, layoffs or something. But you're excited because you got some new news. And if you're not reading the room, you're gonna have a hard time

41:57  
convincing those people that we've got something exciting going on, because they've got blood on their minds. And so I think social awareness is like one of my one of my favorites. That would be important. Yes. You walk in and say, we got this, then new contracts in and everybody's like, you know, especially if it's like, everybody's talking about that contract saying, oh, man, did we screw up, we've got this contract, that's gonna be terrible for us. It was hard. And, and then the the leader comes in and says, look at this contract that we got, it's going to be so exciting. It's hard to get people on board that way. Absolutely. So you've got to be aware of what's going on in your, with your team. And be, you know, that's gonna take communication that's going to take engagement. So all those things that we've been talking about as far as developing as a leader,

42:47  
and asking their opinion, I found that when I would ask somebody their opinion,

42:53  
that raise their, their position in their mind with us, because, hey, he's interested in my opinion. salutely

43:05  
Yeah, because a lot Oh, go ahead. No, I was, I was gonna say you want, you want people on your team that are different from you. So they're gonna have different perspectives that you want people that compliment, you know, the team, so you've got you, you brought them on, because they probably have some, some knowledge or experience that you need. So asking their opinions, and asking their ideas and trying to get their information from them is a great idea.

43:35  
Do you ever recommend that a leader even if they don't agree with an idea, if if, if they get consensus from the group that they'd like to try it, that they allow it to go? Absolutely, I think taking risk is a part of, you know, being a good leader, and, you know, even normalizing mistakes, because mistakes are gonna get made, it's just an I liken it in basketball to you know, oh, I have a turnover, I tripped over my feet, or I missed a pass or whatever that's gonna happen in the game. And same thing is gonna happen in life and then leadership, and then on your team at work, somebody's gonna miss a deadline, somebody's gonna miss an email that it was important or, you know, such send the send something out that, you know, communication, that wasn't correct, that's going to happen. And the more we can normalize the mistakes, of course, learn from them and fix them and, you know, do all of that. But, you know, taking those risks is I think, as important.

44:34  
Speak speaking of emails, and such, when, when you're working with a company.

44:40  
Do you encourage them to have a disaster plan ready to go for if, as an example, somebody who's in your organization sends out a wholly inappropriate email and it gets attached to the company? Do you have to teach them

45:00  
I have a disaster plan for the eventualities like that.

45:05  
Well, I mean, yeah, oh, all businesses and organizations should have a business continuity type of plan. So yes, if there are things that are happening within the organization that are not going as well, they should definitely have some backup plans, just, you know, all plans don't always go as well as you want them to, you know, they, there's always should be some revisions in there.

45:28  
I don't, you know, get that that's pretty hard, when that would probably take some interventions of some sort.

45:35  
It would, because, is, because as an example, if you are, if you're in a business and your company,

45:44  
and there are a lot of people, longtime employees that have been with the company, and they, and they feel a certain way about certain things, and you're attempting to make changes at the top to keep everybody moving forward and stuff, but there are a lot of people that have been doing the same job for a long time, that are very resistant to change.

46:04  
Change is hard,

46:07  
I can just leave it at that, or I can.

46:11  
Change is hard. You know, it's, yeah, I could write a book on change, too. For sure, you know, people come in at different places within change, you know, some people just roll with it and go right into acceptance and just are fine with it. But there's others who stick their heels in the bin and resist and, you know, don't like it don't want it decide to leave, or they take FMLA or, you know, there's a lot of things that can happen in when there's change happening. But, you know, the more you communicate, the more you talk about the change, and

46:47  
get people on board and get their opinions and their ideas about how this is going to impact us. You know, it's an us thing, it's, you know, all of us talking together to figure out how we can have we can maneuver through it.

47:01  
Oh, exactly. You know, it's, I've done this several times, it's, it's really interesting when you are

47:09  
you have a staff of 70, and a couple of assistant managers and, and whole cooks and you know, Chef, and all of that, and you get promoted from somewhere else. And you walk into a situation of you don't know anybody? And if that can that is a real

47:27  
leadership test. To see how you can do it. How would if you were to walk in coal to a group of people that you had no idea about any of their skills, any of their gifts, you just know that you just got promoted? To be a general manager of this particular store, you don't know anybody? How do you how would you suggest that that individual, enter the premises for the first time?

47:52  
Positive and I would be talking to everybody, I could talk to one on one groups, focus groups, all of that, you know, tell me about the organization tell me you're telling me your loves, tell me you're not so great stuff, you know, talk to me, just communicate be I have an open door.

48:12  
You know, come in with a positive attitude. And I can do attitude, you know, walk the talk.

48:18  
That's a really good sound advice. Because I've experienced that the other way. Which is, like, look, I'm the boss, I just got promoted here. I'm the boss, this is how I'm gonna do it, you need the 70 of them, they don't need you.

48:34  
That's it. Because you know, you can lose a good portion of the of your really good ones.

48:39  
If you don't treat it, you know, with kid gloves and to take care and, and to just let your ego let your hair down and relax and enjoy their, their company have a beer with them or whatever. And after the shift is over and, and stuff like that. And I always like to divide and conquer. If you've got if you got a bunch of folks that are against you pick some key people that you want to form an alliance with, that will then have sway over the others. Does that make sense? You sound like Survivor

49:12  
Hey, I've been in the restaurant there's

49:15  
very little difference between survivor and being in the restaurant business. Okay, that's funny. Yeah, I mean, definitely come in with a definitely a positive attitude. And you know, it's socializing and you know, having celebrate the successes, celebrate the wins. And the losses you know, learn from the losses you're gonna have just as many losses as you're gonna have when sometimes, but hopefully the winds will outweigh and but I think you learn a lot from your losses, just as much as you learn from your wins. Well, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. And by the way, Julia Weaver has been our guest today and let's go over your information again so that people can go get Hupe speak and the accent and the O's of leading through

50:00  
Why would the language of basketball because we all love basketball? It's one of the national pastime? I think it is. Yes, yes. Well, you can find it at your favorite bookstore. You know, if you, if you support a local independent bookstore, they can order it. You can find it on Amazon, you can find at Barnes and Noble. You can there's a Kindle version or a PDF version, you can also find it on my website, which is Weaver, strategic partners.com. And,

50:31  
yeah, and then, of course, I do have a coaching and consulting business Weaver, strategic partners.com, you can find me there more information, we could set up a discovery call and or you can email me and we could talk.

50:45  
You're a big time author, you'll accept emails. How will? Absolutely. That's it. That's really cool. It's great to have you here. And you'll have to come back and we win your second book, are you are you starting on your second book yet? I've got some ideas. I'm going to do a second edition of the hoop speak, though, because I've come up with a few things that I feel like I need to add in this. And then I've got to come up with a totally different kind of not totally different concept, but just something a little different. Well, I I'm glad you will. And I love the you know, I could sit here and talk about leadership all day, because I think it's a art form that is not

51:28  
people

51:30  
don't understand how much of an art form it actually is maybe what I'm trying to say, because a good leader is like gold. And, and but they're hard to find.

51:41  
Well, I think it's something you need to you know, you have to develop, you have to decide that you want to be a good leader, and then, you know, start to develop that strategy, learn all you can read all you can and get as much you know, resources and people learn from people learn from all your mentors, and everyone who you who you can learn from.

52:01  
I think what you need to do is to call you, well, there you go, you can call me too.

52:08  
Julian, we're coming to the end of our time together. So I want to give you the opportunity to tell our audience anything that you would like them to know the ones that are listening now or the ones that will be listening to this podcast in the future.

52:22  
Wow, what do you mean? Like what about anything, anything and everything, anything that's on your it's anything in your heart that's on your mind that you would like to share with folks? Well, I was excited to be on this positive talk radio, because I believe that, you know, positive positivity is huge in creating, you know, the kind of leader that you want to be, whether that's, you know, a basketball coach, I mean, this book is great for aspiring coaches, because it does have the basketball part in it, but it also has the, you know, the leadership. So if you're an aspiring coach, and you know, you want some, some leadership tips and fundamentals of leadership, you know, certainly, you know, get the book, I've got journal pages in here. So I asked a lot of questions. It's divided up into different quarters. So you can, you can, you know, write your start developing your, like I said, your X's and O's, your strategy for becoming the best leader that you want to. And I don't know that out. I mean, I guess I'll end with this. But one of my players, former players at Cornell,

53:28  
talked to me, or gave me the story about, you know, always touch the line. Like, she never could understand why you'd run all the way down the court, and then you'd miss it by like two or three inches, and wouldn't touch the line. So I guess I would encourage you, as a leader, to always touch the line.

53:46  
I have a quick story about that kind of tell. Sure. It's your show.

53:51  
Well, thank you very much. When I was playing high school football, we had our coach was six foot five, he'd been a defensive lineman for major university. And his name was Jack McLaughlin. And then he had been a coach for a while and, and we used to at the end of practice, we would do what we like in basketball, you would run lines, only our lines were 100 yards long, we would line up and we put our hand on the goal line, and then we'd sprint to the other goal lines. And then we turn around and we put our hand on the goal line and we sprint back and we do seven or eight of these depending upon how how the coach was feeling that day and if they thought we deserved, the more punishment and and so there's this guy by the name of Danny Flay, Joel, he was a backup quarterback. And

54:42  
we were getting ready to go after the line and, and the coach stopped. There were 75 of us that were standing at the goal line from from from sideline to sideline like and we were all waiting, and he stopped the whole thing.

55:00  
I

55:01  
called out Danny and he said, Danny, why was your hand three inches over the line,

55:09  
you're gonna go 100 yards, three inches is not gonna matter a thing. But what it does tell me is that you're willing to take a shortcut whenever you can, and you're not willing to do the hard work that it's going to take for you to not be a backup to be, but to be a starting quarterback. It was actually it. He went on for like, I remember this, you know, this, this was like in 1973. So this was like, this is like 50 years ago. And I remember it like it was yesterday. Because it taught me something very valuable about life. Yeah, oh, that's the same, same thing. You know, you

55:50  
do all this work, and you don't finish a project or you miss a deadline, or you spell a word wrong, and you don't go back and check it that's not touching the line. You know, that's taking a shortcut. So I'm encouraging you to always touch the line and make it a religious, not a religious practice, but a well, you know, a practice that you do all the time. Well, so we'll say we'll say that because it does breed you to do more of that. Rather than other CEO that's that walk in that talk to if these people start to see you take shortcuts, then they'll do the same your, your team will follow that. Yeah. And eventually, you'll have a bunch of people that are going to be like, what's what's you know, it's going to be one foot over the line to veto the line, you know, what is going to be acceptable at one point, so it's got to be? No, it's just

56:42  
consistency. And it's the line, thank you for giving me reminding me of that memory. You're welcome.

56:49  
Thanks for your stories. I love him. It was a big deal. And so thank you so much for being here. And I really appreciate it, go get the book, hoop speak. And you can go to our website, which is Weaver, strategic partners.com and hire her to come work for your company. She can, she can help you with the blind spots. And we all have our blind spots that we don't see that can affect the professionalism and the productivity and the turnover rate and everything about your company that you're working for, or that you own. So you sometimes it's helpful to have somebody come do that. Would you agree? I would agree with you there. You know, let's let's take a look. Let's talk and very good. And you can go do that by going to our website Weaver, strategic partners.com. And you can you know, like, send her a message. Absolutely. And that would that would be great. Again, thank you so much for being here. I've enjoyed our time together. Can we do it again? Like Kevin, I would love to thank you so much that I loved it. It was a great day. Great night. I'm so I'm at night. You're still in the day. Oh, yeah. It's time for you to have dinner now. Absolutely. Yes. So, thank you so much. Hold on right there and I'll be right back. Okay. Hey, thanks for enjoying this episode all the way to the end. Please give us a like and subscribe to this channel. This has been a production of positive talk radio.net Please visit our website oddly named positive talk radio.net. For more details about us and our mission, which is to provide great positive programming designed to inspire us all. I'm Kevin McDonald. I'm proud of these shows, and I truly hope that you'll like them and share them with friends and family. So on behalf of our entire team, remember, be kind to one another because each other's all we gotta