371: The Keys That Make a Great Team with Don Yaeger

Pete Mockaitis
Don, thanks so much for joining us here on the How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.

Don Yaeger
I am so grateful, Pete, to join you. Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to dig into some of your wisdom. And I got a real kick out of just the name of your company. My company is called Optimality; yours is called Greatness, Inc. So tell me, what does this word mean to you, what do you mean by it and what do you find so inspiring about the concept of greatness?

Don Yaeger
So, actually I chose “greatness” because I couldn’t spell “optimality”.

Pete Mockaitis
I always have to spell it on the phone. I mostly do business as How To Be Awesome At Your Job for that reason, but, yeah.

Don Yaeger
No, greatness for me was… I love sharing a little bit of the story because I’m so grateful to my father. But when I was graduating from college, leaving for my first job, I’m there with my dad, we’re in Indiana, I’m getting ready. My car’s loaded up, I’m headed to Texas for that first job out of college. And my father’s just sitting there in the driveway and says, “Don, because you’ve chosen journalism as your career, you are going to end up in the presence of some extraordinary winners, some people who have achieved things that all of us would love to learn from. And you’re going to ask them questions and it’s going to be great. And you’ll write the story and it’ll be awesome. But I hope that somewhere on this journey you’ll stop and ask each one of these people something that will benefit you. Ask them a question that you can learn and grow from.”
That was like Dad wisdom that sometimes you think is silly at 22, and then later in life you go, “Wow, I’m so glad that he said that and I took the wisdom.” So, I began asking the question of the winners and leaders and people of importance that I would study over the course of my time in journalism: “If you could name one habit that allowed you to become what your opponent couldn’t, what even some of your teammates were unable to become, what would that habit be?”
And they became the characteristics of greatness, is what they were called. And I kept a series of notebooks just on the answers that these great winners were giving. And then when I retired from SI a few years ago – I took an early retirement from Sports Illustrated – my first move was to grab those notebooks and start calculating out what answers do great winners give to that question.
And it was interesting how none of the answers were sporting. They weren’t about their physical gift, they weren’t about their knowledge of a game. It was about the development of disciplines that we can all learn from. And I thought that was really kind of cool, that these weren’t sports stories. These were lessons from great winners. Just as you might want to learn a great lesson from a Navy SEAL or a mountain climber, you don’t necessarily have to do those things to appreciate the lesson. That’s what I was getting access to as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is really cool. And so, you’re being humble and modest a smidge here. And we talked earlier about the audience is 50 / 50 sports fans. So, feel free to shamelessly name drop here a little bit. So, you’re talking about truly the tippy top of the great famous legends in their respective sports. So, could you maybe orient us to just a few folks who you spoke with and they said something that really stuck with you?

Don Yaeger
Sure. We’re talking about folks like Michael Jordan. I’ve worked with Michael for many years, and he’s a voracious competitor. He’s one of those people that just loves to scrap. And there’s just so much about him, whether you like him or don’t like him, that you should want to learn from, right? For me, the lesson that he taught me most openly, and maybe the lesson that probably sticks with me even to this day was, he talked about the idea of excuses, and how many of us have found excuses every time we don’t get what we want in our hopes to be something special. And we use those excuses to keep us from being able to achieve something better. He said once to me, “You know, Don, a loss is not a failure until you make an excuse.” And I thought, “Wow, that’s really powerful.” This is a guy who uses the mental strength that comes to him from losing to help make him better. Pretty powerful stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good, yeah.

Don Yaeger
Many of your listeners might be fans of the movie The Blind Side. I had a chance to write the book with Michael Oher, the player who was the centerpiece of that movie. And there’s Michael – this kid comes from nothing. One of 13 children to a drug-addicted mom, and slept outside because she would be on binges and would lock him and his brothers and sisters out of their apartment, their housing project apartment.
And yet, when he became successful, when he signed a contract worth millions of dollars – changes the trajectory of his life – the place that he was the very next morning at 6:30 a.m. was the workout facility that he knew, was the facility that allowed him to get there, to get to the top. He was there working out again the day after he signs the contract.
And the reason was because he is a complete believer that the second you start resting on your laurels and you get comfortable with what you’ve achieved, somebody passes you. And he didn’t want to be that guy. So, pretty awesome to have the chance to rub elbows, go eye-to-eye with some of these folks and learn lessons from them.

Pete Mockaitis
That is really cool, yeah. So, you’ve also written many books, and one of them is about great teams. And you mention things high-performing organizations do differently. We love high-performing over here. So, could you share with us what are some of the main themes and findings there?

Don Yaeger
Oh yeah. So, when I retired from Sports Illustrated, when I took that early buy out 10 years ago, I began doing speaking engagements for a number of companies. One of those companies that hired me regularly was Microsoft, and one of their senior executives said, “We love the discussion of individual high performance, but we want to know why sometimes can win year in and year out. Why are some teams capable of being regularly relevant?”
And so I went on a journey. I took five years to research this next book, which was about great teams. Just sitting down with the best businesses and the best sporting organizations in North America to talk about sustained excellence. And the number one answer that came up was that the best teams understand their “Why”. They have a sense of purpose. They know who they’re in service of, they know why it matters.
They don’t just know it generically; they can put a face on who they service. And when you can do that, your team shows up to work differently. And again, whether this is a sporting team or a business team, they show up to work differently if they have that sense of who they’re in service of and they can feel that person. And that’s a real driver; it’s a fantastic conversation. I love doing it with audiences, but I loved writing it in that book as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, when you talk about they show up differently, can you maybe paint a picture, in terms of when you’ve got a clear “Why”, what that looks, sounds, feels like, versus when you’ve got maybe a fuzzy or a lack of “Why”?

Don Yaeger
Sure. I’ll give you a perfect example. One of the companies I’ve studied was a medical device company out of Minneapolis, called Medtronic. Medtronic makes devices that are implanted in people that keeps them alive. And during one of my interviews with the long-time CEO of that company, I was asking how the company grew from 10,000 employees to 40,000 employees.
So, as a consultant you know what happens when a company grows that exponentially – the culture of the organization fades, profit and loss seems to become the dominant theme and conversation. And yet, this company was growing at those numbers and still remained one of America’s great places to work. And I wanted to know how he did that.
And he said, “Yeah, I’ll tell you. There’s a number of things we did, but one of the most important was that we began a conversation that occurred every year at an annual company event, where for one hour we would take to the stage six families that are held together today because of Medtronic devices keeping one of them alive. And we would give the microphone to these families and let them talk to our employees.”
And he said every year there was some young woman who takes the mic and looks at the audience and says, “Thank you. Because your device did everything you promised it would, my daddy walked down the aisle this summer.” He said every year some young man did the same thing – he said, “Because your device is awesome, my grandfather was with us a Thanksgiving and they told us he wouldn’t be.” And he said at the end of that, they actually took the six families in the back of the room, they lined them up at table and they let all these folks come back there and they autographed pictures, just like they were rock stars. And those pictures hang all over the buildings at Medtronic.
And he said, “The reason this is important is that those people are our ‘Why’. It’s not about profit, it’s not shareholders. And yet, we don’t actually really sell to them.” Medtronic, they don’t sell to families. They sell to doctors and hospitals. He said, “But to know our ‘Why’, we had to find a way to get connected to it. And this event was how we connected.” And they did it every year, because they had turnover and the employees needed to be reminded.
But being connected, putting a face on the “feel it” moment that can occur for you when someone looks at you and says, “Thank you, you let my daddy walk me down the aisle” – it’s unforgettable and it’s game-changing. And they show up to work differently because that’s who they’re in service of. They’re not in service of some CEO or some manager or some bean counter. They’re in service of a young woman who got to walk down the aisle.

Pete Mockaitis
That is powerful and awesome. And so, it’s different six families each year? They’ve got lots of customers; I imagine they can keep bringing new faces.

Don Yaeger
Yeah, different six families each year.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really cool. So that is awesome.

Don Yaeger
By the way, I hope I’m okay with the 50% of your audience that are not sports fans.

Pete Mockaitis
[laugh] Absolutely, very good. And what percentage is crying right now, while we’re talking segmentation? I’m tearing up a bit myself over here, in all candor. So that’s huge. And I’m thinking the natural response is, “Okay. Well, Don, I don’t work for a cool company that’s saving lives, extending lives. Our impact is maybe a little bit more subtle or less viscerally big-feeling, not so much someone’s going to be alive to walk a daughter down the aisle or to be at Thanksgiving.”

Don Yaeger
That’s where I disagree. I think that the only way you can say that, if what you’re arguing is you work at a company that offers no value to society. And my guess is all of us, if we really try to break it down, could argue that we’re engaged and changing the world in our own way. So, how do we create those moments, or what do those moments look like for us?
I’m telling you, Pete – in the last two and a half years since I’ve been doing this presentation and since we wrote that book – I’ve yet to encounter a company where when they give me 20 minutes of time, I can’t walk them backwards into finding that young woman that stands on the front. It might look different; it might be seen differently than that. It might not just be around your product; it might be about what you do corporately for your community. It wouldn’t occur if you organizationally didn’t come together and work together. It might be the way that you interact with each other as teammates.
I own a company in Tallahassee; we have 18 employees. Not very big. You could argue we’re not in the business of saving lives or doing anything else. Part of the company is involved in public relations, the other part is my book writing and my speaking. We’re not saving lives. But what we set out to do a couple of years ago was we actually challenged every employee in our company to name for me one thing that we could do for you collectively, so that you knew we cared about you individually. And every two months we take a Friday afternoon off and we go in service of one of the members of our team.
One of our guys – our IT guy… And by the way, anybody that’s ever worked with IT guys knows that first off, they can find jobs anywhere they want to find because right now everybody’s in search of a good IT guy. But secondly, they’re sometimes a little quirky, a little difficult. And so our IT guy said, “You know what? I’ll tell you.” And we all knew that his grandmother had passed away just a couple of months earlier. But he said, “My grandmother lived two amazing years at the end of her life at this unbelievable nursing home, where they cared for her in ways that were so cool. And I want to do something for the nursing home.”
And so, we took off an afternoon as a company and we went and we served meals to the entire staff of that nursing home. And in between meals, they told us stories about his grandmother. And he told us stories about his grandmother. And we know him better because we are part of an organization that feels each other. And in a zero unemployment world where he could find a job anywhere, I promise you, this guy doesn’t want to go to work somewhere else. He doesn’t want to show up different. He wants to show up here, because he knows we care about him. That’s the choice. That’s what this kind of conversation really has within an organization.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really cool. And so, the question there is, “Name one thing we could do for you.” Then one way that you’ve implemented that is every other month taking a day off. Mathematically, I’m thinking that’s six days in a year and 18 people at the company.

Don Yaeger
That’s an expense.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Don Yaeger
It’s not a cheap choice, but you know what? We have zero turnover within our organization. You know the cost of turnover, right? We have zero turnover within our organization, and we have high employee engagement. We work diligently at it, and it’s not something you do once a year. It’s got to be an ongoing part of the culture of the organization you’re creating.

Pete Mockaitis
So I’m loving the particular applications of the “Why”. So we’re getting a face to who you’re in service of, and that could be your customer, your end consumer, your colleagues, your community. And then you’re asking specifically, ”What’s something that we could do for you?”, and then putting that service into action. What are some other practices that bring this “Why” to life?

Don Yaeger
To that secondary piece, about your community – how many of us work at organizations that regularly are contributing to charities within your community? Awesome. But you know what? Do you really feel that? It feels good to read the newspaper that your company gave X dollars to something. What if instead of just giving X dollars to something, we said, “You know what? We want to meet somebody who’s the beneficiary of what we get a chance to do here.”
And if that means that instead of just giving money to Toys for Tots, you’re actually going together as a team to deliver gifts to a family at Christmas – those are the collected experiences that bond people together in ways that are really cool. They’re the ways that teams come together and they’re the ways that instead of just stroking a check, we’re allowing the organization to benefit, because of an effort we were already going to make. Now we get to feel it, right? We get to feel it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. So, I’d love to get your view then, in terms of the components of the “Why”. You can see it in practice by engaging with those faces. You spelled out some subcomponents – who we’re in service of, why it matters. Are there any kind of key questions that you suggest teams reflect upon in order to zero in on the resonant “Why” and to flush it out all the more powerfully?

Don Yaeger
In working on this exact program and after having worked with a number of teams both in business and sports that had made that sense of purpose a centerpiece of who they are… I live in Tallahassee, Florida, and a professor at the Florida State University College of Business who’s really extraordinary in this space of team building actually put some academic research work into helping me create a list of questions that you could ask your team if you wanted to try to get your sense of “Why”, if you wanted to understand what do they think, why do they think we matter.
It’s one thing for a leader – for me as the CEO of the team, or the president of the organization to say, “Here’s why we matter.” It’s another if we sit and we go around the table and everybody answers the question. But sometimes they’re uncomfortable answering it around the table, so we wrote out a series of questions. I’ll tell you, I wasn’t intending to do this, but I would be glad to. Pete, I can either give you my email address now, at the end, whatever you want, and anybody who’s listening to this, if they put your name in the subject line, I’ll send them those questions.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. Could you maybe give us just a taste right now, in terms of one or two of them?

Don Yaeger
I think so. The first big question is that – if you were asked, “Who are we in service of and why does it matter?” I did it within my own company. When they go around the room and they answer that question, the variance that you get is really amazing, because then you start to ask yourself, “Gosh, if they don’t know who we’re in service of, then, man, it’s my job to do” – just like that CEO of Medtronic – “It’s my job to figure out how they get it. And if I can’t help them get to an understanding of that question…” But you have to start by finding out what they think.
Now, if you asked the question to 15 teammates and they all say the same thing – kudos! Seldom happens, but it starts by just getting there. Why does what we do matter? What happens to this community if we go away? And these are really insightful questions. If they answer them well, you really do walk away with an understanding that, “Man, I’ve got work to do.” But you know where you’re starting from as a team, if people are all over the place. Let’s draw for ourselves a picture of the person that we’re in service of. What does that look like?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. And I’m curious, in your particular instance, what were some of the range of responses you got, and then what do you do with that, in terms of, “Oh, I think this is the right answer”, or how do you steer or navigate that?

Don Yaeger
Well, what you do is you bring all the answers in, put them up on a big whiteboard and then we start talking about them. And I’m not calling anybody out. I’m fascinated by why we’re not on the same page. And I’m okay with it. We don’t have to all parrot each other, but it would be nice if collectively we believed, “This is the avatar of who we are serving.” So, what we ultimately realized is that…

Again, part of my business writes books. Part of my business speaks, either helps put me on stages. Part of my business builds virtual learning programs that I get a chance to teach. Part of my business helps other people tell their story through public relations. So what we realized was our commonality was that we want to be world-class storytellers. And we are in service of those who give us a chance to tell stories. And so, we want to be the best storytellers we can be, and to do that we have to be really good at what we do, but we also have to engage with people who have world class stories to tell.
And so, the further we got into that conversation, everybody gets this sense of purpose around, “Wow, you’re right, man.” Anyway, people began to get this sense that they’re working in a special environment. And you could argue that’s partially my fault that that wasn’t patently evident, just because they’re working for me. But at the end of the day, everybody gets caught up in doing their own thing, and sometimes they forget about the value that the team gets to bring.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s awesome, thank you. So, the book has a subtitle: 16 Things High Performing Organizations Do Differently. We’ve mostly talked about one, and I’m fine with that, but I’d love it if you could maybe also share if that’s the big one – zeroing in on the “Why”, are there any that you would say offer just a big bang for your buck, in terms of a quick win, where it’s like, you know what, if you can just knock out this little annoying thing, it makes a huge difference?

Don Yaeger
The one that really stood out to me that kind of surprised me… So we have back-to-back chapters in the book and sessions in this program that I do, where the great teams aspire, strive to build camaraderie within the organization. That makes total sense. Everyone believes we should have camaraderie. First off, it’s important to define what camaraderie is – an understanding and appreciation for each other.
But then the second piece of that was, camaraderie sounds cool, but it doesn’t always happen. So, what’s the flip side of that? Which is dysfunction. And if we know that dysfunction is real… And it happens in any organization that’s high-performing. Any high-performing organization has dysfunction within it. So the big question is, how do we shorten the lifecycle of the dysfunction?
And the biggest piece of that is opening by, the great teams see dysfunction differently. Most of the rest of us put our hands over our ears or cup our eyes and, “Let’s see no evil, hear no evil. Let’s try to avoid this.” The great ones address it openly and see it as actually a sign of passion. We possess people that have passion, so let’s use that as a strength as opposed to a negative. And how do you manage dysfunction? The best teams do it; they don’t let it overtake the mission, and as a result they are able to get back on track more quickly.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright, so you just take a bright light to, “All right, what’s dysfunctional and how do we get out of it quickly?” And so those are your key questions. Any other prompts that make a big impact?

Don Yaeger
You mean another characteristic?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh no, I mean in terms of getting to the bottom of that dysfunction.

Don Yaeger
The key is that you have to have leaders who are willing to be uncomfortable, because addressing dysfunction in an organization is an uncomfortable position. And if you know that we have two people within the team who are regularly sniping at each other, that are regularly just taking backdoor shots at each other, talking about each other – you as the leader, someone, has to take control of the situation.
Pull those two people together and say, “Look, I get it. I don’t need you to hang out, but I need you to be respectful. What is it about her that you cannot respect? What is it about him that you cannot abide? Talk to me. We’re going to talk this out and we’re not leaving this room until we do. Or if we do, not all three of us will be leaving this room.” And you have to be willing to do so. That willingness to take it on, which most people do not want to do, because it’s nasty, it’s messy, it’s uncomfortable…

Pete Mockaitis
“We’re hoping it’s just going to take care of itself, Don.”

Don Yaeger
And it never does. It only gets worse, right? So, don’t be foolish. The best teams are not foolish. And so, it’s not about just shining a bright light; it’s about literally engaging in conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, tell me, Don – anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Don Yaeger
Ah, no. The only one of these other characteristics on high-performing teams that really stood out was that the best teams have a mentoring culture within the organization. Not a mentoring program, but a mentoring culture. It’s that belief that those of us who might’ve been around a little longer are actively engaged in helping to raise up those who might not have been here as long, to understand. And those who might be younger might be teaching those of us who are a little older about ways to do things more efficiently. But it has to be a cultural value within those great teams, that allows mentoring to become a part of how you see each other.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, thank you. Well now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Don Yaeger
My favorite quote comes from a legendary basketball coach named John Wooden. And he used to love to say, “Make each day your masterpiece.” And that fascinated me because it’s such a simple quote: “Make each day your masterpiece.” It’s five words. But it’s the hardest advice someone can give you, because it means that in order for today to be a masterpiece day, I have to prepare well. I have to actually show up well, I have to deliver on commitments. In order to make today a masterpiece, it’s a lot of work, but if I do it and I string a few of those together, I’ve got a pretty good week. And so, focus on today and make today a masterpiece. Really incredible. My favorite quote.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite study or experiment or a bit of research?

Don Yaeger
Probably this research on great teams. We all see great teams and we know what they look like when we work for one or maybe we played on one. But what is it about the magic? And what do those who have been engaged in them say? That was probably my favorite thing.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Don Yaeger
It’s funny. This one usually surprises people when I get asked that, but I don’t read much fiction. But I had the opportunity a few years ago, I was invited to be part of a two-person book signing in Charlotte, North Carolina. And the other person was Nicholas Sparks, and he wrote a book called The Notebook that he gave to me when he and I talked about my mother, who suffered Alzheimer’s. And I still read it at least once a year, because it allows me to think about my mom, which is pretty awesome.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And how about a favorite tool, something you use that helps you be awesome at your job?

Don Yaeger
Probably my favorite tool is… I’m an incessant thinker. I’m always thinking of some crazy idea or something. And so I have a quick recording tool on my phone that allows me to quickly capture and share crazy ideas, which I have often in the middle of the night divided them between the folks that get to work with me. And we are regularly trying to grow what we do and expand our influence. But anyway, it’s a neat way for me to be able to do it. No matter what’s happening, no matter where I’m driving or where I’m traveling, I could share things really quickly.

Pete Mockaitis
And what’s the name of it?

Don Yaeger
I was afraid you were going to ask me that as I was telling you about it, because I wasn’t prepared for that question. And I don’t have my phone in here so I don’t know the name. I literally have it as a single button on my phone, so I am embarrassed to acknowledge that I don’t know it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, no worries. If you could just let me know and I’ll include that in the show notes.

Don Yaeger
Awesome.

Pete Mockaitis
We’ll get that going. I use OmniFocus myself for that kind of thing, and it is awesome. I’ll find I have 100 plus ideas just randomly surface – anything and everything from, “Do they have nannies on resorts? Find one. Find such a resort, that’d be fun.” So, it’s cool. Great, and how about a favorite habit?

Don Yaeger
A favorite habit is, I love closing each day with trying to… I’m a man of faith, so a big piece of closing each day for me is a little reading of the Bible. And I’ve got a pretty good prayer sequence that I try to go through every night to make sure I’m covering that piece of my life and reminding myself how important it is.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you’ve used two of my favorite words next to each other – prayer and sequence. So if you’re able to disclose, what are some of the components there?

Don Yaeger
Well, I begin by sharing my gratefulness and recognizing how fortunate I am for all that I’ve been blessed with. Then I try to focus on those I know to be in need and try to think about things I hope or pray for for them. And then, I always close with talking about my family. And it’s interesting, because I used the word “talking about”, because that’s kind of the way I look at it. You know what I mean? So, that’s the way I round it out.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful, thank you. And tell me, is there a particular nugget you share in your speeches or books that really seems to connect, resonate, get quoted back to you, retweeted, etcetera?

Don Yaeger
Yeah. It’s that phrase that I think I used earlier, when we were talking about some of the folks that I get a chance to work with. Michael Jordan, when he was sharing this lesson to me, saying, “A loss is not a failure until you make an excuse” – that comes back up often, because that’s really impactful. Even the great ones lose, but the great ones know how to keep losing in perspective, and they learn something from losing. And that’s a real game-changer for many people when they hear it, because a lot of times we don’t associate losing with some of those folks, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Right. And Don, tell me – if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Don Yaeger
So, my website is DonYaeger.com. I’m active on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, so I regularly respond. In fact, I spent a good piece of this morning responding to different questions and requests that were on those four mediums. So those are probably the easiest place for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Don Yaeger
I think that the challenge… When I thought about the model of what you’re building here, Pete, and the question – the reason I brought up the Michael Jordan quote twice is because I think that’s the differentiator between the good and the great, especially at work, is a willingness to not go looking for an excuse every time something doesn’t go your way. And then if they’re committed to stopping the vicious cycle of excuses that seems to wave over all the rest of us – if you can stop making excuses when things don’t go your way, I think you’ll find a degree of opportunity that’s off the charts.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, Don, thank you so much for sharing this. Your compassion and just caringness shines right through, and it’s powerful and it’s a real treat. So, I wish you tons of luck with your books and your speaking and your companies, living out the “Why”, and just all you’re up to!

Don Yaeger
Pete, thank you very much, buddy.