COMING THROUGH

COMING THROUGH

“If you don’t hustle, I don’t accept it. If a player shows up the club, I show up the player.” Billy Martin.

NY Yankees Coach Billy Martin said this after making a pitching change and sending Paul Blair to right field to replace Reggie Jackson. Boston’s Jim Rice had poked a check swing single into right field at Fenway on June 18, 1977 and moved to second before Reggie Jackson reached the ball.

Leadership is a set of standards established for the group that you lead.

If you believe that your self-centered life of entitlement permits you to display disrespect for the club by making an a** of yourself during the national anthem of the great country that allows you such privilege, don’t act surprised when I remove you from the game and send you to the showers, without pay. After all, I have players available who just want to play, and win.

Organizations are much like Amtrak. The trains keep moving and they have many stops. Each new stop offers different things from the last. In my leadership world, my standards always mattered at my stop. If I required heart and hustle for the team and for the mission and did not see it on display, I led by not accepting creeping negative gradualism, requiring behavioral sanity and making the changes necessary for the good of the club, my club.

I imagine that Billy Martin, Vince Lombardi and other great coaches would not accept such ungrateful, unappreciative and unprofessional conduct that is displayed openly today. They would remind you that young people look up to you as something special. Without consideration for personalities, talent level or value to the team they should take five minutes after the national anthem is played and gather all the showboats in a group and send them on the perp walk to the showers and make every effort to send them to another stop where losers are welcome and hustle doesn’t matter.

If the powers to be, ownership or upper management, don’t like how I coach – remove me. At least I will walk with my head held high because I won more than other coaches, we trained more, we hustled and we made a difference for those we serve and for the club.

Send me a group of mutts, second stringers, who have heart and desire and we will rescue more people, extinguish more fire, arrive better prepared and stay on it until the job is done and walk out with swagger.

How’s your stop looking? How could it look with leadership applied?

Hand out pink pacifiers to those who lack heart, hustle, focus and who embarrass the club.

Someone will be last. Something is wrong if it is the same someone every time.

Thank You for reading, caring and sharing.

Have a great stand up for something day – it’s a GREAT day for it.