First Person with Wayne Shepherd

First Person: Tony Dungy - extended conversation

Picking up where the radio conversation ended, Tony Dungy speaks from experience in calling people to become mentor leaders. Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company: FEBC National Processing Center Far East Broadcasting Company P.O. Box 6020 Albert Lea, MN 56007 Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!

Duration:: 26m
Broadcast on:: 03 Feb 2011
Audio Format:: other

Picking up where the radio conversation ended, Tony Dungy speaks from experience in calling people to become mentor leaders.

Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company:
FEBC National Processing Center
Far East Broadcasting Company
P.O. Box 6020
Albert Lea, MN 56007

Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!

Coach, we've been talking about becoming mentor leaders from your own experience in the world of football. And as you said, it can be anyone in any walk of life who are looking to help someone else better the life and add value to their life. That's what it's all about. It really is. And it doesn't have to be the recognizable name. It doesn't have to be the person who is appointed the leader. Leaders come from everywhere. That's one of the things that I've really come to realize from my sports career, that some of your best leaders were not necessarily the star players. They were not necessarily the people that fans would have noticed. But leaders come all shapes and sizes on your team. Of course, we also looked at the scriptures and the example of Jesus I know you do and see him as the ultimate mentor leader. I really do. I saw that that mental picture of the Middle Eastern Shepherd and Christ talked about it so much. I gave so many examples of the sheep and the good shepherd and we don't really know that picture because we don't see it in this country, the United States. But that shepherd who just knows the sheep so well is so familiar with them that they follow him. He's out front and he's not pulling them along. He's not behind them pushing them. But he is walking and leading and they know that the shepherd is walking in the right direction and they follow him. And that's what Jesus did. And I think that's the example that he laid out for us and what I've always tried to follow. Of course, he's the example in all of this to us. But in your book, The Mentor Leader, take us to the upper room where Jesus is actually washing the feet of his disciples and Peter objects. And you bring out in the book, and I never thought about it this way, that he objected, but he didn't offer to do it. Well, I think that was the key point that Christ was pointing out. There's something that needs to be done, and the leader many times has to make sure that it gets done. And he did it in such a way to set an example for those guys, and he used it in that way. But he did something that had to be done rather than just say, "Okay, John, you do it, Peter, you do it. I'm going to do it, but give you the example of why and how." And to me, that's a great, great example of leadership. It was an act of service, but it made a point, and it told a story to those 12 that they never forgot. So mentor leaders serve people. That's what they do. They really do. And it goes back to what Coach Knoll said way, way back when I was a rookie player or a rookie coach. How can you help the players be better? That's what it's all about. You always have to be looking for those ways. And it's not, "Hey, this is outside of my realm," or "This isn't in the job description." If it can help your player play better, that needs to get done. And that's what Christ looked at. He never looked at it. Well, this is what the legal system says about what I should do, or this is what society says about what I should do. I'm going to do what this situation calls for. I know we talked about it, but this idea of Coach Knoll planting that seed when you were all of 25 years old, and then bearing this fruit all these years later, that's very inspiring, Tony. Well, it is, and it allows me to think that just little things that you say, the way you do things, the way you carry out your job can have an impact on people years later. And Coach Knoll certainly did with me things that I remember from 30 years ago, the way he talked about things. So it makes me careful of what I say and how I act and what I do now. One of the things I appreciated about your book, The Mentor Leader, when I read it, is that you don't just talk about this as pie-in-the-sky stuff. You bring it right down to practical action, and you spend a lot of time in the book doing that. One of the keys that you list, seven E's actually of maximizing the potential of the Mentor Leader. Can we just talk about some of them? And of course, the ones we don't cover are in the book. So our listeners- Yeah, we have to make them read the book, but it begins with engagement. You tell us to be engaged. What does it mean to be engaged in the fight, so to speak? That to me is really the first step in the process, getting to know someone, getting them to feel comfortable, getting them to understand why you're there, that I'm there to help you. And that takes something. You can't just say, "I'm here. You show up. Okay, let's go." But knowing that I'm investing in your life, I want to know who you are. I want to know what makes you tick, and I want to learn how I can help you first, as opposed to just saying, "Hey, we're going to do A, B, C, D, and E. This will be better for you." I've got to get to know you and say, "No, it's A, B, and C that are really going to help you." By the way, when we're talking about becoming a mentor leader, are we talking about, "We're going to meet every Friday for breakfast, and I'm going to mentor you. Is that what this is all about?" No, I think most of the really great mentors that I had in my life, I didn't know it was happening at the time. It was pretty sneaky, weren't it? It was pretty sneaky, and they weren't sitting there saying, "Hey, learn this, do this." But just being around and being an example for me, talking about things, bringing up things that I needed to think about, and many times it's done just in a natural flow of things. Yeah, it's almost like we're unaware that we're doing it. I mean, I'm sure you have felt this at times. You look back and say, "You see how you perhaps mentored someone," but at the time, you were just doing the right thing. Yes. You know, in Michael Vick's situation, that was a special deal. His attorney calls and says, "I'd like you to talk to Mike. Here's some of the things that he needs. I want you to be involved." But many times it's just being around and being available and being there, and nothing is said. Nothing. There's no, "This person is the leader. This person is the follower. Here's the mentor." It's just, that's what we do. So put yourself in those situations where God can use you as a mentor leader, and don't seek the credit for it. Yeah, be available and be willing to help, and that's what you're concerned about. That's what you're worried about helping someone. What does it mean for a mentor leader to become educated about this? That sounds kind of intimidating to me. Most of us don't want to go back to school. Well, no. It's not necessarily you being educated, but educating the person that's following you. You've engaged them. You've gotten to know them, built that trust, and now, okay, I know where you want to go. What are the things you need to know to get there? And many times, that is so, so important because we have dreams, and we have goals, but we don't always know how to get there. And if I've been through the process, and I can just give you a little bit of help on what you're going to need to know, it's going to make it so much easier for you. I hear intentionality there. You've got to think this through, don't you? You do have to think this through, and many times, you don't always know everything the person needs. I can get you some help, I can find that out. I'm not familiar with that, but let's both see if we can figure out what are some of the things you're going to need to know. As a leader in the world of football, your world, have you ever been tempted to just say, just do it my way, you know, trust me, just do it this way, and you'll be okay? Well, there are times when you have to do that, and as a coach, I would say that here's the way we're going to do it. There's a lot of ways that work, but this is our way. This is the buccaneer way. This is the Colts way. But you still have to be open enough to talk to players and say, "Okay, what's on your mind?" I hear what you're saying, "Here's the pros and cons to that. Maybe I am going to change. Maybe I'm not." I may say, "We're still going to do it this way," but still let you feel like you were able to have some input, but there are times when, as the leader, you've got to make the decision. This is the way we're going to do it. We were talking about an episode when you were with a box, and a kicker wasn't doing his job very well at the moment, but you stuck with him. Why? Well, because I knew him, and we were part of a team and we're part of a group, and he wasn't just the kicker. He had a life. He had some things going on in his life. His mom was battling for her life, and I knew that he wasn't kicking as well as he could because he did have some distractions in life that we all would have. And so my message to him was, "Hey, we're going to stick by you. We're going to help you through this message to the team. You guys have to pick Mike up, and you've got to make up for it if he misses a kick because he's our teammate, he's our kicker, and we're going to stand with him." So you were educating the whole team based on his experience because you were sensitive to him. Yes, and it was knowing him and not just as a number, as a statistic, as an employee, but as a person. Are you afraid of making mistakes? I mean, as a coach or as a mentor? You are afraid of making mistakes, and it's a great responsibility that the Lord gives you when you are leading in whatever capacity, and you do. You don't want to, boy, lead anyone down the wrong path, make the wrong decision, make the wrong choice, but all you can do is the best you can, and try to let the Lord handle everything else, and know that you aren't perfect, and say, "Hey, I'm going to give you all the knowledge that I have, but if I make a mistake, we'll come through it together." You know that I'm a Chicago Bear fan living where I live, and you played against the Bears in the Super Bowl a few years ago, and you openly talk about one of your strategies that kind of backfired on you. One of the biggest mistakes I made was on the opening kickoff. Devin Hester from the Bears was a tremendous return man. He was the most dangerous weapon the Bears had, and my coaching staff wanted to kick the ball away from him, not let him touch it, and that was our plan all we leading up to the game, but the night before I got this great idea that we could strike a psychological blow if we kicked it to him and then pounded him with 11 guys and let him know that their biggest weapon was not going to be affected that day. So I told the team if we're going to kick it right down the middle, and we got to go down and pound this guy, well, he returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, and it could have been disastrous because everyone knew it was my decision to do it that way, but we had had such a relationship develop over the years. I was able to say, "You know what, we're not kicking to him anymore. I made a mistake. You guys have to help us recover from that." And they said, "Don't worry, Coach, we'll get the job done." So the mentor leader steps up, admits his mistakes, and learns from those mistakes. I think that's part of leading people is to show them that you aren't always going to make the right decision. You aren't always going to be perfect. What do you do? How do you handle disappointments? How do you handle mistakes? And showing them that part of the responsibility is just admitting it and learning from it and growing from it and rectifying the situation. That may fit several of these seven E categories that you outlined in the book. Maybe it's part of equipping people. I don't know. What are you thinking? In equipping, and I think it's part of encouraging too. That's another E that sometimes as leaders, we don't always do. We kind of look at how we can find, not find faults with people, but hey, you did this wrong. Correcting. And correcting is part of it, but encouraging is the other part. And I think it is encouraging to people to know that I as a leader can make mistakes, and we're still going to be okay. We're not perfect. But when you make a mistake, hey, we can learn from it, we can grow from it, we can get better, and we will overcome those mistakes. I have a feeling that might be easier even at the professional football level than it might be at home. Admitting mistakes at home is a different thing altogether. It's the hardest thing, especially with your children. You say, hey, I really didn't handle this situation well. I apologize. I'm going to do it better next time. It's not something we normally do, but it's something we need to be able to do as leaders of our home. That opened with your family. I try to be. It's not easy, and I have told my kids at times, hey, I'm sorry. This discipline wasn't right, or this decision wasn't right. I'm going to try to do it better the next time, and we're all in this together. Just to mention the other E's, so we mention equipment and courage and power, energize, elevate. What does it mean to elevate someone? That can be the toughest part of leadership sometimes, especially in a structured business sense. Hey, I'm a head coach. I've got assistant coaches who are very, very bright. Can I put them in positions where they can be seen, where their strengths can show? They may end up going off to another team. I don't want to lose them from our workforce because they are so special. But I really owe it to that person to elevate him, to let him show what he can do, and he can grow and maybe go come back to beat us sometime. Who knows? Yeah. What's that like? When you set someone free and it comes back to maybe win against you? No, it's a great feeling. Mike Tomlin, we told a story about earlier in the show. He went to Pittsburgh as a head coach and won the Super Bowl my last year in coaching. As much as I wished that I could have won it, it was still a proud feeling to know. Here's a guy who I helped get started in the NFL and he's now a Super Bowl winning coach. Tremendous feeling. You've got a lot of life ahead of you, but at this point, this midpoint, it's got to be just so gratifying to look back and see how God has used you and to think of the other circles that are spinning out of that influence that you've had in those men. I really do look at it that way, that the Lord has blessed me with some great examples, some great role models and Leroy Rockmore could step into my life, give me a bit of advice that helped me and that then in turn, I could pass it on whether it's to my college teammates, to guys who are on my staff, to players that I coached, to young people that I talked to at an assembly, a middle school assembly. Some way I was able to pass on just a little bit of what the Lord had given me through mentors in my life. Of all the things you do, do you enjoy talking to young people the most perhaps? I probably do. That's the most fun thing if you can just develop a little spark in someone the same as it happened for me when I was young. Let's spend our last few minutes building up the confidence of those who are beginning to get a vision for being a mentor and a leader in people's lives and just talk more about what that looks like and how to get going. That's easier than people would think and it can be done in any capacity. Larry Fitzgerald is a great receiver with the Arizona Cardinals and my son really looked up to him. I just mentioned to Larry that my son really looks up to you and he wrote him a letter and just said, "Hey, look up to my skills but more than anything, get your degree, study, listen to your parents, Eric, my son put that letter up on his door, still has it there." Just a five-minute little note had a tremendous impact on a young person so it can be done any number of ways and that's the thing. Just being intentional and saying, "I'm going to look for those opportunities." I mentioned your two previous books, "Quiet Strength and Uncommon." I know God has used those in people's lives as a matter of fact. I've heard you talk about the story of whole teams that have taken like uncommon for instance and used it as a basis for study together. It's been incredible. College coaches have given it to their players. The St. Louis Rams, these bagnolas, a friend of mine, he gave it to all his players in training camp and just to know that classes or teams or groups of people are reading it really goes beyond what I could have expected but nothing more gratifying than to go in and talk to a group of people who said, "I read this book, here's what we took out of it. Thank you for writing it." Because it made us think about our lives and what we wanted to do and uncommon was really written to young people, giving them the message that you don't have to fit in, you don't have to follow the crowd. You can be different, you can follow Christ, follow your dreams and you're going to be respected for that. But it branched out and more than just young people read it to my surprise, we're hoping the same thing happens with the mentor leaders kind of written with business people in mind but realizing you didn't have to be a business person or a civic leader to take advantage of this. I know it's very important to you that part of what a mentor leader does is encourage people spiritually and put them on track with God. Talk about that for a moment. That is a desire of yours, isn't it? It is, and that's the underlying message in the book that if our motivation is really to help people, that's when we're going to be successful, that's when we're going to do something long-lasting, and that motivation really doesn't come within us, it's not human nature to help the other person before we help ourselves. That's got to come from Christ and pointing people to the Lord, that's the ultimate message in the book. So mentor leaders need to step up and accept that challenge to become that kind of person in someone else's life, to make their life better, to add value, as you say, and as a result, we get not accolades, but we do get significance, don't we? You do get significance from that, and that's the difference. You may not get the material blessings, may not get the promotions, may not get the notoriety, but you will get the significance, you will get the good feeling that comes from knowing. I helped someone in a situation make their life a little bit better. I helped someone focus on their goal a little bit better. I helped equip someone to do their job a little bit better, and those things, I don't think you can put a price tag on. You tell so many stories in your book that really encourage us because they give us the perspective of time. When it's happening, you don't really understand what's happening, but when you get down the road a bit and look back, you see how God used that, and that's most encouraging. It really is, and I can look at incidents that happened in my life, disappointments that I had, talks that I had with people that helped me overcome those disappointments, and it helped me at the time, but it helped me even more be able to minister to someone else, to talk to someone else, to pass on information years from now. My dad told me when I was very, very young, complaining about something, don't just complain, what can you do to make things better? I took that to heart and years later when I was coaching my own team, and guys would come in and say, "Hey, I'm not sure we're doing this the right way. I'm not sure this is the right way to beat this team." What can you do to make it better? Again, that's words of my dad that span 40 years. I know how important your dad was to you. It's very obvious from reading the mentor, leader, and your other books, but I learned so much from his life just from your brief stories in the book about how he was a teacher in a segregated school, and would sit and wonder, "Is this school really equal?" It's one of the great lessons I learned from my dad, and you talk about time and where lessons go. His first teaching job was in 1951 in Alexandria, Virginia, and this was before Brown versus Board of Education, so it was segregated schools, separate but equal, and he told me, "Hey, we could have said this isn't right, this needs to be fixed, and it did need to be fixed," but he felt his job at the time was to make the situation better, and the way he could make it better was to teach his students as well as they could be taught, and that was his goal, and he did that. He passed that lesson on to me, and then, you know, 55 years later, I'm going through Alexandria, Virginia, on a bus to the White House to be introduced to the president after we'd won the Super Bowl, and it just made me think, you know, my dad did something in his way to make the situation better, and now here's his son going to the White House. It brought tears to my... He never made it to the White House, but you did, you stood on his shoulders, and I would not have made it without the lessons that he taught me in the way he mentored me, so his lesson or his point was, rather than sit there in 1951 and just say, "This isn't right, what can I do to help the situation right now, right where I am?" Another quality of the mentor leader is perseverance, and you certainly have persevered, and many people do, but we are often tempted to quit, and you tell a story of good old mean Joe Greene for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I want you to tell that story, Tony. Joe Greene is a Hall of Fame player, was the defensive captain of the Steelers, was the unquestioned leader, and I came seven years after Joe had been there, and I was a young guy, and he told me that he almost didn't make it to that position of captain and leader, because in 1972 he was ready to walk away from the team. This was on the verge of their success in all those Super Bowls they won in the '70s. Exactly, a team that would go on to win four Super Bowls in six years, but in 1972 they were struggling, not winning as consistently, and Joe didn't know if it was ever going to happen. He had listened to Coach Noel, he believed it, but it just didn't seem like he was seeing the results. Packed up his locker, went to the airport, told Coach he was leaving, fortunately one of the other assistant coaches, one of his mentors, went and got him and said, "Hey, we're making progress, you just have to persevere, don't quit when we're right on the verge of something great." Well, he was discouraged because that was the year the Dolphins went undefeated. It was the Dolphins undefeated year, and that's exactly what happened. He had seen the Dolphins play on Monday night and just looked like a machine and say, "Why can't we look like this? I've been here four years and we don't look anything like this, it's not going to happen." Joe comes back, two weeks later they put Franco Harris in the starting lineup, and the team takes off when seven straight games, and that's the beginning of the steel curtain and the Super Bowls, but Joe Green told me, "I was one flight away from missing out on that," and the assistant coach who came and got me and encouraged me, that was the difference. I've often repeated that story to my teams after disappointing losses or after stretches where they don't think we're making as much progress as we are. As the leader, I can see the progress, you may not, but you have to persevere. We've all got to hang in there, otherwise you'll miss out on a tremendous blessing. His decision bore consequences for him as an individual who went on to just a fantastic career in Super Bowl rings, but it also bore consequences for the whole team. We need to think about the team whether the team is a football team or a volunteer team at church. We need to be thinking about that. We do, and Joe Green was coach and old's first draft pick ever. He was the guy that was going to be the cornerstone of the team. What would have happened to those Steelers teams if that first pick had left and given up? It would have not only taken the talent that Joe had taken that away from the team, but it would have been very symbolic. Because the leader hung in there and did persevere, it allowed other people to have that vision and that dream, and it took off, and it allowed him to tell me that story, and for me to tell that story to a team of a generation later, when I was with the Colts and we kept getting beat by New England, and it didn't look like we're ever going to get over the hump, and I said, "Hey, just don't quit, don't give up just before it happens," a lesson I learned from Joe Green. Yeah. Tony, we have listeners in just every corner of the country listening and all walks of life, and just the diversity of people out there, look them in the eye and challenge them to become mentor leaders, and what difference they might make in someone else's life. Our society, if we're going to grow, we have to help each other, and there are so many talented young people with great potential that just need helping hand to get where they need to go. There are so many people who are on the verge of giving up, like Joe Green, very, very close to saying, "I don't know if this is worth it, I can't reach my goal," and all they need is that pat on the back that helped that encouragement that, "Hey, you can get this done," and that's what we need to do to make a difference in our schools, in our communities, in our businesses, everywhere, just helping where we can, and if you do that, you'll be amazed at the results. Well, Coach, when all is said and done, what's the main thing you want us to take away from this conversation today about being a mentor and a leader in someone else's life? Really two points. Number one, the idea of how we lead, that it doesn't have to be from dominance, it doesn't have to be from having the loudest voice, but we can lead from that ability to serve, to help, to lift others up. And then number two, that everybody can do it, it doesn't have to be, let's look around and see who else can be the leader, what can I do to help, what can I do to make the situation better, who can I assist, and if I can, then in that moment, I'm the leader. Well, we're going to read this book, "The Mentor Leader," and we're going to watch you on NBC on "Football Night in America," God has really blessed your life, and you're blessing our lives, Tony. Thank you. Thank you very much, Wayne. Those blessed me tremendously, and that's part of the reason for this book, to encourage other people to give back from the blessings they've received.