We lost a genius today…

We lost a genius today…

Mike Leach passed away this morning, he was the Head Football Coach of Mississippi State.

Mike Leach was the most progressive and unique thinkers in a sport and culture that does not allow much room for progression or uniqueness.??He was a lawyer who decided to be a football coach.?And he was engaging, entertaining and incredibly insightful to the many people he touched.?He also created a legacy of football coaches that can match any “coaching tree”; he not only was successful, but he helped mold and build many other successful winners.?

I hope you read a story about him tonight/tomorrow, learn about his life and impact.?The Athletic has an outstanding piece on him that I reviewed today if you have a subscription.?

I had read his book “Swing your Sword” and had studied him as a leader throughout my growth as a leader.?I have taken a lot of inspiration from him, so tonight I wanted to share with you the wisdom I took from Mike Leach over the years of just watching him be interviewed, watching his youtube clips, reading stories about him and generally just really being a fan:?

Simple, A Lot of Simple, Simple Done Well

In a world where coaches playbooks are often huge Mike Leach’s teams ran off a playbook that was on a sheet the size of a napkin.?His receivers had 5 routes they could run and were told to “find open space”, ie find success where it was most possible.?He wanted his QBs and WRs to have such repetition that they’d be able to benefit from wordless communication; he ran the simplest model designed to give everyone in that model a chance to be successful.???

How often in business or in our personal lives are we doing tons of things; his teams did the same thing so much that even the other team knew what they’d do but they still couldn’t stop it.??Build strategies at work and in your life that are simple, that you can do well and that can succeed over and over.??

Empowerment on the Field

?There was an article in 2019 where they interviewed a bunch of the former QBs who played for Mike Leach and it finally came to light that 70% of the plays were called by the QB on the field in Mike Leach’s offensive approach.??This is during an era (still today) where they don’t trust the QB to even call the play but instead signal in every detail to every player via huge white signs and backup QBs with colored hats making hand and body signals.??In a world where coaches are micromanaging every aspect of every play, Mike Leach would give the formation and then since the QB was on the field, seeing the defensive alignment better than anyone on the sideline, empowered and trained that QB to believe in themselves and make the play call.?

As a leader, we must empower our people but do that when we have ensured the have confidence and competence to do things right.?And as parts of our team, we must prepare to earn that empowerment.??

Have Fun With Your Job

?I don’t think I have the most fun jobs in the world.?It is important and the work we do has a greater good when it comes to enabling our clients to ensure healthcare access and demonstrate the quality of care they provide; but it isn’t fun.??But I want to have fun with my job even if my job is not fun.??Mike Leach is one of the many inspirations I had in this area.?

In 1999 before the biggest rivalry game in College Football, Oklahoma v. Texas, the Red River Shootout at the Cotton Bowl during the Texas State Fair;?as Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator he masterminded and successfully pulled off a plot to leave a fake play sheet on the field during warmups and it worked.??The Texas coaching staff found the sheet and used it, quickly finding themselves down 17-0.??Leach’s Sooners lost the game, but his “why not??Lets do it” approach became a lesson.?

What I take from this hilarious story, which as a former football player and coach (albeit softball), I can relate to in so many ways, I take the inspiration to Find a way to have fun in everything you do, and ideally make that fun give you an advantage.

?I appreciate you considering and/or reading this post.??This maybe isn’t your guy or your lessons, I get that, but thought I’d share in case it did interest you or got you thinking about 1 little thing.????For me, I’ll miss hearing about the latest press conference or nugget of wisdom from the football coach who was obsessed with pirates.???

RIP Mike Leach.

TJH