Mark Edwards: The biggest thing that I always felt was try not to take yourself too seriously, but take them very seriously and create a culture that the guys will be proud of, that they want to be identified with that culture. They want to be identified with the results of that culture. Tim Spiker: Being mindful of what those under your charge will think and feel about their experience of following you, long after they've moved on, can be a very helpful guide for how to lead well and create an exceptionally valuable culture. I'm your host, Tim Spiker, and this is the Be Worth* Following Podcast, a production of the People Forward Network. On this show, we talk with exceptional leaders, thinkers, and researchers about what actually drives effective leadership across the globe and over time. This episode is the second in our two part March madness mini series, featuring exceptional leaders in the world of college basketball. Tim Spiker: Today, where with the coach I finished my college career with, Mark Edwards of Washington University in St. Louis. His list of accomplishments is long, 15 times his team's won conference championships. 21 times he took them to the NCAA Tournament. And three of those times he went to the final four. Also leading WashU to become one of only four schools ever to win back-to-back national championships at the Division III level. His leadership led to 34 consecutive winning season, and that is a streak that has continued even after his retirement. Tim Spiker: Coach Edwards has been inducted into three different sports halls of fame, Washington University, the City of St. Louis and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. All of those accomplishments and awards were fueled by much more than mere basketball acumen, they were fueled by a leader who was worth following. So let's jump into the conversation with coach Edwards, as he talks about how his upbringing influenced his values and how those values set him on a path toward a lifetime of outstanding leadership and exceptional results. Mark Edwards: Imagine it really goes all the way back to my parents. I wouldn't call them leaders in society. They weren't active presidents of organizations or CEOs, my dad was a blue collar pattern maker at Caterpillar tractor company. My mother was a housewife and then helped her sister run a business. But what they instilled in me was a set of values. And I think those values that as I grew into school, grade school, high school, college, and beyond, that those values helped identify the importance of recognizing authority figures. And that's the first step, is you have to understand there are authority figures in your life and they're always going to be there and how you evaluate them and how you follow them or how you interact with them was the basis really for I think my start that led ultimately into a leadership role. Tim Spiker: It's interesting you think about the issue of authority and how I would suggest that looks different in our world today than it has in the past. You retired a few years ago, but not that long ago you're coaching college athletes who were growing up in a world very different than the one that you grew up in and even very different than the one I grew up in. So as you think about that authority issue, did it change the way that you led the team as the years grew on there, and we grew into this society that's so internet connected and social media and all of that kind of stuff. Did it change things for you at all? Mark Edwards: Yeah, I'm sure it did. I think one of the advantages of coaching is it keeps you in touch with a certain age group, your whole life. I coached 46 years in college basketball. So for 46 years, I was interacting with that 18 to 22 year old age group all the time. And as society affected them and social media came in, it didn't mean I had to join it, but I had to understand it, and I had to appreciate how that was interacting into the job that I had to do. I think that if I had drawn a hard line and say, "We're going to do things, this, this, and this," without taking that into account, I would've lost my followers. Tim Spiker: You said 46 years, and we're going to talk about the 37 years you spent at WashU, but let's talk a little bit about the first nine years that you started out, not at the Division III level where you ended up, but at the Division I level as assistant coach. Talk a little bit about how those years impacted your thinking about coaching and kind of set you up for your next steps. Mark Edwards: When I first started coaching at the Division I level as an assistant, it was for my former college coach. And at that time I knew what Division I was, I saw it on TV, it didn't have the exposure that it does today, but I knew that it was the highest level you could get in. So I looked at it as an exciting opportunity to get into following my passion of basketball and my interests of behavior and being able to combine the two to see if I could do it. And so I did start at a high level, but it allowed me to observe and to be able to see really what evolved at that level, what kind of things were important in order to succeed at that level, I needed to be in an environment and a culture that was a little different than that in order to be successful, doesn't mean that it was bad or anything at all. It was just find a culture where I felt that I could be productive where I could share the values and I could play. I could be transparent and still be successful. Mark Edwards: I remember a moment when I was at the convention and Al McGuire, who was the coach at Marquette, had won the national championship the year before. And I had heard him speak a number of times and actually had spent time with him. And he was a, I wouldn't say deep thinker, but an important thinker for the people that he talked with, he listened. Anyway, so I always liked to hear what he said. And one of the comments that he made in this clinic was, you can't win with smart kids. And that kind of just hit me like a fish right in a gut, because I enjoyed my education and I enjoyed the curiosity that comes out of education and exploring questions and trying to solve problems. And that stuck with me. Mark Edwards: And so as I started looking around for my next move, where I wanted to go, I was with a great mentor, George Raveling, who was a wonderful person and gave me great advice. And he understood my dilemma and what I was trying to do. But Washington University opened up. I played there, they wanted to change the culture of the university. It was a very good academic school. And they presented a scenario that I found appealing in which athletics would be a part of the educational experience. It would be important. And it would be something where the kids felt that there was a value to it. So it was an opportunity to kind of take the things that I've thought about, the observations I had in Division I, and to apply them to a program that was a different niche in athletics. So that's what drew me to the university. Tim Spiker: You come back to your alma mater and you are coming in circumstantially. It's a high academic school. And you essentially set out at a certain level. And I didn't know this part of your story regarding what you heard at the talk by Al McGuire, but I'm going to say you essentially spent the rest of your career proving him wrong, which is a really interesting part of the story that I hadn't had the window into previously. But the school had eliminated basketball, WashU had eliminated basketball, and you were part of starting the program essentially from scratch. Tim Spiker: So that is a super unique circumstance. What were the disadvantages? What were the advantages of, hey, there's no previous years team, there's no previous years coach, there's no previous years anything, because I think it had been about a decade that the program had been shut down. So talk a little bit about, that's a very unique part of your story. Mark Edwards: At the time I looked at it as an advantage because everybody that would be coming into the program were coming in with low expectations, because there was nothing there. They didn't know if they were coming to a losing team, a winning team. They didn't know anything about me. They just knew about the university. They were attracted to the school because of the university. The first year I was there, I probably overthought how to do it. And a lot of bizarre things really did happen because essentially, it was a group of walk-ons I put up signs on campus that said, come try out for the future of Washington University basketball. And I had 40 kids show up and I was so excited, and I'm a detail guy. Because I feel that details is where the war is won because emotions get into the way, if you don't have the details. Mark Edwards: Anyway, I had this meeting, I had this outline about four pages of everything we were going to cover, how we were going to take the trail from no basketball to a national championship. I told them, I said, "It's really important when you come to practice, we only have one trainer. And if we're in football season, he's going to be tied up with the football team. So if you get taped, come in and get taped before the football gets in there." And I get done and I ask, I said, "Okay, are there any questions?" And this one kid raised his hand and he said, "Coach, what is it that you tape?" And I said, "Okay." Mark Edwards: So after that meeting, I'm in my office and this young kid come in and he was wearing a turban. He was a foreign exchange student. And he said he wanted to come out for the basketball team, and he hadn't been at the meeting or anything. And I said, "But, what makes you want to come out for this team?" And I said, "What's your background?" He says, "I've never played before." And I said, "Well, why do you want to come out for this?" He says, "Well, I always liked American basketball and you're Division III, you've never had a team. I figured this is the only program in America that I can and make." Tim Spiker: You can't knock his logic. His logic was solid there. Mark Edwards: So I said, "Okay." And I let him come out. And the first day at practice, we were just doing two line layup drills, where you just dribble in and score and the other side rebounds and throws it out. And they just replace. And this same kid, he's wearing his turban at practice. And he goes in and he just throws it up at the basket and runs into the guy that's trying to get the rebound and gets knocked down and he's laying there on the floor and he just lays there. And so I go over and I [inaudible 00:11:33], I said, "Are you okay?" He says, "Yeah, but I quit." He says, "I didn't know American basketball was this physical." Mark Edwards: And that's a true story, that really happened. And the whole year was full of stories like that. And we were three in 16. We lost to a chiropractic school and a seminary and anybody else we could get on that first year's schedule, but that was the beginning because I felt it was so important to establish value to the team in order to keep these kids engaged and make it meaningful to them. Tim Spiker: It's so interesting to think about three in 16 and all the stories that you just shared and where things have ended up. So I'm just going to go through a list of things here, because I want everybody who's listening to understand where this story ends up, because it's really going to help us understand the rest of the journey. So three in 16, starting a program, basically from scratch. And here's where it ends up 685 wins with a 70% winning percentage in the top 10 all time in the history of Division III coaches in terms of victories, three time national coach of the year, 21 NCAA tournaments, back-to-back national championships in 2008 and 2009. And then I'm going to give the last one, because I will say, as a person who played for you, this last one might be my favorite statistic of all. Tim Spiker: And that is you coached, and that tradition has continued now with your successor, you coached 34 consecutive winning seasons. And now I believe the school is at seven consecutive winning seasons and God help the team that breaks that streak because we're we're all coming after them if that happens. So I share all of those statistics, oh, you have 15 conference titles, by the way. I share all that to say in front of you, after that first year came just an unbelievable amount of success for the basketball program and for the school in that regard. So I think it would be great to hear, now we've got the story about how it started and I've shared a little bit about all that happened along the way from a court standpoint. Talk a little bit about the idea of building a program. Mark Edwards: If you'd have asked me this at the end of the first year I was there, it might've been a bit different answer, but one of the things that always impressed me was how teams handled winning. And I remember I was at Washington State at the time that UCLA was in the midst of their long winning streak. And I would watch them when they come practice at our gym before our game, or [inaudible 00:14:18] be there and everywhere they went, they were the enemy. Everywhere they went, they were number one in the country. Everywhere they went, people were lined up outside days before the game to come in and heckle them. Mark Edwards: And they'd walk out on the court, they'd attend business and you could just see that they were one as a team. And that always impressed me. And my goal was to have a team that relished being challenged every time they walked on the court, that expected it. In a way, what I would tell the guys, "We want to have a team where if the other team beats us, it's a big celebration for them." Mark Edwards: And this was an attitude that I carried and I tried to plant that in our team. And one of the things that you mentioned was the continuity of the program. And that to me is really was important. Because it means that somebody is passing that attitude onto somebody else. And I can honestly say the first recruiting class I had at Washington University, not the walk-ons that first year, but the kids that I brought in when they graduated, they were on a winning team. Even the walk-ons that first year were on a winning team. And from that point on, never had a player play at Washington University who had a losing record. And to me that was probably as important as anything else. Mark Edwards: One time I wrestled with the idea and asked another coach that had won the national championship. I said "Winning the national championship, which was our goal, which brought the greatest thrill to you? Having 20 consecutive winning seasons or winning the national championship." And that was a stupor because one recognizes the achievement of a team and the other recognizes the continuity of a program. And I always kept that as my guide on, as I would go from one team to the next. And so for instance, I would tell every transfer that came in, "You're coming into a set program and it's going to be up to you to meet the expectations that our team has, not for us to meet your expectations. So our team wants to win a national championship. And if you come here, that's going to be the goal you share with them." Mark Edwards: And so this is something that I took very seriously. And I know that at the end, when we finally did win that championship after so many years, that the people that were in the program prior to that enjoyed that also because it was a validation of the sweat equity they put into the program that got us there. Tim Spiker: I have to catch myself a little bit because I remember when we won that national championship in 2008 and I was well past my playing years at that point, but it was we and I get teary right now thinking about getting to that point and having done whatever, whatever I could have done and whatever our team could have done to help put a brick in the road that helps get there. Of course we all would've liked to have gotten to that pinnacle earlier. But when that happened for your 2008 team, and then again in your 2009 and the 2007 team getting to the final four, all of that felt like it was to your point, you build a program such that we felt that we had a contribution to that and had something on the line when WashU was on the court, even though we weren't putting the uniform on anymore. Tim Spiker: So if that's the program that you were trying to build, I don't think that there's any question coach that you did that. You're in a unique position to answer the question that you put to that other coach, you won two national of championships. You went to the final four, three times and you had 34 consecutive winning season. So how do you answer the question of what is most memorable or valuable for you? It doesn't even feel like a fair question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Mark Edwards: I would have to say that they are interrelated, that if you have a continuity in your program of success, there's a good chance it's going to all come together at the right time and the right moment. Because I found out that's what happens when you win a national championship. At some point during that tournament, the ball's going to bounce the right way, or somebody's going to fail to take advantage of an opportunity, or somebody's going to take advantage of an opportunity. Mark Edwards: There's plenty of coaches, great coaches, great programs that haven't won national championships in their division, but they will tell you know, it could have been a guy got hurt at the wrong time. Somebody got in foul trouble and lost 10 minutes in the first half. There's all kinds of reasons of why you don't get there that oftentimes we don't reflect on the reasons you do. And I think the continuity allows you to be in that position more often than not. And yes, it doesn't mean you're going to win it, but it means that you've got the elements and you got the type of players who expect to win it and they believe that they can do it. And that's the whole key, believing you can do it. Tim Spiker: I love the part of your story you shared in terms of seeing John Wooden's UCLA teams and that kind of attitude of expectation that, "We're the best and we're going to show up the best and we're going to get everybody's best shot." How much of the development of that mentality is something that you develop or something that you recruit? Mark Edwards: That's a good question, because obviously you have to have talent to be successful in sports. If you can't play the game, you're not going to win the game. What I would do is I would observe player who were good players that I felt an affinity for. I said, "I like the way he plays. I like the way he interacts with his teammates. I like the way he interacts with the coach. I like the way he handles adversity. I like to have him in my program." And this is the way I approach it. This is what I liked about you, you and I talked before you went to Purdue and had a number of conversations, and this is what I saw in you, but it doesn't mean that you're going to come to WashU and be a great player. Mark Edwards: I've never told a kid, "If you come here, you're going to play 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes a game." Because if they need that, then they're insecure in their own success story. So I do recruit that way. I've had kids that were averaging a lot of points a game and playing on good teams, et cetera, but they can just didn't what we were trying to do, our team. And I've had some of them come that had been in the program that probably the program would've been better off without, just because it was a constant struggle to try to interject their skill into our mental approach to the game. I didn't go out and travel all over the world to convince people to come to our school. I had them come to the campus and if I could get them to the campus, I could bring them and wrap them into the culture that we have there. And if it's what they're looking for, they'll see it, they'll know it. Mark Edwards: And that was my recruiting philosophy. Find kids who are potentials and bring them in, then I'd talk to my own players. 'What do you think of this guy." "Coach, he could really help us." "Coach, I think he's going to have a tough time fitting in with us." And this did two things. One, it gave me a direct conduit to the peers that are interacting with each other. And the second thing is by doing this with my own team, I am giving them accountability. They're helping make decisions that gets us to our goal of what we're trying to do as a team. I'm not just calling on them to play basketball and I'm calling on them to create a team. And I think in retrospect, that was a big part of why we were always so tight. Even to this day, as you know, the alumni that played in the program are tight and it's funny, they go on golf outings with different age groups. They didn't even play with each other, but they're connected to each other. So I think it, that kind of is the way I approached my recruiting and building the team from within as well as from without. Tim Spiker: I hear so many things in terms of how you're looking, not just at the talent, but you're looking at the mentality of players, the mentality of the individuals on the team. There's two things that I want to note given that you just shared that. One is, and you alluded to it, but I want to say it very directly. I remember exactly what you said. You said, "I'm not going to make any promises to you except to give you the opportunity to compete." And I always thought that was one of the smartest filters that I had ever heard, and I still think about it today. And you and I have talked about it over years. If you had guys who were thinking about being a part of the program and they shied away from that invitation, that's very likely a player that you don't want to have in the program. If they, if they're looking for guarantees instead of the opportunity, do you want to be that person that earns it or do you want to be the person that it's promised to and given to ahead of time? So I always thought that was a great filter. Mark Edwards: But I think at the same time, I wanted to know what their expectations were. Those are the big things. How do you establish an expectation? I don't know if you remember this, but in recruiting players to a program, the one question I'd ask when they're sitting in the office and we're really getting down to a heavy conversation, "What do you expect from me? What do you want?" And I think that's something you always have to know as a leader when you're dealing with people, what do you expect from me? And even if they don't have a perfect answer, they're going to have to think about it. And then in recruiting, I turn around and tell them what I expect from them. And if they're compatible, we have a talking point. Mark Edwards: I remember one time I had a kid who was always grumbling to the other players and the players would come tell me, "Oh such and such." We played somewhere and we're on the bus on the way back from the game and my captain came up and whispered my ear. He said, "Coach, such and such says he's going to quit." He didn't get enough minutes or whatever the reason was he wasn't happy. I don't know. So we get back to the gym and as guys are filing off the bus, I stop him. I say, "Hey, I want you to meet me in my office tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. And we're going to talk, I heard that you want to quit the team and we'll talk about it at 10:00." And this wasn't the first time I've heard that with him so. So he said, "Oh no, I'm not going to quit. I'm not going to quit. This, that, and whatever." I said, "Oh no, no, that's not what we're meeting about. We're going to meet about whether or not I want you on the team." Mark Edwards: And that kind of put it into a different perspective. So he probably had a sleepless night, but he's the one that created the scenario in which the conversation was going to take place. One of the greatest learning tools in the game in sport is learning is the emotion of competition and learning how to handle it. Because far too often, we speak from emotion. We act from emotion and we let that dictate what's going to take place tomorrow. And to me, that is one of the biggest dangers we have. Saying something and not really meaning it or saying something that really hurts somebody and then trivializing it. And I really feel that in leadership, that's one of the major things I think really has to happen is when you listen, you also have to listen with compassion and empathy and learn because that's going to be there. Tim Spiker: There was a spot. I think we were coming in at halftime and I was not particularly pleased with, I had a perception that one of my teammates wasn't giving the fullest of efforts and I was in his ear about it. And you said to me, in a very stern voice, "You better watch it, or you going to lose him." And I thought, "Yep, I needed that coaching." Because whether I had a point or not, whether it was real or not, you kind of have to understand the bigger picture of the team and the bigger picture of the relationship. And you can push people at times, but you have to have the relationship and the credibility to do it. And I was pushing beyond my relationship and credibility in that moment. And you warned me about it. And I think that's a lot about what you're talking about right now is when you act or speak out of emotion, it does things. And can you be in that competitive space and still play at the very highest levels without out making mistakes that destroy relationships and violate what you're trying to do. And you called me on it in a moment there, and I'm 49, I'll be 50 next month and I remember that, like it was yesterday. So in case you wondered if we were listening coach, I was listening. Mark Edwards: Yeah. I think that's true. You just really have to understand in describing the biggest dynamic that I get out of sports of being a coach is occurs after a loss or at halftime of a poorly played first half. And you walk into the locker room where the meeting room, and when I looked out at all the players what I saw were people saying, "Help me, help me deal with this." And I always felt that the words that came out of my mouth and how I said that to them was going to have a stronger impact than the meaning of the words. And my goal when we left that room is to make sure that the emotions of that game were handled properly. That doesn't mean that you dismiss them, or that you make everybody feel good about them, but you make them understand how to get something good out of it. Mark Edwards: The hardest game for me ever was the last game I coached. I had six seniors on the team. We were ranked as high as, I don't know, three or four in the country or whatever. We were really good. And I actually had decided to retire, but didn't tell anybody other than my assistance, because I didn't want that to be the story. I didn't want that to be the issue with the players. I didn't want them playing for that, et cetera. So it was a tough game because the other team had a player that went off on us, three point shooter that went off and we had a lead and all of a sudden it was gone and we were behind by three and we had a timeout end the ball. And my point guard who I always value point guards I had had followed out. Mark Edwards: And I subed my other point guard that I was in training, who I really believe a lot in. And we ran our play and he hit the shot and it tied the ball game with 1.6 seconds on the clock. And the other team took the ball out and threw it the length of the floor within a second. The kid grabbed it and shot a three that the buzzer and won the game was over, my career ended. These six guys will have that as a memory of their last college game. That was the toughest time to be able to try to use logic in my approach to things. So you just have to be ready for anything. And I think that's one of the great values of sport. Tim Spiker: Totally agree that it does create opportunities for you. It's like in a microcosm over the course of four short years, you have this intensity of emotion and experiences that happens on a regular basis. It's shaping for a lifetime, for sure. And that's a pretty amazing story. So there's all of this that goes around winning and having a program, being at a great institution like WashU. Imagine that you're having a conversation with a 30 year old who is just kind of stepping into his first Division III men's basketball coaching opportunity. What would you say is most important for somebody who is looking out at the possibility of a career, of leading in this case in particular young men. What's most critical or most important for that person to keep in mind, coming from somebody who has achieved so many things that everybody would say that they want to at the start of their career. Mark Edwards: That's a very heavy question, because what you're wrapping up is all of the virtues are all the things that you feel are important that a team is able to express or able to do on the court and then carry it with them off the court. And I have, I've talked to a number of young people that have gone into coaching, that have called me, or quite honestly, Pat Juckem the guy who replaced me at Washington University when he got his first head coaching job at Coe College in Iowa, came down and spent time with me talking about exactly these things that we're talking about right now. And I think that the biggest thing that I always felt was try not to take yourself too seriously, but take them very seriously and create a culture that the guys will be proud of, that they want to be identified with that culture. And they want to be identified with the results of that culture. They take pride in it. Basically what I'm saying is create a value for your product. Mark Edwards: And when we redid our locker room a few years ago, this was something that I took a lot of pride in because we had horrible locker rooms, as you know, and this was going to be a state of the art, as good as you could get. It had fans in each of the kids' individual areas where they put their shoes, it had everything, but I wanted to put something on the back wall that captured briefly what we were all about and what the purpose of the program was. And I thought a lot about it. I really did. Believe it or not, this is something I thought would be really important that somebody could look at that, Tim Spiker some day could walk in there and look up at that and said, "That was us." Mark Edwards: And I came up with a little phrase that I used up there that I think really captures what my coaching experience was, and was to teach these kids this, and that is to how to compete with passion, dignity, and pride. And if they took that away from this program, or my efforts into the program were directed at providing these ways to do this, then I was satisfied. So what do I say to a young coach coming up, figure out what you want your program to accomplish, identify it in everything that you do, believe that you can do it, trust in the people that you're bringing in to do it and never give up. Mark Edwards: After my third year, when we had three losing straight seasons, I asked myself, "Is this what I really want to do?" And coincidentally, I got a phone call from a coach that I had known really well. A Division I coach had just had a job in the big 10. And he called me up and he said, "Okay, are you tired of playing this Division III stuff? I've got an assistant spot open. You want to come up here and join me?" And I said, "No, I haven't completed my job yet." And so I stayed with it. And at the time it was hard to see, but in retrospect, of course it was the right decision. I was at the right place and I was doing the right thing. Tim Spiker: So there were a lot of great things there from coach Edwards. A lot of them you heard, had to do with vision and culture, but I want to draw attention to a couple of things that might not have been so obvious that I think are so critically important. The first one is this. You heard him talking about the pressure cooker that athletics creates around learning how to deal and manage emotion. Now, admittedly, the organizations that we go to work in every day are not exactly like an athletic competition. They don't usually have that high level of emotional intensity, but I still think it brings up an important consideration for us because as coach Edwards was talking, he was talking about the develop of the emotional maturity of the players on his team. Tim Spiker: And so I wonder as leaders, there's one question to say, do I have the emotional maturity? But it's a different question, especially as you look at the leaders that you're developing, are you investing in them? Are you talking with them? Are you considering their emotional development in the midst of getting all the day to day things that you're trying to get done? Are you investing in that? Are you paying attention to that? Because he certainly was, and it had a huge impact on the success of teams over the course of decades. So that's the first thing I want to bring to attention that was in our conversation. Tim Spiker: The other thing is this, and it came up in so many comments that coach Edwards made. We can look at his, all of these wins, all of these national championships and national coach of the year, but there is always that question who is the per behind that? We see the accolades and the achievements, but what helped drive that, really is the question. And so you heard him talk about how he listens to his team. Then you also heard him bring up the question as he's sitting across from a player, what do you expect from me? He talked about his final game as a coach and how he knew it was his final game, but he didn't want to draw attention to that. He kept talking about those six seniors. It was for him that their final game in college was more important than the fact that it was the final game of his career. And he didn't even want to make that an issue. Tim Spiker: And then as we were wrapping up, you heard him say, try not to take yourself too seriously, but take them seriously. When I think about those four statements and just the overall ethic you heard from coach as he talked, there's a very clear word that comes out to me, and that is the word humility. Somebody who's saying, "I need to listen to the of people that I'm leading. I can't ignore them." And asking people. "Hey, what do you expect from me as a leader?" And what you heard from him in that was also not a doormat humility. You heard a humility that also then got to turn around and say, "Hey, that's fair. What you expect from me, I'd also like to share with you what we expect of you." And so what you saw is this incredibly healthy, valuable humility that garnered loyalty and effort and energy and competition together. And in the end helped fuel an unbelievable level of success over the course of more than three and a half decades. Tim Spiker: So that brings up the question I want to leave us with today. When you think about the position experience and authority you have as a leader, in spite of those things, are you leading with humility? During this March madness mini series on the podcast, I've really enjoyed visiting with the head coaches I had to privilege of playing for in college. Not everyone is as fortunate as I was to get to follow such great leaders. I may have suspected that was the case when I was playing, but with the benefit of hindsight, 20 years of experience in leadership development and the opportunity to spend meaningful time with both men for these podcast episodes, I can hardly believe how blessed I was. Both coach Katie and coach Edwards are definitely leaders worth following. Tim Spiker: In our next episode, we're going to move on from the world of college basketball and get back to the business of business. So until then, this is Tim Spiker, reminding you to be worth following, and be sure to follow us wherever you engage with podcasts. If you've heard something valuable today, please share our podcast with your colleagues and friends. And if you're up for it, leave us a five star review. Thanks for listening.