John Calipari has an interesting quote comparing a player to poop and his Kentucky basketball team as ice cream.
“I call a guy in like you to my office, and I say, ‘Son, there is a bucket of ice cream and there’s a bucket of poop… You can put all of the ice cream you want in that poop and it doesn’t change. It’s poop!”
Oddly enough, this analogy works.
Now to use the concept but with leadership and trust.
As leaders we spend a lot of time, whether consciously or not, establishing trust between ourselves and our team members. Whether this comes in the form of positive reinforcement, feedback, support, or career conversations. “Good to Great” for us is directly corollated to the level of trust that exists within the team.
Our ice cream consists of our investments in the trust, the poop is the moments that we are not our best selves. Whether it is overreacting, passing the pressure, not returning a phone call, showing up late or not showing up at all. The hardest thing about our shit is that it’s not as clearly defined as actual poop, in fact, it’s not even defined by us, our people are the ones who get to say whether you’re the shit, or the ice cream.
Recent Comments