Lens of Leadership: A Ted Lasso Rewatch Podcast
Marnie Stockman and Nick Coniglio, authors of the book Lead it Like Lasso, dig into each episode of Ted Lasso with a lens of leadership. Each podcast starts with a fun quick-clip summary of the episode. Marnie and Nick tie together the leadership principles from Ted Lasso, their own business successes, thought leaders and everyday advice to help individuals level up as they lead themselves (and others). This is a great podcast for TedHeads! There are many other Ted Lasso podcasts out there - this is the "same but different."
Lens of Leadership: A Ted Lasso Rewatch Podcast
Personal Operating Systems | S1E2
What is a personal operating system? Your motivators, demotivators, core values, etc... From bringing biscuits with the boss to figuring out Jamie Tartt's operating instructions, Ted Lasso showed us the way to strong leadership by learning everyone's "personal operating system." Marnie and Nick talk about the value of being intentional with what makes someone tick both in life and in business. This strategic conversation can teach us the importance of understanding and investing in each team member's personal operating system to unlock their full potential.
Let's dig in and see what leadership lessons we learn in today's episode. At the end of the show we'll score some of the main characters on John Wooden's pyramid of success. But let's start with a quick recap.
Speaker 2:You are truly great at everything you do out there Except for one thing my life at Cross. Jamie, I think that you might be so sure that you're one in a million that sometimes you forget that out there you're just one of eleven.
Speaker 3:Ted's first official day at AFC Richmond. As Rebecca Googles Rupert, ted bursts in to deliver biscuits with the boss. Rebecca wants no part of it, but Ted is not easily swayed Out on the pitch. Ted's fingers tingle as Beard reminds him to relax. They're just kids. Jamie mocks Sam for scoring on him and Roy Kent comes to the rescue. Ted resolves the issue by telling Sam to be a goldfish and gets the inside skinny on Sam from Nate. Rebecca complains to Higgins about Ted. Her biggest issue is that he is relentless and nice.
Speaker 3:Ted has Nate collect suggestions from the team. Nate seems to have a special talent for creating boxes. Keely makes a solid entrance and questions whether Ted would be a lion or a panda. Rebecca makes it clear the lion is the choice. Jamie, of course, chooses to be Jamie. Ted and Beard find the suggestion box with a lot of opinions but not a lot of suggestions, except for an issue with water pressure in the shower. All is not lost, however, as Ted finally finds out what a wanker is Day two of Biscuits. We Learned Ted loves the Beastie Boys and that Biscuits with the Boss is all part of his team building and bonding. It's Sam's birthday, so they have Nate plan a party for Sam. Jamie doesn't exactly play along.
Speaker 3:Press conference number two is a slight improvement over press conference number one, except this time Rebecca is blindsided by Rupert's newest girl. Ted is attempting to figure out Jamie Tart's operating instructions, so he asks Rebecca for help. She has an apharias plan and suggests he talk to Keely. Ted finds Keely modeling as a lion. He feeds her a burger and gets photographed wiping ketchup from her cheek. Keely had some ideas for him. The best one is that Jamie loves positive reinforcement.
Speaker 3:Afc Richmond has its first match with Ted, as the new gaffer, beard reminds the team of speed on the outside, and they celebrate Sam's birthday. The crowd makes it no secret what they think of Ted when they lose, but Sam did have a good game and Jamie scored the lone goal. Ted has a heart to heart with Jamie, who did not get the advice he expected. Roy burns off some steam in the shower, colin learns the hard way that the gaffers fix the water pressure Despite a loss. They have a party for Sam, which Jamie tells Trent Crimm all about. Beard hates losing and so do the rest of the fans. Rebecca seems to be wavering but reads more about Rupert and wants to take Ted down. And that's season one, episode two, in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Love that rewatch. Like could watch those clips all day. So many good ones Goldfish, lions, pandas, all the things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. I think this episode really gives us the first real glimpse into Ted's leadership philosophy. Right, and since we wrote the book, lead it like lasso. That's what we're all about.
Speaker 3:That is what we want to talk about.
Speaker 4:What we're really getting a glimpse into is Ted trying to figure out what makes every member of the AFC Richmond team, whether it's the players, the coaching staff or Rebecca, what makes them tick right? It seems to align perfectly with something we outlined in our book called personal operating systems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'd like to say, if folks are thinking personal operating system, what is that? When I first landed in business and heard about business operating systems, I sort of had the same question for myself what do you think of when you hear the term operating system? Because I think we need to kind of spell that out.
Speaker 4:Well, you know me, I've got my tech background right, so I think of computer operating systems or operating systems on a mobile device right, and to me it's. An operating system is what allows me to interact and harness the power of a computer. How about you?
Speaker 1:Oh, I like to harness the power bit. I had not thought of it that way, but I like that phrase. I think of it as the how, why and what either a business operator or a personal operator. So since we're talking about personal operating system, I think somebody's how, what and why is what I would think about in terms of a personal operating system, and for sure I think this is the perfect episode to look at those pieces.
Speaker 4:Yeah, ted almost uses our exact language. Right, he doesn't use the word operating system, but he asked Rebecca about understanding, if she can help him understand Jamie Tart's personal operating instructions.
Speaker 2:No, actually you know, the whole reason I'm here is because I'm gonna have a little trouble figuring out Jamie Tart's operating instructions, and I'll just see if you happen to have any advice.
Speaker 4:How would you summarize a personal operating system?
Speaker 1:So I think it is the big picture of what motivates and demotivates somebody. It encompasses their vision for themselves right, their personal philosophy and core values. I think part of Ted's, for example like it is what he believes is it's not about the wins and losses, it's about helping everybody become the best version of themselves. I think something else is, and that comes down to team building for him, and he does that by getting to know the personal operating systems of everybody on his team.
Speaker 4:Yep, yeah, we met Jamie in episode one, but didn't really get much more detailed. Well, didn't get any warm questions about him.
Speaker 1:That's for darn sure.
Speaker 4:No, we didn't. And that that was really reinforced in this episode. A little bit right. So I think Jamie's a great example in a use case that we should take a little bit of a deep dive into.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 4:I'll kind of start and we'll see where it goes. But I think when, when Ted sees Jamie right, he sees him out on the pitch, right, he's really really good right. I think he makes a move, he, you know, he burns Sam Sam falls down, puts a nice shot in the upper corner of the goal, scores it, and he's like, wow, this guy's, this guy's got a lot of talent right. But immediately thereafter, right. And then he puts Sam down. We later see him when we start talking about Lion Panda. You know Jamie's like coach.
Speaker 2:I'm me. Why would I want to be anything else?
Speaker 4:I think it's fair to say that that Ted quickly realized that you know Jamie's personal operating system. His core value is all about him right, it is no ego.
Speaker 4:Yep, yep, no doubt. But he's looking for help. I think he does. He wants to do it deeper, right? It's really one of the first examples of the show which I'm sure there are many more to come with Ted, where he doesn't give up and he's looking for the full body of work when it comes to understanding the players at AFC Richmond, the ownership at AFC Richmond, the other coaches, anybody basically at AFC Richmond, and he goes and he asks Rebecca about it and Rebecca really doesn't have much information at all, does she?
Speaker 1:She does not, but, boy, she has an idea about where he can get some.
Speaker 2:Well, your eyes just lit up. You got an idea. What is it?
Speaker 4:I was just going to say you should go and talk to Keely. We learned something about Jamie through Keely, and Ted learns it at the same time, which is what.
Speaker 1:Positive reinforcement. I mean, we learned some other things, but we're not going to talk about that here.
Speaker 4:Actually, he responds well to positive reinforcement. That's my wheelhouse. He plays out right after they lost. But they lose 4-1, and Jamie scores the only goal, the lone goal for Richmond.
Speaker 1:And he's throwing a little mini fit about it until the announcers give him credit for that one goal. What about me?
Speaker 2:It would have been 4-0, you miserable old pricks. And a meaningless consolation goal for Jamie Tarr in injury time. Thank you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, and, funny enough, they give him credit in a way that's a little bit of a slight right, but he still sees it as a compliment. Hey, they acknowledge the fact that I scored a goal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is another part of the operating system right, that positive reinforcement. Him hearing that is exactly what Keely said, like he needed that acknowledgement for him personally, because that's what drives him.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. But what I love about it most is um Ted calls Jamie into the office and he has one of the best lines of the show.
Speaker 2:Jamie, I think that you might be so sure that you're one in a million that sometimes you forget that out there you're just one of 11.
Speaker 1:It takes a lot of a leader like Ted to remove his own ego. So when you've got an ego maniac, the last thing you really feel like doing is giving positive reinforcement because you feel like you're just feeding the beast. But he did it in a way that got Jamie's attention 100%. It's evident on Jamie's face. He did not see that comment coming and it did make him reflect for a bit, because Ted started by what Jamie needed, which was the positive reinforcement.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, and it actually it got Jamie to react a little bit differently, Even if for the shortest and briefest time period right, it's the baby steps.
Speaker 1:This is the baby steps. Yeah, it's not just me, though, is it? We're a team. I'm just one of 11.
Speaker 2:Okay, fuck it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am taking it pretty hard. You know, his core value is egocentrism, right, and he felt that he wasn't being true to himself by going with this one of 11 nonsense.
Speaker 4:Let's talk about Rebecca, and the actual title of the episode is Apple TV called it, which is this is this is what the title is. He called it, which is this is this is with the boss, right, all right. So one of the things that's clear and obvious to us is that Ted is trying to build a relationship with his boss, rebecca, right, and he does so with biscuits.
Speaker 2:I brought you a little something, yeah, cookies, or, as you all call them here, biscuits, right, biscuits kind of kind of reminds me of somebody that might be on this podcast.
Speaker 4:You want to talk a little bit about your biscuits experience.
Speaker 1:So when Ted walks in with biscuits and calls them biscuits with the boss, it absolutely makes my day. I mean, you've heard the phrase right. The way to a person's heart is through their stomach. I've always firmly believed that when we worked together in the software company, I was customer facing I know I'm outgoing, you know an extrovert and I was coming to your office where everyone they were engineers and were known for being much more introverted and I was afraid that I was going to be too much. So I brought cookies with me Chocolate chip.
Speaker 1:I didn't have Ted's recipe yet, but I do now and I absolutely introduced myself and said I brought preemptive strike cookies. I think it would say what's a preemptive strike cookie? I said well, I might be too much, so I'm hoping that when you hear him coming instead of like oh you know she might hunt me, you'll think, hey, maybe she'll have cookies. So I'm all about using food to kind of smooth the way and create some bonding. I, you know this was not a boss situation, this was just me trying to work better with the team and I felt like it helped create a bond and a connection.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think, if you think about trying to understand what makes somebody tick right, the precursor to all of that is having a relationship with that person right. It's not like somebody's just handing out a card to you that says this is what motivates me, this is what my philosophy is.
Speaker 4:This is what demotivates me. You have to have some period of engagement, some relationship, to figure that out. And that's exactly what Ted was doing with Rebecca and presumably will continue to do. And that's what you had experience doing in our engineering office and I saw at firsthand that little notion of bringing cookies ended up allowing you to have conversations with people where engineers who typically were not really interested in having conversations at all All of a sudden started opening themselves up to you and I saw that firsthand and you started learning.
Speaker 4:Okay, this is what motivates Mark, one of the lead developers, and if I need something from one of the lead developers, I now have that relationship with them. So it's interesting. But then, if you look at Rebecca, I think a couple of things as we talk about personal operating systems with Rebecca come to mind. The first is I think she's kind of the counter example of what Ted likes to work with and who Ted actually is as a person. In that thing. She holds all the cards tightly within her. She has no interest in really having anybody understand what motivates her.
Speaker 1:I don't even know that she's letting herself acknowledge what motivates her right.
Speaker 4:I think the outcome of that is and we see it with Kaylee right- Rebecca is an intimidating, very tall woman.
Speaker 2:I mean the minute she dies for me. I like to die sweet.
Speaker 4:You know, obviously she's big and tall, but she's intimidating because you don't know anything about her. She doesn't let you in at all, and I think that's always something to keep in mind if you're in a leadership position is that it's opening yourself up and allowing your team to understand what makes you tick will only help with the trust in bringing that team together later on, and I think that's critically important and I also think it's also a lesson you know, speaking from personal experience. I mentioned this in the last podcast. I have some introverted tendencies, right, and introverts don't typically like to share information about themselves. So if you're like me in that regard and you have some of those tendencies, sometimes you gotta kind of take that extra step and be really opening to sharing your personal experiences, your motivators, because it goes a long way with building some trust.
Speaker 1:Well, and I can remember members of our team as we were growing, the company would tell me that they found you intimidating and I would say, no, you can reach out to Nick and ask him X, y or Z, but they didn't know that they could. So I think that's interesting, you know, for you to recognize that and say, okay, maybe I do need to let a little of myself out to get them to bond.
Speaker 4:Absolutely, and it's something that I've learned more and more and I continue to learn. But going back to the Rebecca Ted comparison and I don't wanna go too much off on a tangent here, but I think if you start thinking about them as kind of counter examples to each other, rebecca is really a practitioner of traditional leadership, where she is all about command and control.
Speaker 4:You know, she's about speaking. She's about, you know, measuring success through outcomes, whereas Ted is more of modern servant type leadership, right, where he's really about support and growth. He's about listening and he measures success through growth and development of his team. And I only bring that up because I was reading something the other day where there are really five different things that you can do to practice servant leadership, and those are to understand employees as individuals, not just as workers, discover stressors in employees' lives, understand moments that matter in employees' lives, show appreciation for your employees and remove employees' obstacles. And when you think about those five different items that you can do to kind of practice more modern leadership approaches, they all kind of tie back to understanding the personal operating systems of others.
Speaker 1:Of each person on the team. Yeah, and when you spell it out that way, it's so obvious what Ted's doing to pull these pieces out and how Rebecca's hiding them right. Ted doesn't even realize the demotivator that every time he walks in on her she's actually Googling and doom, scrolling through all of Rupert's mishaps, and because she doesn't let him in on that, it just makes it a harder nut to crack to really get to know her.
Speaker 4:We begin to learn a lot more about Sam, thanks in those small part to Nate, and I think Nate provided the information. But it's really Ted using Nate as kind of a, as an instrument to learn more about the individual players on his team, which again is representative. Ted really just laser focused on, you know, understanding the personal operating systems of his players. But we know that Sam hasn't been playing great since he came over to AFC Richmond.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Nate explains that he's down in all the stats since he came from Nigeria, right? And then he finds out that Nate's that Sam's birthday's on Saturday, and so they've decided. Well, you know, he's probably homesick. He's getting close to his birthday. We should do something about that to make him feel a little more comfortable.
Speaker 4:And that's exactly what they do, right, say, acknowledge his birthday before the game, and the end result is that Sam plays better. I mean, we hear it.
Speaker 3:And Richmond lose four-one, the only bright spot being the defensive play of Sam Obisanya.
Speaker 1:It wasn't even so much the party right that if you look at all of the things that went along with this, they gave Sam Chin Chin, which was a food from his home, right. And when Ted asked Rebecca if she thought of any food, you know that brought her back to home, she kind of looked down at the biscuits and Ted dipped his finger in barbecue sauce, right, and Sam had that same reaction to chin chin.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, you got some kind of food or something. Just teleport you right back home. It could be all warm and fuzzy. No, hey man, you guys gonna be chin chin? No, wow, this is all I used to eat right now.
Speaker 1:So I think you know they're different. Food is a different motivator for different people in different ways. Also, ted brought him an army man and then Sam's like yeah, that doesn't do the same thing for me as it does for you.
Speaker 1:Right, so American imperialism yeah you really need to think about the motivators and demotivators, because not everybody has the same. That's why it's important to get to know each person and as an individual and not just lump all Players together in the same way. Right, if you gave Jamie tart chin chin, he would for sure not know what to do with that right out of the gate and and kind of getting to know.
Speaker 4:You know what motivates people. You know a lot, of a lot of Organizations whether they be businesses, teams Would have you try to do that through team building activities and, in essence, the the team party at the end of the game was a team building activity right, I have some sorts.
Speaker 4:I think sometimes team building activities, they're not well received. You have any thoughts about that and in how they, how those team building activities could be better or where they fall short, especially as it relates to understanding you know the different members of your team and what makes them tick.
Speaker 1:So team building just for the sake of an activity for sure falls flat. Right, you really need to go into it with the intent. You need to have a purpose for doing that. For sure, casual get-togethers and happy hours, etc. We'll start to create some shared experiences. But, extraverted as I am, I still don't go to happy hours as a team building activity. So team building has to be done intentionally and everybody has to have a chance to participate. And your goal is to really create a shared experience that lets you understand Not just someone else's operating system but how they fit in the bigger operating system.
Speaker 1:Right, and you mentioned the, the, the computer program in a phone. That is an operating system. Right, it powers that single phone. Fine, we are all individuals and have our own operating system to power up. Okay. But it is when we figure out how to make them work together that we get the synergy that gets the 1 plus 1 equals 3 situation. So team building needs to create that type of Connection amongst operating system. So it's that shared experience that allows you to really make sure the entire Organization is working together as one, which, like any team, is what Ted is aiming to do.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we won't get into it during this episode, but a key part to all of that in in the Interconnection of the team is communication, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll have what? Two to nine episodes where we talk about the power of communication, because that is a whole element of your own personal operating system, so much so that we actually separated your communication, you know, guide separate from your personal operating system, because we felt like you needed to focus on that.
Speaker 4:Yep, ted and beard. They also used the concept of a suggestion box, and it didn't necessarily work out exactly.
Speaker 2:Let's see what we got here Wanker. Let's see what else we got. Piss off, wanker. I hope you choke on a Big Mac.
Speaker 4:Have you ever used a?
Speaker 1:suggestion box. Well, I've never used a suggestion box, but I absolutely always have asked for feedback but or advice from folks, and there's some things to think about in looking at this. First, the way someone learns and grows is part of their personal operating system. So I learned differently than you learn. I take feedback differently, for sure, right, and so part of getting to know folks is getting to know how you can offer feedback and how you can receive feedback, and I think there are some interesting strategies for that.
Speaker 1:Wrensburg Hidden Potential talks about that. Feedback is very backwards looking, whereas when you ask folks for advice it's very forward looking. And I find that interesting that if you really want to help someone grow, or if you want to grow yourself, to ask for advice for what you would do in the future, you'll sort of stop belaboring over, maybe, mistakes in the past and look forward to something else that you could do. That said, I think in this suggestion box, ted is showing that he is open to feedback and he only did get one piece and you wouldn't think it was that important. The only thing they said, you know, roy said at the beginning so we're middle of the middle of the pack rubbish team, you know, looking at maybe relegation and you want to know if the snacks are tasty, which Jamie says, indeed they are nuts.
Speaker 1:But he does get one piece of information around that the water pressure is bad and at the end of the episode one of my favorite scenes is when Colin gets smashed in the face with the water pressure the water that I'm feeding. I can only get killed to the death. Careful son, the gaffer's, fixed the water pressure and the critical piece of that is, as small as that might have been, it shows Ted's listening. He's taking action on it. So my comments on feedback are you should always find a way to get that feedback, but if you don't do anything with it, it's you've actually hurt the broader team. So you have to do something once you get that feedback. You don't have to do all of the things, but you have to take action and have conversation around it.
Speaker 4:I love that. One of the things I appreciate is just how relentless Ted is in trying to understand what motivates those around him. Whether it is the suggestion box or quizzing Nate on each of the different players, whether it's trying to develop a relationship with Rebecca, seeking out Keely, can you imagine right? He's trying to understand what motivates Jamie Tartt. He doesn't get an answer right away. He actually leaves the office building, goes to a photo shoot to talk to somebody who's relatively a stranger in Keely to try to understand what is motivating her boyfriend also Ted's star player, key to success and the success of the team to find out what actually motivates him.
Speaker 4:And it makes me think. If I could go back in time, you know, whenever I started a new position or I was given a new team to leave or something in that regard, I wish the first thing that I would have done was just have a laser focus on the people what motivates them, as opposed to that kind of organically taking place over time, whereas most of the time when I would go into that position it would all be about job, function, role, what's the expectations of me, and less about trying to understand how those around me can help us as a team, do a better job. So what I think the key aspect of the episode was is that you know, as a priority one, ted is focusing on understanding what makes everybody around him tick, not the X's and O's of how to line up information on a soccer field.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not about the men's and losses, right, it's about helping everybody the men's version of themselves. That does remind me of what I consider a failure on my part at our company when the first person we hired six months in we had to let go because they were not aligned really with our company culture, operating system et cetera. And as reflection on that we started doing personal operating systems, built one it's on our website, for that matter, if you wanna see mine, right, litaliteglassocom, you can check out. We actually built operating systems for several of the characters you can check out Ted's and Roy's and Keeley's, et cetera.
Speaker 1:But we also asked U-Hires to fill out their own personal operating system and you mentioned the components of four right, your personal philosophy, your core values, your the motivators, demotivators, et cetera. And in doing that we were really able to see how they aligned with our way of the work and maybe there was a better way of work for them to operate still within having the company you know operating system function and I feel like it made a big difference in getting folks aligned to the life cycle way right To make things happen. I think that's exactly what Ted's doing. He doesn't have a handy worksheet so we could have helped him out there. But yeah, I think you're right, that's what he's doing.
Speaker 4:And you know, to be fair, a lot of organizations you know have personality assessments, right, and you know it's easy to understand. You know how to interact with different personality traits because it's posted in their email signature on their Slack profile what have you? But I think we're talking about a little bit more right. You know personality traits are a component of a personal operating system in our mind. But, gosh, it would be fantastic if you walked into a new position day one. You were on a team of 10 people above and below you and you were handed our personal operating system worksheet where you can understand not only their personality traits but what motivates them, what demotivates them, what their interest hobbies are. Imagine how powerful that would be. What a utopia that might be if you can walk into that.
Speaker 1:Makes for great story starters and for those introverted folks a place of common bonding, which I think is really what it takes to make the team as a whole gel.
Speaker 4:No doubt. All right, let's end with this First concert, best concert.
Speaker 1:Ah, first concert, Would you believe. My grandmother took me to Liberace when I was a kid or nine, so that's my first concert. Best concert, I wanna say when the Sugar Hill gang surprised us at an IT conference. But I will say that I was in one conference where Shaquille O'Neal was the DJ and when that man talked about an intimidating force. When that man tells a crowd to jump, they jump. So that was how about you? First concert, best concert.
Speaker 4:First concert was Rush in Madison Square Garden, where I learned in my teenage years what a contact high was all about. Best concert, I'm gonna say so. I'm not a big concert goer. I've probably gone to maybe 20 in my life. But I will say last summer we went to see Zach Bryan in Milwaukee and shout out to everybody in Milwaukee the concert was great. Don't get me wrong love Zach Bryan. But absolutely fell in love with the city of Milwaukee and I would highly recommend, if you have ever a chance, to go to summer fest it's like there is an outstanding thing to do.
Speaker 4:Nice, nice, all right. Well, next week, I believe, or next episode, I believe, we're gonna chat a little Transclerism. The independence.
Speaker 1:The independence Cannot wait.
Speaker 2:Yeah one of our favorite characters.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. This has been awesome personal operating systems for the win.
Speaker 1:Before you go, first, if you have any advice for us, please leave it in the comments. Second, we would love for you to subscribe. And third, let's wrap this up this week with John Wooden's pyramid of success, as always. If you wanna see our full results, you can go to leaditlikelassocom and check out the resources page. Today we'll take a look at Rebecca, ted and Jamie around the values of loyalty, self-control and integrity.
Speaker 1:John Wooden defined loyalty being to yourself and to those depending on you. Self-control is self-discipline and keeping emotions under control. And integrity is the purity of one's intentions. For loyalty, we gave Rebecca a three and we know why Ted gets a 10, he's in it to win it and Jamie is a six because he's really only loyal to himself. For self-control, rebecca's at a six. She can't resist those biscuits and she really can't control herself when it comes to her feelings about Rupert. Ted's a 10 and Jamie is a three. He can't stop himself In bullying, in talking to Trent, et cetera. And integrity, we're gonna give zero to Rebecca because of her behaviors, ted a 10, and Jamie rolling in at a six because he's pretty consistent. We just question what his integrity is building toward. See you next time on Lens of Leadership.
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