Matt Harr on The Eduleadership Show and The Reframing Room

0:00 Matt: ...good teachers. I've been lucky. I have 35 years of great principals and great ADs. I never had one that I could point at and say, this person was even subpar being a principal. They pretty much let me go in the classroom. And then if something came up, hey, your grades are behind, you're, you know, the little things, then they would remind me. And don't take it personal if you're a teacher. But administrators, I think they just need to let you teach.

0:30 Matt: The best evaluation I ever got was a principal. And by the way, I think principals should be able to walk in the classroom anytime. I don't think you should schedule your evaluations. I think principals should be able to walk in. That's their job. But the best one I ever got was, I was lecturing, and I don't lecture over 20 to 30 minutes, but a principal came in and sat down and put a dot everywhere I walked in the room. That's all he did. And I thought he was writing, and I thought I was in trouble. I thought I was going to lose my job. And I go, what is he writing and everything? I'm just teaching photosynthesis.

1:05 Matt: And he put a dot, and he walked out of the room. And five minutes later, when the bell rang, he gave me the sheet of paper. He goes, this is all I wanted to do. And he goes, you never walk by these kids over here that are always in trouble, your troubled kids. You're always walking by the students that have all the answers. And he goes, I'm not putting this in your file. Just thought you should know.

1:27 Matt: And that was the best, to this day. And that was 30 years ago. To this day, I make sure I walk around the whole class when I lecture. So there's little things that principals can do to help build that culture within a classroom, and let the principals talk. I love them when they come in and talk and they get into the lesson. But there's so much, and you probably know this more than me, there's so much pressure on principals and paperwork and stuff like that, that it'd be nice to see the principals...

0:00 Justin: Well, I'm excited to talk with you about leadership from a different perspective than we usually take on my shows, because you come from a largely coaching background. Take us into, if you would, some of the differences in perspective as you see them on leadership from people who are kind of in that athletics world versus those who are not, because I think there's some very interesting contrast there.

0:22 Matt: There is, but there really isn't when you get into the meat and potatoes of it. I think that when you're a good coach, you always want to build a good culture, because you want your teams to be competitive every year. Everybody can step into a program and say, look how good we are, because we have good athletes. But it's year after year after year after year. And then you also see that with teachers. Your good teachers are teachers that students want every year. They want that teacher.

0:57 Matt: And I think the perspective from the teaching standpoint, I think it's kind of changed over the years. When I first started teaching, it was definitely just coaches and just teachers. And if you were a coach, you were kind of an outsider. You had your own group, and the teachers did too. But as you see now in the real world, it's interesting to see a lot of the jobs out there are coaching leadership positions. And so they've taken that term and they've moved it to businesses, CEOs: we need leaders, we need culture builders, et cetera, et cetera.

1:33 Matt: And I honestly believe if you're a good coach, you have to be a good teacher, because I think the two go hand in hand. Teachers will, if you're a good teacher, you could be a good coach. And I think they work hand in hand, because it's all about building cultures. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. I mean, and it does take time. You don't get a suntan in one day.

1:58 Matt: So when you step into a program or you step into a classroom, you've got to earn that respect from your students or your players, and then you build on that. And then once they know the expectations, then you start to see that culture kick in. And you're going to have your good classes as a...

0:00 Matt: ...shows, I think, the students that you have a little bit of grace, maybe. But the simple standards you've got to uphold, and then, of course, raise the bar as you go. And if you have the support of your administration when the parents come in and they complain, I think that's where you start to build the culture.

0:17 Justin: Yeah. You said something that I think is really crucial there that often we think of the other way around. You said when students are held to a high standard and meet it, they feel good. And I feel like sometimes we focus on the opposite, where we think, okay, if I have a high expectation and the students don't meet it, they're going to feel bad. And you're emphasizing if we have a high expectation and they do meet it, well, that's how we raise the bar. That's how we get them, you know, in that kind of positive virtuous cycle of, you know, raising the bar, meeting that higher bar and doing better and better.

0:48 Matt: Yeah, yeah. And it goes back to relationships in the classroom. You have to build those relationships. If a kid's used to getting 60% on tests and they get a 69%, you may still consider it a D, but that's where the culture kicks in. You go and pat the kid on the back and say, you know, it might not be the hardest test all year, but you can stretch the truth a little bit and say, hey, this is the toughest test we've taken all year, and look at your score. Once they believe you're there, then you've got that relationship with them. You're not their buddy, but you're their friend.

1:25 Justin: And you're not giving them an A, right?

1:28 Matt: Yeah, you're not.

1:29 Justin: You're not lowering the bar.

1:32 Matt: You're just saying, okay, next time let's get a 75. Let's get you up...

0:00 Justin: ...not so much on students as on teachers. Like if the student does not get the top grade, then the teacher did something wrong. And I'm just curious what you see happening with parents on both the athletics and the academic sides, and kind of what they expect of their kids and their kids' teachers and coaches.

0:14 Matt: Boy, it's probably a good thing this is only a 45-minute presentation, or the show, because parents have changed over time. I just witnessed our crosstown rival at the big school I was at before. We had only lost to them once in 15 years, and they beat us. And I wasn't coaching, and I'm more of old school. The next practice is going to be really, really hard.

0:44 Matt: Well, to give you an example that I think encompasses teaching and athletics, the next morning the parents brought in cookies and milk for the players.

0:54 Justin: How old are the players here? We're talking...

0:56 Matt: High school. Varsity, yeah. And they brought in cookies and milk, and I was like, I heard that and I couldn't believe it. And I heard it from the janitor in the school that takes care of the gym, because he would always watch his practice, and he goes, you would have ran 'em to death. And now the parents are bringing in cookies and decorating locker rooms and buses and, you know, God bless them. I mean, they're trying, but the kids need to learn how to fail in an environment. That makes them tougher.

1:29 Matt: And I think the same thing goes with the classroom. We get a lot more parents coming in, but it seems a lot more geared at, you know, what are you doing as a teacher? How come my kid's getting an 88% and not a 90? Can't we just bump that up to a 90%?

0:00 Matt: In general, I think business owners need to do it too. If they make a mistake, if they do it consistently, then there's plan B, obviously. But my biggest thing is try not to take it personal. And if it does reach that personal level, then it's time to have a one-on-one conversation. If not, depending on the severity of whatever it is they're doing or what they did.

0:28 Matt: But I think that you really need to let kids and adults, young adults, or people in general fail. There's a lot of times, and I don't know if I'm answering your question right, but during a game, my assistants will be struggling and will give up 15 straight points and not score a point. And my assistants will say, you need to call a timeout. You need to call a timeout. And I would be like, no, I'm not calling a timeout.

1:00 Matt: Our kids are going to run into this situation 10 more times this year, and they need to pull themselves out of it. They need to learn to not get mad at themselves, not get mad at their teammates, and then simply pat each other on the butt and say, let's go. We're better than this. And I think if you do that in the business world or anywhere you're at, success will happen. And then you need to explain it to the kids. Or your employees.

1:27 Matt: I think that's the important part too, that you go out after the game or after the situation and say, this is why I did this. I wasn't quitting on you guys, but you need to figure this out. If not during the game, but in life in general. And that's why I can't figure out why so many businesses and education, we have so many meetings. And it's just, let the teachers figure it out. And then when they need help, make sure that your door is always open and they can come talk to you without you getting upset.

2:02 Matt: But I have a hard time with people in director roles or CEOs or principals, superintendents, whatever you might have that they want to try to fix everything, and they don't want it. They think one little stumble is going to bring the whole house down. And it really doesn't. You can replace that brick on the wall and then build more if you let them learn how to do it.

2:32 Vicky: I think that's really insightful, Matt. And it shows, doesn't it, what a good analogy sport is for work and life in general, very often.

2:43 Matt: And they, I mean, when I was what, and you probably know this, 15, 20, 25 years ago, there were never job openings for coaches or leaders or they never had that title. I mean, and now you get on the internet or you get on LinkedIn or Indeed or one of those sites and how many leadership and then slash coaching jobs do you see? They call it coaching now because you coach on the field.

0:00 Matt: Actually, one of my favorite moments was my coach, my senior year in baseball at college, and I was very competitive. And I was looking to get drafted by a Major League Baseball team, and so I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I also put a lot of pressure on my teammates, because I was captain of the team, and we had lost a doubleheader, and it was to our rival school. And I guess I was out of control, and I didn't even ride the bus home.

0:36 Matt: My girlfriend went to school there, and she took me to my dorm room. I just walked in the dorm room, and the lights were off, and I thought, you know what, I'm just going to sit down and have a beer in the pitch dark. And I was so mad at everything around me, and I hear the door open behind me about five minutes later, and then I hear the fridge open, I hear a beer open, and this person sits right beside me, and it's pitch dark, so I don't even know who it is, but I'm thinking, I don't want to talk to anybody.

1:08 Matt: It was my head coach. And he put his arm around me, and he goes, he goes, Matty, that's what they called me back then, he goes, you're too wrapped up in the situations and being a captain. He goes, your friends are always going to be your friends, but you're losing the respect of your players, because you're too competitive.

1:34 Matt: And from that moment on, I played the best I ever played, and I ended up getting drafted because of him, and I played a little bit in the minor leagues in baseball, and to this day, I hope to make it back out, I played baseball in Iowa, which is right in the middle of our country, and I hope to make it back to my school, because he's still there as an athletic director.

2:02 Vicky: Really?

2:03 Matt: Yeah, so that moment was probably a turning point, the biggest turning point along with marrying my wife, who has stuck with me all these years.

2:13 Vicky: Yeah, she sounds like a real support.

2:15 Matt: Yeah, she had to be.

2:19 Vicky: You talk about environments shaping behavior, not intentions. For someone listening, who's leading a team maybe or managing people right now, what does that mean in practice?

2:34 Matt: I think it means don't take things so personal. If a player does something that you don't like or that you know and the player knows isn't right, sometimes you have to remember that you're dealing with high school kids, whether it's a classroom or it's on the court or on the baseball field, football field, whatever it might be. In life.

0:00 Matt: ...in the classroom the first day you ever taught. I probably look back then and say, wow, you know, what was I thinking? First practice I ever coached, but that's called learning. Getting older and getting wiser.

0:14 Vicky: Well, sticking with the learning theme, when you look back across those 35 years and this recent transition into a completely new chapter for you, what do you think you've learned about yourself that surprised you?

0:31 Matt: Oh, that's a good question. I put this in my book. I got real sick about four years ago and I got a virus and they said I wouldn't make it through the night. I had about a 10% chance of living. When I woke up the next day, now I didn't know it at the time, my family did, but I didn't because I was all drugged up.

1:00 Matt: But I think after that, it was kind of a wake-up call. I think that's when I started really looking back at my life and the kids I've raised and the wife that I married. Being 59 years old now, I've really focused on not letting the little things bug me as much and focusing on being happy, like trying to turn situations around.

1:33 Matt: Sometimes you can't, but if you can't, you can't. If somebody doesn't like you, that's their choice. That's something that I've really grown into where 25 years ago, if you didn't like me, I didn't like you, but I'd lose sleep over it. Now it's kind of like in the profession I'm in, there's going to be people like the kid on Facebook that you're never going to change their mind. I don't worry about that as much. It's always nice to have a great partner like my wife and we can discuss things, but that's kind of what I've learned.

2:10 Matt: Looking back, I wish I could have learned that earlier. I think we all say that, that's really something I wish that I would have gotten a hold of, not that I wanted to be in a near-death situation earlier in my life, but I wish I would have figured it out in my 30s instead of my 50s.

2:33 Vicky: I remember reading a book that helped me realize that fact. It set it out really clearly that they'd done a lot of research and they had proven that statistically one in five people just won't like you. For no reason, as far as you're concerned, they just won't like you. That gave me some strange comfort.

0:00 Vicky: But that, you know, it wasn't me. It wasn't about me. It was about, it was about them and who they wanted to be around. And that really helped with that sort of lesson that you're describing.

0:13 Matt: Well, that's good. That's what I'd call an aha moment. And I'll use that too. I will, I will certainly tell my wife that too. We come across it a lot.

0:25 Matt: So we have our little code words, and when we're in a store, and I posted this on, I think, LinkedIn the other day on a code word called Lemon Tree, if we're shopping in the store and we look down the aisle and there's parents coming, and I've coached so long, sometimes I can't remember if they liked me or they hated me. So if one of us says Lemon Tree, we go down the other aisle. We don't even ask questions. We just kind of stay away because we don't want to be confronted or, you know, we don't even want to take the snub. We just mind to ourselves. So let's, we do little things like that that are kind of comical within our own walls.

1:07 Matt: And, but yeah, you're probably right. One in five people aren't going to like you, and you got to deal with that, especially if you're, there's times you're in the spotlight.

1:17 Vicky: It's for their own, for their own reasons. You could coin a new phrase now with your wife, can't you? There's the one in five.

1:25 Matt: There it is.

1:26 Vicky: Yeah, there it is.

1:27 Matt: Now, if you get up to four out of five, then you might want to go look in the mirror and say, there's something going wrong. Maybe we need to change them.

1:38 Vicky: So you're speaking to listeners from across the Atlantic, but these themes are all universal. For someone listening who's facing retirement or a crossroads in their career and wondering whether their best work is behind them, what would you say to them?

1:57 Matt: I would say that your best work is what got you where you're at. And now you just need to live off the fruits of your best work. And that, I don't know any other way to say it, that you work hard your whole life to get to the point you're at. And it's really not, you can go out and sit on the porch and watch the sunset and not have to worry about the, what we call the Sunday crazies.