Inspiring and Creating Vision with Jack Armstrong

Jack Armstrong:
If you’re going to lead people, you got to inspire people. You got to connect with them on a human level, an eyeball to eyeball level. They got to feel you. You got to be able to inspire them and get into their soul.

Mathieu Yuill:
Hey, it’s Mathiue Yuill from the Leading With Nice Podcast. I’m here with Jack Armstrong, an NBA analyst for TSN and the on-air in-game broadcaster for the Toronto Raptors. He met his wife at Niagara university, where he was the men’s basketball coach and his wife was a woman’s head soccer coach. Together, they raised three boys, who today are all in their twenties. He’s a three time winner of the Canadian Screen Award for Best Sports Analyst in a sports program or series, and is known for his signature Brooklyn Charm and great calls. Today, he’s joining me to talk about leadership. Jack, welcome to the show.

Jack Armstrong:
Mathieu, I’m happy to be here with you.

Mathieu Yuill:
So, I want to jump right into it. You, your whole career have been around high performance athletes. And often, these athletes when they come from their city, town, even country, they’re the best. That’s why they make it to that level. They’ve been looked at to be the leader in most of what they’ve done. So tell me, what does it look like when all these people that have been in leadership positions show up and now have to be around other leaders?

Jack Armstrong:
Well, it’s interesting. I would say a lot of these guys are the alphas. I wouldn’t say they’re the leader. Some willingly lead, and some willingly will stay in the background in terms of being verbal. But they’re high performance guys that really produce at an incredible level. They’re all alphas in terms of like leading by example from a standpoint of, “Hey, I believe in myself, I can do great things. Get out of my way.” On the other hand, in terms of leadership, in terms of vocal perspective, some are and some aren’t, and it varies.

Jack Armstrong:
And I think, I look at today’s athlete. I call it the cycle of, when they’re young, they’ve been enabled, then they’re empowered and then some become entitled. The three E’s. So a lot depends on how they kind of handle the process of being a superstar athlete. And then, at every level they go up, the pressure of how you handle that. So, I’ll give you an example. You look at a guy like Kawhi Leonard. Was he a leader? Absolutely. Was he a vocal leader? No, not at all. Was he a guy that led by example with his great work ethic, and did his performance scream volumes? Yeah, it did. But is he a rah rah sis boom bah go team go kind of guy? The furthest thing from it.

Mathieu Yuill:
Yeah, could you imagine? You wouldn’t even imagine that as somebody who doesn’t know him well.

Jack Armstrong:
Yeah. And a guy like Kyle Lowry, he leads with a blue-collar swagger and a stick your nose in there and a can-do spirit, the little engine that could. Can he be vocal sometimes? Yeah. Other times he’s just letting his game do the talking. So there are so many different types of leadership styles. And to me, I think that these guys all come together. The one thing they do have in common is they’re super talented athletes. The difference, I think, is it varies from player to player, what their style is in terms of mixing with the group and how they really want to lead.

Mathieu Yuill:
So,that is very interesting. Obviously there’s different styles of leadership, and you mentioned one common thread is their high super talent. Is there another common thread? We hear sometimes, talking about, locker room leaders or is that just another style? Or is there something that they do or possess? A way they act? Something they bring to the table that you see as common?

Jack Armstrong:
Well, I think the common thing, which I don’t know if it was Aristotle or Socrates or Plato or Joe, Bergson, Donagan, some real smart guy said “Excellence is a habit, not an act.” So I think the thing, Mathieu, that they all have in common is they have great habits. They have winning habits. They dot the I’s, they cross the T’s. They’re pros, they’re pros.

Jack Armstrong:
And I think ultimately, some operate in the realm of “I’m going to lead by example.” Some guys will lead by example and also verbally show you. And others will just do it all very quietly. But nonetheless, they get the job done. You look at CEOs and coaches and executives. They all have a different approach. Some are distant, some are extroverts. But nonetheless, it’s all about what’s the description in my mind? A vision,is seeing the end product before you start the journey. So if you’re a leader, your vision has to be, what do I want this to look like next week, next month, next year, three years down the line? Okay, now how do I incorporate my style to get the people that I work with to see my vision and to see that we all have to pull the rope in the same direction to get there.

Mathieu Yuill:
There’s a guy, Stephen Covey, that talks about beginning with the end in mind, which is exactly..

Jack Armstrong:
You have to.

Mathieu Yuill:
…you just described.

Jack Armstrong:
If you don’t, you’re just winging it. You’re making it up on the fly. You got to have a pretty good sense of, what do we want to get accomplished here? What is this thing? Are there going to be twists and turns and ups and downs and all that stuff along the way? Does the market change sometimes as things go wrong? Yeah. You get knuckle balls and curve balls thrown at you and you have to kind of shift gears. Yeah, definitely. But nonetheless you have to have something in mind that you’re shooting for.

Mathieu Yuill:
So what do you think causes players or leaders to miss that habit, formation of excellence? What do they get? What did they get that gets in the way of that?

Jack Armstrong:
Well, I think bad habits. You have good ones, bad ones, and I think bad habits get in the way of it. I think you could only really do three things well. Like dig down deep and say, you know what? So many times people are a mile wide yet they’re an inch thick. They know a little about a lot. I’d rather get the person who’s well-rounded, but is really good at X, Y, and Z. And they dial in and lock in to those things. So if you’re a player, only there’s a few magnificent players that can top the charts and get it done and be great at all phases of the game, most of the time to have a successful career and be really good. You got to figure out, Hey, where do I hang my hat on?

Jack Armstrong:
You know, my rebound or my shot blocker, penalty kill, my greater protecting the quarterback or a tremendous quarterback or what’s my bread and butter pitch, whatever it is. I just think that you have to come to grips with kind of, I guess, what is my mission statement? I think the good ones have a mission statement. They know what they want to get accomplished. That’s the vision seeing the end product. And I think the people that don’t get distracted, they have bad habits that take them on a lot of different paths and they lose sight of why they’re doing it, or they allow they’re trying to be everything rather than just be good at a few things. So I found that to be the case. And I see it not only in athletics, but I see it in the day-to-day real life because I think athletics those refill day-to-day real life.

Mathieu Yuill:
Oh, I 100% agree. So you and your wife has had a front row seat to seeing both athletics and the boardroom operate at high levels. If people don’t know you’re you and your wife are the parents to three handsome young men, they’re all there in twenties now. But I know that you were really intentional about teaching them leadership lessons growing up. What were some of the key lessons you tried to pass on to them?

Jack Armstrong:
Well, I mean, you do your best when they’re in their twenties, you still wonder on a daily basis, if you’re actually succeeding in that. Like you hope eventually. I’m a big believer in just on a day-to-day basis, character formation telling them what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. Tough love, being direct, being loving, accountability and trying to say things to them that are thought provoking.I always say if I could say one thing to you that helps you and it resonates, I’ve done my job. If I say more than one thing, we’re probably witnessing a miracle. So I’m hoping for some miracles, but I think what you try to do is you really try to get them to see the light. You know, what’s the thickets from the Eagles song already gone.

Jack Armstrong:
I’ll never forget my high school, ninth grade social studies teacher, Mr. Kennedy used to say. “Hey, you know what? You’re, you’re 14 years old at the time. And you guys are a bunch of knuckleheads.” He goes, “You guys can see the stars, but you can’t see the light.” Its my job’s to get you to see the light. And I feel like a water line. We have people that can see the tree, but they can’t see the forest. So I think as a parent, as a coach, as a CEO, as any kind of leader, it’s our job to get them to see the light. It’s our job to get them see the forest, the big picture. So it’s all about presenting situations to them that create a stimulus for thought and the ability to discern and the ability to kind of, how do I think, how do I approach? So that’s important.

Mathieu Yuill:
You had a ritual in your house. You had a whiteboard, in a house that you would write down, like a message. And that was a habit. That was an everyday thing. Tell me a bit about that. And that ..

Jack Armstrong:
I have a chalkboard. We have a mud room when you come in from the garage. So on a daily basis, when I was home at least, because I traveled a lot during the basketball season and during the season, I would do it kind of like once a week. I would have the quote of the day or the quote of the week. Now, with social media and all that stuff, I’ll text my kids anytime I see a quote or something I really like. I’ll send them a note with the quote. And again, I’m just trying to get them to think. I’m just trying to get them to ponder and think about it.

Jack Armstrong:
It’s funny, I’ll never forget, I was chatting with Luke Walton, who’s the coach of the Sacramento Kings. And I saw a story many years ago when Luke was playing, that his father would pack the lunches before they went to school, in a brown paper bag and his father played Bill Walton, the great ball ring, basketball hall of famer, played for John Wooden at UCLA and John Wooden was a guy that had so many great observations about the game of life, the game of athletics.

Jack Armstrong:
Bill Walton would write on the lunch bag every day, the quote of the day. So now you go to school and you’re in the cafeteria and you’re looking at this Brown paper bag and is, wouldn’t my dad right there today? So I’ve always tried to do it. I have one on the chalkboard right now at home, ‘Grateful for everything entitled to nothing.” So as we are in, as we sit here today on December 20th and the holiday season, I think we take a lot for granted and we don’t count our blessings enough. You just try as best as you can to kind of get them to see that proverbial light.

Jack Armstrong:
And I think the best coaches do that. I’ll never forget, when I started coaching, I was a coach at Nazareth High School in Brooklyn. And the athletic director said to me, and I’m a young guy. And he said, “Look, your players see this much. We, as the adults, as the teachers, the coaches, we see this much. So it’s our job to stretch them out and get them to see the bigger picture. But every single day, when you come back in, they are back to here again.” So every day you got to fight the good fight every day, you got to challenge them. And the challenge is important.

Jack Armstrong:
I had a grade school teacher who used to say, this isn’t about your comfort. This is about your character. You know, you don’t learn anything being comfortable. You learn everything when your character is tested. What tests that? I think tension creates that. It’s that creative stimulus that gets you to kind of know thyself and look in the mirror and figure out who you are. So I guess on along what route, about way as a parent, I’ve tried to do that. My wife’s tried to do it as a coach. I’ve always tried to do it as a friend or a mentor, a colleague. I still try to do that to this day.

Mathieu Yuill:
When you spoke about, being cautious and wary of Entitlement. You’ve often in the past, we’ve spoken, talk about the importance of humility. And I love the story you give us an illustration about your call from sports illustrated. Can you share that story?

Jack Armstrong:
Well, it’s funny, true story. At Niagara University, the basketball coach, I get fired. I don’t win enough games. And then I get hired by the Toronto Raptors. And here I am three weeks after I got hired by the Raptors, the phone rings at my house. Now, actually, by the way, I just got rid of my home phone three weeks ago.

Mathieu Yuill:
Congratulations.

Jack Armstrong:
It was costing me $90 a month. It’s a biggest scam going. Nobody calls my home phone anymore. You know,

Mathieu Yuill:
Telemarketers,

Jack Armstrong:
Telemarketers? So I got rid of it, but [crosstalk 00:15:37]

Mathieu Yuill:
Try duct cleaning.

Jack Armstrong:
Duct cleaning, Yes, but at the time I had a phone, so the phone rings and I’m upstairs, my wife’s downstairs. And she goes, “Jack, pick up the phone.” I said, “who is it?” She goes, “Sports Illustrated”. My Sport Illustrated? I’m walking to the phone, feeling good about myself. I say, I was the NCAA division one coach for 14 years. Not once that sports illustrated ever called me. Here I am now three weeks ago, I got hired in the NBA and I got sports illustrated, Call me at home. This is pretty cool. So I walked to pick up the phone and I go, “Hello.” And the lady on the other end goes, “Yes this is Sports Illustrated.” I go, “Yes.” I know it Sports Illustrated. She goes,”Is this Jack Armstrong?” I’m like, “Yes, this is Jack Armstrong.” She goes “For 1995, you can get a use subscription to Sports Illustrated.”

Jack Armstrong:
That’s a true story. And I’m like, you know what? Don’t take yourself too seriously. You’re not that big of a deal, but there’s so many cool things that happen in life that humble yet. And I think that to me, I think it’s important to have you humility, to have a good way of consistently poking fun at yourself and be able to laugh at yourself. I’m sure you’ve heard me on TV, radio. And I like to have fun. I can also be deadly serious as well within a span of two seconds, but I like to make myself the joke. You know, I’m not a big fan of mocking people and being sarcastic. If anyone deserves to be mocked, it deserves to be me. And I have fun with it and we just have fun with things. So just try to be humble and have a good time with it. I think people enjoy it.

Mathieu Yuill:
So just a couple more questions real quick. I want to finish this conversation, talking about your brand of leadership. You’re a national figure. They write about you in the national newspapers here. You’re on television from coast to coast.

Jack Armstrong:
And paying a lot of people off Mathieu. Its the greatest scheme goal. Let me tell you.

Mathieu Yuill:
But they describe you. People like know you in the media, describe you as authentic and authentic. Every man who speaks with passion from your heart. So thinking of those people that maybe have just a handful of years and in a leadership position, maybe they’re a new manager. They’re going to move into a bigger role where they will have other high-performers around them. What is just very quickly like one or two thoughts you want to leave them with to help them be successful?

Jack Armstrong:
Oh, I think the biggest thing is you got to be yourself. You can’t be a phony,

Mathieu Yuill:
Right.

Jack Armstrong:
You got to be real. Cause people see right through it If you’re not. You got to be you because, this is not a dress rehearsal. You only get one chance and if you’re going to succeed or you’re going to fail, you got to do that with your signature personality. So I think that’s number one, number two, I think your in the people business.

Mathieu Yuill:
Right.

Jack Armstrong:
And I think social media and the internet and texting and all that kind of stuff is destroying human relationships. I think you if you’re going to lead people, you got to inspire people. You got to connect with them on a human level, an eyeball to eyeball level. They got to feel you, you got to be able to inspire them and get into their soul.

Jack Armstrong:
They got to be able to feel that, Hey, you know what? If I’m working for this guy, I trust him, I like him, I respect him, I’m going to work hard for him, Cause I don’t want to let him down. And I enjoy being there with him.

Jack Armstrong:
I went to Fordham and when I was a coach at Fordham, my office was in the Vincent T Lombardi Athletic Center. Then some boy was playing football and is a graduate of Fordham. Can you coach like Lombardi? Now? I don’t think you can do. I think Lombardi would coach like Lombardi. Now I would say, no. You can’t be that taskmaster. And that, I just don’t think at this stage of the game with today’s young people that works. But can you still challenge them and create tension in a way that gets them to see the light?

Jack Armstrong:
Yeah, absolutely. You always tell them, you always see yourself, but in a way that I think today’s player, I think today’s employee. They not only have to respect you. They got to like you but you got to earn that.

Mathieu Yuill:
Right.

Jack Armstrong:
You got to earn the respect and you got to be willing to do things that get them to see your human side. You know, and to me, I think that’s a critical element of leadership today. It’s got to be more of a human element. And the problem is that the phone and all that stuff gets completely in the way of the interaction that you got to have.

Mathieu Yuill:
Finally, Jack, that was amazing by the way. But finally, it’s not a secret, I’m on a big Jack Armstrong and myself, my wife gifted me a “Hello hat.” I’m showing you a picture, in my “Hello Hat”. People are always asking me on the street. Like where can I get Jack Armstrong gear?

Jack Armstrong:
Really? That’s good.

Mathieu Yuill:
I hear that all the time. I need this. Get myself an affiliate relationship with the Jack Armstrong store. So tell me where. First of all, I’d just love to know how did this come about? Well, where can people get this smell from?

Jack Armstrong:
We’re sitting right next to the Scotiabank Arena. And we have a game tonight. The people at end trippy, which they do all the gear for Maple Leaf Sports and entertainment wrapped is the Leafs Toronto FC. The Marleys the nine Oh five. And I was at a party one time and I met the guys that own it. And we were just chatting. And they said, man, have you ever thought of putting like the stuff you goofy stuff you say on TV, on a hat or a t-shirt people would love it?

Jack Armstrong:
I’m like, no, I never thought of that. So, well, we’d love to. So I met with them and they’re like, this is a home run. Am like really? I said, okay, so they started this site, hellojack.ca. and people go to the site and they order sweatshirts and Christmas sweaters and hats and tuques. So there’s not a game that goes by that, I’m not taking a picture and signing an autograph of someone that has a hat or a tuque or a t-shirt or whatever. So it’s gone really well, and thanks for mentioning it. And if folks want to have that last minute stocking stuffer or birthday gift or whatever the case may be, it’s a pretty cool site to go to. hellojack.ca.

Mathieu Yuill:
It’s great. People love it. Well, listen, Jack, really thank you so much for sharing your leadership insights today, loved the reflection on being wary of it. Entitlement. And I really loved some of your advice for parents out there as they seek to like try to help their children be the best they can be.

Jack Armstrong:
Well you know I’ll just finish with this leadership. You got to make hard decisions. Sometimes they’re unpopular as long as they’re fair and you’ve kind of seen all sides of it. You can only do your best. And you know, I mean, I look at people that are in public office. That’s a thankless job. Now, if they’re leaders versus politicians, that’s a dramatic difference. I’ll follow the leader. I don’t want anything to do with the politician because they’re just trying to get reelected. But when I get to meet people that have a true value system and a backbone, and they stand by their thoughts and beliefs and they’re fair, and they listened to the other side and put themselves in the other person’s shoes, and see all the viewpoints and then make an educated decision, Well, I respect that at the very least, but again I think so much of it is trying to get a sense of what the other person is feeling and thinking and trying to articulate it as best as you can and inspire them and connect with them.

Jack Armstrong:
I think the best leaders connect on that human level. I’m so fortunate to have had a career as a coach. And now this career as a broadcaster, I still feel like I have the best seat in the house because I get to watch how owners own, how executives execute their game plan, how coaches coach, how referees officiate, how support staff, how they do their job, how players play, how broadcasters broadcast and it’s remarkable and being able to bring it all together. But the one common theme that I see time in timeout that will never change is the human dynamic. We’re in the people business and the people with the best habits, the people with the best character and the people that are sincere and honest and care and have passion succeed.

Mathieu Yuill:
Jack Armstrong. Thank you very much. I look forward to hearing some more great calls on television and for looping back on more leadership conversations in the future,

Jack Armstrong:
Mathieu, my pleasure hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday and merry Christmas.

Mathieu Yuill:
I want to thank our listeners,to learn more about this topic, visit Leading With Nice.com and on our way out. I want to thank the people that help make this podcast come together. Jeff Ann Horn, Andrew Park, Austin Pomeroy. They all are involved in the production of this, and I am so grateful for them. So for getting with Nice, my name is Mathieu Yuill and we want to help you inspire others, build loyalty and get results. Talk to you next time.