Servant Leadership: How a jar can change the way you lead and serve | Ali Fett | TEDxFondduLac

[0:11]One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Within seven seconds of me walking on this stage, you made some assumptions about me. You can laugh. You did. And it's okay, we all make assumptions. It's human nature. It's not wrong. What is wrong though, is when we don't take the time to check out our assumptions and we believe everything we think. That can be destructive. It can lead to mistrust, poor communication, and damaged relationships. Later I'm going to share with you how you can dispel those assumptions with a concept here in the jar. But for now, allow me to be vulnerable and share a defining moment in my life. A story that taught me most about the assumptions I was making in leadership, about other people, the assumptions I was making in myself. You see the basketball had bounced for the very last time that season. The crowd dispersed and the scoreboard read 56 to 32. It was the season ending loss for the Lady Knights. And that was the first year, my very first year of coaching high school girls basketball. Now, I have to tell you it was my childhood dream, my one and only childhood dream to coach girls basketball and here I was at 26 with this amazing opportunity. It didn't feel so amazing. We had only won three games all season long. Three games. And I was distraught. I was frustrated, so I thought, I, I'm going to call the one person in my life that I know is going to support me. The one person that's going to validate my frustration. I picked up the phone and I called my daddy. I said, "Dad, I don't think I'm cut out for this. I don't think I can do it. The girls aren't listening. The offensive principles are not sticking, the defensive concepts, it's like they don't understand and I don't think they like to compete. Who doesn't like to compete? Do you know we won three games all season long? Three games. That's it, Dad. One, two, three. Three. That's it. Do you know how long of a season it is to have only won three games? Silence. He's still silent. Now, you have to know one thing about my dad. He is a tough Italian man. Very direct. And when he loves you, he loves you hard. And when he yells, well, he yells loud. But when he's silent, whoo. When he is silent, you know you're going to get it.

[3:34]So let me get this straight, Allison, you only want to coach when you win? If you think you were put on this earth and in these young women's lives to just win basketball games, well, I didn't do my job as a parent.

[4:02]You see my sweet daughter, you were placed in these young women's lives to teach them how to be confident. You were placed in these young women's lives to teach them to overcome adversity. You were placed in these young women's lives to show them what teamwork looks like and to show them how to set up goals and exceed their own expectations. And if you happen to win more than you lose, that's just icing on the cake, baby. I called for support. Didn't get that. I called for him to validate my venting and my frustration that it was pointed in the right direction at the players, not me. I didn't get that. Oh, no, I didn't get that at all. I got something much more. You see that day, my dad gave me a gift and it didn't feel like a gift at the time, certainly not. It didn't come with a package in a nice bow. It was a gift nonetheless. He gave me the gift of humility. You see, I was the problem. I was the issue. How I was measuring success in leading my girls was not serving them. It was serving me. That next year I went in and I said, hey, listen up. We are going to love, care, and respect one another. And if we don't win a game all season long, I don't care. You see that next year, I was intentional about making each team member feel like an essential piece, regardless of how many points or rebounds they had. That next year, I was intentional about giving praise and acknowledgement and filling people up often, thanking them for their hard work. You see that year I sought to understand by asking good questions versus always be understood. That next year, that second year of coaching, they went out and won a conference championship. Three years later, we played in the state championship game. You see, my dad didn't know it at the time, but he was teaching me my first lesson in servant leadership. He was teaching me that in that very moment I had a choice. He helped inspired me to choose to create the next best version of myself. You see, that's what servant leaders do. They inspire you to create the next best version of yourself. Our parents, our coaches, our workforce, our family, our friends, our neighbors, deserve a better brand of leadership. Dale Carnegie study shows us that 75% of people leave an organization, not because of the work that they do. It's because of their boss. A Gallup research shows us that 87% of workers worldwide, worldwide, sort their job as more of a frustration than that of fulfillment. And 60% of our lives is spent working or preparing to work. We are craving a better brand of leadership, and it starts with you. And it starts with me. But it's not easy. No, no, it certainly is not easy. And we need each other's help and support. So we need to be intentional about our practice and these seven concepts, um, you know, it's it's quite amazing how a simple jar can change the way you serve and lead. They're just seven concepts, they are common sense, but they are not commonly practiced. And I will tell you that these seven concepts have changed the way I work, live, play, parent, and ultimately love. So, let's start with the top of the jar. The cork. Sometimes as servant leaders, let's be honest, we just need to put a cork in it. We do. Right? Come on. Sometimes we need to just stop and pause. You see the pause is so powerful. When we pause, we can then respond to one another versus just react. When we pause, we can listen to what's not being said, leading to deeper trust with one another. The next concept is the puzzle piece, and I'm not talking about what you've normally heard like the essential piece, like, oh, make sure everybody feels like an essential piece of the puzzle. That's hard to do. You can't make someone feel that way. But you know what servant leaders do? They provide the conditions in a workplace for people to come and be exactly who they were meant to be. Servant leaders believe that when they allow their people the permission to be exactly who they were meant to be, and they bring their warts, their wounds, their scars, they will also bring their creativity, their passion, and their beauty marks, resulting in a deeper level of confidence. The next one, praise and acknowledgement. So, servant leaders understand that we all walk around with an invisible bucket. And based off of our interactions, we are either filling each other up or we are taking from one another. Servant leaders are intentional about filling people up and they do it, they do it often. And they're specific and they're genuine with their praise. The CEO of Campbell Soup wrote over 30,000 praise and acknowledgement letters to his team when he was serving as CEO. 30,000. And he was specific. He didn't just say, oh, thanks for your hard work. Thanks for your many years of service. Oh, no. It was specific, like he knew the people. He said, hey, I am so appreciative. Your discipline and your positivity, those strengths that you possess, they really shine through in that project you just did. And I'm sure you spend some late nights at work and we're away from your husband, Jeff and your two beautiful daughters, Lily and Ava. Let them know I appreciate that and send them my best. True, true appreciation. The assumptions and the, the ladder. Okay, so the ladder of assumption is, is a pretty broad concept, so I'm going to do my best. This is the concept I shared with you at the beginning of the seven seconds and the assumptions that we make and how to check those assumptions by flipping the coin and asking great questions. So, here's the thing. We all have this pool of data, okay? It's our own experiences. It's, it's how we were raised. It was, uh, education that we had, right? Maybe where we lived. All of those experiences, really correspond with how I'm going to assume things of you, of myself, and everyone for that matter. So, I'm going to give you a quick snapshot of my pool of data to try to explain this concept to you a little bit better. So, my given name is Ali Star, or Allison Starr, Starr, Navar. I was, oh, Bart Starr, you have to know that I'm a Packer fan. Big time. Big time. Thank you, go Wisconsin. So, um, I was raised in the Chicago area. My parents got divorced at five. I was raised by my brother and my father. I love sports growing up. In fact, loved them so much I received a scholarship to play college basketball. I received a, uh, my major was in radio, TV, film, a master's in educational leadership. I work for the NBA, uh, NBC, um, NCAA. And I went on to be a personal trainer, an elementary school principal, and now I work at a credit union. I have two beautiful babies, uh, Vincent is six, we call him Vinnie, and Penelope Joanna is three. That is my quick snapshot pool of data. And what's happening is is you are selecting meaning that's important to you. Okay, so you're selecting meaning. Maybe some of you selected the piece about my parents getting divorced. Maybe there's some sort of connection. So you're trying to fill in the blanks and make assumptions about that. Maybe you're selecting the piece about, oh gosh, that's interesting. Why did her dad and her brother raise her? Has her mother passed? Is she still around? And some of you are probably sitting there thinking, gosh, she's pretty short. I can't believe she played college basketball. Yeah, that one is, it's true story. True story. And so as servant leaders, what happens is, is we fill these gaps in and it's not wrong people. It is not wrong. It's human nature. What's wrong is to believe everything we assume. That's why we need to flip the coin, seek to understand one another versus just be understood. Now, true story. My team member Broke and I were on our way back from an organization doing this exact training. And, uh, we're driving back, and all of a sudden someone cuts us off. Boom. I'm slammed on the brakes, cuts over three lanes of traffic, cuts three other people off and gets on the highway. Well, my Italian heritage, yeah, there was a lot of colorful expletives going on in you're making assumptions right now. What were those colorful expletives that were about to come out of my mouth? I know it. Um, and they're they were colorful. Ha. And so, what happened is, they got to about here. And then I remembered the ladder. And I looked at her and I said, whoa. I'm not going up the ladder, bro. I'm going to choose to assume that that person would have never put our lives in danger or anybody else's for that matter, if it weren't for an emergency that they were going to. Took a deep breath, positive vibes, we continued on our way. That's the power of checking your assumptions, asking good questions to seek to understand. The goalpost. So good leaders give effective, uh, goalposts, effective communication to produce great results, okay? But servant leaders take it a whole step further. Servant leaders know the power of empowerment. They want you to be creative. They don't want you to do the job the way they want you to do the job because I said, right? They want your creativity, your unique talents, and they want to empower you to develop the project in your own creative way. That's empowerment. They understand how important that is. And last and final concept, great servant leaders are transparent. And they allow for a safe environment for others to be transparent with them. They don't get defensive. Or if they do, they hide it really well. See, transparency is powerful. Servant leaders ask, how can I get better? How can I serve you better? They invite feedback in, and they're also not afraid to be confidently vulnerable. So, there it is. The seven concepts. Um, again, basic, right? They're common sense, but they're not commonly practiced. Bill Hybels, one of my favorite mentors says, everyone wins when a leader gets better. Everyone wins when the leader gets better. And so you've got some decisions to make today. How are you going to live out these seven concepts? Are you going to fill people up with specific and genuine praise? Are you going to be authentic and transparent with your communication? Are you going to ask great questions and seek to understand and then pause to hear the response? Or are you going to step back and say, Allie, I don't serve anybody in my organization. This is in for me. I want you to step forward and I'm going to challenge you to think about it like this. You, my friends, lead the most important person in this world, yourself. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Thank you.