Dissecting the Leadership Style of Penn State's James Franklin: A Deep Dive into Values, Vision, and Victories

Episode Transcript
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Nate Prosser (00:04):
All right, welcome back to Leadership Chalk Talk.
Thanks for tuning into thisextra special episode.
Football is in the air.
People, I feel like this hasbeen the longest off-season of
my life.
I have never been more excitedfor Penn State football.
I'm also a little excited forSteelers football, but we'll

(00:25):
save that for another pod.
I've got a couple special guestscoming up today to talk James
Franklin and Penn State football.
Before we dive into that, let'shear from the man himself.
Let's hear from James Franklin.
All right, I am 100% bought inAwesome to hear James Franklin

(01:16):
kick us off.
I'm really excited to talkabout his leadership and what he
brings to Penn State footballBefore we dive in three ground
roles attitude of gratitude,learn don't burn.
And actions, not jacksons.
So we're gonna learn from thethings that James does well and,
of course, offer some critiqueand things that he could do
better.

(01:36):
From a leadership front, we'regonna go through five segments
today, five core leadershiptopics and five things that he
does that we're gonna talk about.
We'll round that out with somegood Penn State talk too.
So for the fellow Nittany Lionfans out there, I think you're
gonna love this one Joining metoday for this awesome
discussion.
I want to welcome back my goodfriend, zach from the Joe

(01:58):
Paterno podcast, where we brokedown Joe Paterno's leadership
and thought it would be awesometo bring him back full circle to
talk about James Franklin.
So, zach, welcome back man.

Zac Phillips (02:09):
Awesome to be back .
I'm as excited as you are, soit's gonna be a great season and
a great podcast.

Absolutely, and joining us for our three man
weave, we got the tailgate kinghimself, our great friend Andrew
Andrew Kennedy.
Andrew, welcome to the podcastman, thanks for having me guys.

Andrew Kennedy (02:28):
Always a good day to talk Penn State football.

Yes, sir, all right.
So to get this going, we'regonna jump right in.
We're gonna start off withJames Franklin and his
background as a Penn Statefootball coach and as a football
coach.
So, zach, can you give us alittle bit of a primer of
Franklin's career as a coach?

Yeah, so going way back, Franklin is from
Pennsylvania.
So he kind of famously saidwhen he was hired he's a
Pennsylvania boy with a PennState heart, Went to East
Straussburg, played quarterbackthere.
So East Straussburg's a littleDivision II school in
Pennsylvania.
Various position coaching widereceiver, defensive back,

(03:10):
quarterback coaching roles.
Throughout his first few yearsin the coaching ranks Became the
offensive coordinator andassociate head coach at Maryland
and then left there for hisfirst head coaching job, which
was at Vanderbilt University,which is in the SEC private
school in Nashville.

(03:30):
He was only the thirdAfrican-American coach in the
SEC.
He was the first black coach ofany sport at Vanderbilt and in
his three years at Vanderbiltthey went to three bowl games.
The last two years he went nineand four in each of those years
and for those of you who mightnot be super familiar with

(03:51):
Vanderbilt football, it's not atraditional powerhouse by any
means.
It's a great academic school.
It's on the level of a Duke ora Stanford or a Northwestern and
typically the football resultshave matched as well.
So three bowls in three yearswas almost an unfathomably

(04:11):
impressive run at Vanderbilt.
So coming out of that 2013season Penn State we had
previously gone through theJerry St Dusky scandal which we
talked about on the Joe Pod.
Bill O'Brien was our coach fortwo years and then after the
2013 season he left to go to theNFL.

(04:32):
So we needed a new head coachand we did the due diligence on
James Franklin and hired himstarting in the 2014 season.
So first two seasons a littlerough seven and six, but again
we're still coming off some ofthe sanctions related to the
Sandusky era.
2016 was really thebreakthrough year.

(04:55):
So went 11 and three that year,had an upset in the whiteout
over number two Ohio State,which is kind of the signature
win of Frank's career up to thatpoint.
Lost in the Rose Bowl but wasan incredible game.
2017, expectations super high.
Went 11 and two that year andwent to the Fiesta Bowl, which

(05:17):
is another prestigious year, ourprestigious Bowl A couple years
after that.
Decent results but never reallygetting over the hump, and
that's kind of a theme we sawnot only in 2018 and 2019, but
kind of in 2022 as well, andthat's something I'm sure we'll
come back to.
Built a really strong program,but sometimes it seems like

(05:39):
we're kind of one tier below theOhio States and Michigan's of
the world who we play every yearand have historically not done
tremendously well against.
So you know, that's that'swhere I pass it off to Andrew.
Kind of be interested to gethis perspective.
You know, from a numbersperspective, james has had a
great run at Penn State, but howwould you rate the success of

(06:02):
what he's done so far?

I think it's been a very successful 10 year
at Penn State.
If I were to tell you that he'shad four 11 win seasons, how
would you guys react to that?

I think that's pretty impressive.

So four out of nine.
But but when you dig deeper,really the first two years no
one's going to count.
He was coming off ofunprecedented sanctions from the
paternal scandal, and then also2020, he had to face COVID.
The season was supposed tostart in September.
They canceled it.
They restarted in October, sowe take those three years off of

(06:41):
his record.
In the six let's say normalcoaching years he's had, four of
them have gone for 11 wins.
That's a resounding success.
In my book.

Fair to say, you're also ready for more and
to take the next step.

Yeah, I'm not.
I know we're going to get intothat later in the pod.
There's definitely more stepsto be taken.
The question really is can ourprogram take them?
And there's multiple reasonswhy they can or can't.
But I think we're going to getinto that later in the pod.

Good stuff, all right.
So, zach, thanks for thanks forthe background, andrew, thanks
for the context of againthinking about where the program
was.
With the sanctions coming offof Bill O'Brien and then going
to the NFL Would we even be ableto get a high quality coach at
that point was a question and tobe where the program is now,
andrew, as Andrew said, aresounding success, also ready

(07:35):
to take the next step, and whatwe want to do here is dive into
some of the leadership skills,capabilities and behaviors that
Franklin has demonstrated andcontinues to demonstrate to see
what we can learn from that.
We're going to do, as I said,five segments.
Segment number one is going tobe about core values.
Franklin talks a lot about corevalues in the program, so let's

(07:57):
play a clip of him breakingthat down in a team meeting of
what the four core values are atPenn State.

Clip of James Fanklin (08:05):
Let's go through these core values.
We spend way too much timespending energy on focusing on
things outside of our control.
You can control every singleone of these.
You're going to wake up everysingle morning with a great
attitude, just that approach,waking up and being appreciative
and positive.
You're going to maximize theday.
Work ethic that's somethingthat you can control.

(08:27):
You can outwork everyone,starting at your position, that
on the defense, that on a team,that in the conference, that in
the country, compete on thepractice field, compete in the
weight room, compete in theclassroom, compete in everything
you do.
Most of you guys thrive incompetitive situations.
Iron sharpens iron.

(08:48):
It's the best opportunity foryou to maximize your potential
and give you the best chance tohave an impact on this team and
then sacrifice.
It's being willing to make theright decision moment after
moment, and typically the toughdecision, because you're willing
to sacrifice small things nowfor big things later.
All these things are notfootball, they're life.

(09:10):
They parallel each other.
It is all the details andeverything matters.

All right, so he goes through the core values,
ends there with everythingmatters.
Andrew Zach, do you want totalk a little bit about ways you
see those core values show upwithin the Penn State program?
We'll start with the programfirst, then we'll talk a little
bit about business.

Yeah, I'll hit him first.
We'll go in the order that helaid him out.
So the first one, positiveattitude.
I think there's a lot of waysthat you know, I kind of
correlate positive attitude withfun, and certainly there's a
number of ways that he goesabout making everything fun.
You know, for some of yourlisteners who might not even be

(09:57):
that familiar with Penn State,might be familiar with Chad
Powers, who Eli Manning famouslyplayed a walk on Key, and
Michael Key has impersonatedJames Franklin before.
Just a few of the ways that hekeeps the fun in there and
brings a really fun attitude tothe program.
And then there's also kind ofbringing that positive attitude

(10:22):
in situations that are a lotharder.
One that stands out to me is welost a really tough game to
Michigan State in 2017.
And one of our players wasrunning off the field after the
game and wasn't going to sayanything to Michigan State.
He was just kind of going backto the locker room, as you see a
lot of athletes do, andFranklin sprinted like 50 yards

(10:46):
after him to get him to comeback and shake hands and do that
positive thing and reinforcethat in a time that wasn't
probably the most fun for anyonethere.
So you really see kind of thatpositivity imbued in the whole
whole program.
The second one, one being worthwork ethic.
There are numerous examples ofone thing he he stresses over

(11:12):
and over is that the players aregoing to go to class and when
they go to class they have tosit in the front row and a lot
of times you'll see playerstweeting on their social media
at eight in the morning picturesof them sitting in the front
row of a class to show thatthey're there and it's really
good to see that work ethic.
There's a lot of obvious waysthat the work ethic goes into

(11:32):
the athletics and the footballpart of the program, but seeing
that he translates that outsideof football as well really
reinforces that it is a corevalue of the program and him as
a whole, as opposed to just thefootball coach or the football
aspect of it.

And I think that allows him to get buy-in from
his players and that goesdirectly towards another core
value, which is sacrifice.
He actually brings the team inon Sundays, you know, the day
after the game.
I've never heard of anyfootball team practicing the day
after the brutal 3-1.5-hour,4-hour college football game.
They go over every positive,every negative play and they

(12:16):
flush it down and then theystart the week new on a Monday.
But getting these college kidsto sacrifice their one day off
to come in and practice to meshows the teams buying into that
core value.
And then the last one is compete.
Compete in everything you do.
You know, one of the thingsthey do this in the weight room
is they list all the liftingrecords by position for each

(12:39):
lift.
So you're not just going inthere getting through your
workout, getting through the endof the day, you're competing
not only against your teammatesbut your previous teammates,
because you want to set thatrecord within your position
group.
And then I'll go down the smallstuff.
I mean watch a game, even ifthey have a touch back, no one's
lolly-gagging off the field onkick coverage.

(12:59):
They race down the field andthe first one across the goal
line wins.
So the biggest things, like theweight room, and the smallest
things like kickoff coverage,they're competing at every
second in this program.

One more thing on the compete and the competition
side of it.
You know, as we're sitting here, we've been talking about the
season back and forth and we'reall talking about Drew Aller,
who's our superstar quarterback,who we all assume is going to
be the starter.
You know, as we sit hererecording this, he actually
hasn't been named the starteryet because James Franklin is
very adamant that there is acompetition going on in the

(13:31):
quarterback room for who's goingto be the starter.
So, whether or not we believethat or whether that's just kind
of coach speak, it does go toreinforce that particular value
and how he treats every positionbattle, even the most important
one.

Yeah, thanks, guys .
I think that was an awesomeillustration of how the core
values come to life.
So I want to now turn this tobusiness and our profession.
So I'll share a little bitpersonally and then you guys are
welcome to share.
You know what feels fair to youas well.
I've shared on this podcast.
I work for Wawa.
The culture of Wawa isincredible and has been written

(14:08):
about and studied in a lot ofdifferent ways.
One of the really cool thingsis there's six core values at
Wawa.
I'm not going to rattle themall off.
You can go on Wawacom and lookat them.
They're posted, explains whythey're important.
But what is so powerful, bothin the example of Penn State and
for me at Wawa, is they aren'tjust words on a wall that aren't

(14:30):
talked about, that aren'texplained, that aren't used for
decision making.
They are embedded in everything.
So when memos come out and bigdecisions are made, the values
are referenced of.
We made this decision becauseof the value.
I've been in meetings where adecision is about to be made and
someone will stop and say, hey,are we valuing people?
Value people is one of the sixcore values at Wawa, so it is a

(14:54):
gut check.
It is a North Star, if you will.
That can guide all decisionsand it can also help explain
things to your team, to theorganization, of why you are
taking certain actions, becausethey align to the values that we
care about.
And when employees see thatlevel of consistency and they
understand the why, right, it'seasy for a coach to say, hey,

(15:16):
like run through the kickoffcoverage.
It's a lot easier to say runthrough the kickoff coverage
because we compete in everythingthat we do.
That's how we win at Penn State.
We compete in everything.
So you're attaching thisconstant why to the actions
which can enable people to, one,accept things and then, two, to
give maximum effort and to havemaximum buy in.

(15:37):
And also, from a businessperspective, it often leads to
retention, right, because peopleunderstand the why that things
are being asked of them, so theyfeel more committed to the
organization, because theconsistency is reinforced in
their brain and they feel betterabout what's being placed in
front of them.
So wanted to really call out theimportance of that.
Now, if your organizationdoesn't have core organizational

(16:01):
values, you can take that astep within your team.
You can create core valueswithin your team and say, hey,
these are the three, four, five,six things that we're going to
care about as a small unit, andhere's how we're going to talk
about that definite calledaction for listeners.
If you don't have core valuesin your organization, think
about how you can pull them intoyour team.
If you do have them, thinkabout ways that you can

(16:23):
reference them more and use themfor decision making.
Before we move on to our nexttopic, zach Andrew, anything you
want to share about kind ofyour experience in current
employer or past employer aboutcore values.

Yeah, my corporate story is a little bit
like yours, nate.
We didn't always have corevalues where I work, but they
were brought into play about thetime I joined the company.
So a little backstory a yearprior to me joining my company,
we lost our founder CEO,chairman of the board, in a
tragic accident and the companywas lost.

(16:56):
We were privately owned and wedidn't have a lot of direction.
He was our unofficial mascot.
He was the life and thecharacter of our company.
So our CEO at the time and ourboard of directors got together
and they created seven corevalues for our work and it has
been the beacon of our companyever since.

(17:16):
To your point, when we're makingbig corporate decisions, we
look to those values as aguiding light.
And the thing that sticks withme our CEO said at the time when
he rolled him out is you know,the leadership of our company
could change, our employeescould change, our business model
can change, but our core valuesare never going to change.
And I think that is somethingthat has just stuck with me, you

(17:39):
know, personally andprofessionally, and also allows
me to connect with someone likeFranklin, I think.
I see I had a high with him onsome of these topics and it just
resonates and he talks about.
You know, you can ask more ofpeople when you set a certain
bar and can explain to them whyyou need them to do this.

Yeah, I would say from my perspective I haven't
necessarily worked at a lot ofplaces that had explicit core
values.
But not having those explicitcore values in a sense allows
core values to kind of take rootand become organizational kind
of trademarks and they might notnecessarily be the core values

(18:21):
you want to take root.
And part of that too is, Ithink, how people up and down
the organization treat thosevalues.
So just kind of thinkingthrough some jobs I've had and
thinking of them through theprism of James Franklin's core
values you know sacrifice andwork ethic.

(18:41):
I've worked at places wherethose weren't explicit core
values but they were very muchexpected for people.
But at the same time you sawmanagement or other people not
following those core values andI think that can really lead to
a deep motivational spiral whenyou see that type of thing.

(19:04):
Even if you don't have corevalues, people know what is
expected and if they don't seeeveryone upholding those values
it really can be a blow to theorganization.
I think.

Yeah, there are.
I'm glad you brought that up,zach.
So having stated values orstated expectations and then not
following them is the worstthing, right?
So there are famous stories ofcompanies that have a core value
of integrity and then are, youknow, under investigation for
crime.
So, like, what do those wordsreally mean?

(19:37):
Do they really guide theactions and behaviors of the
people underneath them?
So it is paramount that leaders,especially senior leaders,
uphold those values and livethrough them day to day.
So, for example, if Franklinwas not making sacrifice, if
Franklin was not competitive,those things are going to turn

(19:57):
into just lip service, right,that people are going to resent
and not buy into.
So, for the leaders out there,it's so important that you
personally buy into the corevalues, you live by them, that
you use them in your decisionmaking, and I would say, if you
don't feel like you can act themout, you're probably not in the
right place, right, and youprobably need to rethink and
find a place that's going tomatch your personal values to

(20:20):
the company's values.
Alright, so I'm going to pivotus to our second segment here,
and this is something thatFranklin talks a lot about,
which is the we'll call it oneand oh, philosophy, we need to
go one, and oh.
So, andrew, can I ask you tojust give a little bit of
history of Franklin's Twitteraccount around?
One and oh, and kind of whatthat's gone through.

Yeah, so it actually started out as he would
tweet out at the beginning ofweek his opponent's name, so
Indiana, indiana, indiana 75times in an effort to get his
team to focus on that game.
His philosophy was each game isthe Super Bowl and we need to
treat it that way, whether we'replaying Akron and the running

(21:06):
joke is or Pitt.
So they wanted to make sure theteam's getting up for every
game, and that's tough right.
I mean, look at Penn Stateschedule this year.
They're playing Delaware, whichno slouch to them, but they're
a Division 1AA, or FCS Divisionas they call it, and then
they're playing Ohio State,which is ranked second in the
country.

(21:27):
How do you ensure you're gettingup for that game and giving it
as much attention of it?
So this is the part of hisphilosophy to ensure his players
are giving it enough attention.
He has since positioned it fromIndiana, indiana, indiana to
one and oh, he felt like he wasgiving his opponents some Bolton

(21:48):
board material.
So he's moved to that to makeit less opponent specific.
But it's something I believe in.
I think we'll talk about itafter the clip here that I think
it's something I believe in asa core business model as well.

Yeah, perfect, I love it we're going from.
What we talked about is likemacro level expectations.
So these are the core valuesthat guide everything to really
targeted kind of micro goals orpriorities.
This is the top focus for thisweek.
So it's usually a little easierin a football sense because you
have a singular opponent.
In a business sense, it's alsoimportant to help your team to

(22:24):
understand what is most pressing, what is most important.
So some of the agile methodologyways of working where you're
sprinting and looking at things,and one and two week increments
so that you are focused on themost important thing and you
have other stuff in the backlogand you are constantly
prioritizing and reprioritizing,as a really powerful way to get

(22:46):
your entire team rowing in thesame direction, as Franklin
tries to do with his footballteam, and also to be working on
the things that are going tohave the highest impact and
highest net value to yourcustomers.
His philosophy of bring this tolife, of this is the singular
top priority.
Even though Ohio State islooming, we are only focused on

(23:06):
Delaware.
Whoever this week's opponent isis how he gets that level of
prioritization.
So let me play a clipsummarizing what Andrew
described of him talking abouthis one.
And oh, philosophy.

It really the message hasn't changed.
So in the past I would sayWisconsin 75 times and then Ball
State 75 times, because themessage was about our entire
focus needs to be on this game,this opponent, and being one and
oh.
So it's more just about.
I don't want other peoplemisinterpreting what we're, what

(23:42):
we're talking about, but again,no matter what you do, people
are going to find ways tocomplain.
Now they say always alreadysaying they're one and oh, last
week, and I wasn't nail thatthat wasn't the message.
Obviously I think as the seasongoes on it makes a little bit
more sense to people.
But I'm just trying to findways to be as concise and as

(24:03):
clear with our message, mostimportantly for our players, our
program and our fans.

Alright, zach.
Hopefully listeners got themessage.
Singular focus priority again,using like one and two weeks
sprints is a really powerful wayto do that.
Before we move on from thistopic, andrew alluded to this of
the running joke about Pitt.
Can you tell us a little bitabout that, how you felt about
his comments following a pickgame?

in 2017.
So actually to take a step backbefore that, 2016.
We played Pitt in the firstgame of a four game series and
they beat us and you know thatwas kind of their Super Bowl
understandably were a big rivalof theirs in their minds.
And in 2017, we beat them atour place and at the press

(24:54):
conference afterwards we hadplayed Akron the week before
that pit game and during thepress conference he made a
comment.
He said you know, we're one andO this week and we don't get
too high, we don't get too low.
For us, beating pit was justlike beating Akron and I'm sure
he did have some kind ofbackhanded intent in that

(25:17):
comment, but it certainly wasvery illustrative of that
philosophy that hey, it was justanother game, it doesn't matter
which team it was that we beat.
It makes me laugh to this daystill.
But I actually don't think itwas as out of character and out
of as backhanded a slap aspeople made it to be, just

(25:41):
knowing how he's continued to tochant that mantra.

He definitely had a good explanation for it, so
we'll give him that and for youand the other pit haters out
there, it gives you a goodchuckle to look back on.
Okay, so segment two around theone and O philosophy, micro
goals taking your macro corevalues and bringing them down to
what is the focus for the weekor the month or whatever it

(26:07):
would be.
So find ways to look at thatand find ways to pull that in.
Andrew Zach, any thoughts onhow you see that happen in the
business world?

I'll jump in here.
So I'm in sales and every yearwe always have a sales kickoff
meeting and they're alwaysasking us to push more, push
more.
And invariably someone sayswhat's your idea for selling
more junk this year?
Someone raises their hands andgoes we're gonna sell harder.
It's like wait a minute, youmean to tell me you weren't
selling hard last year?

(26:40):
And I think that gets to hispoint of accurate, accurate,
accurate, accurate, right.
I like naming the team 75 times, or it's the one and O, because
it points out that, yes, thisgame and this team is the most
important thing right now andyou need to give it your all.
So, in terms of a sales and abusiness perspective, we're not

(27:02):
gonna grow our sales at anorganization by just selling
harder.
We need to focus on the year,develop a plan, work the plan,
check and see how our work'sdoing and if we need to change
it, then act on the change.
But that's how I relateFranklin's narrative of
Wisconsin, Wisconsin, Wisconsinto the business world is you

(27:23):
need to focus on the current andwork as hard as you can again
the core value and achieve thegoals.
That way.

Yeah, there's a business analogy of that of like
the 20 mile march, which Iwon't get into the whole thing,
but it's essentially like if youhave to walk across the country
, you're better to walk 20 milesevery single day than like go
as far as you can one day andthen be exhausted and like sleep
the entire next day.
So it's about that consistencyof you know, in sales, every day

(27:55):
I'm gonna aim to hit my dailytarget and I'm not gonna push to
go above and beyond one weekand then crash and crater the
next week.
But it's consistency.
Do the same thing over and overagain, and that's again what
they try to do with the programis every week.
It's be consistent.
Have the game plan, execute thegame plan for this team.
Don't look above, beyond andoutside of that.

I have a question for mostly Nate, but both of you
guys, relative to this, becauseyou know it's one thing to
preach it and one thing that wehave talked about, unfortunately
, a couple of times throughoutFranklin's career at Penn State,
is how it doesn't actually seemlike it always goes that way,
particularly after losses, likewe always talk about.

(28:36):
Ohio State beats us twicebecause sometimes, coming off
the Ohio State game, we lose andit seems like we're sort of
deflated the next week.
So how do you kind of I thinkit's easy to preach one and O
when everything's going right,or the business equivalent of
one and O when everything'sgoing right but how do you maybe
bring your team back around?

(28:58):
Or, if you're an individualcontributor, how do you bring
yourself back around after whatwould be called maybe a loss in
the work or business sense?

The great thing about the business sense is you
kind of get unlimited gamesright.
You can lose two in a row andthen go win 100 in a row One you
wanna like.
Give yourself grace.
If you have a loss, don't tryto ignore it.
Work through it, it's all.
I always recommend talking to acoach, letting some of that

(29:29):
negative energy out, and if youhave a good coach, they can ask
you the right questions and getunderneath sort of what you're
hanging onto and what you canlet go of.
What I think you also sometimesneed to do and maybe this is
something Franklin shouldconsider is there is something
to disrupting the routine tooright.
So what I have found is, ifsomething doesn't go great with

(29:52):
a teammate or with myself, it'sreally helpful to like go out to
lunch or go to like a happyhour or get outside of the kind
of normal setting andenvironment that I'm in, because
that almost resets my brain.
Or I find that like listeningto a podcast or reading a book
or going through some sort ofslow meditation or something

(30:14):
that I don't do as often as Iwish I did that kind of rewires
my brain into a new way ofthinking that can help me kind
of let go of the past and getexcited for the future.
So I don't know exactly whathis conversations are like post
the high state loss or the toughloss, or what he does if he
tries to make it like right backsame exact week or if there is

(30:35):
an element of like, hey, we'regonna skip practice and we're
gonna go to Tussie Mountaintoday or we're gonna do
something like that, right.
So I don't know if that's theright choice for a football team
or a coach, but in a businesssetting I can say that it is
sometimes really helpful andpowerful to kind of remove
yourself from the setting andget a broader perspective, and
then that can help you to zoomback in.

(30:58):
All right, so I'm gonna shift usto segment three, and this is
about intentionally creating anenvironment and not letting the
environment happen to you.
So what I mean by this is whenyou are the leader, when you are
the leader of, if you work inretail, if you're the leader of
your store, or you are theleader within your team or your

(31:21):
department or your office oryour branch or whatever it is,
when you are the leader, as wekind of alluded to before, the
culture and the behaviors thatare accepted, sort of follow
what you allow, what you rewardand what you punish, right.
So if you allow lateness,you're gonna have a culture of

(31:42):
lateness.
If you reward things likeinclusivity and openness and
feedback, those things are gonnahappen in your culture, and
especially when you do them, youpublicly talk about them, and
so if you're intentional aboutthis, you can create a certain
culture.
If you never think about this,you're still creating a culture.

(32:04):
You just don't know what it is.
And so one thing that I thinkFranklin does a good job of, or
seems to be very intentionalabout, is creating a certain
type of culture within his team,within the building, within.
What he talks about is a family.
So I wanna play a clip actuallyfrom his introductory press

(32:26):
conference that starts to setthat tone a little bit around.
Here's the culture that we'regonna have at Penn State under
my leadership.

I'd like to introduce my family my wife
Fumi, who's here, and ourdaughter, shola and Addison, who
really run the show.
Shola and Addison are thebosses.
That's really what it's gonnabe about for us.
This family Now have twodaughters and 95 new sons.

(32:55):
A lot of coaches say that, butwe truly mean that.
My daughters, their favoritething in the world is the
football boys and their uncles.
My wife and daughters, willcome to the football facility
every day, whether it's to havelunch with us or whether it's to
come at the end of the schoolday or work day.

(33:15):
I think that's very, veryimportant.
We work long hours, workextremely hard, but we've
created a great environment inour office.
All the coaches, our wives andkids will come around.
I think that's very, veryimportant to what we're doing in
terms of helping young men growinto successful leaders that

(33:36):
are gonna have an impact onsociety one day.
See how they interact.
For them to see how we interactwith our wives, for them to see
how we interact with our kidsis a big part of that.
So that's very, very importantto what we're trying to do.
So at Penn State, I'll have twodaughters and 95 sons, and
every decision that we make inthis program.
We'll be based on that.

All right, andrew.
So he paints a prettycompelling vision of the culture
and the environment that hewants, that is, a family
atmosphere, not just inclusiveof his family and the coaches
family, but the 95 sons of theplayers on the team and how he
wants them to see interactionwith their coaches families to
see what he's going to model asthe right type of behavior and

(34:19):
sort of a family atmosphere.
So can you talk a little bitabout that, how you've seen that
, what you've heard in terms ofthe family environment at Penn
State?

Yes, the big thing that sticks out of my mind
is after practice and everyThursday they have a family
dinner where any staff membercoach, support staff, recruiting
staff can bring their entirefamily in for dinner and they
have it as a team.
So players are interacting withkids.
I've seen Franklin interactwith other staff members

(34:47):
children like they're his own,so he builds a very intentional
family environment by having onegiant team and family meal on a
Thursday evening.
The other aspect I've seen toois he, couple years ago, would
have dinner two times a weekwith one player from the team.

(35:08):
So he would go out to dinnerindividually with the teammate
and a player and focus solely onthem.

Very cool, definitely a family vibe.
I wanna play another clip.
This is an interview with AdamBreneman, a former player of his
, where Franklin talks a littlebit about his kind of
authenticity and his approach torelationships and why that's so
important.

And to me it was always about the
relationship first, therelationship with my teammates
and the relationship with mycoaches.
So from that point on I justreally felt like if we could
start everything based onrelationships and when you study
kind of the most successfulbusinesses and things like that,

(35:54):
beaver Stadium is awesome107,000, our weight room that we
just finished is phenomenal butat the end of the day, it's
about the people in the stadium,it's about the people in the
Lash building.
So I just have always believedthat if the players know how
much I truly care about them andtheir futures and their

(36:17):
families, then that's gonnaallow me to be really demanding
and challenging on them, becausethey know what's coming from a
good place.

All right, good stuff there.
So he talks about what I wouldsummarize as people don't care
how much you know until theyknow how much you care, right.
So if you don't focus at all onrelationships and getting to
know people, they don't carewhat you know about business or
they don't care about what youthink you know about their

(36:47):
career what's best for them?
Because they don't trust you.
They don't feel that sort ofauthentic connection point.
So he talks about like I reallylean into the relationship and
he talks further around kind ofhow his upbringing is enabled
him to feel comfortable in justabout every environment, from
rural to inner city, wherever itis.
He's really comfortable goingin to Hever's home and talking

(37:10):
to the parents and getting toknow them and striking up a
relationship.
So he has this really genuineauthentic style that can connect
to people and get people to buyin to what he's trying to do.
So this idea of creatingrelationships, being authentic
and using that to create theenvironment you want within your
team or your company or yourgroup let's talk a little bit

(37:32):
about that from the businessperspective.
So, zach, andrew, anything thatyou try to do personally for
your team or things that you'veobserved and others around you
that kind of create a certainand very intentional environment
and culture that you're around.

One thing I did personally last year which I'm
not a big kind of go aroundtalking to people type of guy I
sit in my office a lot and justkind of focus on my work and one
thing I did at the beginning oflast year is that my wife got
me one of those Nespresso coffeemakers and I brought that into

(38:12):
work and put it in my office andtold people like hey, come in
and get an espresso sometimesand let's just chat, and it's
actually helped a little bit,like some people do come in and
we just kind of sometimes youtalk about work, sometimes we
talk about something else, butit's just little things like
that that have kind of helped memaybe get out of my comfort

(38:32):
zone in terms of interactingwith co-workers and trying to
forge more meaningfulrelationships with them.

One way we've seen it professionally is our
company has what we callFounders Day, so it's a chance
for each local store to gettogether and celebrate not only
with everyone that works in thestore, but they can also bring
their family.
So this year we rented like alittle pavilion at a local minor
league baseball game and ableto bring everyone together, and

(39:00):
I think that kind of mirrorswhat the culture that Franklin's
trying to grow up Penn Stateright is.
You know, now that we'reinteracting on a personal level
and interacting with eachother's families, we all want to
pull in one direction a littlebit more.
Right, it's not just hey, I'mgonna go in clock in at seven
o'clock, out at four and getpaid every other Friday.
It's all right, we're a team,we're gonna work together, we

(39:22):
have common goals, commoninterests and we're gonna make
sure we want to achieve ourgoals.

Yeah, it's awesome .
Thanks for sharing guys.
So the call to action for thelisteners is being intentional
about the environment or theculture you want to create, and
I would highly recommend youactually write this down right.
Do you want to be approachable?
Do you want to make it feellike a family?
Do you want people to becomfortable offering you

(39:50):
feedback and being inclusive andbeing psychologically safe?
That's a really important pointin the research that people
feel like they can fail and theycan talk to you about those
failures and not have to coverthem up.
So, taking the time to writethose down right and it probably
goes a little bit to your corevalues and kind of the
environment that you want tocreate for the people that you
work with.

(40:10):
And then, what is yourmechanism to get a sense of how
well am I doing with that?
So, zach, if you don't mind meclicking into your story a
little bit, I love that you'reself-aware and open to say, hey,
I'm kind of an introverted guy.
My default is to go to mycomputer and be heads down and
to kind of focus on my work andthat's my comfort zone, but I

(40:32):
also acknowledge thatinteracting with my teammates
and with my group and havingcollaboration and getting to
know each other a little bit isan important way for us to be a
little bit more efficient and toprobably support each other as
we're working on similar stuff.
So one of the ways that I wantto enable that collaboration and

(40:53):
kind of relationship buildingis through my espresso machine,
because that is going to createa pathway for me to have
personal conversations andconnection points that otherwise
I wouldn't feel overlycomfortable, kind of going up
and popping by someone's officeor someone's cube to strike up a
conversation, but kind of thethem popping in and the espresso
and and that sort of opensthings up.

(41:15):
So I'm intentional first I'mself-aware, then I'm intentional
, then I create actions thatlead to what I'm looking for.
Everyone can do that.
Everyone can have a level ofself-awareness of where they are
and they can have an intentionof where they want to go, which
in your case is to get a littlebit out of your comfort zone and
to have morerelationship-minded
conversations.
And this is my strategy andmechanism to do that.

(41:38):
Alright, good stuff.
So let's now pivot to segmentnumber four, and this is
customer focus.
What I want to do is go fromwhat I, what I heard in that
last clip is Franklin talking alittle bit about like hey, this,
the stadium doesn't matterunless the people inside of the

(42:02):
stadium care.
Right, a hundred and seventhousand people is awesome, but
if none of them actually careabout the team and are truly
invested in cheering for theteam and supporting the team,
doesn't matter that we havethose people.
What I'd like to talk to for aminute here is what ways is
Franklin customer focused?

(42:23):
In other words, how is hefocused on not just his team,
but he's also focused on thefans, the community, the brand
of Penn State.
It seems to me that he's beingintentional about some of those
things.
Andrew, can I, can I start withyou?
Can you share a little bitabout how he is customer focus
and is connecting with thecommunity in that way?

Yeah, you know so.
So even this year they added anopen practice where fans can
come in on a Saturday and theycan view how an actual Penn
State team practices during theweek.
This is something in the pastthat Franklin's been very
secretive of.
No one can see practice, no onecan go in.
But he realizes the fans wantmore.
They want to see more, so hedecided to open practice for him

(43:06):
.
He's also providing more mediaavailability than any coach
before him.
You know he's got three pressconferences a week where he's
giving information on his teamand his players and me as a fan.
I love that.
I'm watching every second ofevery James Franklin press
conference.
I'm up on Saturday night at 11o'clock watching 45 minutes

(43:28):
because I want to hear about howthe holder messed up the extra
point right.
So I love that stuff and itgets me going.
So he's really focused onmaking sure the fan experience
is, you know, up to par withevery team in the country.

Zach, anything to add to that?

I think one of the big examples that I always
remember is actually from hisintroductory press conference
with you, which played a fewclips from that, but I remember
one of the things he said wasyou know, we're gonna be out
there in the community if peoplewant us to come to their kids
birthday party and blow upballoons in the backyard.
We're gonna be there and I thinkthat was kind of an indication

(44:09):
that he didn't really understandthe differences between Penn
State and Vanderbilt where he'dcome from.
Maybe I know they got a lotmore requests to actually do
that than he was expecting, butjust stuff like that.
I mean, I do think he providesan environment that makes us
feel us as fans feel a littlebit more like part of the

(44:33):
program than maybe some otherfans of other programs would be.
You know, even go back to someof that stuff I talked about
before, about the fun stuff hedoes with Keegan-Michael Key and
Eli Manning, just stuff likethat kind of making it fun not
just for the players but for allof us.

And I think he sees the value of the brand.
I think Nate talked a littlebit ago, but you know he's not
solely focused on football.
365 days a year I've seen himsupporting the basketball team,
supporting the women'svolleyball team, the wrestling
team, so he understands thebigger the Penn State brand can
get, it's better for the fans,better for him, better for the

(45:13):
team.
So he sees that.
You know, 50,000 foot view ofPenn State athletics.

Rising tide lifts all boats and that could be
something that should be tryingto help other teams in your
organization do their best,because hopefully that'll make
the organization as a wholebetter.

Yes, sir.
So the point I want to makehere for the leaders listening
is customer focus is superimportant and as a leader you
have kind of this dualresponsibility that always has
attention against itself, right?
So, just like Franklin needs tobe focused on his team, but
then also focused on thecommunity of fans and the other

(45:54):
stuff and kind of zoom out.
As a leader your work usuallytends to be either more employee
focused or customer focused,and you need to make sure that
you don't lose sight of both,right?
So if you're kind of insulatedand you have heavy interaction
with the team but you don'ttouch the end customer a lot,

(46:15):
you have to find ways to be intouch with that end customer,
understand their needs,understand how you can
indirectly serve them.
And if you're the opposite, ifyou're like a hundred percent
frontline customer facing, it'seasy to lose sight of sort of
the support team and the othersthat are around you that are
really important to make thewhole machine go.
So don't be afraid to find waysto get more in touch with the

(46:37):
employees and kind of theirneeds and how they're feeling
and how the environment aroundthem either motivates them or
does not.
So this yin and yang betweenbeing associate focused and
customer focused.
Again, making the parallel to afootball coach of having to do
both, where you're reallyfocused on your team, the 95
sons he has, but also Andrewlistening to his press

(47:00):
conference at 11 o'clock atnight is really important for
the program and understandingthat he needs to have that
connection point into the fansas well.
Alright, so we are now going toshift to our fifth and final
segment before we do some funstuff to wrap up, but our fifth
leadership lesson, and we'regonna frame this as resilience

(47:20):
and bouncing back.
So Zach asked a question alittle bit about this before.
I think we gave, you know,pretty glowing review of some of
the stuff that Franklin doesand I think it's all deserve it
and warranted.
And again, I think if you canreplicate some of these things
that he's doing within thefootball program, within your
team, you're gonna help tomotivate them, you're gonna help
to connect with them and buildrelationships with them.

(47:40):
That's all gonna be reallypositive.
But even when you do thosethings, sometimes things don't
always work out.
You don't always hit the salesthat you want, you don't hit
your KPIs or you don't, or youdon't win the big games that you
want to win Zach.
You kind of alluded to this inthe opening, but can you
summarize for us a little bit onhow Penn State has done against

(48:02):
Ohio State in Michigan over thecourse of his career?

yeah, the way that our conference, the big ten, is
set up, it's in two divisionsand Penn State's in the east,
along with Ohio State andMichigan, who are really two
college football juggernautsright now, and so we play them
every year and, rightly orwrongly, those games become a
measuring stick for the programand obviously for Franklin as a

(48:28):
coach.
All together were five andfifteen against those two teams,
so five wins against 15 losses.
Only one of those wins isagainst Ohio State and a few of
the Michigan wins were a fewyears ago, prior to Jim Harbaugh
, who's our current coach,coming in.
So one of the things that hashas followed Franklin throughout

(48:50):
his career is kind of thiscriticism that he, he can't win
the big game and I think a lotof the bull wins that we've seen
in some of the other winsagainst other big teams kind of
put that a bit to rest.
But the fact of the matter isstill that our two measuring
stick games we have typicallynot done well in, at least not
well in in terms of actuallywinning the game cool.

So there was a tough loss in 2018.
I'm gonna play a clip fromFranklin's postgame press
conference from that a gameagainst Ohio State, before I do.
Andrew, for the listeners, canyou summarize kind of how that
game went and why that was atough loss?

yeah, I will say it was way tougher than I
remember five years ago.
I know we were all at thestands for that one, but going
back through the play-by-playwas some torture.
So real quick, I'll get throughit.
We Penn State, jumped out to a13-0 lead but we had chances to
blow that open in the first half.
Let me just read you how a fewdrives ended for us in the first

(49:58):
half.
One we punted from the OhioState 39.
Then we settled for a fieldgoal on the Ohio State 16.
Then we missed a field goaldeep in Ohio State territory.
After a turnover we settled foranother field goal on the Ohio
State 21.

(50:18):
And then, right before half, up13-0 and we fumbled and allowed
Ohio State to go scoretouchdown.
So we went into the half up13-7.
But honestly it could have been20 to nothing, 23, nothing.
Ohio State comes out, thesecond half scores the touchdown
to take the lead.
Penn State battled back, takesa 12-point lead with eight

(50:42):
minutes to go and that's when itall went downhill, you know.
So Ohio State scores two quicktouchdowns to go up 27 26 we get
the ball final drive.
We get to over midfield, fourthand five, and then we have the
fateful handoff on the zone readto Miles Sanders to get stopped

(51:03):
for a two-yard loss.
Game over Penn State loses byone, and then that leads us
right into his press conferenceafter the game.

Nate.
Before you play this clip, Iwant to point out as brutal as
all that was.
Part of the reason it seemseven more brutal is because the
year prior, in 2017, we lost thegame in a pretty similar way.

We were up, it was worth it, I'll never forget
it not to cut you off and go to10, but we were out we were up
15 in the fourth quarter withthe ball on there 43 and lost
you can cut this part.

You can cut this part out if you have to.
But I mean I we were watchingat a bar and I remember getting
in the Uber after that and justtelling the Uber driver like I
don't want to talk, just driveme home, okay all right, the
fandom is coming out.

I love it, so let's let's play the clip from
Franklin after again, this istwo years in a row of Penn State
being up big, having a chanceto really put the game away, and
then losing in the finalminutes first of all want to
thank the fans for coming out.

Clip of James Fank (52:11):
Unbelievable environment, record crowd.
Couldn't ask for better supportfrom a community and from you
know this one hurts.
Obviously.
You know we didn't finish thegame the way we should have
finished the game.

(52:31):
The reality is we've gone froman average football team to a
good football team, to a greatfootball team, and we've worked
really hard to do those things.
But we're not an elite footballteam yet.
And as hard as we have workedto go from average to good, from
good to great, the work thatit's going to take to get to an

(52:55):
elite program is gonna be justas hard.
And right now we're comfortable.
We're comfortable being greatand I'm gonna make sure that
everybody in our program,including myself, is very
uncomfortable, because you onlygrow in life when you're
uncomfortable.
So we are going to breakthrough and become an elite

(53:17):
program by doing all the littlethings and we are going to find
a way to get from being a greatprogram, which we are just.
So everybody's crystal clearwe're a great program.
We lost to an elite program andwe're that close.
We have gotten comfortablebeing great.
We will no longer becomfortable being great.

(53:38):
We're gonna learn from this.
We're gonna grow from this andwe're gonna find a way to take
that next step as a program,because we've been knocking at
the door long enough and it's myjob as the head coach.
I'm ultimately responsible forall of it and I will find a way.
We will find a way and with allthe support ever, ever

(54:00):
everybody in this community andeverybody on this campus and the
Letterman and everybody else,we are going to get this done.
I give you my word.

All right, guys.
So I remember this pressconference after and this
Barometer stick that he drawsright that we are great program.
Make no mistake about it.
We're a great program that welost to an elite program and we
are not an elite program.
But he goes on to say we aregoing to become an elite program
.
And you have my word.

(54:32):
I can say my Membrance of how Ifelt about that from a
leadership perspective back thenversus how I feel about it now,
relistening to it, is different.
But before I give my opinion,I'd love to hear from you guys
how did you feel about this interms of his leadership and the

(54:52):
message that he put out, notjust to the fans in the
community but to his own players?

Honestly, I'm a little mixed on it.
I Think he ran the risk ofalienating his players in the
locker room, right?
Like how, if we're not eliteand we're just great, what are
you saying about the players youhave in that locker room, right
?
Are you, by motivating them,are you kind of putting them

(55:20):
down to say, hey, you aren't upto the level of where we want to
be?
And Then you know, in thenature of colleges, some players
leave and some players come andgo.
Are you gonna replace them?
And that's where I've alwaysfelt mixed, especially from a
leadership standpoint.
From a fan, I was like pump itinto my veins, ready to go,
we're gonna go kick some butt.

(55:41):
But when you take a step backat it from a leadership
standpoint, I think that's avery tough thing to do, to
provide that constructivecriticism for your teammates
without putting them down.

Zach I agree with feeling mixed about it and I
Kind of choose to focus on theend part of it where he, he
gives his word me, he promisesand maybe that's me being more
of a fan Definitely see Andrewspoint About how that could
potentially alienate the team.

(56:14):
But I also see how potentiallyit could Tie back into the core
values and saying guys, we'vedone all this sacrifice, we've
put in this, this work, we'vecompeted, but we need to keep
doing that and we need to dothat more to get to this next
level.
So Whether it was the correctspeech or not to give, I

(56:37):
honestly don't know.
I can see both, both sides toit for sure, but I think I tend
to come down on the mix side buta little more positive on it
than maybe Andrew was.

Appreciate the perspective for sure.
I Remembered being like reallydisappointed about it, and when
I listened back through it, Iwas more positive about it, and
one of the reasons I was morepositive than I remembered not
to say it was perfect and Ithink the risk that Andrew calls
out is well-founded the reasonI was more positive about it is

(57:10):
because he took moreself-accountability than I
remembered.
I I I remembered it as Moreblame and less
self-accountability and less ofyou have my word that we're
gonna get this done.
What I like about it isSomething that I often preach
with my team is I'll say thewords.

(57:31):
We have outregiously highexpectations on this team and
what I have found is that highperformers like really high
expectations and low performersdon't.
And I'm okay with scaring awaylow performers Because I want to
attract high performers and Iwant to attract folks that when

(57:52):
I say we want to haveoutrageously high expectations
and we want to be the bestleadership and development
Organization in the industry,when I say things like that,
that is really motivating forsome people and scary for others
, and I'm okay in thatdiscomfort.
Now Everyone has to find theirown language and find the right

(58:13):
word and again he has a betterpulse on his team.
What I would say is importantif this is an emotional reaction
and he hadn't thought throughwhat Andrew described, then
there is a big risk there.
Right, he is Emotionallyblowing off steam.
He is emotionally sayingsomething that might be good for

(58:34):
the fans but alienate his ownteam.
If he was more conscious ofthat and had the time to process
that and thought through therisk and return of, hey, I'm
comfortable setting a new,higher, exceptional bar for my
team and I know that that mightalienate some of them, but I'm
okay with that because of thisreason, then I think that's a

(58:56):
really good choice.
So what I would say is, when youhave these moments of Needing
resilience and needing to bounceback and you are the leader
that everyone is looking to tosay this sucks, this fell apart.
We worked really hard and wedidn't get what we want.
What you want to think about iswhat is the objective and what
is the outcome I seek to achievewith the words that I'm about

(59:20):
to embark on these folks?
And If that's a kick in thepants, sometimes that's great.
If that is the love andcoddling that needs to happen,
sometimes that's great too.
But you need to think aboutwhat is my team need and what is
the type of language Just gonnaresonate and help them to
bounce back and also motivatethem to give extra.

(59:41):
So a lot packed into there.
I think the Andrews kickoff toit was perfect to say, hey, this
is mixed right.
It's kind of hard to know thesurrounding piece.
Here is the risk and here isthe possible positive to that.
The point is that you need toknow your team and know what's
gonna hit for them.
Any thoughts on that, guys, oranything else you wanted to add?
Not, I think you summed it upperfectly.

(01:00:02):
All right, cool.
So bonus segment we're gonna dosince Zack spent like two hours
with me on the the Joe pod,we're gonna do a little bit of
comparison.
So let's talk a little bitabout comparisons between Joe
Paterno's leadership style andJames Franklans and again,

(01:00:23):
action is not Jackson's.
We're not saying one is good,one is bad, or this, that or the
other.
What we're saying is what aresome of the differences and
similarities and theirleadership style?
So what do you got for me, guys?

Zac Phillips (01:00:34):
I Would say from a similarity standpoint Andrew
you correct me if you disagreebut but definitely one thing
that seems like a core value tothose guys personally as loyalty
maybe loyalty to a fall, but itseems like they both very much

(01:00:54):
Trusted guys that had been withthem for a long time, be that
members of the coaching staff,be that players who you know
might not necessarily have beenthe most talented guys at their
particular positions, but thecoaches trusted them and
probably some level of thattrust fell down to loyalty and

(01:01:15):
maybe blind loyalty.
That's one of the things thatdefinitely stands out to me in
terms of similarities.

Andrew Kennedy (01:01:24):
Yeah, I was going through some research,
just studying both of them, andthey're almost carbon copies of
each other, so I was writingdown some quotes.
I love writing down quotes offamous people.
I thought we could actuallyplay a game and see if we could.
I'll read off some quotes andyou try and guess which coach

(01:01:46):
said the quote, because I mean,the way these two mirror each
other is remarkable.
So, first one, you must createa collective culture mentality.
We need to create a culture inwhich everyone is singing the
same song, franklin or Paterno.

Nate Prosser (01:02:05):
I say Paterno.
I say Paterno too.

Both wrong.
That is a James Franklin quote.
Thanks for playing All rightnext one, all right.
Today, you've got a decision tomake You're going to get better
or you're going to get worse,but you're not going to stay the
same.
So which will it be?

That's definitely.

Paterno yeah yeah, that's my favorite quote.
I live by that one a lot ofdays, I think it.
There's some days you want tocoast, whether you're tired,
you're not feeling well and it'slike, okay, this is my day, I'm
going to get better because Ido not want to get worse.
I love that quote, awesome, allright.

(01:02:47):
Third one the will to win isimportant, but the will to
prepare is vital.

That's Joe, I'm going Franklin.

Oh, zach, with the win.
That's a Paterno quote.
All right, one more.
We're going to build it theright way and we're going to
build it for the long haul.

I'm going Franklin again.

Me too.

All right both right, that's a Franklin.

All right.

I think the core takeaway from that is they are
just so built into the cultureand kind of doing some prep for
this podcast.
You never thought you'd look toa football coach as a leader,
right.
But when you sit back and youthink about it, especially in
today's day and age, these guysare running companies.

(01:03:38):
You know Penn State footballhas got a $80 million budget,
right.
So it's not just you know 85kids out there running around in
magic shirts.
You know he's running a smallcompany and he has to set the
culture for this team and he'sdoing an impeccable job in my
opinion.

Well, to that point, you hear a lot these days
the phrase CEO coach and thatreally at least the way I
interpreted it is it refers to acoach who does run it like an
organization, where he delegatesauthority to his assistant
coaches and people up and downthe organization and really

(01:04:19):
maybe thinks about it more in abusiness and analytic sense than
just a gut feel sense, how itmight used to have been done.

I love it.
So I'm going to wrap on thispart and then we'll move on to
kind of the closing.
You are the CEO of the companyin more people's eyes than you
realize.
Right Again, when you are aleader, if you are leading a
store or leading a department,in a lot of ways people are
looking to you, and the actionsand the environment and the

(01:04:51):
culture that you create in thatmicro environment is the cues
people are taking, and so takethat responsibility not as a
burden but as an opportunity toreally positively impact and
influence others.
You know my tagline of theworld needs more leaders.
Things are tough.
People go home at night andtheir experience of how their

(01:05:14):
work day was is a lot reflectiveon the environment that you
create around them, and so dothat with intention.
Don't let that happen aroundyou and let the time pass you by
All right.
So what I want to do to closeout is we're going to do an
episode challenge.
We're then going to do a littlebit of fun Penn State

(01:05:35):
predictions and close.
So if you're not a Penn Statesuper fan, you should still
listen all the way to the end.
But if you want to drop offafter the episode challenge.
I can respect that.
All right, guys.
What do you got for thelisteners?
What is one action that anyonelistening can take over the next
week that will make them abetter leader?

So you mentioned before that you liked my kind of
coffee idea, so maybe I'll justtake that and run with it.
Maybe doesn't necessarily haveto be coffee, it could be a beer
after work, it could be a soda,it could be anything.
But maybe, you know, I don'twant to give something cheesy
like go out and meet someone newin your organization, but maybe

(01:06:19):
take some time and a fewminutes to sit down and have a
conversation that isn'tnecessarily about something that
you need right away or that isgoing on at work right in the
minute, but more of a broaderconversation with someone you
interact with and are coworkerswith.
And the more you do that, themore comfortable you'll get

(01:06:41):
doing it.

One of my favorite things about Servant Leadership
, Zach, is when someone checksin with someone without wanting
anything in return.
Think about all the people thatreach out to you only when they
want something.
But what about the people thatjust send a text, just checking
in?
How are you doing?
That is, to me, one of the coreelements of Servant Leadership.
So to kind of piggyback on whatyou said go out, talk to

(01:07:06):
someone, not that you needsomething, not that you need
them to run a report for you orto collaborate with you on a
project, but just to either getto know them or to check in or
to offer your assistance to them.
So I think that is an awesomechallenge that everyone can take
.
Andrew, you can pass if youwant, but if you have one, jump
in there.

I'm going to say Zach, so am I.
I was going to go with the samething, so you know, ditto, zach
, do it twice.

All right, meet two people, so I'll give you a
bonus, one extra credit, whichwould be what I talked about
earlier around writing down theculture and environment that you
want to create, like fivethings that you would want
someone to say about hey,working for this person is like.
And then write down those fiveadjectives or descriptors and

(01:07:58):
then ask a couple people somefeedback of how close you are to
that thing, and that might leadyou to a couple actions like
setting up an espresso machineor texting people once a month
just to check in that you don'tnormally do.
Whatever those kind of coreactions that you can take to
align to those fiveenvironmental behaviors that you

(01:08:19):
want to create, the moreintentional you're going to be
about your culture, right, andwe kicked off the podcast with
that around the core values thatFranklin laid out, his four
core values that permeateeverything that they do.
What is the version of that foryour team that can permeate
everything that you do?
All right, so I hope you gotsome great nuggets from our

(01:08:41):
segments.
I think Franklin is doing anawesome job from a leadership
perspective.
Again, no one's perfect, butthere's a lot of really positive
actions that he's taking thatwe can learn from and try to
implement in our day to day.
Now we're going to pivot tosome fun.
We're going to talk some PennState football.
Before I ask the guys for somepredictions, I led off by
calling Andrew the tailgate king.

(01:09:03):
Andrew, can you talk a littlebit about some of the meals that
you have prepared at BeaverStadium?
I've got to enjoy many of them.

Well, my favorite meal to cook is
breakfast.
I love getting up making a bigbreakfast.
Getting everyone going for theday get you some energy to
tailgate and play all the gamesthat we play.
So I get the blackstone out,I'm making eggs, I'm making
burritos, bacon, hash browns, soI really like to kick things
off with a big breakfast.
And then I don't want to forgetthe world famous chocolate

(01:09:35):
stuffed French toast.

Yeah, this guy makes chocolate stuffed French
toast outside of a stadium, andwe're notorious for getting to
the stadium even for 8 pm games,at least a half hour before the
lots even open, which issometimes at 8 am.
So yeah tailgate to tailgate.
You got to tailgate thetailgate, yeah, and as soon as

(01:09:58):
they let us in, my man'swhipping out grills and tents
and everything else.
So it's a great time and awell-deserved nickname for sure.
I'm excited to share with youguys, our wives, a few other of
our best friends.
We're going up for game oneLabor Day weekend.
It's coming up quickly.
We got Penn State, wvu, pennState, three touchdown-ish

(01:10:23):
favorites.
They're going to be favoritesin a lot of games.
They're going to have toughgames at home against Michigan
and away at Ohio State.
Predictions record-wise.
Zach, you are on the clock.
What do you got for this year?

So I feel like you asked me a similar question
when I was on the Joe Puffpodcast and I think I kind of
waffled and said Ohio State,Michigan, tough games.
I don't know if I actually gaveyou a record, but I think the
way that I was talking wasleaning towards 10 and 2.
12 and 0, baby.

We're doing it.
Yeah, it's going to be my vein.

Yeah, I think in all seriousness, I do think it
sets up well for us.
Ohio State may be a little morevulnerable than they have been,
particularly at quarterback,and we get them on the road, and
Michigan is certainly lookingstronger.
But we seem to always play themtough at home and I know you
guys aren't planning on going tothat game, but I'm excited to

(01:11:25):
go to that game with you whenyou finally decide that you're
going to be making the trip.
So I think a realisticprediction is probably 11 and 1
as an upside case, but 12 and 0,baby.

I love it, andrew, what do you got?

I got 11 and 1.
Okay, lou's Ohio State beatMichigan.

Beat Michigan.
Okay, does that get them intothe playoffs?
Zach, obviously yes, with 12and 0.
Does 11 and 1 get them in?

Yeah, I think they sneak in as the fourth seed
, so this team's got athletes upand down the roster.
It all comes down to thequarterback.
So is he a dude?
That's the question.

All right, give me a couple of names, maybe a
little bit Hold on because.

I didn't hear a prediction from you.

Appreciate being put on the spot and not letting
me get away with host duties.
I am buying in more and more.
I have been studying the roster, which I've never really done
before.
I think the Penn State love iswearing off on you guys and on
to me more and more all the time.
So I am also at 11 and 1, and Ialso have them sneaking in,

(01:12:46):
similar to Andrew, I think thisis the year.
It is time.
Love it All right.
I got a couple more questionsfor you.
We've been texting about this alittle bit.
Give the listeners a couple ofunder the radar names to look
out for, so folks that maybethey don't know from last year,

(01:13:06):
right, nick Singleton, aller,some of the big names, but a few
names that they will know bythe end of the season.

I'll give you one each side of the ball.
On defense, it's going to besafety.
Kevin Winston, he's an athleticguy.
You read some of the messageboards.
He can stuff the run, he canplay the pass.
I think he's going to take moreand more time at safety.
And then on offense, you sawhim a little bit last year but
I'm going to go with TylerWarren, tight end number 44.

(01:13:33):
I think we're going to play twotight end sets more until the
receivers kind of separatethemselves.
So I think he's going to be abigger part of the offense this
year.

Great answer.
What do you got, Zach?

I guess I'll do two sides of the ball as well.
So defense then.
I didn't sudden defensive endbeen getting beastly reports out
of training camp.
So we have a loaded defensiveend room of Chalk Robinson,
deesa, isaac, and it's going tobe great when we can bring in a

(01:14:05):
fresh DDS and hopefully turn himloose on some unsuspecting
quarterbacks.
As far as the offensive side ofthe ball, I don't know if
Keondre Lambert Smith wouldnecessarily count as a sleeper,
but I'm optimistic that he's aguy that's going to take the
next step.
Had a big, big game in the RoseBowl, cut along touchdown

(01:14:27):
inconsistencies kind of been oneof his trademarks and really
there's not a lot of questionmarks on the team, but wide
receiver is certainly one ofthem.
So him taking a step would be ahuge benefit.

Another great answer.
All right, last question foryou guys.
Give me a Drew Aller prediction.
You could give me number oftouchdowns, number of yards.
Tell me a little bit what wecan expect from number 15, who,
as Andrew said, a lot of thehopes this year rest on his big
shoulders.

I'm going to go.
35 touchdowns oh, two hourshere.
I think.
I think he's had a big arm.
They're going to go deep.
They got some speed atreceivers.
I think he's going to put upsome big touchdown numbers this
year.
It's a big number.
What do you got Zach?

I don't know that I have a stat.
Necessarily I would say that Ihope Andrew's way high and the
reason I hope he's way high isbecause if he is high then that
means our running games beenable to shoulder a lot of the
road load and I think that iskind of going to be a key for

(01:15:38):
hopefully letting the Mies intoit a little bit.
If he puts up 35 touchdowns I'msure I'm going to be happy, but
hopefully we'll be happy evenif he puts up quite a bit less.

All right.
Well, zach, andrew, thanks somuch for coming on Leadership
Chalk Talk.
This was a ton of fun.
Thanks to the listeners.
For those of you that made itthis far and listened through
our Penn State predictionsCouldn't help ourselves.
We're super excited.
As I always say, the worldneeds more leaders.
You can keep listening, you canput these practices into place,

(01:16:10):
you can become one.
You can help the people aroundyou.
Again, guys, thanks for joining.

Thanks for having us.
Thanks for having us.
We are Penn.

State.

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