April 30, 2025 • 14 mins
What does it take to build a winning culture - on the court and in the office?
Highlights Covered
- Why process and mindset matter more than results
- How a “Pyramid of Success” model shaped team performance at KU
- The hidden cost of one bad actor on a high-performing team
- Leadership takeaway - be a star in your role, even if it’s behind the scenes
- Mindset principle: Live life in the hills and valleys, not at the peaks or the bottom
Summary
This episode explores the parallels between elite athletics and business—showing how mindset, culture, and role clarity can determine the difference between mediocrity and momentum.
Will Gladhart is joined by Chris Teahan, financial advisor at Merrill Wealth Management and former University of Kansas basketball player and NCAA national champion.
Drawing from his time competing at the highest level of college athletics, Chris shares how the lessons of team culture, role clarity, and mindset resilience have shaped his approach to business and leadership.
At Kansas, Chris and his teammates were taught to focus less on results and more on the “bottom half” of their Pyramid of Success - thinking right, acting right, and speaking right. That internal process, he explains, is where culture lives.
Chris illustrates how one toxic influence can derail even the best team, using a memorable “ice cream analogy” shared by Coach Bill Self - one bad ingredient spoils the whole. The solution? Clear expectations, shared values, and alignment around a common goal.
Today, in a demanding role where he regularly approaches high-net-worth individuals decades his senior, Chris reflects on the mindset that keeps him grounded - living in the hills and valleys instead of the highs or lows.
For leaders and teammates alike, he emphasizes the power of owning your role, leading with intention, and staying even-keeled through both rejection and success.
Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
We'd love your feedback on how we can improve - send us a Text!!
Seeking to align your culture, boost performance & impact your bottom line? Let’s chat—no sales, just real talk about your challenges. Not ready? Join our PL3 Community for free insights & connections.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
William Gladhart (00:00):
Welcome to the Leadership Levers Podcast.
I'm your host, Will Gladhart,CMO at the Culture Think Tank.
At the Culture Think Tank, weempower leaders with metrics
that strengthen culture, driveperformance and return.
We're here today to learn aboutthe actions leaders have taken
to address organizational change.
(00:21):
Our guest today is Chris Tehan,a financial advisor at Merrill
Wealth Management.
Thanks for taking the time tojoin us.
Chris Teahan (00:30):
Hey, thank you for having me on.
I'm honored to be considered aCEO, but I won't really talk too
much about that, more about theleadership side and everything
else.
But thank you so much forhaving me on.
William Gladhart (00:39):
Perfect.
Well, let's begin by having youshare with our audience a bit
about yourself, your background,and not only your organization,
but then I think there's someother things we're going to talk
about in terms of, like sportsteams, building, winning culture
.
We'll let you kick off and leaninto that.
Chris Teahan (00:54):
So obviously I'm Chris Tehan, a third year
financial advisor over atMerrill Lynch.
Early on in my career you know,trying to navigate, networking,
client acquisition, all the funthings in life, especially as a
young gentleman.
But I do have a little bit ofan interesting background Played
sports throughout my whole lifeat a very, very high level.
Played at Rockhurst High Schoolfootball and basketball.
(01:17):
Got some recognition there butthen ended up going over to the
University of Kansas and playingbasketball there for five years
and was on some very high levelteams.
My last year there we ended upwinning a national championship.
So you know, there's some thingsthat I've learned along the way
that I continue to bring intomy personal life and my business
life about culture, the waythat you attack each day with a
certain mindset and just kind ofyou know the ebbs and flows of
how life kicks you and pushesyou back up and then kicks you
(01:39):
down again.
So there's some insights thatI've learned that I'm very happy
to share with everybody again.
So there's some insights thatI've learned and I'm very happy
to share with everybody.
I've been very transparentsince my time at Gantt has been
over about things that havereally helped me kind of tick
going forward.
William Gladhart (01:50):
Absolutely so.
We'll be discussing threequestions today as a warm-up to
start our conversation.
Tell me why you believe ahealthy culture is critical.
Chris Teahan (01:58):
So you know, a healthy culture is basically the
building blocks of a team, of aprogram, of a work, a business,
whatever it may be.
The culture that is where youlive your life.
You live your life not in theactions or the results that come
up, but the culture is thefoundation of a house.
No matter what you want tobuild on top of it, if you have
cracks in your foundation it'sgoing to collapse at some point
(02:20):
or there's going to be areaswhere you have to go back and
address that, looking back inthe rear view, when in reality
you should be looking either inthe present or into the future.
So the culture is something thatI've really have tried to
change in my life.
I think that people think of aculture as a conglomerate, a
group of people, but I thinkthere's also culture in each and
every one of us the way thatyou wake up in the morning, the
(02:41):
attitude, the effort that youput towards working.
You know whether it is hey,taking my daughter to a
basketball game or taking yourdogs on a walk.
There's a culture that goesinto the way that you address
that, the way that you areintentionally doing that and
what you're trying to get out ofmany things.
So culture is something that Ithink I'm very fairly well
versed in it, but you know,there's definitely the building
blocks of life and that is ableto propel you to do the things
(03:04):
that you want to do Excellent.
William Gladhart (03:06):
So it's been our experience that leaders tend
to struggle in three key areaspeople, process or profits.
In your role as a fellow leader, could you maybe identify which
of these areas represented thegreatest cultural challenge or
challenges in your teamenvironment?
Chris Teahan (03:22):
I would say the people is a big one, but I would
say the process is the one thatyou focused on the most.
Once you have that processcorrect, that is where you can
kind of propel yourself goingforward.
So at Kansas we had a thingcalled the Pyramid of Success.
John Wooden had his version ofit, the University of Kansas had
their version of it.
First couple of years when Iwas there, we had a struggle.
There was big personalities onthe team, just like you have in
(03:44):
any big time business or familyor whatever it may be.
And so what we had was we hadthe pyramid of success, which
was basically the bottom half ofit, was where you lived your
life, and that was acting right,speaking right and thinking
right.
And then the top of the pyramidwas actions and results.
When a lot of people look atthe result of an action they
(04:05):
think about, or the result ofthe action, they think about
what went wrong during theaction.
They didn't think about whathappened on the bottom half of
that period or of that pyramid.
So you're looking at was Icommunicating with my team
correctly?
Was my thoughts and intentionsin the right place and was I
actively not being selfish inany way, but making sure that
all of that was working togetherto create the action.
(04:27):
And once you get to the action,you've already done all the
work.
So I think that there's issueswith obviously processing people
.
I think those both go hand tohand.
I think they're both kind ofone conglomerate.
When I was at the University ofKansas, we had the pyramid of
success, which basically wasthere was two sides of the
pyramid, there was the base andthen there was the top.
The top of it was the actionand the result.
And a lot of people live up inthe top where they think that
(04:50):
the action caused the result andthat was the issue.
They'll go back and think aboutokay, what play could I have
changed in the game?
What sentence could I havechanged in the sales pitch?
They never think about what ledup to what was happening.
And at the University of Kansas,we had three things that we did
, which was speaking right,acting right and thinking right.
(05:11):
Were you communicating well?
Were you communicating in aclear, concise way?
Were you getting too far aheadof yourself?
Were you asking too much?
Were you thinking the correctway?
Were you thinking, hey, here'sthe task ahead, here's what I
need to do to get my team there?
Or were you thinking about Ican't wait for this to be over?
And then acting right was justthe way that you treat people.
There's going to be people inbusiness that you're not going
to get along with.
You're going to have a team of10 to 15 people.
(05:32):
As much as I would like to saythat I get along with every
single person and every singleperson I've met, like me, it's
not going to happen.
So it's acting right, knowingthat, hey, we're working towards
a common goal.
Between these walls, betweenthe eight hours you're at work,
between the three hours thatyou're at practice, are you
treating these people assomebody who's on the same exact
level as you, has the sameexact set of values?
(05:53):
Because, in reality, whenyou're working towards a common
goal, that should be certainthings that are there.
So we would always live ourlives in the bottom half of that
pyramid, when we would lose agame or have a bad season,
whatever it may be.
We were never looking towardswhat happened in the game.
We were looking back to whathappened in that scouting report
.
Was the scout team coherentlyworking together and working
(06:14):
together on the same page?
Was practice?
Was everyone putting their besteffort forward.
So this kind of I'll wrap thisinto the people part of it.
Coach Selfie could tell thisgreat story all the time about
what one bad person can do toculture.
He says you're coming home fromwork, you get your favorite
pint of ice cream, you got agallon of ice cream, whatever
your best favorite flavor is I'ma chocolate ice cream guy and
(06:36):
you open up that pint of icecream and there's just a tiny
little piece of turd in the topright.
Tiny little piece.
You have a gallon of ice cream.
There's a ton of space that'snot being touched by this one
singular turd that's in there.
What do you do with the icecream?
(06:58):
The answer is you throw it away.
So why out of a business of 100people if you have one or two
bad eggs that can completelydestroy the result, or one or
two bad actions, or one or twobad communication areas that can
completely destroy the result,or one or two bad actions or one
or two bad communication areasthat can completely destroy the
result of the action?
So that's something that I'vealways thought of.
Going forward is keeping makingsure that everything is on the
bottom half of that period.
Am I speaking right?
Because in the end of it, youcan't control the result in
(07:19):
business.
You can't control the fact thata small company is trying to
land a big company's businessand they don't have the
wherewithal.
But the fact that you're inthat third or fourth stage of
the negotiation sales, whateverit may be, that's all that
matters.
William Gladhart (07:32):
Right, Absolutely Well.
I love that you speak about theice cream example because it's
very apropos in terms of youknow, we have heard from other
leaders that there was a topperformer but that top performer
was toxic to the wholeorganization and how did they go
about exiting that individual?
Or they had a specific processthat the company had done for
years but it wasn't working.
(07:53):
But when everyone understoodwhat the mission was or they
were all on the same page, theywere moving as a team and people
were being communicated with,things move forward and everyone
got on board really quickly.
So it was that reflective thatyou talked about, but also the
ability to be able to be movingforward and looking at other
elements.
Yeah, I really appreciate yousharing that and identifying
(08:15):
that.
Was there any specificchallenge as you were playing on
a team or that kind ofnegatively impacted performance
or something within theorganization itself?
Chris Teahan (08:26):
I would say that the people part of it was
probably the biggest challengeto overcome.
I think that everybody inbusiness can say that unless
you're scientific or some areawhere you just can't figure out
a certain equation, you knowwhen you're looking at a regular
business, it's usually thepeople that that hurts you, and
it's by not having a greatleader and it's also by not
having the core values and acommon goal to work towards and
(08:48):
everybody knowing their role.
There was many times when I wasat Kansas that seasons would be
ruined very early into theseason because three or four
guys who were key contributorsdoesn't matter if they were
averaging 20 points or they wereon the scout team or they were
needed to play five minutes agame were not playing their role
.
So those were things that ittook a while for even Coach Self
to figure out, and that's kindof why we implemented the
(09:10):
pyramid was to make sure that,hey, everybody was on the same
page.
Specific examples I can'treally think of one or can't
really say some of the specificexamples that I have, but I
always would say be a star inyour role, that's the most
important thing.
You have role players in yourbusiness, on your team and in
reality, those are some of themost important people Having
(09:32):
somebody who has a role thatdoesn't get the recognition it
deserves.
Having someone in HR, havingsomeone who's putting together
the marketing tools not thesalesperson, not the person
who's the front of the business,not the guy who's averaging 30
points a game, but the people intheir role and having someone
who takes their role as an honorand gives himself 100% to that
role, knowing that when theymake the ultimate goal, when
(09:55):
they meet it, when they getthere, the pie is big enough for
absolutely everybody.
My role at Kansas was not toplay and score that 10,000
points.
When I was there, my goal wasto get the scout team ready, was
to watch a ton of film, makesure everybody knew exactly what
they were doing and then alsobe a leader in an aspect that no
one else would see.
In the 10,000 hours 100,000hours that I was at Kansas, no
(10:18):
one ever saw 95% to really 90,like probably 99% of what I had
done.
But you know, I felt that thatrole was something that was
valuable to my team andeverything going forward.
William Gladhart (10:29):
Yeah, I think that's really interesting to
share and we sometimes see thisin mergers and acquisitions and
also private equity venturecapital that sometimes there are
challenges around the rightpeople, the right fit.
High growth or a quick changeoften causes shifts, but being
intentional about people andliving the values of the
(10:50):
organization or setting thoseout clearly, one thing about
Coach Self is he is a master atdoing some of those elements and
it's why you guys at the timekept going to championships and
continue moving forward.
It's creating that winningculture, that winning team.
Chris.
Anything else you'd like to addor share with fellow leaders?
Chris Teahan (11:10):
I want to be as much of help as I can when I sit
back and think of certainthings that I've learned over
the course of my time.
Coming from a 25-year-old, thismay not hold a ton of value,
but there's certain things thatI think that I've taken from
what I've done, and there's onething that I would say that
everybody needs to do, oreveryone needs to at least think
about.
If they do it and it is wheredo you live your life?
(11:31):
Do you live your life on the topof mountain peaks or do you
live your life at the bottom?
Both of those answers are notthe best answers.
You don't want to be always sohigh.
You're going to get to acertain point where you're going
to be looking over themountains being like I conquered
it, and you're going to be 45,with however many kids and
whatever it may be, and you'regoing to think, okay, this is
(11:52):
the peak of what's happened.
Or, when you're really down onyourself, are you in the bottom
of that canyon where, hey, Idon't know if I can do this
anymore.
I'm going to give up, I'm goingto quit my job, I'm going to
stop doing the startup that I'vedreamed of doing for so long?
Or do you live your life in thehills and the valleys, and the
hills and the valleys flow likethis when you have a great
success, it is great.
(12:13):
Hey, take a second,congratulate yourself, take an
hour, take a night, take acouple of days to sit there and
really reflect on what it wasthat got you there.
But never be.
Hey, this is the almightymoment.
And then also, on the downside,you never want to get too low.
I have a job where, right now.
I'm a 25-year-old male who goesup to people who are 65, 50, 45
(12:34):
, who are very high incomenetwork individuals who've
worked their whole life toattain this, and my job is to
get their money and bring itover to me and have me manage it
.
So what do you think mostpeople's reactions are?
It's no, and it's constant no,and it's constantly getting
kicked down and whatever it maybe and I think of that as a
learning experience from mypoint of view getting the kick
(12:56):
down, getting the knockdown,knowing that I can pick myself
back up, but also knowing that,hey, I got that meeting.
I sat there, I took somethingaway from it.
I don't think there's ever beena meeting that you've had, that
I've had, or that anybody'sreally had, where you can walk
away being like I learnedabsolutely nothing, even if it's
hey, I'll never get in ameeting with somebody like this
again, you've learned a littlebit of something.
(13:20):
Yeah, those are some things thatyeah.
William Gladhart (13:23):
No, I really like that.
I think that's sage advice,thinking about living in the
in-between versus the super highand the super low, because I'm
sure there were thoseexperiences on the basketball
team but, as you noted, alsowithin your job role and you
know, changing markets, changingenvironment, et cetera.
Thank you again for sharingyour thoughts, Chris.
(13:43):
I've enjoyed having you on ourLeadership Lovers podcast.
Really appreciate your insights.
Chris Teahan (13:48):
All right, Appreciate it Well.
Thank you for having me on.
William Gladhart (13:52):
Thank you for joining us on the Leadership
Levers podcast.
Find all our Leadership Loversepisodes on the Culture Think
Tank website at www.
theculturethinktank.
com or listen on your favoritestreaming platform.
We'd love to hear from youabout the challenges you have
faced as a leader.
Tune in weekly as we inviteleaders to share their
(14:16):
experiences in strengtheningculture and performance, one
action at a time.
Welcome to the Leadership Levers Podcast.
I'm your host, Will Gladhart,CMO at the Culture Think Tank.
At the Culture Think Tank, weempower leaders with metrics
that strengthen culture, driveperformance and return.
We're here today to learn aboutthe actions leaders have taken
to address organizational change.
(00:21):
Our guest today is Chris Tehan,a financial advisor at Merrill
Wealth Management.
Thanks for taking the time tojoin us.
Chris Teahan (00:30):
Hey, thank you for having me on.
I'm honored to be considered aCEO, but I won't really talk too
much about that, more about theleadership side and everything
else.
But thank you so much forhaving me on.
William Gladhart (00:39):
Perfect.
Well, let's begin by having youshare with our audience a bit
about yourself, your background,and not only your organization,
but then I think there's someother things we're going to talk
about in terms of, like sportsteams, building, winning culture
.
We'll let you kick off and leaninto that.
Chris Teahan (00:54):
So obviously I'm Chris Tehan, a third year
financial advisor over atMerrill Lynch.
Early on in my career you know,trying to navigate, networking,
client acquisition, all the funthings in life, especially as a
young gentleman.
But I do have a little bit ofan interesting background Played
sports throughout my whole lifeat a very, very high level.
Played at Rockhurst High Schoolfootball and basketball.
(01:17):
Got some recognition there butthen ended up going over to the
University of Kansas and playingbasketball there for five years
and was on some very high levelteams.
My last year there we ended upwinning a national championship.
So you know, there's some thingsthat I've learned along the way
that I continue to bring intomy personal life and my business
life about culture, the waythat you attack each day with a
certain mindset and just kind ofyou know the ebbs and flows of
how life kicks you and pushesyou back up and then kicks you
(01:39):
down again.
So there's some insights thatI've learned that I'm very happy
to share with everybody again.
So there's some insights thatI've learned and I'm very happy
to share with everybody.
I've been very transparentsince my time at Gantt has been
over about things that havereally helped me kind of tick
going forward.
William Gladhart (01:50):
Absolutely so.
We'll be discussing threequestions today as a warm-up to
start our conversation.
Tell me why you believe ahealthy culture is critical.
Chris Teahan (01:58):
So you know, a healthy culture is basically the
building blocks of a team, of aprogram, of a work, a business,
whatever it may be.
The culture that is where youlive your life.
You live your life not in theactions or the results that come
up, but the culture is thefoundation of a house.
No matter what you want tobuild on top of it, if you have
cracks in your foundation it'sgoing to collapse at some point
(02:20):
or there's going to be areaswhere you have to go back and
address that, looking back inthe rear view, when in reality
you should be looking either inthe present or into the future.
So the culture is something thatI've really have tried to
change in my life.
I think that people think of aculture as a conglomerate, a
group of people, but I thinkthere's also culture in each and
every one of us the way thatyou wake up in the morning, the
(02:41):
attitude, the effort that youput towards working.
You know whether it is hey,taking my daughter to a
basketball game or taking yourdogs on a walk.
There's a culture that goesinto the way that you address
that, the way that you areintentionally doing that and
what you're trying to get out ofmany things.
So culture is something that Ithink I'm very fairly well
versed in it, but you know,there's definitely the building
blocks of life and that is ableto propel you to do the things
(03:04):
that you want to do Excellent.
William Gladhart (03:06):
So it's been our experience that leaders tend
to struggle in three key areaspeople, process or profits.
In your role as a fellow leader, could you maybe identify which
of these areas represented thegreatest cultural challenge or
challenges in your teamenvironment?
Chris Teahan (03:22):
I would say the people is a big one, but I would
say the process is the one thatyou focused on the most.
Once you have that processcorrect, that is where you can
kind of propel yourself goingforward.
So at Kansas we had a thingcalled the Pyramid of Success.
John Wooden had his version ofit, the University of Kansas had
their version of it.
First couple of years when Iwas there, we had a struggle.
There was big personalities onthe team, just like you have in
(03:44):
any big time business or familyor whatever it may be.
And so what we had was we hadthe pyramid of success, which
was basically the bottom half ofit, was where you lived your
life, and that was acting right,speaking right and thinking
right.
And then the top of the pyramidwas actions and results.
When a lot of people look atthe result of an action they
(04:05):
think about, or the result ofthe action, they think about
what went wrong during theaction.
They didn't think about whathappened on the bottom half of
that period or of that pyramid.
So you're looking at was Icommunicating with my team
correctly?
Was my thoughts and intentionsin the right place and was I
actively not being selfish inany way, but making sure that
all of that was working togetherto create the action.
(04:27):
And once you get to the action,you've already done all the
work.
So I think that there's issueswith obviously processing people
.
I think those both go hand tohand.
I think they're both kind ofone conglomerate.
When I was at the University ofKansas, we had the pyramid of
success, which basically wasthere was two sides of the
pyramid, there was the base andthen there was the top.
The top of it was the actionand the result.
And a lot of people live up inthe top where they think that
(04:50):
the action caused the result andthat was the issue.
They'll go back and think aboutokay, what play could I have
changed in the game?
What sentence could I havechanged in the sales pitch?
They never think about what ledup to what was happening.
And at the University of Kansas,we had three things that we did
, which was speaking right,acting right and thinking right.
(05:11):
Were you communicating well?
Were you communicating in aclear, concise way?
Were you getting too far aheadof yourself?
Were you asking too much?
Were you thinking the correctway?
Were you thinking, hey, here'sthe task ahead, here's what I
need to do to get my team there?
Or were you thinking about Ican't wait for this to be over?
And then acting right was justthe way that you treat people.
There's going to be people inbusiness that you're not going
to get along with.
You're going to have a team of10 to 15 people.
(05:32):
As much as I would like to saythat I get along with every
single person and every singleperson I've met, like me, it's
not going to happen.
So it's acting right, knowingthat, hey, we're working towards
a common goal.
Between these walls, betweenthe eight hours you're at work,
between the three hours thatyou're at practice, are you
treating these people assomebody who's on the same exact
level as you, has the sameexact set of values?
(05:53):
Because, in reality, whenyou're working towards a common
goal, that should be certainthings that are there.
So we would always live ourlives in the bottom half of that
pyramid, when we would lose agame or have a bad season,
whatever it may be.
We were never looking towardswhat happened in the game.
We were looking back to whathappened in that scouting report
.
Was the scout team coherentlyworking together and working
(06:14):
together on the same page?
Was practice?
Was everyone putting their besteffort forward.
So this kind of I'll wrap thisinto the people part of it.
Coach Selfie could tell thisgreat story all the time about
what one bad person can do toculture.
He says you're coming home fromwork, you get your favorite
pint of ice cream, you got agallon of ice cream, whatever
your best favorite flavor is I'ma chocolate ice cream guy and
(06:36):
you open up that pint of icecream and there's just a tiny
little piece of turd in the topright.
Tiny little piece.
You have a gallon of ice cream.
There's a ton of space that'snot being touched by this one
singular turd that's in there.
What do you do with the icecream?
(06:58):
The answer is you throw it away.
So why out of a business of 100people if you have one or two
bad eggs that can completelydestroy the result, or one or
two bad actions, or one or twobad communication areas that can
completely destroy the result,or one or two bad actions or one
or two bad communication areasthat can completely destroy the
result of the action?
So that's something that I'vealways thought of.
Going forward is keeping makingsure that everything is on the
bottom half of that period.
Am I speaking right?
Because in the end of it, youcan't control the result in
(07:19):
business.
You can't control the fact thata small company is trying to
land a big company's businessand they don't have the
wherewithal.
But the fact that you're inthat third or fourth stage of
the negotiation sales, whateverit may be, that's all that
matters.
William Gladhart (07:32):
Right, Absolutely Well.
I love that you speak about theice cream example because it's
very apropos in terms of youknow, we have heard from other
leaders that there was a topperformer but that top performer
was toxic to the wholeorganization and how did they go
about exiting that individual?
Or they had a specific processthat the company had done for
years but it wasn't working.
(07:53):
But when everyone understoodwhat the mission was or they
were all on the same page, theywere moving as a team and people
were being communicated with,things move forward and everyone
got on board really quickly.
So it was that reflective thatyou talked about, but also the
ability to be able to be movingforward and looking at other
elements.
Yeah, I really appreciate yousharing that and identifying
(08:15):
that.
Was there any specificchallenge as you were playing on
a team or that kind ofnegatively impacted performance
or something within theorganization itself?
Chris Teahan (08:26):
I would say that the people part of it was
probably the biggest challengeto overcome.
I think that everybody inbusiness can say that unless
you're scientific or some areawhere you just can't figure out
a certain equation, you knowwhen you're looking at a regular
business, it's usually thepeople that that hurts you, and
it's by not having a greatleader and it's also by not
having the core values and acommon goal to work towards and
(08:48):
everybody knowing their role.
There was many times when I wasat Kansas that seasons would be
ruined very early into theseason because three or four
guys who were key contributorsdoesn't matter if they were
averaging 20 points or they wereon the scout team or they were
needed to play five minutes agame were not playing their role
.
So those were things that ittook a while for even Coach Self
to figure out, and that's kindof why we implemented the
(09:10):
pyramid was to make sure that,hey, everybody was on the same
page.
Specific examples I can'treally think of one or can't
really say some of the specificexamples that I have, but I
always would say be a star inyour role, that's the most
important thing.
You have role players in yourbusiness, on your team and in
reality, those are some of themost important people Having
(09:32):
somebody who has a role thatdoesn't get the recognition it
deserves.
Having someone in HR, havingsomeone who's putting together
the marketing tools not thesalesperson, not the person
who's the front of the business,not the guy who's averaging 30
points a game, but the people intheir role and having someone
who takes their role as an honorand gives himself 100% to that
role, knowing that when theymake the ultimate goal, when
(09:55):
they meet it, when they getthere, the pie is big enough for
absolutely everybody.
My role at Kansas was not toplay and score that 10,000
points.
When I was there, my goal wasto get the scout team ready, was
to watch a ton of film, makesure everybody knew exactly what
they were doing and then alsobe a leader in an aspect that no
one else would see.
In the 10,000 hours 100,000hours that I was at Kansas, no
(10:18):
one ever saw 95% to really 90,like probably 99% of what I had
done.
But you know, I felt that thatrole was something that was
valuable to my team andeverything going forward.
William Gladhart (10:29):
Yeah, I think that's really interesting to
share and we sometimes see thisin mergers and acquisitions and
also private equity venturecapital that sometimes there are
challenges around the rightpeople, the right fit.
High growth or a quick changeoften causes shifts, but being
intentional about people andliving the values of the
(10:50):
organization or setting thoseout clearly, one thing about
Coach Self is he is a master atdoing some of those elements and
it's why you guys at the timekept going to championships and
continue moving forward.
It's creating that winningculture, that winning team.
Chris.
Anything else you'd like to addor share with fellow leaders?
Chris Teahan (11:10):
I want to be as much of help as I can when I sit
back and think of certainthings that I've learned over
the course of my time.
Coming from a 25-year-old, thismay not hold a ton of value,
but there's certain things thatI think that I've taken from
what I've done, and there's onething that I would say that
everybody needs to do, oreveryone needs to at least think
about.
If they do it and it is wheredo you live your life?
(11:31):
Do you live your life on the topof mountain peaks or do you
live your life at the bottom?
Both of those answers are notthe best answers.
You don't want to be always sohigh.
You're going to get to acertain point where you're going
to be looking over themountains being like I conquered
it, and you're going to be 45,with however many kids and
whatever it may be, and you'regoing to think, okay, this is
(11:52):
the peak of what's happened.
Or, when you're really down onyourself, are you in the bottom
of that canyon where, hey, Idon't know if I can do this
anymore.
I'm going to give up, I'm goingto quit my job, I'm going to
stop doing the startup that I'vedreamed of doing for so long?
Or do you live your life in thehills and the valleys, and the
hills and the valleys flow likethis when you have a great
success, it is great.
(12:13):
Hey, take a second,congratulate yourself, take an
hour, take a night, take acouple of days to sit there and
really reflect on what it wasthat got you there.
But never be.
Hey, this is the almightymoment.
And then also, on the downside,you never want to get too low.
I have a job where, right now.
I'm a 25-year-old male who goesup to people who are 65, 50, 45
(12:34):
, who are very high incomenetwork individuals who've
worked their whole life toattain this, and my job is to
get their money and bring itover to me and have me manage it
.
So what do you think mostpeople's reactions are?
It's no, and it's constant no,and it's constantly getting
kicked down and whatever it maybe and I think of that as a
learning experience from mypoint of view getting the kick
(12:56):
down, getting the knockdown,knowing that I can pick myself
back up, but also knowing that,hey, I got that meeting.
I sat there, I took somethingaway from it.
I don't think there's ever beena meeting that you've had, that
I've had, or that anybody'sreally had, where you can walk
away being like I learnedabsolutely nothing, even if it's
hey, I'll never get in ameeting with somebody like this
again, you've learned a littlebit of something.
(13:20):
Yeah, those are some things thatyeah.
William Gladhart (13:23):
No, I really like that.
I think that's sage advice,thinking about living in the
in-between versus the super highand the super low, because I'm
sure there were thoseexperiences on the basketball
team but, as you noted, alsowithin your job role and you
know, changing markets, changingenvironment, et cetera.
Thank you again for sharingyour thoughts, Chris.
(13:43):
I've enjoyed having you on ourLeadership Lovers podcast.
Really appreciate your insights.
Chris Teahan (13:48):
All right, Appreciate it Well.
Thank you for having me on.
William Gladhart (13:52):
Thank you for joining us on the Leadership
Levers podcast.
Find all our Leadership Loversepisodes on the Culture Think
Tank website at www.
theculturethinktank.
com or listen on your favoritestreaming platform.
We'd love to hear from youabout the challenges you have
faced as a leader.
Tune in weekly as we inviteleaders to share their
(14:16):
experiences in strengtheningculture and performance, one
action at a time.
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