Bridging Leadership Lessons from the Workplace and Those Experiences Shaping Today's Youth and Tomorrow's Leaders
 A key component of my sessions to help create IMPACT Teams is establishing Trust and Vulnerability so that you can be open with your teammate on the impact they have on you and others. It is much more difficult than it sounds, because for this to truly be impactful, it must be truthful.
Giving compliments isn’t easy for everyone and is something I have struggled with over the years. Growing up with a father born in the 1920’s did not allow for a ton of easy and natural positive reinforcement. For others, the fear of upsetting a teammate that could cause a rift or disrupt the chemistry is a real thing and so we focus on not only having the Courage to Challenge but being aware that HOW you challenge is important. To be a Builder and not a Blamer. I’m talking about using “I See You” as a tool to build IMPACT Teams. It’s how I wrap up my talk on the Power & Price of IMPACT and part of building an IMPACT Culture. The I.C.U. Framework Acknowledging others with intentional words can strengthen bonds and create lasting impact. It also provides team members to understand that it is important to have INTERNAL focus so that you can have EXTERNAL impact. I - IMPACT Recognize the specific actions or efforts of someone on your team. It helps your teammate take an INTERNAL focus on their actions and behaviors. “I see you making an impact by…” C – CONNECT Share why it matters to you personally or to the team. You reinforce their action and the connection it has to you. “I appreciate it because it makes me…” U – UNIFY Explain how their effort strengthens the team as a whole. This brings the conversation from focusing on SELF so that you can have impact on OTHERS “It helps our team by…” How to Use It It can be awkward using this at first, especially for younger people, but helping them to understand the importance and the power of acknowledging the efforts of others is part of the process. To successfully use the I.C.U. you must:
Quick Example “Hey, I want you to know that I.C.U. making an impact by really pushing me in our one-on-one drills to fight through screens. I appreciate it because I was forced to not only put more effort into getting through the screens but had to work on setting you up to make it easier to get through the screens. It helps our team when you show that type of effort in practice to simulate what we will see in games. It’s not only helping me but also helping the screeners get better of setting screens so our offense can be better. Thank you!” Instituting I.C.U.s as a standard practice of your Team - in sports, business or life - will create a positive IMPACT, help CONNECT those around you, and UNIFY your team to create a powerful IMPACT that will last Beyond Today.
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 One of the benefits of working for yourself is the ability to quickly adjust direction or I guess it is more like choosing to take a different pathway to your destination. I love sharing the power of IMPACT with various organizations and companies to help them recognize the value but also the understanding that what they do and how they do it matters.
But being able to adapt this to reach student athletes in high school and college hits to the core of who I am. I have begun speaking to athletic teams in hopes of moving the individuals from a self-centric focus to an external-centric impact. The Power & Price of IMPACT This interactive talk is designed to inspire athletes to uncover the Power of making a positive IMPACT and recognize the Price when the IMPACT is negative. Through stories, reflection, and practical strategies, athletes will be challenged to embrace their role in shaping themselves, their team, and their community. This isn’t a lecture, but an open discussion on who and what is impacting them as well as using the team engagement to uncover impact areas that were previously hidden or ignored. I use a workshop format to create understanding and awareness so that the team members can align and build a greater connection. My Day of IMPACT I begin by sharing my personal story of the day my heart stopped beating, and the resulting gratitude fuels a life committed to positive IMPACT. The IMPACT You Have Interactive reflection on how athletes influence themselves, their teammates, and the game—celebrating positives while confronting negatives. We then expand the discussion to create the understanding that IMPACT reaches beyond the team to the program, school, fans, and community. Creating awareness that what you do matters and understanding what that IMPACT looks like. The IMPACT on You After the recognition of all the ways we can impact others, we begin exploring who and what influences our performance, while learning to manage the Circle of Control, Influence, and Concern. This is where it can get uncomfortable as we confront our own biases, fears, and insecurities to step away from the blame game, so that we can focus on moving ourselves forward. The IMPACT Challenge Athletes find it easy to work on skill-development, but the mental aspect is often overlooked and simply avoided. We will identify barriers that keep athletes from maximizing their IMPACT and creating focus on self-development for greater external influence. We will create an internal focus for external IMPACT. Be Better Today (BBT) Closing with an action plan. We answer the IMPACT Challenge by using the BBT Tool to help them identify focus areas and list out specific actions the athletes commit to, in order to create a greater IMPACT. It’s great to be able to pull together the 3 Pillars of IMPACT that I have used for business as well as for athletics and turn it into an hour-long discussion. It lays the foundation for future workshops where teams can be transformed into IMPACT Teams as they can build on this work to create greater awareness and respect for the roles that each other play for the team to be successful. For young athletes who are so used to being the center of attention in their own social media bubble, stepping out to create awareness of their potential for IMPACT can be transformative for them. Coming to grips with how their actions have the power to positively or negatively impact others, is the price they pay to lead a life of IMPACT, Beyond Today.  At the last LeadersLead session, we focused on the power of an IMPACT Legacy. Participants openly shared experiences where an event or person from their past made an IMPACT on their life. After breaking down that experience, they reflected on how that IMPACT helped shape them as a person. Finally, we talked about the IMPACT they are now having on others because of those experiences of growth.
What I quickly found was that during these moments of courage and vulnerability, it was easy to connect with the individual in a way that you could feel changing you and your perspective. Those moments where attendees are nodding their heads in not only recognition, but appreciation for those experiences. You quickly realized that these are People of IMPACT. Using the IMPACT Legacy Tool, we heard from a wrestling coach, who helped train 33 different Olympians, about how a collegiate athlete shaped him as a leader. As he was working out with this All-American wrestler and future MMA Champion, the wrestler asked the coach, “why are you trying to beat me? You are here to coach me.” It was a punch to the gut as the coach realized his focus was too much on competing and not enough on teaching and growing. That led to a transformation on how he leads and trains his team as well as athletes across the globe. Fully aware that the impact is in their growth, which in turn results in his own growth as well. We heard from a young father who shared that his 7 year-old son was shaping him every day, as his son’s love for learning and his growth made him reconsider his priorities and how he relates to his team at work. The power of patience. As leaders, we can all relate to the complexities of delegation. The importance of effectively delegating, but the nuances of it positively impacting the person you are delegating to while also achieving overall success. A leader shared the importance of delegating RESPONSIBILITIES and not just TASKS. It resonated with those as you could see them jotting down notes for their own growth paths. Sharing the appreciation of a manager who took a chance on a young, inexperienced, small-town kid who wanted more than what was typical from those in her community. “I found myself by not allowing fear to overtake my life.“ She talked about the IMPACT of a “manager who believed in who I was and what I could become.” She went on to share that now, she is in a position where she can focus on mentoring others and have a positive IMPACT on their lives. I was able to share my story of IMPACT and how an athletic trainer, Liz Sizemore, was at the right spot at the right time to get my heart beating again, combined with all of the other “coincidences” associated with that event, that made me realize the importance of making an IMPACT in the lives of others and how that ripples though the greater connection of life. When you are in control of your organization, your team or your life, you can choose to NOT do uncomfortable things… but when you are a person of IMPACT, you realize that it has to be done. That you can’t delegate it to someone else. There is a time to face your fears because you know you are able to overcome them. The session was a moment of IMPACT for me as I was able to grow and learn by listening to the stories of others and then reflecting on how those stories impact me. As I review my notes from that session, I am already considering how I will use their IMPACT on me, to start Impacting others Beyond Today. You can find out more about #LeadersLead by clicking HERE and watch past sessions. |
AuthorTom Brown - a husband and a father who is simply trying to make a difference. Using my experience as a Manufacturing Executive to connect leadership from the boardroom to the hardwood to help teams grow and develop to make a difference in the lives of others. 
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