David Novak 0:04 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen to and while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Well, March Madness is kicking off this weekend. And I'm honored to have Matt Doherty joining me as my guest today, Max played in Final Fours himself, and is the former head basketball coach at both Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina, and is now a nationally recognized executive coach, motivational speaker, and author. Matt wrote what I think is one of the most revealing leadership books out there. It's called rebound. And let me tell you, it's jam packed with insights on what to do when things don't go your way. Because let's be real, if you lead long enough, there's a possibility you just might find yourself in a situation that's really tough, or really unfair, or just downright painful. But listen to Matt today, because I want you to see what it looks like when you persevere and learn from adversity. Because those tough moments can actually reveal incredible insights and incredible opportunities. So let's get into it. Here's my conversation with my good friend Han soon to be yours, Matt Doherty.

When this airs, I can't help but bringing this up, because you're an expert, this area will be stepping into another year of March Madness. what teams do you think will be battling it out? In the end?

Matt Doherty 1:48 

I just think that there's so much parity. I've said that every year, but more and more, there's more more parity, I think with the transfer portal, and the NIHL out there, that players now are going where the best opportunities are in some of that those opportunities of financial. And so you see, the SEC has really gotten strong over the last few years, because I think they're committed to the NFL process a little bit more. So teams like Alabama, Tennessee, have really ramped up their investment in players. So who's going to be standing Kansas has the team Kentucky's very young Kentucky beat Kansas earlier this year. I like Purdue I think Mack painter's a heck of a coach. And he's due to go to the Final Four. And I wouldn't forget Rick Barnes at Tennessee, I think Rick's done a really good job and has a nice team. But I'll tell you what, there's probably probably 15 to 20 teams that could win a national championship.

David Novak 2:48 

And you know, speaking of great teams in 1982, you won the national championship in North Carolina, where you played with the likes of Michael Jordan and James worthy. What's the behind the scenes story from that tournament that you love to tell

Matt Doherty 3:03 

ya? Oh, gosh, well, we almost lost in the first round on to James Madison, we blew him out. 5452 I think the score was you know, there wasn't anything particular David, but you've been on great teams. And you may have been on some bad teams. And I think the chemistry is the thing that is so important. We had great players. And James worthy was our best player. That year, even though Michael Jordan was on the team. Michael is a freshman. But he's so unselfish. And I think that we really got along. And we cared about one thing, and that was to win a national championship. And so I don't know if there's any one behind the scenes thing that I can remember. But that was about 40 years ago, so I'm not sure I remember what I had for breakfast. You

David Novak 3:58 

know, as I understand it, you were the CO captain of the team that year and how did that kind of recognition drive you? Well,

Matt Doherty 4:05 

you know, Coach Smith really invested in the seniors and, and so I was a captain co captain, my last year. And that was a team with Michael Jordan as a junior Sam Perkins was the senior with me. He valued the upperclassmen, and really, really gave credit to the upperclassmen in victories and took credit for losses in defeat. And I think that, you know, good leaders do give credit to their employees, to their soldiers to the people out in the field. And when things don't go, well, they need to be, you know, being held accountable, hold themselves accountable, and not throw anybody under the bus. So there was an expectation that you earned you earned your stripes at North Carolina. You may play a lot as a freshman or sophomore but you still had the biggest voice as a senior,

David Novak 5:01 

what's something about preparing for that night of a national championship game that every leader can learn from?

Matt Doherty 5:10 

experience helps. We were in the championship game the year before. And we had three starters. Coming back plus me I was a sixth man. I played a lot. And then we had Michael Jordan come in as a freshman. So the experience definitely helps. And I remember when we were playing Georgetown, and they had Patrick Ewing, and I think John Thompson, their legendary coach said to Patrick, you know, anything around the basket block, I don't care if it's goaltending. And I remember they Patrick, I think, goaltender the first four shots. And I remember huddling the team up and kind of smiled and said, hey, you know, if they're going to do that, just throw the ball into James, let him turn around and shoot it. And if they want to goaltender it, you know that they're not going to intimidate us because we've been there before. And we had played against Ralph Sampson, who had Virginia was seven foot four, so Ewing's not intimidating us. So I think that experience helped. But the one comment, and I was blessed David to play for Dean Smith, legendary coach. And I remember, he said before the game, he said, there's 8 billion people in China that don't care who wins this game. And basically, go out and play, like, relax. And I think the thing that you want to do, there's two sides of a coin, you know, there's fear and nerves like and turn the fear the nerves into like butterflies, like, get excited, instead of fearful, don't get paralyzed. And I think being in the moment, and just letting yourself like I always try to as an athlete play in the zone. What is the zone? Well, the zone is when things you don't have to think about things you are present, and you're not thinking about the next play. You're not thinking about the last play. And I think that's what Coach Smith really had us do is to play in the moment and you will make mistakes in business, you will make mistakes, learn from them. But don't let them fester so that they become a snowball of mistakes move on quickly. And so I think the biggest thing is being present and just enjoying it like going out there. This 63,000 people in that game is the largest crowd first time they played in the dome Drina at that point. And like enjoy it, look around and say man like this? Who's that dude up there? I can't see him. He could hardly see me. I don't know how much you pay for that ticket. 63,000 people here instead of being fear, oh my gosh, 63,000 people, what if I make a mistake, enjoy it, I think embrace the moment.

David Novak 7:50 

That's great advice. And I want to get into how you lead and all that you're doing a dirty coaching. But first, I want to take you back. I know you're a big believer in meritocracy. Tell us a story from your upbringing that really drove that home for you. The park where I grew

Matt Doherty 8:05 

up playing basketball was three blocks from my house. And I remember going there pretty much every day I could, you would choose sides. And the best two best players would choose sides and then they go okay be like you and I choose sides. And you know, we we choose for it. I don't have people cues anymore, but like one thing or two fingers, and I'd call odds or evens. And if I want I get the first pick and then you start negotiating. It's like okay, you got the first pick, I get the second two. And then you know, these are kids now young people learning how to negotiate. It's not organized by adults. And then if I felt that Joe was the best player and could help me when I'm going to pick Joe then you pick your player then we go down the line to we have five aside and then if you win, you stayed on the court and loser set and the next team came up and so if you could help of team when you got to play there's no politics it just meritocracy. You know, you earn the right to play you earn the right to stay on the court. Whether it was you know, five young guys, three black guys, two white guys, it didn't matter. It just all about winning and staying on the court. You

David Novak 9:22 

know, I used to work at Pepsi. So I got to ask you this when I you know I understand your dad was a Pepsi route salesman. What did you learn watching him in action?

Matt Doherty 9:31 

Wow. I wrote about this the other day. My dad I was so blessed David and I know your dad moved a lot and you know that helped you develop relationships and you had to start a new a lot. My dad owned a Pepsi route back then you own the route. So as his business and a couple of things stand out. He got up early every day. Like when I got up to go to school. He was already gone. And it could be sunny out here. It could be blistering hot out, it could be snowing out, it could be raining out, it could be ice out, he went to work. And I'd go two weeks out of the summer when I was old enough, say fourth, fifth sixth grade, I'd help him. And he had a guy at work with some guy named Willie house. And we would get to the plant, Long Island City. It's an iconic sign, as you know, on the East River, we would load the truck, we would drive through the Midtown Tunnel and his route was in Greenwich Village. I sat in the middle between hay and a helper and a stick shift and you know, we'd be bouncing on the cobblestone streets. And we get out and we park or double park and then we go to whatever grocery store das Dino's a bodega, whatever. And then you generally had to go down the basement, you know, like, you see those metal things in the sidewalk, you'd open them up, and then you had to go like straight down with a hand truck and get soda down there. And then sometimes I had to label them. My dad, I never saw him in a bad mood. He'd come home from work, if I had a ballgame. He was there might be in his Pepsi uniform, but he was there. And after my game, win or lose, he would say, good game, let's go get some ice cream. And we'd go to friendlies and get some ice cream. I just think his work ethic and he was always positive.

David Novak 11:30 

You know, you were a McDonald's, all American in high school. And then you go to North Carolina to play for, you know, Dean Smith, who you you've already mentioned. But when you think about that time with Dean Smith at North Carolina, what would be the single biggest lesson that you learn from him as a player,

Matt Doherty 11:50 

I think it's hard to say. And those lessons kind of evolve as you evolve in your life. So now as an executive coach, and a keynote speaker, I talk a lot about culture. And, you know, for a while there, I had a hard time defining culture and how to implement it. Coach Smith would talk about crazy actions you want repeated and catch people doing something right. And I think that I was a find the flaw coach for a while. And through some my failure and going on a leadership journey that was brought to my attention by an executive coach, and I tried to be better at praising the actions you want repeated. And so how do you drive a good culture, it starts with core values in North Carolina, it was play hard play smart play together. And then it was behaviors that were rooted in your core values, like hit the first open man. And then the hardest thing for any leader to do, I believe, is holding people accountable. Because inevitably, somebody's going to show up late, somebody's going to take a bad shot, somebody's gonna do something that isn't something you approve of. But if you let it slide, your culture is what you allow. So I think driving a culture, establishing a culture is probably one of the biggest if not the biggest thing I learned from Dean Smith. Now,

David Novak 13:16 

your first job out of college was as a bond salesman at Kidder Peabody. Yeah, how that happened. And what did it teach you?

Matt Doherty 13:25 

I tell you what, I got cut by the NBA. And I was devastated. And I turned my back on basketball because I felt it turned its back on me. I always was one that have backup plans. And sometimes that's not a good thing. But so I had an interest in business and Wall Street. I knew some people there and I thought it'd be cool to make money and it was sexy in the 80s. You know, Gordon Gekko and all that stuff. So I went to Wall Street, I quickly realized that I didn't like talking about bond yields, that I like to sell something that's more tangible, that you can see feel or touch. I didn't like selling you know, I had to sell, again, numbers. So I think it's important to learn what you don't like. And I also learned the value of phone sales, though I was institutional sales and Sam Marrone was the sales manager who's a marine tough guy, good guy. But he said, anytime you pick up the phone, make sure you're adding value. Like don't call somebody just say so just checking in. You know, basically, you got to throw me a trade today. And then the last thing and I still use this, when you get the order, hang up the phone. don't oversell, right. So like I learned that in recruiting. I learned that now when somebody commits to my coaching practice, I say, okay, great. We'll send you the contract and look forward to seeing you and following up next week. You oversell and all of a sudden someone's like, oh, wait, oh, oh, really. I have to come once a month for eight hours. And I don't know, let me think about this. So the phone sales, adding value, knowing what you don't like, and when you get the order hang up the phone.

David Novak 15:09 

So good learning there. You know what led you Matt down the path of coaching?

Matt Doherty 15:13 

Yeah, I think a couple things I was interested in broadcasting while I was working on Wall Street. So I went to St. Francis, college and did the radio. And I was doing the radio. And as I was doing the radio, I realized I wanted to be in the huddle, not outside the huddle. And so I started to fall back in love with basketball. And then I went quit my job and moved to Charlotte in 1989, thinking I was going to get into real estate business. And a guy was working for at sockwell ran a search firm and gave me a part time job. But he also ran an AAU team, and he needed an eighth grade coach. So he asked me if I'd coach I said I would. And I immediately fell in love with it. I loved every part of it. The planning, the practices, the camaraderie, I enjoyed every part of it. I was doing radio at Davidson at the time for the Davidson basketball team. They made a coaching change and hired Bob MacKillop, who was my high school coach on Long Island. And Bob then went on to be the all time winning coach at Davidson. He'll be in the Hall of Fame soon. And most notably, Coach Steph Curry at Davidson College. So yeah, I just rolled into it. And I loved coaching man, I loved it. I loved I remember, I was coaching Kansas for Roy Williams for seven years. And lottery was up to some crazy number, let's say 100 million. And I was sitting around the pool with a couple of friends. And the topic comes up, like, what would you do if you hit the lottery? And, you know, one guy says, Oh, I quit my job. And I do this. And another guy says, I quit my job and do that. And it gets to me. And I thought for a minute, I said, I keep doing what I'm doing. Like, that's when you know you really passionate about what you're doing?

David Novak 17:08 

Absolutely. It started out, as you said, as an assistant at Davidson, and then on to Kansas, where you spent seven years working for Roy Williams, another great coach and, and you gained this incredible reputation for being a world class recruiter. What did you do to make recruiting one of your superpowers?

Matt Doherty 17:28 

That, you know, it's funny because I didn't like selling bond yields. But I love selling the opportunity to go to the school I was working at. And I wasn't a good salesman on Wall Street, but I was a good salesman in college athletics. You know, somebody asked me this recently, what are your strengths? And how to think about it. And I thought, you know, I'm pretty good at building trusting authentic relationships quickly. And I enjoy people, I enjoy learning about people. And I think that growing up the way I grew up witnessing my parents who were always the last car to leave church at St. Raphael's on Sundays, because they were in the parking lot talking to everybody. So I had that model. And so I could connect with people. And it could be, you know, some rich family. In New York City, it could be a poor family in LA, it could be, you know, a white family, a black family, a farmer in Kansas, it could be and I think I had ability and enjoyed doing that and also is competitive, like I like to win. And, you know, okay, so what's the competition doing? You know, and you find out that one thing I'm good at now is asking questions. Okay, as an executive coach, that's helpful. Well, as a recruiter, that's helpful. So you know, if I'm recruiting you, David, tell me, what are you looking for in school? Okay, what's important to your family? Tell me about you know, your dreams. Give me a list of your favorites. And then I would connect, and you know, I get a list and I was detailed and make sure your names are spelled right. And I would then really pursue you and the people around you and make sure that you control what you control and no one was going to outwork me. And I thought I built authentic relationships pretty quickly and develop the trust.

David Novak 19:31 

Well, DAN HURLEY and his UConn Huskies have gotten a coveted number one seed in this year's tournament. And now it's time to see if they can go back to back as national champions, like my Kansas City Chiefs. If you missed it, I had a great conversation with Dan earlier this year, where we talked about what it takes to win a title and why you've got to keep pushing yourself, even after big success,

Dan Hurley 19:57 

like anyone else that pushes themselves hard on Uh, the goalposts always move. So for me, I think I always dreamed of winning a national championship. You have now, now you you dream of becoming a Hall of Fame coach. So I just think that the goalposts always move and you're always want the next thing.

David Novak 20:17 

So scroll back in the feed to Episode 169. If you want to hear the whole conversation with DAN HURLEY, here on how leaders lead

you have some really creative ways to bring your players in and get them attracted to you, including an air sickness bag. Yeah. Tell us about that one.

Matt Doherty 20:43 

Well, you make it personal. Right. So how do you stand out? How do you stand out from your competition? You know, your marketing, right? So I want it to stand out. So I'm in the plane, and I see this air sickness bag, and I get obsessed. And I think you have to be somewhat obsessed is a strong word. But like, if you're passionate about what you're doing, you're thinking about it all the time. And so I'm in a plane, I see an air sickness bag, I think I have a decent sense of humor. So I write on the bags. And David, I'd be sick if you don't come to Kansas, and send that to you. So that's different, right? Because the top recruits in the country are getting maybe 100 letters a day, maybe 50. So I want them to open my letter. And when they see that, and they smile and laugh. They're going to show it to their family. And I'm going to separate myself from the competition. I

David Novak 21:38 

love that, you know, Matt, you paid your dues as an assistant. And then you were offered the head coaching position at Notre Dame. And I got to ask you, what was it like going in to Notre Dame, which is a football school? It's not a basketball school? It certainly wasn't back then. And you know, you're going to be the basketball coach now at Notre Dame. What's that like? Well,

Matt Doherty 22:02 

Tinker Phelps had success there in the 70s and the early 80s. It's maybe the most prestigious university, one of them in the world. There's benefits to being second fiddle at a school, you know, you can maybe withstand a downturn in the market a little longer. The heat's not on you. But yet, you can build a really good program. And Billy Donovan did that at Florida, in Florida was considered a football school and he won back to back national championships. So the thing is to turn, take advantage of what you have. Right? And so you have this noteworthy university, you have these alumni all over the country. And then you have fun with it. Like I remember, I remember taking kids on campus, and you know this, they call it touchdown Jesus, right? I'd walk a kid on campus has a you know, you know, we call that here, we call that three point, Jesus. I mean, they they love basketball here at Notre Dame. And so I went to the student body and I after practice, in the fall, I met with three house, they don't have fraternities, they have basically dorms that are, you know, men, and then women storms. And so there's a lot of pride in those dorms. And so I'd go into three dorms a night after practice, and get them fired up and tell them the importance that they're going to make in our program. This this is a contact sport, and I met with some people today I'm like, What is your vision for your company? Like, why should people want to follow you? What excites your team, and I told our team that, you know, I had three goals, you know, our first goal is to get better today. Second one was to win our next game. Third was to win the Big East regular season. Fourth was to win the biggest tournament and fifth was to win a national championship. And I said, we're gonna put Notre Dame basketball back on the map, you know, paint that picture and get them to buy in. And once you get buy in, now you can hold them accountable with when there's a bad practice that Hey, guys, I thought you said you wanted to win a national championship. I thought you said you want to put Notre Dame back on the map. This type of behavior today isn't going to do it. And

David Novak 24:21 

you got off to a flying start because your very first game was against Ohio State which happened to be ranked fifth in the country at the time. And you won. You know, how do you celebrate with your players after a big win like that? Well,

Matt Doherty 24:35 

take a step back five days prior, we had played an exhibition game against a team called Marathon Oil now, a lot of teams were put together and sponsored by different companies and one was Marathon Oil and they would go around and play. Get former college players and play against college teams and you allowed to exhibition games before the season started. Ohio State had played Marathon Oil, I think the night before us and beat him by 25. We played them and lost by 25. And the next day we're supposed to have off. And I looked at the paper and the paper in the South Bend Tribune reads, you know, the subtitle was the lackadaisical effort dunes, the Irish, my body started to get warm. And then hot and smoke was coming out of my ears. So I said to my coaches, I said, we're going to have practice today, but no basketballs. And so the players showed up. And I said, you know, guys, I've been called a lot of things. But you know, lackadaisical is not one of them. I said, we're gonna play hard. I use coaches, core values, play hard, play smart play together. And I said, that wasn't it. I had raised a million dollars to get new locker room. I said, I raised a million dollars for you guys. I said, I spend more time with you guys than my family. I did make it personal. I said, you're gonna give me that. You're gonna give us that? No, on the baseline. And they ran sprints, and they ran sprints. And they ran sprints. And they ran some more sprints, and to the point where some guys were falling out. And I said, Fine, get out. You know, you're not tough enough, get out. And we ran for about, I don't know, an hour. Finally, I was done with them. They didn't like me, I didn't like them. Five days later, we go into Columbus, Ohio, beat number five, Ohio State, Ohio State on the last second shot. I'm getting goosebumps talking about it right now, when it's a locker room. I remember talking to Bill Raftery after the game with my son and my arm on ESPN. And they're in the locker room, they came out into the hallway to greet me. And, you know, that's the beautiful thing about sports, you know, you get high highs, you get some low lows, but those moments are very special. And the players then we had a bus ride about whatever it was back to South Bend. When he got to the locker room, they wrote 304 on the whiteboard, well, three or four, apparently by their calculation was the number of Sprint's they ran. And so that was kind of our calling card the rest of the year where they put it on their sneakers, they would talk about three or four, three or four. Like if we can do that we've got enough in the tank to play hard tonight. And I love coaching that team I love coach at Notre Dame and some ways I wish I stayed there forever. You turn

David Novak 27:40 

the program around and you didn't win the national championship that year. But you did take Notre Dame to the all the way to the finals of the NIT tournament. And then just after one season at Notre Dame, you know, taking on this new job, you get a shot to become a head coach at North Carolina. How do you process that decision?

Matt Doherty 27:59 

You know what's weird in, in corporate America, I imagine you have more time to make a decision. In college athletics, you really have a short window maybe two to seven days before you can make a decision because recruiting and you're afraid of players defecting from your old place. And, and so you really need to process it quickly. And the challenge for me that I do believe that we all need a personal board of directors, right. So somebody's not emotionally tied to your organization, but tied to you and helping you make good decisions. The problem with me at that point was my personal board of directors was Roy Williams and Dean Smith. And so they both had something at stake Roy turned the job down at North Carolina, he was at Kansas, he turned the job down to go back to North Carolina. So Dean Smith is now calling me and having Michael Jordan call me to take the job at North Carolina. So where did I go to get objective feedback on if this is the right thing to do? I didn't have it. I didn't have it. You know, so I had to go through the process almost, you know, alone. I mean, I did talk with my wife and Deke Vitale is calling me he's a Notre Dame fan. He wants me to stay at Notre Dame. You know, the ad at Notre Dame obviously wants me to stay at Notre Dame. And so I just didn't know where to turn. So I went to the grotto at Notre Dame I prayed. And then your mind starts playing tricks on you to have good options is a burden. Like sometimes it's better not to have options, and just work your tail off at the job you have. But when you have options, that can be a burden. So I remember, you know, do I stay at Notre Dame or go to North Carolina, and I'm saying I need a sign. You know, I went to the grotto prayed and I'm thinking, God, give me a sign. And I'm in Walmart, and I'm walking the aisles of Walmart and a guy turns the corner he's wearing a UNC shirt. Like that's the same guy. Oh, Carolina, sir. I've gone to I'm going to Chapel Hill. Yeah, I mean, it was it was idiotic. But it was crazy. But it was probably too much to turn down. I've

David Novak 30:10 

heard you talk about read about you bringing what you thought North Carolina needed at the time was accountability and toughness. You know, how do you go about that

Matt Doherty 30:20 

managing change is an art form. And I talked about in the book you referenced earlier, the six knows of leadership kn ows. And the first one is knowing yourself. The second one is knowing your team. The third one is knowing your environment. And then knowing your vision, knowing your industry, mining for the truth, the environment. North Carolina needed the same kind of kick in the pants, I felt that Notre Dame needed in terms of an injection of toughness, and competitiveness. The problem was North Carolina had success. North Carolina had gone to the final for the year before, they had gone to final for two years prior. And there was basically massive success for 36 straight years, and there was a lot of people still in place. At Notre Dame, not as many people cared, they needed change, and they knew they needed change. So I had kind of the green light to impose my will on the program. We're at North Carolina I didn't. So my style was not appreciated. And that didn't show up until you lost, right? I mean, it's okay, winning, Seuss everything. But once you start losing, now, all of a sudden, the chirping starts. And I didn't have the internal support, I don't think at North Carolina that I did at Notre Dame. And so if you have some people that are kind of not supporting your message, and maybe even worse, stirring a fire, it's hard to gain traction. And I think that's where I wasn't good at managing the change, I should have gotten slower with change. I should have referred to Coach Smith, because he was the legend. You know, in the building, his name's on the building. And I probably should have deferred to him. Although in the recruiting process, he said to me, it's your program, run it how you see fit. And I'm a little real person. So I took that literally from a man that I trusted, you know, so I look back and I cringe I was just naive. I think I was really naive.

David Novak 32:34 

Well, your first year, give you a little credit here. It was a slam dunk. I mean, you kick butt and you were named the National Coach of the Year. I mean, your first year. So now you've been a head coach, the first one you turn around Notre Dame second year, you become a national coach of the year. You know, how did that impact you? Well,

Matt Doherty 32:53 

it felt great. Obviously, we beat Duke and Duke for the first time in five years, it was magical. You know, we were on, I think one of 18 game winning streak one of the longest winning streaks in Carolina history. It was awesome. But as a coach, when your team is doing well, you try to tighten the screws because things get loose. All of a sudden, people think, oh, you know, we're successful, we're winning. So you know, we could take a little time off, maybe show up a little late or, or come back from lunch a half hour late or cut out a little early on Friday to go play golf for you. No, no, no, no, no, that's when you need to tighten the screws. And I tried to do that with my team. And because I could tell we weren't getting better and detail into that winning streak. But they took it as like I was too hard on it. And maybe I didn't deliver it and emotionally intelligent way. But I remember a game at Wake Forest, we beat Wake Forest at Wake Forest. And after the game, I was like disappointed. Like guys, we didn't play well. We're lucky we only reason we won this game. We're more talented. And if we continue to play this way, it's not going to end well. And we then lost a game at Clemson and then only won five or last 10 games, because we kept going this way. And we hit a bottom. And it just took us too long to try to write the ship and was never able to write the ship. And so it was disappointing at the end of the season,

David Novak 34:23 

still coach of the year and I found it interesting that before you took over as the head coach in North Carolina, you told the athletic director that your second season there was going to be tough. I mean, you're already laying the track. You said hey, my second season is going to be tough. And you are right. You know the talent wasn't there. You knew it wasn't going to be there. The team goes eight and 20 the worst season in North Carolina history. When you're having a year like that, how do you keep a team motivated? First

Matt Doherty 34:53 

of all, like in business, you know what's in the funnel right? Backlog you call it backlog right? You have backlog and so you know What's in the funnel? You kind of see what the secession plan looks like. And so without, you know saying anything negative, I told the idea that exactly what you said. So the second year it's a real challenge, a fun challenge, you know, you got to embrace it like, this is a challenge this, this, someone once said, you know, like, you could look at it one or two ways, oh, the sky is falling, or this is only gonna make the story better. Like Coach K almost got fired his third year at Duke, Coach Smith, they hung him in effigy. So this is only going to make the story better. I'm tough enough to get through this. Are you tough enough? Let's get through this. Let's focus on getting better today. I go back to my goals. five goals. First goal get better today. Alright, win your next game. win the ACC championship, winning so forgot to win the national championship. We get better today. And you don't measure it wins losses. And I think that Nick Saban, I look at Nick Saban, I admire him a great deal. It is about the process. You know, it is about that? Are you getting better today. And that's something that we tried to do. And I didn't judge them on the score, I judge them on performance.

David Novak 36:19 

You rebound in your third year and you win 19 games, but then you you get fired. And I gotta tell you, here's my perspective, just as a leader watching what's happening to you, and here's what I think happened. Okay. Roy Williams, another North Carolina, a great coach at Kansas, he's on the market, he's open to the move to go back to North Carolina. So he's, he's in the hopper, you have an OK season, but you didn't make it into March Madness, just get to play in the NIT, the athletic director, he wants to hire Roine. Okay, always wanted to hire Roy, and goes on a witch hunt. And he doesn't have your back, he listens to the players gripe about you how tough you are on him. And he gets enough bad info from everybody to give him what he needs to pull the trigger on you. Then he commits what I think is the sin of any leader. He fires you without giving you any coaching? You know, he didn't give you any coaching? Tell you what you could do better. Give you a second chance, man, don't you think they owe that to you to lock arms with you and to work with you on whatever issues you're having at the time? Did I get a ride or not? And that's how I look at it.

Matt Doherty 37:39 

Are you darn close, David? I mean, the Witch Hunt was real. I remember after the last game, I said, you know, there's always some fallout after a season at a place like that. And so I talked to the athletic director, I said, Listen, I'd like you to talk to the players, just to assure them that everything's good. And they hear from you in a different voice. The next day, I call him and he said, I said how to go. He said it didn't go so well. And I'm like, What do you mean? And he said, Well, you know, the some of the players brought in the Dean of Students. I'm like, Why did you bring in the Dean of Students? So I was naive, I trusted them. And you're right. I think that, you know, there were conversations. And I think Coach Smith wanted Coach Williams from the beginning. And so now there was, you know, an opportunity. And I think the team got to the point where the talent was in place. That made it even more attractive job. And so the change was made. The thing that disappoint one of the many things that's disappointing. Is that shoot me straight. Tell me to my face. You say good things. I'll say good things. If you don't say good things could get ugly. We'll pay you. I mean, coaches now getting paid $75 million, not to coach. You know, Jimbo Fisher, I had a weak contract. I trusted my university I should have used a lawyer from the beginning is a state institution. I got paid. I think $450,000 over like three years. And when I see coaches get fired now and they're getting paid 10s of $75 million. I'm like, Oh my God, you know, so I just wish somebody would have come to me and said, Listen, this is not good. I'm sorry. It will say good things. You say good things will help you get your next job. You know, we'll put you to work here in university. It was none of that. The Chancellor ripped me in the press conference. I remember watching it with my wife on TV. I couldn't believe it. You know, we talked about Carolina family and I felt like I was betrayed and and getting stabbed in the gut.

Koula Callahan 40:03 

Hey, everyone is Kula co host of three more questions, and I have some exciting news to share with you. We just launched a breakthrough app that will help you become a better leader in less than two minutes a day. It's called how leaders lead. As you know, on the podcast, David spends about an hour each week interviewing some of the top leaders in the world, people like Tom Brady, Condoleezza Rice, and Jamie Dimon. But we know that leaders like yourself are pressed for time. So we've taken the very best clips from these conversations, and put them into an easy to use mobile app that you can learn from and less than two minutes a day. If you want to become a better leader, start a daily leadership habit with the how leaders lead app, it's available now for free and the App Store, download it today.

David Novak 40:56 

Now, man, I've got one more, two years later, North Carolina wins a national title with a team that was largely recruited by you, and no one ever talks about it. It's like you were written out of the history books, that's gonna break your heart. I mean, how do you get over something like that, and you know, we're going to turn the corner now, it because you have definitely turned the corner. But I mean, I'm just setting the stage. I

Matt Doherty 41:19 

remember when that game that starting five was the starting five, I had my last year. And two years later, they win the national championship. And, and I remember, sitting in the green room, I was doing some TV, and I was just like, oh my gosh, you know, that's my team. And that should be me, climbing the ladder. And you know, it's still hard and never got any recognition. You know, the fans recognize me, you know, but I never just a letter phone call. Thank you. And that is disappointing. But when I went back to coaching, in 2005, right after that championship, I started coaching again. And I took the job at FAU, ironically, now they're they went to the Final Four, I dealt with depression, I went to dark places, and ended up seeing some doctors and taking some medication and because my identity was wrapped up in basketball, and then I also remember talking to an executive coach Fran Johnston and, and I tried to justify it, you know, I said, Oh, this happens in business all the time. You know, people get fired. And, you know, she says, No, you don't get it. She said, You trusted some people at the age of 17 years old, and you felt like you were let down. And like that put things in perspective. So, you know, I'm over it now. But I'll never be fully over it. And I think you get over it through moving forward, finding fulfilling work. And also, you know, through God through Jesus, you know, like, if Jesus could get crucified and forgive the people who crucified him, I could forgive and I've talked about this in books, the people that I felt might have wronged me, but also think forgiveness has to also start with yourself. And, you know, we're not perfect, we make mistakes, and I made some mistakes. And I have to own that and, and realize that, you know, I don't understand the path. But okay, God, you put me on this path. And let me do you know, work for you in

David Novak 43:30 

the leadership space. You know, CEOs often have difficulty when their predecessors stay actively involved on their board, many think they should exit completely. I became executive chairman at yum brands. And I know half the board members thought I should be out of there. Okay. They just thought you'd need to get out of there. I was casting too big a shadow. There's no way the new guy coming in was going to have a chance to be the CEO. But when you're in North Carolina, you got Dean Smith there, he he's always lurking in the background. What did you learn from the way out he handled his so called retirement? And what advice would you give other leaders? Maybe

Matt Doherty 44:08 

it's not much different in business or, you know, on a college campus. They are such a big part of the institution. They are worshipped. They're honored. And so the school wants to take advantage of that through fundraising. You know, I think Roy Williams works for the university. Now, Jay, Jay, right at Villanova works for the President. So they really don't want those people to go away. So I think the best thing to do in that situation would be to totally embrace that former coach and have them involved in every way shape or form that they want to be involved in. So looking back when Coach Smith said, you know, and I'm independent I also have to know yourself like going to six knows leadership. I have to know myself better. I don't I'd like to be told what to do. I'm independent thinker. So maybe I shouldn't have taken the job. But Coach Smith's editor of program, run it how you see fit. So I took that literally. And looking back, I should have embraced him and really let him run the program through me, at least early on, or this sounds maybe weird, give him the impression that I was running the program through him. Okay. A friend of mine, who's writing a book said, good leadership is manipulation with good intent. You know, now, manipulation sounds like a bad word, maybe influence. So, you know, include him. And I didn't, I didn't include him. I remember some one of his friends called me. He said, at the end of the season, he said, you know, you need to call coach more, you need to include him more, like call him more. He's retired, like, I don't want to bother him. And my relationship with him as player coach, he was always somewhat of an intimidating factor. So if I had to do it again, I would have probably run every major decision through him. But I also was afraid that what if he gave me an answer that I didn't like, and I went against it, you know,

David Novak 46:13 

a mat. Uh, you know, I don't know you that well, but I know you well enough. That's that'd be disingenuous to you. I mean, that's not what you want. You could have sold your soul down the river. Okay. But you know, you got screwed. Okay. I mean, you know, there's, there's no doubt about it. But the good news is, your passion has evolved now, from coaching to leadership. Let's turn the corner. How did that happen? How did you get so passionate about leadership? Now,

Matt Doherty 46:40 

when I got fired at North Carolina, I went on a leadership journey. And a friend of mine, John black, personal board of directors, gave me a recommendation. He said, take a year off and do something positive with your time because when you get back to coaching, people are going to ask what did you do? You have this gap in your resume. So he said, I worked with an executive coach at UVA named Carol Weber. I'll introduce you. So I met with Carol Webber and did a half day session with her. Did the Myers Briggs assessment. We talked, I took her class that her husband, Jack, and she ran on leadership. We talked a lot about case studies. And I remember like, wow, oh my gosh, there's so much I don't know, I did the Myers Briggs assessment. I walked in there depressed now my shoulders were down, my head was down. And she said to me, okay, you know, I have to some small talk, you know, Myers Briggs assessment, you're an E and TJ. And I remember thinking, ENT, TJ, I haven't called the four letter words before, but never an EN TJ. And she said, only 2% of the population are en ti J's. And I'm thinking, oh, man, I'm elite, like only 2% of the population. I'm elite. And I think she read my body language who said no, you don't get it. That means 98% of the population don't think like you think. And that was an aha moment for me to realize, started to understand self awareness and emotional intelligence. And then I went to took a class at Wharton week long class and met Fran Johnson. And she used an executive coach, she taught a class on emotional intelligence. From the book, Primal leadership, the I think it's the art of emotional intelligence by Daniel Goleman. And those ladies, those classes, changed my life and got me excited. Because at that point, David, I was told I wasn't a good leader. So I thought you either born a leader or you're not. And now I read and was told that hey, leadership is a learned behavior. I got excited about that. And I just tried to soak up everything I could about leadership.

David Novak 48:56 

Tell me about your Doherty coaching practice and, and all you and your team do. Our focus

Matt Doherty 49:01 

is mainly executive coaching. I'm a Vistage chair Vistage is one of the oldest executive coaching organizations in the country. So I meet with business owners, CEOs in the Charlotte metro area. I also have some independent clients in different parts of the country that I work with. And I do keynote talks, I enjoy doing keynote talks. It's like me getting on stage. It's like a pregame talk that I'm giving to the group. So I focus there. And in addition, I do have the rebound podcast. I wrote the book rebound from paying the passion. I enjoy everything in the leadership space.

David Novak 49:40 

How do you teach someone to be coachable coach,

Matt Doherty 49:43 

who your life's impacted by three things. The people you meet the books you read, and the trauma in your life, and if someone's not coachable and they don't get it through books or people they need some trauma I just hope it's, it's it's not terminal. I think a lot of trauma is good for a lot of people and it's humbling in you little humility, combined with confidence. You get class. You know, there's

David Novak 50:15 

been so much fun and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? Okay, sure. Thanks. So what's one word others would use to best describe you intense? What would you say is the one word that best describes you? Intense? Who would play you in a movie?

Matt Doherty 50:33 

Well, I tell you what, I've gotten to know Jim Caviezel, who was in the passion. Jim's a big basketball guy. And I'll say Jim Caviezel. If

David Novak 50:44 

you could be one person beside yourself for a day, who would it be?

Matt Doherty 50:48 

It's Larry Bird. Or Mick Jagger.

David Novak 50:52 

As a coach, what's your biggest pet peeve?

Matt Doherty 50:55 

untied shoelaces, double knot? You got to double knot your shoelaces.

David Novak 50:59 

What's the word or phrase you'd use to describe? Beating Duke? Duke?

Matt Doherty 51:05 

Sweet.

David Novak 51:06 

Playing with Michael Jordan dz. The Tar Heels fan base. Oh

Matt Doherty 51:12 

man, I want to say a lot of things. A lot of good things. They are pure. They're pure fans. Termites. Termites. One word would be termites would be you know, jealousy.

David Novak 51:25 

What's something you miss about basketball back when there was no three point line?

Matt Doherty 51:30 

The fastbreak? You know, just the traditional Three on two fastbreak?

David Novak 51:34 

What's your biggest faux PA?

Matt Doherty 51:37 

I had many. Many, many, many, many faux pas. Gosh. Yeah, there's too many say probably not managing change. Well at North Carolina. Okay,

David Novak 51:53 

you win the lottery today. Okay, what would you do?

Matt Doherty 51:57 

If I win the lottery? Today? I probably coach high school basketball.

David Novak 52:00 

If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? Fierce

Matt Doherty 52:04 

conversations. It's a book written by a former Vistage chair about having Crucial Conversations.

David Novak 52:12 

What's something about you? Few people would know, alright, we're going

Matt Doherty 52:16 

deep. And I like it. I'm an alcoholic. I gave up drinking 34 years ago, and was one of the things I'm most proud of in my life.

David Novak 52:25 

Fantastic. And that's the end of the lightning round. And Good job, man. I knew you'd be good at it. You were okay. Just a handful of questions. I'm gonna let you go. Sure. You talk a lot about the importance of executive assistants in your book. Talk about that? Well,

Matt Doherty 52:42 

I think as a leader, you need to learn to leverage talent, you need to learn to delegate. I think that's one thing that one of many things that people go up the org chart they struggle with is delegation. I was talking to a client today about it. And so to have a good executive assistant, that can, you know, return calls, set up appointments, do things that you don't need to do or shouldn't do frees you up to do the things that I think a CEO shouldn't be doing. And that's casting a vision driving culture engaging large business transactions. And so you need a good ie a executive assistant, to manage your day to day and be your gatekeeper.

David Novak 53:32 

You've talked about two very impactful executive coaches in your career. When do you think a leader should go outside and get a an executive coach and get that outside perspective?

Matt Doherty 53:46 

I think that they should go outside and get an executive coach before they take on the role of a CEO. It's preparing, like Wayne Gretzky says something like anticipate where the puck is going. And so how can you prepare for that role of CEO because once you get the job, like that first 90 days, as you know, is crazy. So how can you be prepared for that first 90 days? And I think that it's like training for the season. It's like preparing for college when you're in high school and the NBA when you it's training camp. So I think the sooner the better. And I think admitting to not knowing everything, and being curious and having somebody that you can be vulnerable with and know is not going to be weaponized against you is really healthy.

David Novak 54:46 

You know, you keep a family picture on your desk to help you make decisions. Explain.

Matt Doherty 54:53 

John black when I was back coaching, he told me that he put a picture of his family on his desk. And every decision he made was in their best interest, made it a lot easier for me to remember how to fire somebody when I was at SMU in Dallas. And you know that when you fire somebody, there's going to be resistance for the most part. And it usually takes three times to tell the person this isn't going to work out. And I remember each time I looked at the picture my family, so it gave me the resolve to stay strong and not cave in that moment.

David Novak 55:29 

One of the things I really admire about you, Matt, in spite of a lot of the difficulties that you had, you've decided to take the high ground, you're able to bury the hatchet and move on, you know, what advice can you give to leaders on that aspect of life?

Matt Doherty 55:45 

Yeah, well, that came from Kevin White, Kevin White was the ad that I left at Notre Dame. And he was one of the first people to call me when I lost my job in North Carolina. And ironically, he was at Duke at the time. And he said to me, no, maybe he's still at Notre Dame. And he said, take the high road, there's less traffic up there. And because it's so easy to get better, and it may feel good in the moment, but that's your fight or flight, emotion response, you need to really operate from the top of your mind, not the bottom of your mind. And you won't regret that right? You won't regret that.

David Novak 56:21 

What do you see Matt as your personal mission today,

Matt Doherty 56:24 

my mission statement is to make a positive impact on the people I meet. And the groups I work with by dropping breadcrumbs to the Lord. That

David Novak 56:31 

is it. Fantastic. And last question, what's the best piece of advice you can give aspiring leaders,

Matt Doherty 56:38 

be a lifelong learner? Stay curious. Like the guy from the DESeq use commercial, you know, Stay thirsty, my friend. I like to say stay curious, my friend.

David Novak 56:50 

That's great. Well, Matt, I knew this would be a very powerful conversation. And it was and I want to thank you for being the leader that you are the leader that you've become being so open and vulnerable and taking the time to share your learnings with us today. Very, very powerful stuff.

Matt Doherty 57:07 

Honored really, really flattered that you would have me on the show, and I hope that our paths will cross again soon.

David Novak 57:27 

You know, I really admire Matt for how he rebounded after his time at North Carolina. It was painful. But he dove into leadership and found a new level of growth and strength and opportunity for himself. Maybe it's kind of like that 304 Sprint's that he made his team at Notre Dame run after they blew it and had a big loss. She Yeah, it was painful, but it showed the team what they were capable of. And that number 304 became a source of strength for their entire season. When you persevere through adversity, when you're brave enough to learn from it, I know you're going to uncover new levels of growth and opportunity for yourself too. I don't do this often. Because this podcast is not about touting books. But I have to tell you, I really encourage you to pick up a copy of Matt's book, because I think it has so many insights we can all learn from the book, again is called rebound. Like I mentioned earlier, it's one of the most revealing leadership books I've ever read. And I've read a lot of leadership books. His journey is so practical and inspiring and honest. And I know you're going to find a lot of value in it. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders look for the opportunities that come when you have adversity. Coming up next on how leaders leaders are always popular best of episode where we pull together the top insights from every guest from the last quarter, like this one with none other than Brian nickel, the Chief Executive Officer of

Brian Niccol 59:04 

Chipotle, you're only as good as the talent that we can be attracting and energizing every day. And one of the things I say to everybody is, look, we are a place for ideas. And if you want to come to a place and you're willing to pressure test your ideas, we're going to give you a shot with those ideas to make it to market. We use a disciplined approach with it this Stage Gate process. But I think what gets these guys excited is their ideas more often than not make it you know whether it's in the digital space with you know, it was a couple years ago, we were experimenting with the metaverse to where we are today with how we use our rewards program to better engage with people. Or most recently, we're doing a food program called carne asada. These were all ideas that came from folks in our organization, put it through the Stage Gate process and then solid to market and when I talked to like Kurt Garner, the gentleman who runs all of our tech, we get a lot of people applying for these jobs because they want to bring their ideas to market and when they find out that we're a place that embraces the ideas will pressure test if it works, we're gonna put more fuel to the fire. And that's kind of the approach we've been taking. So

David Novak 1:00:12 

be sure to come back again next week to hear more insights like that. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be