Game-Changing Leadership: Brian Grawer’s Secrets to Biopharma Success

It's not how many hours you spent practicing, it's what you did during the time when you were practicing. How could you emulate a game situation? How can you emulate pressures? How could you do something to put you further? Being coachable is a trait that not everybody has. And those that have it, man, you can excel when you have it.

It's unbelievable.

My mantra is preparation, purpose, and passion. And if you are not prepared for what you're doing that day, you'll get exposed.

How do you get your leaders? How do you push them outside their comfort zone? And how do they push their people outside their comfort zone?

Do I want my livelihood to be based off 18 to 22 year olds in their capacity and mentality? Because basically, that's what coaches have to do.

Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molotor Group, Ed Molotour. And today is. It's one of those episodes that reminds me of why I got in the podcast space to begin with. A very special guest. It has been years since our paths have crossed. As a matter of fact, the last time I saw our guest face to face, I was pleading with them during a time outbreak to stop shooting threes. He was a point guard in Mizzou. Incredible, incredibly hard worker, unbelievable. Teammate, leader. On the floor, off the floor. I was an assistant coach at Texas A and M at the time. And here we are, gosh, 28 years later, reconnecting to talk.

And we talk about Brian's shift from coaching college hoops to the pharmaceutical sector and how he'll draw parallels for us between effective coaching and business leadership. He highlights the significance of preparation, passion and authenticity. And one of the creators. Cool parts of the conversation we have is he tackles the complexities of leading sales teams within the radio pharmaceutical industry, emphasizing adaptability amidst market changing, which obviously that can relate to so many different industries and various walks of life. But, I mean, there's some funny stories, we have some laughs, but just an incredible amount of value. So I hope you enjoy listening to this just half as much as I enjoy talking with Brian. Thank you so much for joining us on the Athletics at Business podcast. I have to admit, it is great to see you out of your Missouri basketball youth. Okay.

I appreciate it. Appreciate it.

Oh, man. Hey, I appreciate you taking the time, you know, now here we are a thousand years later. Right?

Right.

You still look like you could play.

It's funny. We were just measuring my eighth grader and he's an inch smaller than me. And I measured. He goes, dad, measure yourself without shoes. And, Ed, I'm five, eight without shoes. And I'm like, they listed me as six feet. So I'm like, maybe I've shrunk a lot, but I don't.

Yeah, that happens. I was 61 my senior in high school when they measured me at Creighton for the freshman, I was 5, 10. How do I shrink 3 inches? Like, you didn't shrink. Your coach just lied, so. That's right.

That's right.

So your son is creeping up on you.

Yeah, it's gonna be. With this rate, he'll be. He'll pass me. And probably by next year this time, I'm sure. Maybe even sooner. Yeah.

So. Head of cardiology sales, Atlantius. Tell us about that. Tell us about your world now.

Yeah, so. So my world, Atlanteus. We're, you know, we're a radiopharmaceutical company, historically focused on diagnostics, but now kind of venturing into the nuclear medicine. Radiopharmaceuticals. It is a awesome world, a unique world, but it all boils down to people, right? Figuring out, you know, sales leaders, sales team that are interacting with customers each and every day. And fortunately, got a great executive leadership team here at Lantheus. And so you learn from them, and you learn how to. How to motivate and get your team out there doing what they need to do.

Now, we're gonna. We're gonna circle back to where you're at in the world today, but let's go back to, like, what shaped you. You know, so many things shape us as a person in our life, and you were in. All kidding aside, you were just an incredible basketball player. And for the listener, point of reference. When I was coaching at Texas A and M, Brian was one of those guys who took great pleasure in torching us. Okay? And I remember this is actually the third time we've spoken. Okay.

Right.

Connected by phone. What you don't know is the first time we talked was after a timeout. I begged you and plead you to stop shooting threes. Okay? You guys are kicking the crap out of us at your place. A lot of alignment with our upbringings and similarities, right, with our fathers being coaches. But can you just tell us, Take us through your journey and how it evolved. What your dad meant to you, what his style meant to you, the way. What he stood for, the way he did things, how you've integrated that into your leadership style, and what you saw, like, as a player in what you did when you got done playing, Just kind of walk us through that.

I'm the youngest of six kids. Our whole family revolved around basketball. My dad, hall of fame, high school coach in the state of Missouri, won something like 90 games in a row when he was in the late 70s, early 80s with the team, set records with that. He then transitioned over to be the head coach at St. Louis University for nine years. And everything that we did just revolved around basketball, right? The family was happy when the team was playing well, when the team was playing bad, the whole family would feel that pain and that emotion. And so I learned from a very early age how a coach looks at things. My dad would always have a coaching hat on, probably more so than the father hat. He did not have rose colored goggles.

He would hit you hard, hit you straight with facts of how you were achieving or not achieving at the standard you should be. And were raised to have pride in the grower name. I mean, the last name is not common. Everybody affiliated with this last name is connected to my dad and his family lineage in some capacity. And so we all took pride of following his footsteps of being a respectable, honest, hard working, type of strategy and coach and approach to everything. And I just loved basketball. I loved it. I loved spending time with him. I remember when he would take some university on road trips, I'd get to ride the bus with him some games. I was the ball boy underneath the basket. I just analyzed and watched everything.

I would sit with dad when he would watch game film at home and just quietly watch and try to see what he's looking at and just kind of was raised to be a coach and be observant to what's happening. And as I got older, my skill grew, my height didn't grow, my skill grew. Right? And so learn right, but learn very quickly to embrace the lack of height, find ways to be indispensable. Find ways to, through your work ethic, through your knowledge of teammates, knowledge of the opponents, knowledge of the game, situations that you were indispensable. You had to be on the floor. You couldn't come out of a game because the team lacked when you were sitting on the bench. And so that's how I approached.

I prided myself on effort and work and knowledge and fortunately was able to have a real successful high school career, AAU career, took that full scholarship to University of Missouri and started basically three and a half of my four years there. Big 12, I don't know, we'll mention Big 12 two of the four years into my career top 10 and three point field goals made, three point percentage was a career free throw leader in a single season.

You still have some records there, too.

You still have some records. I would.

That's not easy like that.

No.

And I'm not calling you older, saying it was a life.

I'm older now. Yeah, right.

You know, another thing that was interesting as I was getting ready for our time together here today, after your junior year, you were voted in a Sports Illustrated poll as the best shooter in the Big 12. And there are some unbelievable shooters yet.

I still got that magazine article right in my keepsake box because, yeah, they highlighted and did surveys for players in the conference, best players in certain categories in certain situations. And to be voted best three point shooter in the Big 12, when you got Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, I mean, such a top 10 teams every year was something that I think people saw and understood. Like on the scouting report. I knew the scouting port against me was, if you leave them open, he will make it. And I didn't force shots. I didn't do things out of my realm. But my threes I hit were daggers, and they were. They were momentum increasers for my team and momentum killers for the other teams, which, it's hard to put a value on that.

Speaking of great shooters, Pat Carroll's been on the podcast from the great St. Joe's team 30 and 2, and he's actually coming one of our live events. He's going to talk about deliberate practice. Right. But that's what you did. I read an article where your dad tracked every one of your shots. And am I wrong with this number one summer you took 18,000 shots.

18,000. I still got the notebooks. I had his philosophy and his approach, which I 100% bought into, was it's not how many hours you spent practicing, it's what you did during the time when you were practicing. How could you emulate a game situation? How can you emulate pressures? How could you do something to put you further? And so I had a badge of honor of somebody would say, yeah, I was in the gym four hours today. I would say, yeah, I was in the gym for 55 minutes today. And I got X amount of 2 point shots, X amount of 3 point shots, X amount of free throws. Here's my percentage for each of these. Off the dribble, off the catch. And it is something that I craved. I mean, after high school games, I'd have a notebook.

My dad would leave me a notebook on the kitchen table, talking and critiquing the game from the night before. And if it was a bad performance by me, like it was highlighted. I mean, it was as detailed as I could tell in warm ups. You weren't dialed in. You took three shots and warmups at halftime. You got to better. You got to do this. You got to do this. I think it definitely helped me. You said what has formed me being coachable is a trait that not everybody has. And those that have it, man, you can excel when you have it.

It's unbelievable. The ability to be coached is so huge. Let me ask you this. How did that deliberate practice. But not just that. You're tracking it. You're paying attention to detail, your accountability with not just your dad, but with yourself, Right. And understanding it was the quality of the input. How has that translated into your business career?

Oh, man. I mean, I think once it is, what are you doing with the time in front of customers? And I think sometimes people forget that you better be prepared. My mantra is preparation, purpose and passion. And if you are not prepared for what you're doing that day, you'll get exposed. You may be the best salesperson in the world, maybe the best sales leader in the world, but eventually it's going to catch up to you. If you don't prepare and understand the landscape, what the competition is, what the landscape of your customer is, you're not as effective for that customer. And so all those fine details, you know, people now broadcast every workout they ever do from the athletic standpoint and showcase the world. I love the people who don't have to show everything, what they're working.

They just know they get it done, they work it. They don't need the accolades of people telling them how hard they work. They just work. They love the grind of it and.

The results will speak for themselves.

That's right.

I want to get back to that which you just said, how people have to showcase the work that they put in. But as a coaching leader, right? Head of cardiology, sales. And you work with your directors, you work with your, you know, your frontline leaders, and you talk to them about connecting with their people. How much do you focus on the preparation, the purpose and the passion when you start talking about the skill sets.

Of your leadership team all the time? I think that's what separates genuine, authentic leaders. I talk a lot to my team and the leaders about the importance of being authentic, the importance of understanding what's going on and coaching in a way that is personable, coaching in a way that if it's a coaching report, and they're like, hey, you could have done this more effectively. It's like no, no. You got to understand, lay the landscape out to them. What did you witness? What did you see? What could have been done? A little bit different approach. And what would be the result of that approach change? It's everything I think people so many times think I can just show up and be successful because look at my track record, look at my history of this selling this product or history here at the organization.

This industry is ever evolving, customers are ever evolving. And if you're not open to listening and understanding and really putting the work in before and after the days, like people are going to catch up to you at some point.

How significant when you talk about being authentic is that vulnerability piece, right? Like there's so much that goes into the authenticity and the alignment of your personal values, your organization and values and being true to who you are and your decision making. But when someone, a leader doesn't quite have all the answers, that piece of vulnerability, how much do you guys talk about that?

We work a lot with on the coachability side of things, right? Vulnerability is one of those things about it. You have to be open to improving, open to I do not know everything. And some of the best coaching that happens are not from people that in the hierarchy are above us, right? Some of the best learnings and coaching you take are from colleagues, from peers, from those that are on your team, from those are on other people's teams within the organization. And so the vulnerability, the honesty, the self this being able to properly self reflect, right. In the medical radiopharmaceuticals you have to have self accountability. You don't have someone in the car with you or someone over your shoulder every day watching what you're doing.

And so we have to coach towards the vulnerability to the self reflective components of really being able to self coach and reanalyze what you're doing every day, right.

And how important. Saw a Twitter post you had, I can't remember exactly when it was, but I forgot my dad was in six hall of Fames and he talked about humility. And you're an incredibly humble person too. And we go back to like the people have to put on display and put out on social the work that they do. How important for is it to you to surround yourself with leaders on your team where humility plays a huge factor in their ability to just go out, get the work done, hold themselves accountable, to own their dirt, right. So then that way the team they lead and I think you'd agree with me. I firmly believe a team is a direct reflection of their coach and that their team will reflect that personality trait.

Right. I think there is a. You gotta first have that desire and passion because that's. You can't fake. Right. So the humility side, I think it encompasses that passion. I think people will follow. People will be led by someone that they know that's imperfect, that they know has done things wrong, has know that they've learned from it. But they don't let that shape who they are. And so the imperfections about it, I think, are something we try to highlight and talk through and understand. And I hope that I provide perspective for my leaders in ways and scenarios that they haven't looked at before. Right. You see some of the greatest leaders, you know, always talk about vulnerability. They talk about self reflection. And if we're not preaching it and acting on it myself, then.

Then how can someone follow, how can someone really buy into what's happening?

So I'm going to pivot a little bit here and you'll see where I'm going. You talk about evolution. You talk about things evolving. There's a lot of change. Oftentimes a leader will move on whether they get promoted or whether they go somewhere else, especially in that industry.

Right.

Which I just love. I love the industry that you're in. But you had an opportunity, and I'm saying it's an opportunity to play for two completely different personality types. Right. Norm Stewart, Quinn Snyder. Can we talk about the difference besides the fact Quinn didn't recruit in Detroit like Norm? I had to.

Right.

I had to. I had. I had to say that. Right. No, but honestly, the different. Like, how much of a challenge was that for you to. Because they are completely different. Right.

100.

Norm was incredibly successful and his personality type was much different than Quinn's.

Right.

Talk into that. Like, just what did that do for you?

And understand, I felt blessed at two years with both. Right. Sometimes in coaching, changes occur your freshman or junior year. You only have one year to work with somebody, and that's. That's tough. So the coaching change happened after my sophomore season. And so Coach Stewart, Norm is a legend. His name's on the court at University of Missouri. Right. He was very specific. You were allowed to shoot a shot from this distance. You were not allowed to shoot a shot from this. You were allowed to take more than four dribbles. You were not allowed to take more than four.

You couldn't do that these days.

Right. And so even he goes I don't give a damn. Even if you make the bucket, make the bet like you're coming out of the game. So with Norm, it was all based upon defined roles that you could prove through practice what was your role. And in a game you didn't deviate from that, right? It was exactly what happened. And then we played the triangle offense, right? Tex Winter made famous for Norm, became a believer in love of that spacing, cutting, all that and navigating through that when Quinn came. Quinn was ahead of his time in terms of the individual skill development approach, the opportunity where his mantra was players make plays, right? You can have the best design play in the world, but if player A is way better than player B, they're going to make sure that you're going to look successful.

And so he devised ways to really make individual aspects. You get better at individual skills, which would result in collectively the team getting better as a whole. I learned different sides of leadership from both of them, right. Different ways of holding teammates accountable, different ways of being punished for teammates lack of effort. And there were plenty of times where teammates did things wrong in practice and teammates did things wrong. And I was the one that had to run. I was the one that got punished. And then it would say, this is your team grower. You have to make sure he knows where he's supposed to be in that game situation. That's your fault. And so elevating it really helped open my eyes to less of an individual contributor and more of my impacts of an individual.

How it impacts the team, how it impacts our organization. Right. How it impacts others that see and operate, how we do.

I'm curious and this question just popped in my head. It was known you were the leader. It was known even your sophomore year, it was known it was your team. And you leaned into that like you accepted that responsibility and you embraced it. Did Quinn ever lean into you as he was trying to get acclimated to the team? Who was there, who was on it, what's the dynamics? Did that ever happen? Were there?

100%. And I think as a 20 year old, you're naive to what coaches know about personnel on the team, about on the court and off the court traits that people have. Right. And so I remember after the first team meeting when he got introduced, he pulled me aside, he started asking about each personnel on the team, right? And can we do this with this person? Can we do this with this person? He was very player friendly, very open in conversations. And it came to a point my junior year I went to him to coach. I'm in a funk. You got to take me out of the starting lineup. Kareem Rush, the first round draft pick, is coming in off the bench. Like, we're starting off slow offensively.

I know this is a tough decision for you, and a tough thing like, I can still lead the team and come off the bench for a stretch, like, this is what the team needs.

Not a lot of kids do that.

No, no.

Not a lot of kids do that.

Not a lot do it. And I think it's because he had immediate confidence in me because of those questions and how were talking early on in our relationship that I felt comfortable going to him with that we needed to get to that point. Right. Like I said, I was. I could care less about my own individual accolades. I got people that bust my chops all the time. All the. Apparently, my career points was like, 970. 70.

At Mizzou, we could find you 30 points more.

People are like, what, you couldn't have got a thousand? I go, I had no clue how many points I had when I was playing. Like, I had no clue I was that close. But I think that's just. We mentioned earlier how my dad and mom raised me. Like, that's kind of what my role was of doing the best for the team. And Quinn's ability to unlock the unselfishness of folks was one of his great skills that he had.

So you graduate, you thought about going into teaching, right?

Yes.

You went to St. Ed's in Austin, I believe.

Yes.

College coach. And, you know, this is something we deal with in the workforce. And this is where I'm going with this is you were. You were a hell of a player. You were. You were a stud. I mean, you were. You were very talented. You were very accomplished. We see this in sales all the time. Now you're going into a leadership role, albeit you're 22, 23 years old. Whatever you were, you're young. I'm so old, I forget what it was like to be 22 or 23. But anyways, what was that like for you? Like, was that a tough transition? And how do you. How do you compare what you had to do compared to, like, what we deal with now? Getting people who produce and put up numbers. And we think the reward is a leadership position when they're really not prepared.

There is a lot of parallels. So think about it. I went from playing in the Big 12 to all the gear, all the. The ways you travel, the food, the restaurants you eat at, to Having one phone call with the head coach from St. Edwards University. I think it was like two days later, I got a call back saying, you're hired, I need you here tomorrow. Right? So getting in a car, driving, I had to get a car first. I had to buy a car, then drive from St. Louis.

Which was your entire first year of salary back then, right?

Oh, I don't talk about. I lost money every month living in Austin, Texas on that. But it was very eye opening, just the lack of what was accessible at that school. It was the head coach and me, we didn't have full scholarships, right? Division two got a budget properly. You got a fixed budget, you better use these for scholarships appropriately. And through some of my early conversations, I found out we had one player on a full ride. And I go, wait a minute, you got one player on a full ride. These other rest of our players aren't getting anything. Then this kid better average 30 something a game if you're all that, right? And he wasn't. And it was like, as a coach, we got to relook at how we do this, we got to relook at how you do that.

So a huge parallel is resources and what you can find and uncover with those resources. I use that interviewing all the time when I interview people and I've interviewed throughout my career. The lazy way is just to look at someone's resume and someone's experience and think, oh, they're a great fit. They have relationships with this customer base, they can come right in. I challenge people to look beyond that, look at the inner workings of how someone's wired, how they work, how crafty they are, how creative they are. Because those are the grinders in D2. Those are the grinders at all these other levels. They're skilled. They maybe just didn't have the cachet and recognition that some other folks had. So it was a parallel. I take still this day, especially when it comes to interviewing and identifying talent.

Did you ever struggle with separating your mentality as a player versus when you're a young assistant? I'll never forget. We're playing Southern Indiana. Bruce Pearl. We had just beaten Kentucky. I was at Lewis University at the time. We just beaten Kentucky Wesleyan two nights before at the buzzer, in overtime, we had a D1 transfer, Roger Suki from Bradley, hit an unbelievable shot from the elbow. Now we go to Southern and we get worked, right? Bruce's diamond and won and their flex. I mean, everything. Same thing he's doing now. And they get us. And one of our transfers, D1 transfers, was screwing around in the locker room. And I got into him hard, like you as my teammate. Right. And I'm sure I crossed the line. I mean, it was only. It was only a few months earlier. It's 12 months earlier.

Like, I was on the other side of it. And our head coach, Jim Weitzel, pulled me outside. I said, listen, you gotta understand something. You're a coach now. And they may be dogs, but there are dogs, so we got to figure it out. That's where all of a sudden I realized, like, okay, I'm not playing anymore. Like, was there a struggle with that?

Oh, I. Saint Edwards, we're playing at Abilene Christian. They beat us by like 50. Halftime. I explode after head coach Mike Jones talks to the team and coach got anything to say. And I just lit into you waiting too.

Like, you.

I'm like. I'm like. And similar to your experience, he took me aside after the fact and gave me kind of the same little education around. Listen, this is a little bit different. I know you're fired up. I know you're this. But it helped me grow because as a competitor, you're sitting on that bench watching this. I'm watching guys hit shots, talk trash to our bench. No response on the court, no other types of things. What I was accustomed to, type of response you would have. But it was amazing. I can picture that locker room in my head right now. I can picture that frustration of just what's happening. And we lost. We only won four games that year at St. Edwards, and we beat one team two times, so we only beat three teams the entire year.

It was a lot of growth and understanding of maturity. Like you said, from the transition from a player to a coach, it's a different world.

It seemed like a really good idea at the time, though, didn't it?

Oh, it seemed like I was going to. Man, were going to come out fired up, right? The second half, a whole different type of experience. Yeah, it didn't work.

Seemed like a hell of an idea at the time. So then you leave St. Ed's after one year, four wins chase you out of town. But you go back to Missouri, right? And you go back with Quinn, and I ask you what that experience was like because you played for him for two years and now you're on the other side of it. And there's a lot asked of you to do, which is a compliment, but it's also a struggle, right, because things are being done a certain way. Can you talk about what you Learned during that time frame.

Yeah. So I stayed in contact with Quinn a lot during that year in St. Edwards. And so he proactive was like, we'll bring you back. We'll get you back in here. And so I had majority of that roster, half of it. I played with those guys as a senior two years prior. And so transitioning from not just player to coach. I was a teammate to these folks and a coach and so tried to really evolve my. My step. It was tough for me, I'd be honest. Even the staff, trying to make sure myself was equal in terms of being viewed as a staff and not a former player. Right. Which is a challenge in itself. But it was opportunities of what I was able to do. Scouting ports with individual work with the team.

I was in charge of individual workout creations and all these things with the teams, video cutting and all those things that really helped me grow. But by doing that, you also get exposure to the other side of the industry of coaching. Right. How it's. You're naive, you're young. You're thinking, if I work hard and I do this, that means that equals this in return. And that's not always the case.

What was going through your head when you. When you came to that realization? Like, someone said to me a long time ago, my dad's mentor gave my dad's first coaching job at the ball prep back. I think it was 67 or 68. Bill Gleason legend, God rest his soul. He said to me once at a Final Four, we're sitting indianapolis, he said, eddie, he goes, and I'll change the word he used, he goes, it's a great game, but it's a crappy business. Sometimes when you realize that the game that you loved and there is a side to it, and I'm not, hey, I love college to this day. Right. I love it. I get great friends in the business, and it is a business.

But when you have that realization that, okay, this is different, and then you know there's all these other things out there in the world that you can do and still take those same skills that can translate into being wildly successful like you are, what was going through your head at that point?

Fantastic question. I mean, it was a process. It wasn't something else. And you wake up and like, I'm done. It was a process of kind of understanding and looking at, okay, do I want my. My life every nine months to not know where I'm going to be living, where I'm going to be doing? Are we retained? Because if your Team's successful, there's opportunities where staff members go on and coaches go on. Do they take you? Do they not take you? I mean, you've lived this life of understanding that. And the instability of that was always weighing on me of, okay, my wife be nice to have something more stable, something more centered. Also, what was changing during that time was the Internet, right? Like it was. Everybody's felt like they had a right to talk to you about what's happening.

And not just you talk to your wife, talk to your other people about like, what's wrong with what the team is doing and what list. And that is a new. Not new anymore, right? But you know, 30 years ago, 25, that was new. And that was something we've, all our families had to adapt to and understand to be part of that coaching journey. And so it was a process where I realized, okay, do I want my livelihood to be based off 18 to 22 year olds in their capacity and mentality? Because basically that's what coaches have to do. You have to get 18 to 22 year olds every day to be consistent and to work consistently. And do I have that? Is that fire of a player the same fire that I have as a coach? And have I to harness that differently?

I learned from doing my own. I'm a quiet person. I take, you know, think introspectively a lot about things. And I realized very quickly through my network, there's a lot of people that are successful in life and businesses that were successful on the court but haven't taken those skills as a coach, have done it in the business world or some other professions. And that gave me more energy, more optimism, more fire of, okay, I'm thinking the right path here of doing something a little bit different.

So how did you find yourself walking away from coaching, which is all you? I don't mean this as an insult because I'm cut from the same cloth.

But it was right.

Your life, I mean, you grew up in a gym, right? And, and coaching, those are the people that impacted us the most. How were you able to walk away from that? What was that first role that you took? And all of a sudden a light bulb went on, realizing that, you know what? I could be, I could be pretty freaking good at this.

Well, once again, we're naive, right? Or I'm naive at that point. I decided to leave before knowing what the heck I was going to do. And so I had that open conversation with Quinn and talked to him about this. Stayed on to complete the summer camps and do all that. But didn't have a job, didn't have where I was doing. And finally, through my wife and our conversation, like, we got to figure out what we're doing. You can't just, like, be quiet this whole time. And so made it known that, okay, we got to make this public. We got to broadcast this out so I could get on. You know, they put it on the ESPN ticker at the bottom. They put that I was leaving. I did some local radio shows in St. Louis.

They tried to put a negative spin on that, too, with what Quinn was doing.

I don't know. Right. They could have led into some of that. Right. With the chaos of what. What was going on at that moment. Like, former player, former cutright leaves.

Why would he. Why would he walk away?

Right? And so I did. I went on local St. Louis sports and shows and talked to them about my desire and passion to get into. To get into a different industry. And I had GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer reach out to me about opportunities within their organizations in the pharmaceutical world. And that's when I first started understanding, okay, having a job where you have the autonomy to work as hard as you want to work. Right. No one's behind your back. I mentioned earlier, no one's with you every day. And I thrive in those situations. I don't need somebody to tell me what to do each and every day at the moment. Like, I will do it. And so I found an industry that allowed that.

And then through that industry, I started learning that, okay, there's people who work really hard and there's people who don't work really hard. But that's any profession, right? How do we. How can I find my sweet spot and understand where to go? And so did pharmaceuticals for three and a half years. And that was time for me to say, okay, I got to stretch out and broaden my perspective. And then got into some rare disease plasma sales, where I covered four states. And really, that's where the evolution of my leadership in this industry started, really taking its roots.

How much fun did you have learning new things? Like, you talk about going into the rare disease and the other spaces, you know, that you went into. Did you feel like, kind of feel alive again? Like, yeah.

I mean, I love. I love to prove people wrong. Not that people have to publicly say or have doubt, but there's a part of you as a competitor that always uses that to fuel you a little bit of proving people wrong and proving the naysayers. Mark Hydersbach, who, you know, who's been on this podcast before he hired me. And I know he took a chance on hiring me because my background wasn't as robust in certain areas as others was that were in the. I took pride in that. I'm a loyal person and we'll, we'll work my tail off to kind of make sure I don't let people down and that I excel in what happens. And so that feeling of a new challenge, of new things. And then through that evolution, I started becoming a leader amongst the region, the sales team.

And people started reaching out and connecting with me on how to approach opportunities and businesses and territory acumen. And I found, this is like coaching. This is like, this is like what I was doing on the court. And it became very instinctual, very enjoyable, rewardable. Seeing other people have success because of a conversation or something that you helped them through was extremely self satisfying for me.

You just said something that. It's a word we don't hear very often now. Okay. And we certainly don't hear it in the sense that leaders take responsibility for how they foster it to increase retention. Loyalty. I don't think loyalty is lost, but I don't think we focus on it as much.

Right.

We live in this transactional world when I prefer to exist in a transformational world.

Right, right.

How do you foster loyalty amongst your team members knowing that there might be a better opportunity for them somewhere else and it has nothing to do.

Right.

Or lack of loyalty towards you. But how do you get that? I don't, I don't know if they're afraid to talk about it. I'm not sure what it is. How do you.

I'm a big believer. I think first, before loyalty can be established. Right. I got to show the organization, show the team, show my team members what I'm doing, I'm asking of them. But I am doing the same thing and more than what I'm asking of them so they can understand. All right. This individual isn't just talk. He's doing these things. He's coming up with strategies, numbers, all these things. So I think first you have to dive in deep to understand what disease state you're in, what the data is and what all that is. Then once you kind of have that credibility created, my opinion is I talk to people about, listen, if we're authentic leaders, sometimes authentic leaders, people need to lead the organization of the sales team they're with. I can't preach about. I support developing people and building people.

If ultimately, when that conversation comes and they feel that they've hit a ceiling of where their path can be at somewhere. I talk to them about, listen, let's talk about what's best for you and your family, what's best for your career. You might think there's things that are best for your career, but let me talk through it with you. And I think some of the companies I've been at, when some of my leaders lose somebody to a different company, they're devastated. They don't know how to talk about that opportunity to that person who left and to the team members they still have. I'm like, nothing changes, right? We preach authenticity, we preach development. That's a part of development. If that's something that helps that individual and their family, I fully support that.

But our job as leaders, to make sure that they're not naive in thinking they're ready to do another, a different situation or a different company. That's the part of a true leader, is you can have that conversation, that honest conversation. But man, it is. Loyalty's tough. And nowadays people expect they don't have loyalty right away. They just, people don't stay in an organization long anymore. They leave, they jump, they go to other things because they want immediate responses in loyalty.

There needs to be an emotional connection too, right? It can't be just because you're supposed to. I hired loyalty. That's not, that's not the way. That's not the way it works. I have to ask you this question too. Because of the cloth that you're cut from and how hard of a worker you are and how genuine you are about this. Let's. When you first became a frontline leader, this is similar to the question about coaching and separating being a player from the coach. You first became a frontline leader and you had those swirlers, right? Or you had that guidance from whatever you want to call them. We've called them a lot of things. But the people that just don't buy in, they do just enough to fly under the radar to avoid the pip, right? How did you handle that?

Like, how do you get to them, so to speak, how do you connect with them? How do you figure out what makes them tick and how do you figure out a way to get them to self select into the way you're trying to do things?

I had to go through the process of understanding it's okay if people don't operate the same way I operate, if they don't approach, if they don't do step a B and C, the way I would do step A, B, and C, as long as their path is the approach that we need from the organization or for the. That's fine. So at first it was, dang, they're doing it the wrong way. And then you start realizing, oh, no, I'm learning from them. There's a different way to do this, to peel this back. But then I think it's honest. It's tough and direct honesty with folks of what you've observed, what their conversations have been had, if you can. I'm a big believer. Like I mentioned passion. And if I can sense that passion, that fire is becoming dimmer and dimmer in somebody.

I find a way to have a conversation with them about that. Sometimes it may be, hey, their life right now is crazy, and they can't handle some of this stuff right now. So I'm a little off. Other times it'd be like, oh, dang, is that noticeable? And I'm like, yeah, man, something's going on. Like, what? Like, what is it with this organization? What is it with this role that you don't think is happening? And then having honest conversations with the people about what they're thinking and what they're trying to do, and it's, hey, I talk to people all the time. If you can find a job that you love all the time, like, that's a rarity. But what example are you setting for your children or for your. The people that you love and care about?

If they watch you hate and be disappointed in the. What you do every single day, you owe yourself something that you enjoy doing slightly even rather than just, man, work is gotta go to work today. Like, And I talk to them about that component. Like, what are you teaching? What are you teaching your kids? What are the observations they're witnessing for seeing. Because I want to teach my kids that you can love your job, you can love the challenge of what it can produce for you day in and day out. And once you feel that is losing, then it's time to think inward of like, is it me or is it something that I'm doing less of because I'm less interested in whatever this. This task is at hand.

When you see people that are, like, teasing out your standards, right? They're walking that line. They're. They're not really way below the standards and expectations that you have for them, but they're right there. But they're like the guys at the end of the bench and aren't paying attention, right? They're talking to their Partner and they're bringing them down and they're distracting them. How do you handle those people?

So my first approach is to elevate those that believe and are doing it right so that there could be clear separation and delineation between the one that is coasting and those colleagues or team members of theirs that are not. Because a lot of times with that you can get. Man, it's really hum and ed when you can get your team members to coach their colleagues. And sometimes it's just from visibility and witnessing how engaged people are. And then the self selection works its way out because someone's like, oh darn it. Everybody is raising their level. I'm choosing not to and I'm being left behind. And so I take that my dad's philosophy in the locker room, I used to ask him, dad, how do you separate those that don't believe, those that do?

He goes, I'll make sure that guy's locker that doesn't believe is next to somebody who, I don't care gets influenced negatively about the impact. He's not next to my star player because I can't afford my star player to. To get wrapped into that.

So I try to player that's right on the like. I mean, right. Doesn't have that intestinal fortitude to make decisions for themselves. Long not pushed away.

And. And so I think elevate those that believe and then you can have the delineation. And then the other component is then once you start kind of establishing that you can call out some facts, some specifics of what you're seeing. Hey, I would expect you to be at this stage. Others are at this stage. Do I need to coach differently? Provide more clarity on certain things like what is the gap happening there? And their response will dictate and show me a lot. I think I'm a pretty good observer. And so I try to observe signs and things from folks, whether it's body language, whether it's the words they say to really understand. Are they bought in or are they not?

Right. Yeah, along those lines. Right. How important is it when you're trying to get to someone, you're trying to figure them out as a leader, how important is it to pay attention to not only what they are saying, but what they're not saying? To not, you know, to their body language, to not only what they're doing, but what they're not doing? What are the questions they should be asking, what they're not asking?

I mean, one of the best things that I try to teach the people around and have been taught is if you're calling me about a situation happening, I would expect you to have already thought of these questions, found the answers to these questions and called other people first to try to get to the resolution. So that's this type of thing that you try to create in your culture of if someone calls you less. I used to get random phone calls, right, hey, this is what's happening in the situation in my, how do I do this? How do I, how do I. If those become less and less, then the trigger needs to go off in your head of, okay, something's different. That person is either not working as hard or often as they were before.

Or their numbers going up.

Right. And so how do I determine what that is? And so I think reading the non verbal cues and being able to take a step back to understand, okay, how has our communication cascade changed or evolved? And what is that type of communication when we do have it? Is it super generic? Is it super just, yeah, everything's great, everything's going good, or is it specific? Because if it's specific, I know that they're engaged still, I know that they're involved in some things. And if it's generic, I gotta find ways to be able to tease that out and say, listen, we used to have conversations like this, now we're having conversations like this. What's changed? What's happening?

I want to ask you one more question pertinent to your world now that I'm going to, we're going to end it with the hoops story slash question. But how do you, and how do your leaders push people? Because we only, you know, we only grow through struggle, right? We only grow adversity, we only grow through complexity. Okay. Discomfort. How do you get your leaders, how do you push them outside their comfort zone? And how do they push their people outside their comfort zone? What are the things that you need to do to make that happen? And, and how do you know, obviously in sports it's really easy to do. It's a physical thing that you may practice harder than games. And mentally they have to handle this or emotionally they're equipped. But how do you do that in your world?

Yeah, you know, I've led a lot of different sales teams, right? And so you see a lot of different competition treats, competition acts differently in certain sales teams. The landscape today is different than what, nine months ago in certain disease states and therapeutic areas. So I think first and foremost is, are you aware, Are my direct leaders aware of an honest perception of what our approach is and what the landscape of the market is. Because if it's just Kool Aid, you're drinking from the organization or any of this stuff without actually diving deep is, hey, is this being impactful? You first have to get that going to understand that. Then you gain alignment, and then you get them to coach their teams on that. You can identify and see. You know, I'd say it's venting. You know, our sales team is a.

It's a lonely job. You're by yourself in a car a lot of the days. You're driving hours at a time, you're meeting customers. So venting is healthy and venting your frustration is healthy. But there's a point where if someone's only calling people to vent and be frustrated and be negative, that has to stop. And so I've been very open about directive with people. Like, venting is okay, but we need people to be able to say, enough, I don't need to hear any negative anymore. Talk to somebody else about that. I wanted to get better and figure out how we can win. Let's talk about that of solutions. And so that's been a. That's been a common theme of how I've been able to deal with that on a lot of different teams.

Let's say you're an emerging leader in front of you. You've identified someone, they're going through a program similar hours like an emerging leader coaching program, but then it's their time. Like, now it's time to interview for this position. Now it's going to be, you know, they have a very good chance of getting it. What would be the advice that you would give that person, whether it's two key things or three key things as they embark on this part of their journey?

I talk to people that are in that situation in terms of, all right, can you quantify what you're doing that's above and beyond, that's going to help you jump from individual contributor to a team leader? And what I mean by that is, in an interview or what you're portraying, you can't just say, yes, I've elevated my tasks. I'm on these committees. I do this. My team reaches out to me. I go, I push people to say, do you know how often you reach out to others on the team? Do you know how often people call you? Take some time to do an exercise, do it for a week and understand.

I made this many phone calls to people on my team or I received this many phone calls from people on My team talking about this topic, I go, if you're in an interview setting and you're able to truly quantify, because what you're trying to understand when you're hiring somebody in this is can their mind process and can they be effective thinking bigger rather than just individually impacting their territory? They got to impact leaders, they got to impact individuals, they got to deal with emotions. I need a wider range thinking. And so quantify for me. And that shows me that you're looking at things a little bit differently. That's really helped some people as they prepare for those types of situations.

Give me your most memorable. I'm absolutely putting you on the spot right now.

Okay.

Without thinking about whose feelings you're gonna hurt. Okay. Or anything like that. What would be one of your most memorable, if not the basketball moments in your entire career? And if you wanna go to one with your dad, one in Mizzou, that is fine. Completely understandable.

So I would think for Mizzou, two of them come to mind immediately. I was a part of a four overtime win at the Hearn center my senior year against Iowa State. Iowa State was top 20. We won that game in quadruple four overtimes, which is just incredible. Navigating through that my sophomore year, you.

Probably didn't come off the floor, Brian. You probably played every minute.

It was awesome. There was. I just saw something. There was an interview and I told the guys on the team, like, after the second or third over, I. God, no, we're tired. I know you have no energy. Just look at me. I'll give you energy. I'll feed you energy, what you need. We're not losing this. And then my sophomore year, we won at Kansas. Right. I think the Mizzou KU rivalry is one of the most historical ones. I'm biased, right? But to hear silence in Fogg Allen, to not hear Rock Chalk Jayhawk in Fog Allen, is the best sound, the best feeling in the world. And even selfishly, like, that was 1999. Mizzou has not won in Lawrence since then. And I was the leading scorer of that game too, with 18 points for that game. And so there's some.

There's just some self pride with all of that last one for my dad. Like, I remember doing individual workouts and having college coaches come and watch the workouts that him and I would go through. And my dad had a reputation to being honest and people didn't sugarcoat things with him because he doesn't sugarcoat things with him. But like, after every one of those workouts. People were like, rich. Like, I've never seen a high school kid, like, work this hard and do this. And you do this, like six days a week. And we're like. He's like, yeah. It's like. He's like, I don't beg him to do this. He asked me. He gets mad at me, like, if we're not working out and doing this.

And so just that memory of kind of my last workout with him before my senior year of him making a comment saying, you know what, Brian? This is it. Like, this is going to be it. We're done after this. I'm like, damn. And he's not an emotional guy. And it got a little emotional, which is pretty cool.

Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, that's cool. Well, that's a heck of a way to wrap it up, man. I appreciate you. I do. And thanks for taking the time.

Likewise, Ed.

I know you're a busy man.

This was fun, man. I appreciate it. Thanks for all you doing.

It was fun. We're have to run it back and best of luck to everything.

Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

All right. Thanks, Brian. Thank you for listening to the athletics of business. Be sure to give us a rating and review so we know how we're doing. For more information about the show, Visit TheAthletics of Business.com now get out there. Think, act and execute at the highest level to unleash your greatness.