Run It In

Today’s quote comes from recent NY Yankee history.  As the story goes, 37-year-old Yankee legend Don Mattingly was finishing a workout with a first year rookie you might have heard of: Derek Jeter.  They finished their workout in the farthest practice field in the late afternoon.  There were no fans or teammates within site, and both players were exhausted after a long day of training.  As they began to make the trek back to the clubhouse, Mattingly looked at Jeter and said, “Let’s run it in.  You never know who is watching.”  As it turned out, this would be Mattingly’s last spring training before his retirement.  It would also be the beginning of the Jeter legend and a run that would include 4 world series titles in the next 6 years.  In many ways, this story was the passing of the baton from one Yankee captain to another.  Mattingly never won a championship, but with this one line he passed along a lesson that would stay with Jeter through his whole career, and inspire countless others.

The lesson that Mattingly imparted that day was pretty simple.  If you want to be the best, you need to act like the best all of the time, not just when people are watching.  What Mattingly was teaching that day is that being tired is not an excuse for shortcuts.  Likewise, having no one around to impress with your actions is not an excuse either.  If you want to be the best, the person you need to impress the most is yourself, and “you” are always there to watch and judge.

What does it mean in a restaurant to “run it in?”  As I see it, it is all about doing things the right way all of the time.  Mostly this about the small stuff.   As a leader, our actions set the standard for the entire team.  As much as our action, we need to be very careful about what we endorse through our inaction.  For example, every time we walk by a piece of garbage on the floor, or see a sad looking tin of French fries, or a dirty front door and don’t take action, we have given everyone on the team the permission to do the same.  It is really as simple as that.  If you want to be the leader of a group, or the captain of team you need to let everyone see you do the small things the right way…..even when they aren’t watching.

I apologize to team Boston for looking to NY sports 2 weeks in a row.  I promise, Ill grit my teeth and look to Tom Brady or Bill Belichick soon!  Have a great week!