Sweeping the Pines
By: Steven Andrew Schultz
Leaders grab the broom. My first act in a positional leadership role was when I was seventeen years old coaching my little brother’s 8th grade basketball team. We practiced twice a week at Ellis Park which was walking distance from my house and half the team’s homes. Twice a week, well before any of my players showed up, I walked my broom and brushed all the pine needles that sprinkled the court from the trees that gave us shade and walked the broom back and returned before any player ever arrived. One slip on a single pine needle could sideline a player with a season-ending injury and so it was my job as the leader to ensure our teaching environment was optimal and they could train at the speeds necessary for success.
No player or parent ever thanked me for it because no one ever knew I did it (And if you have spent any time in youth or high school athletics, you know even if they were aware any thank you is rare). A truth about leadership that those not in positions of leadership don’t understand is that the leader’s job already started before you even show up to begin yours. As leaders, we must have already been there to survey the environment and remove anything that could hurt or hinder our people’s ability to perform to their absolute best. If you want your team to show out, you have to show up and perform tasks that will never be seen and thus never be appreciated.
What are the “pine needles” in your organization? Where are they located? Most of us won’t have access to chainsaws, so cutting down the trees where the pine needles are produced is not an option, but all of us can grab the broom and start sweeping. If you want to be a leader you must be ready to sweep every single day because those darn pine needles always return tomorrow.
Two of my favorite leaders grabbed a broom before every practice. John Wooden of UCLA and Eddie Courtemarche of Los Alamitos High School, who would each push the broom across the hardwood before every basketball practice to get rid of the dust so their players could move more efficiently on the court. In Coach Wooden’s case, this was before Pauley Pavilion was built and the Bruins practiced in the old men’s gym where the gymnastics team also practiced. At Los Al, the floor was often like a slip-n-slide. Each day as the players stretched, Coach Courtemarche would grab his broom and sweep. He deliberately did it in front of the players. He wanted them to see. He was teaching a lesson. He wanted them to know that even the person is the highest position of power still grabs a broom. If you want to get to the top nothing can be beneath you.
Eddie had his broom before practice, and I had my towel throughout practice. I served as his assistant for seven years. Los Al Basketball players sweat! Anytime little puddles formed or streaks of sweat from a loose ball dive sparkled on the wood, I ran, got on all fours, and mopped up their sweat. In the beginning of each season, the varsity players found it funny. Some would chide me or joke and say, “Hey, Schultz! There is a spot over here.” Instead of putting them in their place and reminding them of my power, I got into position, running over there and kneeling down on my hands and knees and moped up the spot with a smile. I was modeling after the example of my master and instilling in them the principles of our head coach: no one is too big to do the smallest job. At Los Al, even the Athletic Director picks up and puts out chairs. After each basketball game, our players are assigned bleacher duty where they go and pick up all the trash the fans left in the stands. Some parents complain and say, “isn’t that the janitor’s job,” but we are teaching them ownership. The better you care for your court, the more care you’ll play with on the court.
There is more to winning than X’s &O’s. Winning organization culture is built on XOXO (the love and affection demonstrated by those at the very top). Part of love is tough love too. In basketball there is a phrase called “riding the pine,” which means being benched (no playing time). Riding the pine is the worst place to be as a player. Coach Wooden called the pine “A coach’s best friend.” The pine is the place you send players who aren’t performing on the court or aren’t being the person you expect off of it. The tough part of coaching is you have to love tough. And when you put someone’s child on the pine, their parents could care less about all the pine needles you sweep up each day serving the safety and moral development of their kid. Sweeping the pines and getting ridiculed for making players ride the pine are the tragedy of leadership. But like a Shakespearean tragedy where power serves a purpose, you will get remembered. If you are to be effective as a coach you will have to send your players on a set-of-four (sprints they hate but makes them better) and you will have to get on all fours, with your servant’s towel mopping up their aftermath of the running.
Leadership is the eb and flow of whipping them into shape and wiping up their sweat after the sprints. If they trust you with the towel, they will let out more of what’s inside of them. If your bosses are grabbing brooms, setting up chairs, and getting on their hands and knees to wipe up your sweat, your team is going to sweat more. Meaning, they will work harder and give greater effort because greater love is on display by you. The greatest failure of leadership is failing to show your team that you love them and failing to teach them how to love each other.
After a few weeks of the players ribbing me for my towel work, the lesson starts to work and soon players start bringing their own towels or asking to borrow mine, as they get on all fours themselves and wipe up the sweat for their teammates. Not one single time, in any year, did I ever explicitly ask a player to do this, I just did it and made sure they saw me do it with earnest and enthusiasm. And I learned it from Wooden, from Courtemarche, and from Jesus. When Jesus said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be last and the servant of all,” I picture him with his broom. But instead of wiping away pine needles, Jesus was on all fours washing the feet of his team, an act that was considered only reserved for the lowest status people in society, the ones without any power, the servants.
Here is an evergreen truth: if you want to lead your team to the top, everyone at the top of the organization better be in touch with the bottom by grabbing a broom and getting on all fours with their servant’s towel. As Pat Williams, co-founder and former vice president of NBA Orlando Magic once told me, “Leaders who don’t want to serve should not serve as leaders.”
Being a loving leader is a balance between the work you do that your people never see and the work you do that you purposely want them to see. Often, we need to see someone do something first before we know we can do it too. People are influenced more by what they see from you than what they hear from you.
People are influenced more by what they see from you than what they hear from you.
Steve Schultz
If you want to see something from your team, let your team see it from you first. A cardinal rule in leadership is if you don’t follow the words you say than the words you say won’t be followed. You have to be what you want your team to become.
All these years later after walking my broom to Ellis Park to sweep up pine needles so my basketball players could play their best, I’ll still get a text or call from time-to-time from some of them. This is another tragedy of leadership, no matter how much you give, some will never care and never reach out to you again. But some will. And they never knew anything about my broom, but they knew I cared. I was tough on them but I made it clear I loved them. At the time, when receiving tough love most players can only just see the tough, and they’re mad at you for it. But, in time, they start to see the love behind the tough, and they love you for it. They love you for the times you made them ride the pine, and they love you for all the pines you never let them see, so everyone else could see their absolute best.
And the real success of your leadership comes years later, when they step into positions of leadership of their own, and they grab their brooms, break out their towels, and although they might have to say “Set of four. Go!” They get on all fours wiping up the sweat from the sprints they sent their team on, and unbeknownst to their players then, for some reason they can’t figure out yet, even though their coach drives them crazy, they have this urge to want to run faster for him, because of what they see, and all the pine needles they never will.
