Let’s start with the basics. What do you mean by a “doctrine of excellence”?

When Skip Hall talks about coaching the doctrine of excellence, it doesn’t take long to become enthralled. Sure, his 30 years of coaching football at the Division I level, along with 15 successful years in business, have given him a wealth of insight into how to build, develop, and lead winning teams. Yes, he has a treasure trove of insights and anecdotes from sports legends.

But it is Coach Hall’s passion for helping people achieve excellence in their lives that gets you hooked. And his sincerity and warmth about how leaders shape successful teams through vision, integrity, and compassion will stay with you.

Coach Hall shares his Doctrine of Excellence program with business leaders around the country in speaking engagements and as Senior Executive coach with Price Associates. We sat down with Coach Hall and asked him about the Doctrine of Excellence.

The “doctrine of excellence” means just that you’re focused on attaining that which is important. Is there anything more important than the pursuit of excellence? Now I’m not just talking about in one area of our lives. I’m talking about in all areas of our life: Is there anything more important than the pursuit of excellence? Vince Lombardi’s whole thing (this was told to me by Bart Starr), the message that Vince conveyed to the team and leadership on the day he was hired, was excellence. He said, “Men we are going to pursue perfection knowing full well that we’ll never reach it, but along the way we will catch excellence.” It was that message and his attention to detail that Vince Lombardi conveyed to his players. Out of the 7 years he was the coach, they won 5 championships, and never had a losing season.

What does a leader who is “coaching the doctrine of excellence” look like?

A good leader is a person with a heart like a magnet and a head like a compass.

When I say “a head like a compass,” I mean a great leader has to know himself first: his values and his brand. There’s an old Southern preacher who said, “Be who you is, not who you ain’t. Because if you is who you ain’t, you ain’t who you is.” When leaders try to be someone else, when they try to copy or emulate someone else, it’s not really them. It comes across as phony. We all have a brand, we all have a vision of excellence.

Now, a “heart like a magnet” is how a leader gets the team to pursue that vision of excellence. They key thing that I want to convey is that leadership is not about a title, it’s all about influence. Leadership is influence, motivating others to get up to speed and to become the best that they can become. And that’s what coaches do. So we’re all coaches, we’re all leaders because of the influence factor.

It sounds like the doctrine of excellence begins with the coach.

Our core values define us, and it’s up to the leader to build a vision for the team. Helen Keller said it best when asked if being blind was the worst thing in the world. She said, “No, it’s not. Being able to see and having no vision is far worse.”

The key there is that if you want something to last, you’ve got to have a great foundation. So you’ve got to set the foundation that’s going to last year after year after year. Regardless of who’s coming in, players, coaches may change, but the foundation doesn’t. That is the key. And if you’re constantly changing the foundation, or using the plan-of-the-month, that doesn’t last. It may get you some initial, quick success, but it’s going to rapidly disappear.

Have a great plan. We’re talking about a system, a process, success by design. To have the discipline to stick with it. I like to use the letters EDD: Every Darn Day. You don’t waver. You set it down in place and stick to it. Sometimes we gotta be rigidly flexible, but that’s the bottom line. The price for excellence is always paid in advance. In other words, the effort, the time, the planning that goes into it in the early stages is the price you pay to achieve excellence. Bear Bryant said it best, “The most important thing is not the will to win. The most important thing is the will to prepare to win.”

When you talk about influence and motivation, is that where your mantra of “coach ’em up not down” comes in?

You bet! We can give people courage or we can take courage away. It works far, far better when we coach ‘em up. That doesn’t mean we don’t ever point out mistakes, it just means there’s a better way to do it. Our job as leaders is to connect the head and the heart, and be an influence on our team. That’s the key. I talk about the 5 E’s of coaching: encourage, educate, edify, exhort, and example. Be the example. Be who we want them to become.

This works in sports, business, and even in the home. It will make such a huge difference. We still have to have the capacity to care as leaders. There’s two qualities in leaders that makes them stand out: Strength and warmth. It’s what great leaders are all about.

Leading through influence sounds great when things are going well. How does “coach ’em up” work when adversity strikes?

People say that motivation never seems to last, and I tell them that neither does a shower and that’s why you gotta take one every day. The number one job in my opinion of a leader is to keep hope alive. And oftentimes in the midst of struggle, in the midst of adversity, it’s easy for people to lose hope. When you lose hope, the motivation goes out the window. A lot of things go out the window. The great leader is going to be able to keep hope alive, even in the toughest situations, in the most dire situations. That is the key, the most important job of leaders.

In 1977, I was at the University of Washington with Don James. We had gone in 2 years earlier to change the program and to build a successful program. We were 6-5 in our first year, and 5-6 in the second. We started off the third year 1-3. There was talk about buying out Coach James’s contract. After the 4th game. we flew back from Minnesota. They won the game on a last second field goal. We got back to Seattle after midnight. Everybody was down. There were two ways the head coach could have approached it. He could have blown his stack.

Instead, he had every player, every manager, every trainer, everyone associated with the team, go to the team room. This was after midnight. He said, “We’re not playing up to our ability. We can be much better. And I want to challenge everyone to think about what we’re willing to do individually to make us better as a team. Write it out, sign it, and turn it in.” We did that, and committed ourselves to accomplish what we wanted to do for the season.

The next week of practice was unbelievable. We went down to Oregon and beat them 54-0. We went on to win the conference championship and beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl. Now, those were the same players and coaches that were 1-3. After that great example of how to coach ‘em up, everyone’s mindset was pointed forward individually, we were brought together collectively as a team.

How does a person who aspires to grow as a leader get started?

Mentors matter a lot. Coaches matter. Even the best athletes in the world, even Olympic athletes, have coaches. They have mentors. And that is so important, that we have people that we look up to and can learn from. We may have to seek and find the right individual, but if we can find someone who understands and implements these principles and practices and priorities, that can be a huge asset and help. People can read books, but being around someone who’s been there and understands how to execute it is priceless. All these principles I’ve learned by being around great leaders my entire career.