Nova Chat with Jared Blank - University of Texas Chief of Staff

Jeremy · 0:00

Hey, friends, welcome to episode 301 of The Leader Assistant Podcast. It's your host, Jeremy Burrows, and I'm excited to begin a limited series of the show where I'm going to share five or six highlighted bonus, whatever you want to call it, episodes where I share recordings from my friend Maggie Olson's Nova Chats. So Maggie Olson is the founder of Nova Chief of Staff, as you likely know and have heard her on the show several times. But she hosts these awesome webinar chats with some different people in the industry or related to our industry. And so I'm really excited to share these with you. We picked a few to kind of repost on this show here. So I'm excited to share the first one in this episode, and it's with Jared Blank, who is the current Chief of Staff for the University of Texas Football Program. And in this conversation, Maggie and Jared discuss the role of Chief of Staff in college sports and how Jared navigates complex stakeholder relationships and multimillion dollar budgets. And so it's going to be a really fun conversation for me to share with you. So Maggie does a great job with these Nova Chats. And again, this is the first one I'm going to share over the next five or six episodes, several other conversations that she has had in her Nova Chat. So enjoy this Nova Chat. You can check out the show notes and the links for everything in Jared's bio in the show notes at leaderassistant.com/301, leaderassistant.com/301. I hope you enjoy it.

Speaker 3 · 1:46

The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

Jeremy · 2:04

Hey, Leader Assistants, have you heard the Nova Chief of Staff Certification course is about to see a price increase? But don't worry, you can enroll now, lock in the current rate, and start whenever you're ready with lifetime access. Nova's mission is to give you the ultimate student experience. They've packed the course with dozens of templates, self-paced learning, hands-on practice, multiple instructor touchpoints, peer engagement, and even guest authored assignments. With over 500 students across 22 countries, Nova is the top spot for Chief of Staff Learning and Development. Don't wait, enroll today and join the community at leaderassistant.com/nova.

Maggie · 2:50

Welcome, welcome. If you're just joining us, welcome to our Nova Chat with Jared Blank. Feel free to come on into the virtual room. We'll get going in just a couple of minutes. This is so exciting. If you've been on a Nova Chat with us before, we'll do introductions here in a minute. You know that I like the icebreaker questions to have something to do with food. I was thinking what would be really fun is if everybody comments with their location, hi, Brandon from Houston and their favorite restaurant in their city. You have to list where you live because this is going to help other people. Your favorite restaurant in your city, maybe you say like casual or fancy or a fish or whatever you want. But I'm going to take notes because I like to travel and find really good restaurants. Favorite restaurant, where you're located. Wow, it's already coming through. This is amazing. Jared, what's your favorite restaurant in Austin, Texas?

Jared · 3:53

Oh my gosh, there's so many great places out here. Well, one place that our staff loves to do, we do our weekly meetings sometimes. We just get off site. We go to the Chiba Hut, which is a sandwich spot, which seems to be a crowd favorite out here.

Maggie · 4:08

Chiba Hut. OK, well, we'll have that.

Jared · 4:11

That and Cabobabs is probably the big two.

Maggie · 4:14

What's the other one?

Jared · 4:15

Cabobabs.

Maggie · 4:17

What is that?

Jared · 4:18

It's like it's kind of like a Chipotle style restaurant.

Maggie · 4:24

OK, amazing. Look at all these. Look at all this. I feel like all of our attendees are just going to be taking notes from the chat this whole hour.

Jared · 4:32

What about you? What's your favorite spot?

Maggie · 4:35

Well, I recently moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, recently as in two years ago. Lincoln, Nebraska, from Seattle, Washington. So the food here leaves a lot to be desired, unfortunately. So my favorite is, it's called The Hub and it's kind of like a farm-to-table, casual breakfast lunch place, but really good ingredients, super yummy. So it's called The Hub. If you ever find yourself in Lincoln, Nebraska. All right. Well, welcome, welcome. It looks like people are still trickling in. We'll get going here in just a minute. If you've just joined, pop in your location and your favorite restaurant in your city or where you like to go. What kind of food is it? If you've been on these before with me, you know that we like to talk about food. Hi, Sean. Awesome. Miami, Keio Taco, Gourmet Italia, Temecula. I'm waiting for our Brazil attendees to say.

Jared · 5:33

Oh, here.

Maggie · 5:36

Awesome. Do you guys go out to eat a lot as a staff?

Jared · 5:40

Not a ton, but just our internal group. We were doing a weekly meeting where we would just get off-site and just a chance to debrief what's going on away from the office. So we find the 30, 45 minutes to do that. We found it really meaningful.

Maggie · 6:02

I love that. I love that. Well, we're going to get going. People are still trickling in. If you're just joining us, pop in your location, your favorite restaurant in your area. And we will dive in here. So thank you all for being here. I'm so excited about this. If you follow me anywhere, you know that I am just thrilled to be able to share Jared with you. I write all my own content on LinkedIn. So everything that comes out from me is just straight from my myself. So the excitement's real. You can tell Jared's awesome. We've had one conversation previously and we've tried not to talk since so that we can leave it for you guys for our second conversation. So my name's Maggie Olson. I'm the Founder of Nova Chief of Staff, Premier Destination for Chief of Staff Education Development. You can check out our information, novachiefofstaff.com. We have a Chief of Staff Certification course, but enough about us. We're going to dive into this Nova Chat with Jared Blank. So the goal of these Nova Chats is to bring people on from different industries. Maybe they're industry experts, maybe they're Chiefs of Staff in industries that we aren't as familiar in, but we want to go deeper. We want to chat about job transitions and vulnerable moments, do's and don'ts, career alignment, when to move on, and really whatever comes up. Let me tell you a little bit about Jared and then we will dive in. Jared is a results-oriented leader with an analytical sports marketing and sports operations, background and mindset, and brings extensive knowledge in managing large-scale projects, multimillion-dollar program budgets, and directing sports operations at elite college sports programs. Jared's experience as a program director spans nearly two decades, working with a wide range of people from all walks of life, including students, parents, corporate execs, athletes, nonprofit organizations, and high-net-worth individuals. Currently, he's serving as Chief of Staff for the University of Texas football team's head coach, Steve Sarkeesian, and Jared is also working to raise half a scholarship, $12,000, for Park Academy. So his Running the Distance Scholarship will provide the opportunity to students who otherwise would not be able to attend our school, which is structured specifically to help students with dyslexia. So I love that Jared is running for a cause that is actively out there promoting and fundraising. And Christina from my team under Nova Chief of Staff, you'll see her in the chat today, she's going to post a link where we can donate to Jared's partial scholarship to the Park Academy. And I haven't told Jared this yet, but what they raised today from this Nova Chat, Nova Chief of Staff is going to match. So pop in there, find the link, donate what you can, and we will match it on behalf of Jared. So thank you guys. We're excited to have Jared here and we know it's a free event. So if you have anything you can donate, a few bucks will totally match. Okay, so we're going to get into it here. Now, as you guys can imagine, Jared working for an elite sports program, he can probably talk about a lot of things and he also has to be a little bit careful around other topics. So I'm just going to dive into all the things. And if Jared answers just a little bit more generally or generically, maybe we talk sports versus the specifics of a team. Just know that he's kind of protecting the NDA of the team a little bit. So we're happy that you're here, Jared, and welcome.

Jared · 9:41

Well, thanks so much for having me. Obviously, very grateful for the opportunity to be here and then the very generous donation that Nova is making on behalf of the Park Academy Scholarship. That means more than you know. So thank you very much for that.

Maggie · 9:59

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so we're going to start out by, I want to just kind of dive into your background and hear about the pivotal moments in your career, kind of that dotted line led you to where you are now. And there's a lot of sports back there. There's a little bit of corporate merchandising, right? And then back to sports. So kind of paint the picture for us. I'll let you take it over from here.

Jared · 10:24

Yeah, well, I think it first starts when I was growing up. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and at the time we had one professional sports team. I think the Portland Trail Blazers. Now there's the Timbers and the Thorns. So it's definitely a growing market. But I always had a passion for wanting to be in a sports environment and wanting to work in a sports environment because I saw what that did to the community and what a sports team can do for the community. So I think that's where it really got started. And then I was fortunate to do an internship with our sports medicine department. When I was going to school at USC, I was a student athletic trainer. And then from there, got an internship working in the football office with our director of football ops at the time, Mark Jackson, who is now the AD of Villanova. And then basically two days after I graduated, a job opened up as a recruiting operations role with USC. So that's where it really all got started and being able to kind of see what that sports environment was like.

Maggie · 11:34

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Did you just feel so lucky that, like, you graduate and there's this job in sports waiting for you right there?

Jared · 11:41

Yeah, it was. I was super grateful for that. They're, you know, you do internships, you do all these things, and then to actually land a role, I was super lucky. And the timing just worked out really well.

Maggie · 11:57

Were you an were you an athlete growing up?

Jared · 12:01

I so I did soccer and track growing up in high school and then always kind of used running to deal, you know, being dyslexic myself. Running was kind of an outlet for me to deal with the frustrations of learning life and all that came with it. So movement was always a big piece to everything I did. And then that plus sports. So I don't know if I would say athlete, but definitely I was always moving around for sure.

Maggie · 12:29

You're like, well, I'm around athletes all the time and I just can't put myself in the same bucket. I'm sure you're an athlete.

Jared · 12:35

Yeah, but you played, right? You played volleyball in college.

Maggie · 12:38

Yeah, yeah, I played volleyball in college. It was my it was I was on a super competitive team in high school. My club team, we finished ninth in the country at the Junior Olympics. And most of my teammates went on to play at the University of Washington and they won the national championship that year. Courtney Thompson was the center. Yeah, yeah. And so I went to a different school. I was like, I'm not going to walk on. I mean, I had some moments of regret, but it all works out because I this my studying that I went into in my in my different school was was really relevant. But but yeah, I feel like you just learn so much as an athlete, too, that comes out through in, you know, professional environments. And we should talk about that a little bit. Like, do you feel do you feel like you're who you are from being around athletes and training athletes and growing up running that you just handle things completely different than you would otherwise, having not had that athletic background?

Jared · 13:36

Yeah, totally. I think, you know, I got into endurance sports post college and doing long runs and being out in environments for hours on hours. I feel like you really do dial into who you are as a person. And then I think that definitely goes into especially working in the sports environment, you develop that sports mindset of like what an athlete goes through. And so having that combination of things was, I think, super valuable for me, especially coming back and working in athletics now.

Maggie · 14:12

Yeah. OK, I want to get back to your to kind of your pathway to where you are now. So tell us tell us what happened after you graduated and found that found that role. Then then where did you go? What was your story after that?

Jared · 14:25

Yeah, so I was working on various recruiting projects. And at the time, you know, you weren't allowed to evaluate talent being in the recruiting office, but you could edit film or you could take the direction of a coach. A coach might say, hey, I want to see all the clips of this quarterback. So at the time, it was VHS to VHS. So you're like in there for long periods of time doing these edits and really kind of started to learn the recruiting landscape as well as, you know, do some projects from an operation standpoint. So there was there was really that combination of things. And then I got the opportunity to go to the University of Washington. So we have that Seattle connection. Yeah, Steve Sarkisian, when he took the head job there, was there for five years. So I started as Director of Player Personnel, doing again, kind of taking what we'd been doing at USC at the time and then transitioning that to more of a director role up at Washington and then became Director of Football Operations in 2012, when we were still there and worked two years there before coming back to my alma mater at USC as Director of Football Operations.

Maggie · 15:44

Okay, so did you kind of follow, were brought with Sarkisian through a few of his moves? And that's how many of your transitions like came about?

Jared · 15:55

Yeah, that was, yeah. So it was USC to UW, UW back to USC. So I followed him through there.

Maggie · 16:03

Okay, okay. And then there was a moment where you left the sports industry.

Jared · 16:10

So yes, I left the sports kind of. Kind of, kind of. So here's what happened. And I've been following this race that I saw on TV called the World Marathon Challenge. I saw it on the couches where one person runs seven marathons and seven days on seven continents. And I just thought it was like the coolest thing ever. And I told my family I'm going to do this one day and they all thought I was nuts. And it got to a point in my career where I had really had felt like I'd done everything from an athletic standpoint, working in the sports environment, and decided in 2017 to leave USC and go train for the World Marathon Challenge.

Maggie · 16:54

Incredible. And you did this fundraising for Dyslexia.

Jared · 16:59

Yeah. And I didn't know how this was going to work at the time.

Maggie · 17:02

How did it work? How do you do this in seven days on seven continents? Like, how do you even get there?

Jared · 17:06

Well, it's all part of one race. So that part I actually knew, but I didn't know how it was going to connect to Dyslexia. I always wanted to do something for the Dyslexia community. I felt I never knew that many people dyslexic growing up. And really a lot of the time you're feeling alone in that space. And so, as I was going along in this training, I was learning more and more about Dyslexia and how many people were impacted, and how it is a systemic problem, especially in our country, and how it leads to poverty, and how it leads to the prison population. And I was like, I need to do something here. And I just, I was able to, you know, fortunate, didn't I didn't know them at the time, but I reached out to the International Dyslexia Association, connected with my local Oregon branch, and told them that I wanted to help raise awareness and funds. And we created a project, we created this as part of the World Marathon Challenge, and we're able to raise $50,000 for the International Dyslexia Association as going through this training.

Maggie · 18:19

Have you heard? The Nova Chief of Staff Certification Course price is going up in January of 2025. Enroll now and with lifetime access, start whenever you please. Here at Nova, it's our mission to provide the very best student experience possible. Our course is chocked full of features and resources designed just for you. Dozens of templates, self-paced online learning, hands-on practice, multiple instructor touch points, peer engagement opportunities, guest-authored assignments, the list goes on. With 500 students across 22 countries, Nova is the premier destination for Chief of Staff Learning and Development. Enroll today and join us. That's incredible. I'm just also laughing because you're like, I don't know if I'm an athlete or not. I'm pretty sure everybody on this webinar is like, absolutely. Are you kidding me? That's so crazy. How did it make you feel? When you finished, what were the main emotions that you had coming out of that?

Jared · 19:23

The last half mile, I remember it so clearly. It was almost like a sad thing that it was over because you get into this routine of waking up every day, running a marathon, and then you realize in a half a mile, all of that is going to be over. There's that part of it. It was a super proud moment in terms of the physical feat being done, and then still recognizing that I had a fundraising goal that I wanted to continue to meet, so signed up for 100 Mylar that I did that summer and just kept talking about dyslexia. I think we reached the goal in the spring right before I did that race.

Maggie · 20:04

Incredible. You reached the $50,000 goal. Now you're continuing to raise money.

Jared · 20:11

Yeah. Transitioned over to this Running the Distance Scholarship for Park Academy. Why I think this is really important is we've identified that if we can help these students earlier on in their education, then a lot of the challenges that they would face would be lessened to a degree. And so, you know, they're working with third grade through middle school. And so this is the only school in Oregon that's specifically working with, you know, dyslexics and so hoping that we can provide these services to somebody that's coming from a more marginalized community that might not either have these resources.

Maggie · 20:57

Incredible. Okay. Well, as a reminder, Nova Chief of Staff is matching any donation made today from this group of people on our Nova Chat, we're matching the donation. So please feel free. We're going to post the link in the comments here in just a second to pop in there, donate later, you know, open it up on your screen and come back to it. Whatever you want to do, we can track that and we're going to match. So Jared, thanks for everything you're doing for the dyslexic community. It's clearly highly necessary. And, you know, we have this desire and passion to share resources and talk about neurodiversity and talk about coming to work as your full person and providing resources. And we aren't going to stop. We have a neurodiversity Nova Chat coming up in a couple months. So that's coming. We're going to have a panel with a bunch of people around neurodiversity in the C-suite and how it shows up. So if you're, you know, interested in staying tuned, continue to follow us and we'll continue to provide resources and a platform to highlight just like the normal people in the world and the things that we're all going through. So Jared, thanks for thanks for everything you're doing there.

Jared · 22:06

I appreciate everything you're doing and the match. That's amazing.

Maggie · 22:09

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so let's get to your current role, Chief of Staff, Texas football. How did that come about? Clearly, like Steve Sarkeesian is like, I love Jared. He's coming with me. Where do I put him? Like, how did this work? What does he love about you? What did he have in mind for you? And how did this all come together?

Jared · 22:29

Yeah, that would be a great question for him to answer.

Maggie · 22:33

Yeah, it's our follow up with him.

Jared · 22:35

Yeah, exactly. You need to do a follow up with him. No, the job opened up last year and so was able to reconnect with coach and, you know, fortunate again to get an opportunity to come back to athletics, which is clearly a passion of mine. And, you know, I think what's cool about the role that I stepped into is the group that I had been, you know, that I came in to work with had been there for three years, you know, or really, you know, going on three years. And it was such an awesome time to really be on a listening tour as I stepped into this Chief of Staff role. Because they had all the experience in the room. And I'm coming in as the new person and really tried to listen and gain an understanding of what was needed out of that role and how I could figure out a way to support what was already being done. Yeah. And I think that's super, you know, it's just a different way to come into a role, because, you know, normally everyone in a football staff is all joining in, especially with those operations and chief of staff roles. Usually they're there quite a while. So to come in at a place where everyone had already been here, had been established was a unique challenge.

Maggie · 24:14

Did they have a chief of staff already?

Jared · 24:17

They had one in place previously. Yeah, they got another opportunity and that's where it opened up.

Maggie · 24:24

Yeah. You know, what's interesting when you say that is it's pretty common in the chief of staff world because the role is massively on the rise and founders are telling their friends about it, like you need a chief of staff. It's pretty common for a chief of staff to enter into an environment that's never really had a chief of staff before. And so just like you're saying, it's like the listening tour, the observing, absorbing, figuring out everything that's going on. We talk a lot about like documenting current state, figuring out like what are all the things, the meetings, the cadences. And then after that point, being able to make some recommendations for ways things could improve or figure out yourself how to step in and where to fit in. Did you feel like you went through that part of the process to like, okay, I got to figure it all out and then I got to see what needs to be changed or fixed or what I can add value to and where do I fit?

Jared · 25:14

Yeah, I think it's totally, I mean, I think, right, listening to what, people usually generally know what they need. And I think just being, taking the time to kind of listen to, they, I always think that the people in the room have the answers. And so it's usually asking the questions that allow those answers to come about. And so I think to your point, like figuring it out in terms of listening, paying attention, observing, asking questions. And then the next question I always ask is, how can I support, how can I be of service to the people in the room? And how can I help? Because if you're doing, I feel like as a chief of staff, if you're doing your job right, you're elevating and helping other people shine in their own roles. Like that's how I've looked at this.

Maggie · 26:05

So say that one more time, because I know this is what you believe the purpose of the chief of staff role is. So what do you believe the purpose of the chief of staff role is?

Jared · 26:13

I believe it's to support other people, help elevate them and have them shine in their own roles.

Maggie · 26:20

That's incredible. And how do you do that? By listening and figuring out what they're best at?

Jared · 26:27

Asking them what they need, how what's, you know, like it's funny because you'll ask up. We talk about questions that you would ask players or athletes all the time of like, you know, how, you know, how, how can your experience be better? Like, what could we, what can we do to enhance your time here? You know, all those things are ours. And they're similar to, I think, employees or, you know, the people we work with.

Maggie · 26:53

So, yeah, yeah.

Jared · 26:56

But what, what have you found, like, in your, in all your knowledge, like, how, how have you found that to be for the role?

Maggie · 27:04

In terms of kind of the purpose of the role or how do you maximize your impact?

Jared · 27:10

Actually, both now that you're doing that.

Maggie · 27:13

Both would be great. Well, I think one thing that you're talking about right now is just kind of the stakeholders. Like, although the team members, the athletes are, they're in a different subgroup. They're the athletes, they're the talent, they're the people. It feels to me, just like a corporate environment, that they are your stakeholders, just like your customer and the customer experience. For us at Nova, student experience, for you guys, athlete experience. If you care ultimately the very, very, very most about people and their experience, regardless of what they're doing, athlete, student, customer, I think that you have a winning combination. If you keep that at the forefront, my background comes from companies like Nordstrom and T-Mobile that puts the customer at the forefront of everything they do and they care about their employees a lot. And so that's just deep in my veins. Like it's how we built Nova. That's kind of how I approach things. And it sounds like it's the same question. I mean, the first thing you said is, how can we make your experience better? And to me, that's it. That's the answer.

Jared · 28:16

That's really cool.

Maggie · 28:18

So let's level set a little bit. What I found really fascinating in our first conversation is just hearing about the structure of sports teams, of your team, of the coaching staff, of the CEO, the leader, the people in the room in your staff meetings. So tell us about, you are the chief of staff to the head coach. Tell us about the structure of the team, the staff, like who are the people that you interact with on a day-to-day basis?

Jared · 28:48

Yeah, for sure. So, and I think, I think to your, I love what you talked about, Nordstroms, and being about customer-centric, because I think it starts with our student athletes, right? They need to be the first and foremost. They are the major stakeholders in the room. And then, but from there, we have, you know, our head coach who you can think of like a CEO of the organization. Yep. And then we have assistant coaches. We have player development, who's really on hand for the day-to-day experiences of the student athletes. And then we have a full recruiting department, a general manager, which it's just become such a big operation. So to have that piece in place has been super helpful to our organization. And then obviously you have medical and equipment. And so there is so many touch points. And then athletic administration and marketing. So like more of the external pieces. So there's a lot of people you interact with on a day-to-day basis. But it's definitely a network of, in terms of a structure, how it expands out.

Maggie · 30:00

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And to take it a little bit further, let's talk about kind of staff meeting. So chiefs of staff are one of the key people responsible for, like, often preparing the staff meeting, making sure everybody's bringing the material that they should be, follow-ups, facilitation, who's in the room. Just the list goes on and on. Effectiveness, like cadence, right? And that's the same for you, right? And who are kind of the key staff? It's like, it's the head coach, their coaching staff, right? And then athletic director, a few others.

Jared · 30:36

Yeah, there's definitely those pieces. And I would say like, so sports, and it totally makes sense in a business world where the chief of staff would have that role. And I think within an athletic team, it expands out a little bit because you have so many variants. Like you might have, our general manager might be running the meeting with the recruiting director of recruiting. You know, like they'll be bringing some of those supplies or providing the meeting materials for those at certain points, depending on what we're meeting on. It's going to look a little bit different if we're getting ready to prepare for a game where the operations team might be providing those materials versus, you know, if staff's breaking out and they're talking football, then it's going to be the offensive coordinator or the defensive coordinator. So you're always going to have different people in the, just from my experience working in football, you're going to have different people leading those charges, depending on what, you know, what the topic of the day might be. And we also have compliance and academic meetings. So everyone's kind of, and that's what I love about being in an athletic environment, is you're seeing all these people shine in their own ways. Like they're getting to be at the forefront of these meetings. They're leading them, providing the information, necessary data points that, you know, direct how our organization is going to move.

Maggie · 32:03

And what is your part as Chief of Staff in all of that, specifically meeting management and getting people there and other people are presenting. But what's your part?

Jared · 32:13

I mean, it could vary. I would say it varies on a day-to-day. Like it might be making sure everyone is in the room and helping. We have a great program director here. So working hand-in-hand with her to make sure that, you know, we're on top of things and working hand-in-hand side-by-side and making sure that we've communicated everything to all the necessary parties and that a coach has everything he needs. So I think it's definitely a collective work of just again, supporting all these outlets that are leading charges and making sure that we're all pulling in the same direction because we're all here to accomplish really the same goal. Which that to me is the fun part.

Maggie · 33:00

Yeah. OK. So I want to go. I want to get a little more like tactical. Like what is a day in the life look like for you? What are you working on? What are you preparing? What are you part of? What are you leading?

Jared · 33:12

Yeah, it can be totally random, which is what I love. There was one day, and I was thinking, because I knew this question was going to come up. There was one day where we were helping somebody find a belt, where we were, you know, like, and it didn't fit. So we were like, OK, well, as the ops team, like, can we poke another hole in that belt and get the equipment set to then go into a budget meeting, to then sitting in on a staff meeting that's going over practice, you know, so it can be completely random. But typical day, like during the season, we start, we'll start with a staff meeting, making sure everyone is here, accounted for, and then going through medical, going through personnel, making sure that what players are available to practice, that sort of thing. So we were kind of constantly, you know, we're constantly doing due diligence, working with those different departments. And then we'll practice and then get off the field. Coaches will go watch film. And usually we're preparing to whether we're at have a home game or whether we're going away. We're working on that for like a game week. That would be kind of your typical, typical day.

Maggie · 34:31

Okay. And maybe another example from the off season, because I know it's your job is completely different on season and off season. So what could what could be different in the off season for you in a day to day?

Jared · 34:44

Yeah. So off season, that's usually when we're doing our coaches clinics. We're doing camps. So a lot of logistical work around those. We're also going on site visits, checking out. Like if we're playing again, we're playing Michigan this year. We haven't stayed in Michigan. So we're doing a complete site visit of there, checking out the hotel, checking out the timing of going from the hotel to the stadium, what it's going to look like at the airport, meeting with the bus company out there. So you're building relationships with all of these counterparts that are really helping you carry the project of getting to game day and back home safely. So we're doing that work as well as during the off season.

Maggie · 35:32

Okay, yeah, that's super helpful. I remember when we first chatted, you talked a little bit about just anytime you travel, you have to get on the phone with a ton of people in the city that you're going to, from police to shuttles to airplane. I mean, there's like so much that goes into that. And that is overseen by you and your team, right? You have a few people on your Chief of Staff team.

Jared · 35:56

Yeah, we have an amazing operations team. So we have our Director of Ops and an Ops Coordinator, and they do a tremendous job in that work, as well as we have an amazing administration that is setting up the ability for us to do this work. So it's not just one person. It is totally a team effort, because otherwise it just wouldn't work. There's no way. And then our Program Director is great with these road trips, because Coach will have obligations in doing media and certain things, and they take an active role in making sure all that stuff is getting done. So there's just a lot of parts to it. And so when we're doing these site visits, we're trying to figure out, okay, where is this event? Where is this media event going to happen? Where is the team meal going to be? Where is the training room set up? So all that is to be planned out because, again, we're trying to put people in position for success. So if our medical staff doesn't have what they need or is in a room that doesn't work for them, that's going to be a critical piece to us having a successful road trip.

Maggie · 37:13

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So what I'd be curious about, I'm going to share kind of my general thoughts and definition around the Chief of Staff role. And I would love for you to weigh in on, but is this true in sports? Are these the things you're doing as a Chief of Staff in sports though?

Jared · 37:31

Yeah, for sure.

Maggie · 37:32

Maybe this is a good point too. We have a few people on, I believe, who are in business operations roles across sports teams around the country. And Chief of Staff work can operate under so many different titles. I think I have a list of 20 to 25. You can find this list on our novachiefofstaff.com/blogsite. Sometimes it's helpful to realize the work that you're actually doing. And then you find resources and you're like, oh, that makes sense. That might be my role charter. So if you're in a biz ops role and your role sounds similar to what I'm going to talk about, you likely are operating in a Chief of Staff style role. There's often people either don't adopt the title, companies may just not know about it, may not love it, just may not use it. All of that's outside of our control. But what we can do is consider what our role is or what role we want to move into. And if it's Chief of Staff work, it can add some clarity and help us kind of align to what that could look like. So when we think about the Chief of Staff role, the role truly exists in, you know, from my point of view, to maximize the business leader, you know, CEO, coach, president, keep, we can keep going, to maximize their time, to drive alignment and essentially, like, potentially manage, lead, prioritize their key business initiatives for their leadership team or for their staff so that their team is pointed in the same direction. We kind of all know what those initiatives and ideas are that the leader has and to truly, you know, be able to think strategically, be able to pick up strategic initiatives and also be able to execute real well on what the leader needs, filling gaps across a million different things, you know, very much a breadth focused role versus depth. But sometimes we got to dig in and we've got to be able to dive right in there. So you're smiling, you're laughing. Does that sound like your role to you, Jared?

Jared · 39:31

I think, I mean, there's definitely aspects of it that definitely, you know, are, I'm familiar with for sure.

Maggie · 39:38

Yeah. So tell us what resonates with you.

Jared · 39:42

I think, you know, the part that you're, you are trying to maximize the coach's time, right? Coach's time is just so limited with everything that they need to do. So the more efficient we can operate. And it's funny that you, I read your post about, you know, being a mom and being in work. And it's a great LinkedIn post. Like, I hope people go and read it because it just, it made me think of a runner who I ran back in Portland with, who's a mom and also a businesswoman. And it just resonated so well because she would tell her stories as we're running. And it's just so cool to hear because, yeah, the time is so critical. And so any time that we can save minutes, save half an hour off someone's schedule, it matters. It makes a difference to, especially in sports, where you only get 20 hours a week with your athletes. And so you're really trying to maximize time in our business, so organization, I guess I would say. And so definitely that resonates.

Maggie · 40:51

Yeah. One of the things that you were talking about earlier made me think of another core pillar of the chief of staff role. Often I talk about the low-hanging fruit, like, OK, where do you want to add impact? What kinds of things do you think you can do to level up your organization or level up your leader? And one of those is ensuring that they're prepared all the time for everything they walk into. And when you're talking about going on a site visit before your team gets there, working with 10, 20, 30 different people before you travel, making sure that coach walks in and knows what's going on, doesn't have to probably ask a ton of questions, it feels like that is a key pillar to your role.

Jared · 41:33

Yeah, I mean, I think so. I think it's working hand in hand with our program director as well to make sure that happens. And then again, we have an amazing head coach who's totally self-efficient. So it makes the whole thing pretty seamless. But any time you can provide that information, and I think that's what resonates, right? Whether it's the head coach or whether it's an assistant coach that's going to speak at an event or whether it's our GM, anytime you can give somebody a nugget here or there that makes their job easier going into a room meeting with other stakeholders, I mean, it's really invaluable. Like, where they don't have to ask a question or they feel fully prepared, I think, I mean, that's what we try to do. And I think as an ops team in general, that's what we're trying to do for the entire organization. And when we do our job, well, it's, you know, we shouldn't be seen. And that's what's and that's, I think, what's fun about it.

Maggie · 42:36

Yeah. And to clarify, Jared, you run the ops team, right? The ops team reports to you.

Jared · 42:41

Yeah. So I oversee our operations team. Yeah.

Maggie · 42:45

Yeah. Okay. Cool. So do you guys, I mean, what's in what's some of the differences, I think, between like a sports program like you're in and maybe a corporate chief of staff role is you have incredible marketing and incredible events that you may not really need to be a part of a ton. But one of the kind of foundational purposes and I think parts of being a chief of staff is that you're in the know on everything. So even if like maybe you're even more removed from marketing or events than let's say another chief of staff in a business, do you feel like you have to still kind of like know everything and anything going on at all times?

Jared · 43:23

Yeah, I try to.

Maggie · 43:25

Yeah.

Jared · 43:26

You try to stay fully engaged because at some point the question is going to come to you.

Maggie · 43:30

Right.

Jared · 43:31

Or at some point somebody is going to have a question. So the more you can know, the more you can understand how events got put together, or who is doing what at what events. I think that's whether you have to talk to somebody who is working in the food or working in the timing of the event or whether you are talking to somebody who is promoting the event. Knowing all those facets and how they get done, I think is super important as a Chief of Staff role, probably across multiple businesses, but within sports, for sure. I think that's super important because at some point, somebody is going to need something and they're either coming to Chief of Staff or the Ops team and I use this, I talk as a team because we all bound together in this deal. But yeah, it's definitely super important to be in the know.

Maggie · 44:28

I think with that, in my experience, the Chief of Staff also has to, yes, you're going to field a lot of questions, but there's also this portion of providing the visibility into all the things. So yes, it's happening in marketing. Yes, it's happening in events. You know what's going on. But are you responsible for providing visibility to people who might be even less connected than you to some of these areas? Are you giving one sheets or emails? How do you make sure everyone's in the loop?

Jared · 44:55

Yeah, I think through email or text is just because of how quick our industry is, is generally like how it's done. I do make reports. I think you talked about a segment where Chief of Staffs make a lot of reports that may not even get used.

Maggie · 45:17

Yeah, kind of PowerPoint officer.

Jared · 45:19

Yeah. So there are those that exist in a file somewhere, so maybe they'll be useful down the road. But yeah, how's your experience been in that part of things?

Maggie · 45:32

You know, I think it's like reflecting a bit on what are the most asked questions and what, so who's the core group that you exist to provide visibility to? And my guess is it's your core staff kind of meeting group, maybe.

Jared · 45:46

For sure.

Maggie · 45:47

What are the main questions or things they need to know? And how can I give them the information before they ask? So I think part of the role of the Chief of Staff is getting your leader and their team information without them ever having to ask or maybe even knowing that they need it until they would actually essentially need it. So what I would do usually in a situation like that is like, what are the questions and then what's a template I can use every week to just update the same information? And then I screenshot it, send it around. If text is easier, you take a picture like the mode is flexible, but it's some form of like a repeatable template process that you just share. How's that sound to you?

Jared · 46:24

Yeah, it sounds very relatable.

Maggie · 46:27

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. So how long have you been in your Chief of Staff role now?

Jared · 46:32

So I'm just about a year in. So I got here last May at the end of May. It finally landed. And then the next day we were onboarding our new student athletes. So it literally hit the ground running.

Maggie · 46:48

That's incredible. And I want to know what you're most proud of in the last year as the Chief of Staff at Texas Football. What you're most proud of yourself for?

Jared · 46:59

Oh, most proud of myself. I was going to say most proud of the team for their accomplishments during the season. Yeah, I think something that's really cool is I got to be at Columbia for four years before I came to the University of Texas. And I got to work with some amazing people and some people that really took an interest in developing me and giving me insights. We had a leader at the time who was also giving me nuggets of information on what it meant to lead and what it meant to be a good leader. And it really helped my whole organization. So to be able to take those concepts and then be at a place where I had a chance to maybe apply some of those things. And I'm still learning, by no means finished. But to be able to start incorporating those things and seeing how they connected together, I think that's what I'm probably most proud of.

Maggie · 47:58

That's amazing. I feel similar. Leadership is such a hard journey and it's a long journey. And there's difficulties throughout, right? People issues are the ones that always keep us up at night. They're the hardest because we care. And I feel the same. After years and years, there's still so much further to go. But I'm just happy with the progress and being able to see it and hear feedback. And yeah, I'm proud of you, too, for that. That's really, really cool to be able to see that. What has been most challenging?

Jared · 48:31

I think coming in just with everyone already kind of going through the, you know, there was a few hard seasons before I got here and, and not necessarily knowing all the context around those. So learning those, I think that was probably the most challenging. But it was also kind of the most fun at the same time because you're, you're coming in with this curiosity and energy to really understand and, and want to help and, and, you know, provide support in, in a way that will help hopefully move things forward.

Maggie · 49:09

Absolutely. Okay. Well, we are going to get to the Q&A portion here. Last question for me is what's your favorite thing about your job right now?

Jared · 49:18

I think it's the people. I think it always comes down to the people and just the people that you get to be around. On a day-to-day basis and then you walk into this facility and, you know, caring about the people because it's, it's what makes the whole thing go.

Maggie · 49:35

Yeah, I totally agree. I love that. Okay. Well, our first question, so as a reminder to folks who are on, feel free to pop your questions into the Q&A box of the, of this webinar. The chat, I'm not able to monitor it easily, but I have Q&A open right now. So first question is from Tara. In your experience, and I guess it'd be interesting to hear, like who you work with on other teams, but is the Chief of Staff role or maybe operated under a similar title common in college sports and across lots of, you know, sports teams in general?

Jared · 50:08

I think it's more newer. It's a more newer role. I think it started popping up probably 10 years ago as people taking that role, especially at the college level. And now starting to see it kind of in the NFL level. And I've had conversations with people in other sports leagues where it's kind of, and you were talking, you alluded to it earlier, but it's kind of more needed, you know, to have that role where someone isn't really trying to be a coach or they're not trying to be a general manager, but they're are trying to get those rooms together. And they're trying to get those rooms synchronized together so that everyone is speaking to one another and they're getting on the same page. So it is kind of, I think, becoming more common, definitely, and needed for sure.

Maggie · 50:57

Yeah, I mean, it's funny, right? I mean, like I talk a lot about this. The Chief of Staff role is so incredibly like industry and like specifics agnostic because you're there for the same core purpose anywhere, which is to really support that leader in strategic ways, maximize their time, all the things we talked about. So it doesn't surprise me at all that as we've seen an increase in the Chief of Staff role from a business perspective and across industries that you've seen the same thing in sports.

Jared · 51:26

Yeah, for sure.

Maggie · 51:28

So as someone who loves sports but has never worked in sports, how would you recommend somebody learn a little bit more about the industry and possible opportunities to get into it?

Jared · 51:38

Well, that's a good question. I think it starts like, well, what is your interest, Lyle? What do you want to be doing with your time? Because there are so many things within a sports role. We talked about it, there's administration, there's marketing, there's definitely different places to exist within the ecosystem of sports. So I think maybe figuring that part out first. But then with sports teams, there's so many opportunities to volunteer. You know, like constantly needing people to run championship events. Or like, I even look at marathons, like they're constantly looking for people to volunteer and work stations. So even just getting an experience that way because you volunteer at those events and you start to meet people and start to connect, I think that's a good way to build the relationships that could hopefully land a job down the road, maybe. Or see if it's even something that a person wants to be spending their time doing.

Maggie · 52:43

Do I really want to do it? Do I know enough about it yet to know the answer to that? And then like anything else, like networking into it, informational interviews, draw your network bubble map. Who do I know in the sports industry?

Jared · 52:54

You sound like a chief of staff.

Maggie · 52:56

I know, this is straight from our course. It's like, which people might know a sports person, make the list and start networking? So I love this question. This is from Anum. Jared, do you review a lot of analytics or baseline? And then second part of that question is, can you share any of the strategic initiatives that are on your plate right now?

Jared · 53:21

Yeah. So that's a good question with analytics. And I guess I can take it a few different ways, but just looking at it from a sports standpoint, we get reports on strategies that work from a game standpoint. And so you get to see the breakdown of the number of plays that people ran on fourth and one in the fourth quarter of a game and that sort of thing. So now that won't really pertain to what I would do on a day-to-day basis, but I'm still getting that information. And I think that's what I love about being in sport is there's strategy around it. And then as we're constantly like, well, how can we figure out what stats would apply to the ops team, you know, in our success? And I think we're still kind of figuring out those questions because that would let us see it from a business perspective. But so there's there is a little bit of analytics involved in definitely our area as it pertains to like our day to day function, not necessarily so much.

Maggie · 54:35

Okay. Yeah. And what about majors initiatives on your plate right now?

Jared · 54:40

I'm working on a few projects. Probably can't get into the details of them, but super excited about them.

Maggie · 54:47

The Chief of Staff working on major initiatives makes sense. Okay. So from our friend Sarah, what essentially she's talking about, there's some major shifts happening in college athletics. How can the Chief of Staff position help team staff athletes like weather the storm in terms of the shifts happening in athletics?

Jared · 55:08

I think first being on top of them, understanding we're constantly-

Maggie · 55:12

Maybe you can share, sorry, Jared, maybe you can share a little bit about the shifts happening and about the environment right now that Sarah is referring to.

Jared · 55:19

Yeah. So there's a number of things going on, but you'll see rural changes with regard to rosters. You'll see changes into how many people can travel to training camp and that sort of thing. So and I don't know what she's specifically talking about, but those are the types of things that you would see. So like being able to understand what those changes might be and how they might impact the budget, how they might impact, you know, we're constantly forecasting and, you know, seeing how, you know, if they changed from 100 players going to camp to 120, that's 20 more meals per day, that's, you know, 20 more rooms. So you're constantly looking at like how that might affect the budget, how that might affect what resources we need to plan for. So there's that part of it. So I mean, I think again, it goes back to what are those changes happening? And then kind of brainstorming, okay, how is this going to impact us? You know, and then hopefully you're creating a place where we're thriving and not necessarily trying to survive.

Maggie · 56:36

Yeah, yeah.

Jared · 56:37

What are the changes?

Maggie · 56:39

Yeah, I imagine too that it's just a constant dialogue with your with your staff and your team and it's like an agenda item, like what's new? Like, do we all understand it?

Jared · 56:49

Yeah, and luckily, you know, we have a really good administration compliance department that's that's on these things. You know, that's that that is part of, you know, that is one of the meetings that we have in terms of being updated.

Maggie · 57:03

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Jared, if you weren't working in sports, what would you be doing from Connor?

Jared · 57:11

That's a great question.

Maggie · 57:14

Clearly running, but besides running.

Jared · 57:16

Yeah, besides running, I would if if probably owning a smoothie shop somewhere, a smoothie shop.

Maggie · 57:25

I love that.

Jared · 57:27

That would probably be what I would would be planning on. Yeah, a smoothie coffee shop somewhere.

Maggie · 57:37

Amazing. OK, well, we're going to we're going to ask a fun one. And if you don't have an answer, that's OK, because I'm really, really bad on the spot with this kind of thing. So no judgment. But what's your best dad joke?

Jared · 57:47

Oh, my best dad joke. OK, why is the desert never hungry? I don't know, because of all the sandwiches there.

Maggie · 57:58

OK, you know, you asked it was answered. Jared, that's all I have to say about that one.

Jared · 58:04

What's your best dad joke?

Maggie · 58:06

Oh, no, like I said, I like, why do you have to tiptoe past the medicine cabinet?

Jared · 58:12

How come?

Maggie · 58:13

So you don't wake up the sleeping pills. All right, that's enough of that. They're so bad, so bad. OK, we have a few more questions to get to. I know they're so bad, you guys. How would you go about convincing or advising a leader that they need a chief of staff? So this is part of my work is awareness, education, trying to help business leaders understand more about the chief of staff role. Everybody knows that you need an accountant, you need finance, you need a coach for offense, a coach for defense, but you don't know you need a chief of staff until you learn about the value of the role. So how would you go about convincing a leader that they need a chief of staff?

Jared · 58:56

And actually, it kind of leads to something we talked about or that I talked about a little bit earlier, but I've thought about this question a ton. Like, and more like if you were talking to a pro team, let's just say a pro team, with a general manager and a head coach and an owner, you'd want to sit down with them and say, look, you have these people that are essentially driving your organization and they are creating strategy and really, what are the key initiatives to have someone who is in a role to help carry those out, work with the other touch points, the other departments that are going to be carrying out these initiatives that these strategies that are being derived from these groups, will be super helpful. It will make the process more seamless because you're getting, I mean, it's essentially a game of telephone, right? But having someone who can operate as well as think strategically within those, you know, within those guardrails, to be able to be creative within those spaces. And I really feel that's what the Chief of Staff does. It's kind of like, you know, I always describe it as like, I don't have a good football position, but it's either being that point guard on a basketball team who is taking the direction from the coach and really figuring out how you're putting the players in position for success. To reach and accomplish those goals. I mean, that is essentially like what an old school point guard would do. Or is it having that midfielder in a soccer, you know, in the soccer arena who is you're not working to the midfielder. You're working. There's Ted Lasso episode on this, where you're working through the midfielder, who is, again, putting those players in position to carry out the orders, to really get people in spaces for them to shine. And I think that's what you would. That would be the argument I'd use for a chief of staff is they are helping others shine while carrying out what the strategy is. And that can make the thing really fly.

Maggie · 1:01:16

Yeah, I love that so much. Last question. And then we are done for the day. Who helps you shine?

Jared · 1:01:25

Oh, shoot. In my role? I mean, I think the people around me. I mean, I think, you know, whether it be a conversation with an ops person, whether it be a conversation with an analyst who's working to become a coach. I mean, I think those are the moments where I feel like I shine because you're getting an opportunity to really do what you love to do.

Maggie · 1:01:54

Yeah. People are trusting you. People are giving you the room to be great, the room to make things your own, to have an impact in your own way, place to do it. I love that. Well, any final thoughts from you before we say goodbye to everyone today?

Jared · 1:02:11

I do. So I have a question for you because you just did your first speaking engagement. Yeah. What did you get from that experience and how was it?

Maggie · 1:02:23

Well, yeah. So I just gave a keynote speech to this. It's a very generic title, but the Admin Conference down in San Antonio. They found me, they asked me to come speak to them. I accepted and I knew that I was not quite sure what I was going to walk into and not quite sure that it was something that I would love or have time for. So what I learned is that I do absolutely love it, super great, but I do not want to be away from home very much right now. With my little guy, 16 months old and just it takes a lot for me to travel. So I thought I'll show up, I'll speak for 60 minutes, go home. There's so much more to it. Preparing, traveling, thinking, practicing, like all of it, especially the mind share of it. In the mind share, we have to add that in, the amount of time that we're thinking about something, that's preparing. So it was a lot for sure. But I enjoyed it.

Jared · 1:03:23

Well, congrats. It's so awesome.

Maggie · 1:03:25

Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, Jared, you're the best. Thank you so much for being here. Feel free to reach out to Jared on LinkedIn. We will include a summary email to everybody who registered with a lot of information about how you can donate, how you can find Jared, other resources, things about Nova, about me, all the good stuff. So thanks for being here, everybody. This was super fun. Jared, thank you so much. You're the best.

Jared · 1:03:51

Thank you so much for having me.

Maggie · 1:03:53

Okay. Bye, everyone.

Speaker 3 · 1:04:05

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