KDC Project Portfolio
 |
or |  |
Search Our Site
None of the 1975 Lincoln High School football Lions knew the gentleman their coach had allowed to address them before their big game with Ohio’s best prep team, the Jacktown Giants. But the man in the dark suit curiously knew them all by name.
Maybe that’s why they were willing to listen, to accept the stranger’s unlikely premise that they could avoid a 25th consecutive defeat by upsetting an opponent conversely riding atop a 41-game winning streak. The man spoke for 25 minutes on a Thursday afternoon — about focus and trust and handling adversity, no “X”s or “O”s. They went out the following Friday night, won 9-7 on a last-second field goal and seemingly weren’t the same again. Many of the young men used the principles taught to them in that locker room to build successful business careers and family lives.
Those Lincoln Lions and Jacktown Giants existed only on the pages of The Pep Talk, a breezy book co-written in 2008 by motivational speaker Dr. Kevin Elko and accomplished author Robert L. Shook. The tale gave life to Elko’s dozen tenets that fit into the book’s sub-title: A Football Story About the Business of Winning.
Elko has spoken for years to corporations, colleges and pro sports teams. You may have read about the achievements of one of his most recent audiences; he met with the Green Bay Packers on the eve of their Super Bowl XLV victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers at Cowboys Stadium.
Elko’s 12 “Business Lessons from The Pep Talk” are strikingly similar to both KDC’s 11 “Keys to Business & Personal Success” and its “Top 11 “P”s for Success in 2011.” Steve Van Amburgh, KDC’s CEO, distributes cards with those statements to employees and clients alike. He appreciates Elko’s method and message among the plethora of business “selfhelp” instructions available at your local bookstore. “If you read Pep Talk and change it up a bit, it literally is our philosophy at KDC,” Van Amburgh said. “Whether I’m a project manager or the guy that has to secure new business, I believe integrity and a strong focus on leading is important. There’s a close overlap between leading a company the size of ours and leading a football team.”
Van Amburgh is familiar with both, having played high school and college football. He learned through those experiences the differences in leadership through intimidation and leadership through inspiration.
One of his favorite coaches was his defensive coach at Highland Park High School, Clyde Alexander. “He was fair and taught me valuable life lessons,” Van Amburgh said. “The way he talked to all of us with respect was inspiring, and it had a big impact on my life.”
Elko himself is a former assistant high school coach from western Pennsylvania who left the profession as a young man in the early 1980s after determining the motivational part of the job was what he truly enjoyed. He then earned master’s degrees from West Virginia University in counseling and sports psychology and a doctorate in education.
The head football coach whom he worked for at West Allegheny High School helped him become a draft consultant with the Pittsburgh Steelers, focusing on the prospects’ off-field attributes. That led Elko to speak to various NFL and major college football programs on a regular basis, including the University of Miami and LSU teams that won the national championships in 2001 and 2003.
Elko worked with the Dallas Cowboys for a few years in the late 1990s. At least one of those Cowboys was greatly moved by Elko’s words — eventually. Three-time All-Pro safety Darren Woodson said many of his teammates weren’t initially receptive to Elko’s message. “He spoke to the team a couple of times, and it was, ‘Here we go again,’” said Woodson, who now does NFL commentary for ESPN studio shows.
At the time, the Cowboys had some drafts that didn’t deliver much talent. Woodson said he was frustrated by the newcomers — mostly by their attitudes. He would tear into both his new teammates and himself.
Woodson said Elko pressured him to meet additionally one-on-one, since Woodson was one of the team leaders. “He didn’t understand space,” Woodson recalled with a laugh. “He was up in your face! I’m not a trusting guy. I’m not going to let you into my inner circle until I get to know you. He convinced me to let certain things go.”
Woodson and future Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith became two key believers — “Paul Reveres,” as Malcolm Gladwell termed it in The Tipping Point — in motivational speaking. Elko agrees with Gladwell that it’s critical to get the message across to at least a handful of the most influential group members. They then will influence the others.
“When I got Emmitt, I got a lot of the rest of ’em,” Elko said. “Darren Hambrick came up to me and said, ‘I hated ya, Doc. But I love you now.’”
Elko’s relationship with the 2010 Packers was a product of him previously working with the New Orleans Saints when current Green Bay head coach Mike McCarthy was a Saints assistant. When the Pack was upset last December by the lowly Detroit Lions and also lost star quarterback Aaron Rodgers to a concussion, McCarthy asked Elko to come in with the team needing wins simply to qualify for the playoffs.
Packers running back Brandon Jackson was already an Elko “veteran,” having heard him first when he played collegiately at Nebraska and kept up a personal relationship since.
“He’s always said the right things to help you,” Jackson said. “It’s always just this one quote here, this one quote there, that you will remember. I talk to him [by phone] most of the time before every game.”
Elko has written or co-authored four books, and the movie rights to The Pep Talk were recently sold. He was in Dallas-Fort Worth a month before his house call to the Packers, speaking to two local corporations, tailoring his message to each.
When it comes to selling commercial real estate, Elko has found no correlation between the professional’s IQ and the person’s ability to succeed. “Or even their college degree,” Elko said. “Their ability to present, their ability to close, their ability to quickly establish rapport — none of which are traditional IQ measures — have everything to do with it.”
That theme also struck a chord with Van Amburgh.
“In a competition, when it is just down to you and one other group, the person that has enough confidence — a lack of fear — will ask the question,” he said. “They will say, ‘What is it going to take for us to do this project for you? We really promise to do an unbelievable job.’”
“At the end of the day, it’s great to win,” Van Amburgh says. “Yet, even more importantly, it seems like the real acid test is whether your family, friends and even competitors speak highly of your actions from an integrity and ethics standpoint.”