Why Do Ted Lasso's Lessons Work in Real Life Businesses?

Scott: Thanks for joining me today. Ted Lasso is not just an insanely popular series on Apple Plus that has fans begging for a fourth season. In fact, it's not just a comedy series. Or a show about soccer or English football. Which is good, because when it comes to that sport, I'm more like Roy and Moss from the British TV series, The IT Crowd.

The only way I could contribute to a conversation about soccer or English football is by faking the question, Did you see that ludicrous display last night? However, many times while watching the show, I saw plenty of lessons in communication, empathy, and company culture, all things that can greatly impact the success of content marketing.

After all, if your internal culture doesn't get those things right, how can it effectively convey it all externally? Now, if you're a fan of Ted Lasso, you've probably seen your share of people making connections to scenes or famous Ted quotes and aligning them with business lessons. But our guests today have done way more than that.

Marnie Stockman says she was raised by two parents who taught her things like, don't be sorry, be right, and kill them with kindness. So it's really no surprise she became a business development professional with a doctor of education focused in leadership. And she's had to communicate with high school math students as a teacher and customers as a senior director of customer success at a leading tech company.

And she's the co founder of Lifecycle Insights, which offers a VCIO customer success platform for MSPs. Nick Coniglio is a seasoned technology veteran with over three decades of experience in IT, as a programmer, manager, and CEO. Corporate executive and tech startup entrepreneur. And in the last 20 years, Nick has had leadership positions for four different companies, each of which experienced remarkable growth and successful exits.

And like Marnie, he is a co founder of Lifecycle Insights and together they wrote the book, Lead It Like Lasso. Now the lessons in this book, by the way, are not just for business leaders, although that's what we will focus on today. But these tools can be applied to the boardroom, the locker room, and even the living room.

And I think it's important to point out that this is not just a book limited to meaningful tie ins to the show. It also provides examples, frameworks, and activities to help you refine your leadership style and write your own success story. Marnie and Nick described the book by saying, It feels like having your own personal Ted Lasso breaking down leadership lessons in a way that will make you smile.

Show Clip: You are truly great at everything you do out there, except for one thing. My left foot crossed. No. Jamie, I think that you might be so sure that you're one in a million that sometimes you forget that out there you're just one of eleven. If you just figure out some way to turn that me into us, the sky's the limit for you.

Scott: But the first thing I wondered was, how did these two leadership experts and startup founders decide to write a Ted Lasso book?

Nick: We happened to, you know, start, scale, and exit from a business in the same three years that Ted Lasso had aired. I was, I was a soccer fan. So I was watching the show, you know, and then I realized, Hey, this show isn't really about soccer at all.

It's about relationships, personal growth, power, positivity. I was like, Marty, you got to watch, you got to watch it. And then finally, at some point I said to her, Marty, you are Ted lasso. You, she really is. She is the living version of Ted lasso in terms of her positivity, her goofiness. You know, her, her leadership style.

Um, I said, you have to watch the show. And finally she, she took me up by the offer and she watched the show and then I'll let her kind of describe how that led to, to the book.

Marnie: Yeah. So, uh, I, I appreciate that I get to be, get to be the Ted lasso. Um, cause that's very flattering of course, but as we watched the show, uh, we saw, you know, first, There are a lot of parallels with our business that we also saw in the show.

So right away, Ted being a fish out of water, right? Coaching UK, London football, which we know is soccer. When he was American football coach, we started a software company in a space we knew nothing about, right? So those parallels were really clear right out of the gate. And then some of the things that Ted would do.

I started out as a high school math teacher. So recognizing the leadership, coaching pieces, lots of different places, I think is it was easy for us, but when we left the company, One of the things that we did in scaling the company was that we never had sales folks. So we did a lot around marketing, right?

We had, we had a persona in the space for sure, but we never hired salespeople. And people were asking us how we managed to be successful that way. And as we started. Really thinking about how we did everything. Um, we realized the parallels and thought, you know, the way to get people to really understand and relate to our leadership framework that we felt helped make us successful was parallel that with the Ted Lasso story.

So, you know, in the world of marketing, all about. Finding a way to, to hook folks and connect with them. And Ted was so relatable. That's sort of a bit more of that story. I think Rupert gave us a good example in Ted Lassa, right? Of, of a bad leader.

Nick: But I think it also, it highlights the point of how important human interaction is, right?

And building your team and, and go giving, right? Always giving more than you expect in return. And that's, that's what Ted did. It was based on relationships and. And from our perspective, his approach and his style can work in any business. They have this great. This great scene, right? It's where, where Rebecca tells Ted, you know, it's the same Ted, but it's different and coach tells beard that, that same thing, right?

What's the same is the approach and in the human centered approach about building relationships, being empathetic, using emotional intelligence, uh, you know, having a focus on growing people and, and to us and what we preach is. That can apply to almost anything that you do in order to be able to do that.

You have to understand yourself and understand your core values, understanding the core values of the organization that you're working in. And Ted Lasso did, the entire series did such a good job of demonstrating all of those points.

Scott: One of the most memorable and important symbols of Ted Lasso is the belief sign.

In the show, it's really more than a sign. Everyone who sees it understands what it means. In organizational culture, that sign is called an artifact. Maybe your organization has artifacts like these on a wall. Maybe it's your core values. But it's not enough to just be on that wall. And it's really not enough just to have that set of stated core values.

Anyone can come up with a set of values and say, Alright, this is who we are. But how does everyone in the organization interpret them? How do they embody those values within the organization? How are those values present when communicating with clients, customers, or stakeholders? I've worked in cultures where leadership would just throw out phrases and expect people to just understand them and apply them.

When all that would really happen is people could repeat the phrases. What good would it have done if Ted just told the players to believe, without any context, or much context? It would just be a word. And if words are gonna do things like motivate, inspire, or really define a culture, those words have to mean things.

Before making words mean things at their own company, Nick and Marnie worked at an educational tech company in which the founders believed in superior customer support and product development. However, after an acquisition, they said the company suddenly felt like it was run by Rupert.

Show Clip: And this is remarkable, Rupert Mannion, demonstrating with his own manager on the pitch.

You don't see this very often. Well, not since the invention of telephones at least. I'm not playing the game like that. You do what I say or you are done.

Scott: The core values turned into a stronger emphasis on sales as opposed to customer support. So the customer success team was cut from 17 to 6, and more investment was placed on selling the product.

Well, sales oversold the product, and it debilitated the support team and caused all kinds of development efforts to cease. Because they were so busy trying to stabilize that product. Nick and Marnie said they spent their final days in firefighting mode and felt like they could no longer provide customers the service they deserved.

Nick: The first issue is they, they were not human focused, right? They were not customer focused, but In, in line with that, their statement in terms of core values was that they wanted to create raving fans. And the, the immediate issue that Marnie and I had was that clash, right? It was very frustrating, especially since we were responsible for the customer experience, then it would state that this is their stated core value and their actions were completely different.

Then to follow up on that, I think the whole notion of being so outcome focused or bottom line focused. And having that command and control mindset, which is what Rupert had is a great contrast to where, what most people think good leadership is today, which is servant leadership, right? It's not about command and control.

It's about growing others. It's not about speaking. It's about listening. Um, it's not about the bottom line. It's about growth and development and the beauty of Ted Lasso. And we talked about this in the book. Is Rupert's the perfect counterexample, you've learned so much from looking at how not to do things.

Scott: Now you heard Nick mention something about raving fans. That was a core value that he and Marnie both held when they launched their own company. And a word they like to associate with creating raving fans is transparency. And when you know how to define that word, you can definitely create some raving fans.

Marnie: We knew one day when our software went down, due to AWS being down, it wasn't a question of whether or not we communicated. Some companies hide behind it, act like there's no problem. We posted everywhere like we can't hear their every effing where we posted. Yep, we're down like we're aware. We know it's this service.

We'll let you know in an hour what we find out. Um, and it's interesting because we emailed all of our partners that day. And I got three replies back from an email that I sent to a thousand folks. It was very clear. It's not a personal email. Um, and they said, you know, the, the best thing a software company can do is have a hundred percent uptime, but, but followed by a very close second is a hundred percent communication and you crushed it there.

Thank you. We were up again within an hour and it was interesting. We were getting kudos. On social media and in replies to emails for being transparent. But what we didn't have to question internally was if we were going to communicate that or what was going on and people really appreciated it. And we didn't have any internal angst about that because we knew that was our core value.

And we talked about how that would play out.

Scott: I love that story. I feel like we've had examples like that on the show before. You know, where there were assumptions about public reaction or maybe customer reaction to something, and then the decision might be made to hide something, because a company is fearful of looking inept or expensive or unprofessional.

But in reality, Truth and transparency really go a long way. This is one of many examples of why it's important to know not just your audience, but know people. Now, Marnie mentioned Roy Kent. Now, let's think about him and Jamie Tartt right now. Roy's my favorite character in the whole show. And I'm sitting here thinking about people and understanding people.

And thinking just how easy it would have been for the team just to assume something about either one of them early on based on what we see in the first few episodes and just think, Nope, they're not right for us. Get them off the bus to use a good to great reference, but there was clearly value to both of them and Ted knew it, and that's why he felt it was important to give them an opportunity to evolve, and we're so glad he did.

Marnie: I think what Ted knew is that what he said to Trent Krim, uh, I'm going to repeat it for you again, Trent. It's not about the wins and losses. It's about helping everyone become the best version of themselves because that was his core philosophy. Right. He really did take the time and you're right. A lot of people would walk into an organization, you know, take the dipstick approach and you're like, okay, Jamie Tartt.

Yeah, we're done with him. But instead, you know, he took the time to figure out what made everyone tick. Right. He went and asked, um, Keely what Jamie Tartt's operating system was operating instruction. And we talk about that in the book, that it's really important to understand your own personal operating system and then communicate that so that others can find ways to work better and communicate.

Right. And, and as Ted learned about why Jamie was the way he was, he could work to help, you know, help him become that best version, but same with Roy, right? Like I've got to figure out the motivations, et cetera.

Scott: is prevalent in Ted Lasso, despite assumptions that are clear in the first season. Even the audience could make assumptions about Roy, Jamie, Rebecca, and others.

But everyone has an arc. They evolve. And they're better for it. Everyone's better for it. But let's look at the core assumption that was prevalent as the show started. That is, Ted can't coach this team. His style won't fit. It's not the way soccer or English football has to be coached. What does that make you think of?

Maybe an organization that never elevates because they cling to the way things have always been done? It's wild to think that Ted was hired because the intent was for him to fail. Because had that not been the case, Ted would have never been hired. And the team may have never reached new heights. But even if a company is willing to evolve It can still lose its humanity.

Nick: Marty and I often talk about, you know, this, this whole notion, you know, we stole from Adam Grant that we're in the midst of this character revolution. And, and we truly believe that, right. Uh, you know, although it seems like AI is everywhere, we're in this digital age. Right. What's really happening is the fact that technology and AI is it's commoditizing skill sets, right?

And as individuals, I think we need to be adaptable and realize that human skills, character skills, human interaction is really going to be the key differentiator for how you move forward. And if you, if you went back 10 years ago, that was a completely It was a paradigm shift, right? It's a paradigm shift from where we've been, where people have relying and relying so much on technology to get them where they want to go.

I think we're coming back to the point where we need to realize that it's, it's the human skills, the soft skills that are going to allow you to stand out and differentiate yourself. That's another thing that I believe why. Uh, Ted Lasso resonated with so many people because it brought that to the forefront.

Show Clip: The Diamond Dogs are a group of men committed to supporting each other by sharing the most intimate thoughts, feelings, and experiences. You in or out? Uh, I'm in. Damn it!

Scott: Perhaps one of the most humanistic aspects of Ted Lasso's team culture was the Diamond Dogs. I mean, how could you not watch those meetings and think, I wouldn't mind having something like that at my office.

Or at my company, even if it was virtual Diamond Dogs. Well, the good news is, as part of their book, Nick and Marnie explain how you can create your very own Diamond Dogs within your company culture.

Marnie: I think what Ted was very good at is recognizing that he, he didn't have to be all the things. There's a saying out there that you are the average of the five people that you hang out with.

If everyone hung out with five Teds, it'd be fun, but you need other personalities with other strengths, you know, in order to really build the full, like, you complete me, which they, you know, they, they talked to that line, um, in the show as well. Like, let's just take an inventory of who those five folks are for you and these different categories.

In where you need support, right? Do you need support? Um, accountability, right? Diamond dogs are your accountability partners and really take a look at where your strengths are and where you need help. And how does that align with the folks that you're talking with every day? It was interesting. I had my daughter's boyfriend, he read the book and we were doing some mentoring and he took that survey and he kind of, he looked at the five folks he hung out with and then he said, it's interesting.

My daughter's name is Josie. He said, Josie is the only person that supports me in all of the ways that I need support. And so he thought, you know, I can still be friends with everyone else, but I do need to look for a job where I'm going to get support in some of these other ways, right? Maybe mentors, et cetera, that give me some additional support.

So it's really looking at a spectrum of elements of what you need. Uh, and then finding those folks that bring out the best of you in different ways. Right? Not everybody is your work accountability, uh, you might have an exercise accountability as well. Right. And then it's important to, to figure out who those folks are and then nurture those relationships or seek them out.

If you don't have them,

Nick: it's really hard to be that rare individual that can have the discipline and the willpower to hold themselves accountable. And you think outside from a different perspective to, you know, influence your own thoughts, right? You need, you need a group of people around you that will tell you when you're steering off course, right.

That you trust, uh, that that's looking out for your best interests. And then the show, they represent that perfectly with, you know, with the, the diverse characters of Beard and Higgins and Roy eventually got in there. You know, we'd like to focus on two things that legal like glass. So the first is to design your vibe.

Which is all about how do you become better, become the best version of yourself through personal leadership. But the second part of it is build your tribe, build your diamond dog group. We talk about the different areas that we believe at least that, that you need to check the box off in terms of what to look for in terms of support.

Marnie: And in addition to that, so there are the trusted folks that you can chat with. Um, but if you're struggling to find those folks, you know, it's, it's one of those things like, who are you following? Whose voices are you listening to? And you need to listen to some different voices, you know, are some of those voices keeping you angry all the time?

You may, maybe you should stop listening to that voice and pick someone and then give you a different. You know, something to listen to. Ted knew enough to surround himself with folks that had the answers, right? I mean, Coach Beard was his go to. Coach Beard always had his nose in a book and he knew all the things, all the terms.

He was like our English to English translator for soccer and Ted, right? You got to help to communicate that as well. So yeah, you got to have a variety of folks that support you in different ways.

Scott: That formula for creating your own diamond dog group is an example of the value. This book brings to real life.

As I said, before then, you might have just watched the show and wished you could have something like that. By the same token, maybe you look at Ted, or any of the other characters, and say, I wish I had a boss like that in real life. Or, maybe you look at a particular character and you want to create a leadership style like them.

Is that possible? After all, they're fictional characters. Someone wrote them. But the inspiration had to come from somewhere. In the book, Nick and Marnie take some of the most popular characters. And compare them to real life leaders to show you how these leadership styles can apply to real life leaders.

For example, they compare Walt Disney to Rebecca Welton. They point out they're both resilient and determined leaders. Keeley Jones is like Richard Branson. A relationship oriented leader. Sam Obisanya is like Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. They're both growth minded leaders. Now, who do you think they aligned Roy Kent with?

You

Show Clip: listen to me! You play like that next week, you can kiss the trophy goodbye. Because today, you will play like a bunch of little pricks! You hear me?!

Scott: Well, they say Roy Kent is like Nick Saban. A direct and assertive leader. So there are clear ways to build leadership styles like Ted Lasso characters.

Marnie: You know, we, we built the character assessment in the book. And so you answer some questions to determine what style leadership you have. Uh, so, you know, you can be a Ted or a Rebecca or a Roy or a Keely or a Sam. And we could have gone on, believe me, we wanted to put beard Higgins and trend crim in there too.

But at some point you have to say like, okay, let's, let's find some distinct leaders that show a variety of ways to lead. And we ended up talking about this quite a bit. We titled it, lead it like lasso. We're not saying you need to lead it like Ted lasso. Not everybody has to be the same, right? That there are different styles of leadership.

That play out different ways. So we wanted to have distinct traits, strengths and weaknesses wise for each. And then we basically thought, okay, let's think of some great leaders, people that we respect, you know, folks that, that a lot of people know. Um, Nick Saban, for example, and let's think about if, if Nick Saban took our test, I'd love to hear that he has done that.

And he can tell us if we got it wrong, that'd be fantastic. How would, from what we see of Nick Saban? How would he respond to these questions and which leader would he be like? And so it was interesting because some of them came very quickly of like, Oh, that that's a good match, right? Who does the world see as the positive, you know, the optimistic achiever, who does someone see as, you know, a supportive collaborator, which is Keely, et cetera.

So it was fun, um, to kind of take that approach. And again, it's easy, you mentioned it earlier, in a fictional show to be able to say, well, of course, they're a great leader. They wrote the script. They can make the person respond however they want it. So we want to connect the dots for folks and see IRL in real life, right, how this really does play out.

Scott: Also in the show, Ted Lasso embodies a quality that we hear a lot about today. It's a buzzword in leadership and content marketing circles. Authenticity. Have you noticed that Ted never really goes into a different mode? He is who he is no matter who he's talking to. For example, he doesn't shift gears and go into press conference mode when he has to talk to the press.

He's still the same guy. He is what you get no matter whether he's talking to Rebecca, Rupert, the team, the press. He just remains authentic.

Show Clip: Coach, how are you feeling about the unanimous opinion that Richmond will be relegated again at the end of the season? Mm, yeah, that's true, isn't it? Expectations for us are as low as a rattlesnake's belly button, huh?

But hey, we got 38 chances to prove all them folks wrong, though, right? And my hopes are as high as a giraffe's top hat. Uh, next question. And if it is, why is a giraffe wearing a top hat, don't ask me, man. Go ask a giraffe.

Scott: He's always himself, which no matter what leadership style you choose, or no matter how you communicate with team members, employees, stakeholders, or consumers or customers, That's an important quality to have as a human being.

Marnie: It's so daunting if you feel like you have to put up blockers in a conversation, and he never did. He was always very direct. And he changed the message, right? He certainly channeled the message for the folks he was talking to, but he didn't change who he was or how he was. And so that was just really powerful.

And that is the authenticity in communication really needs to be alignment with the culture and core values of the company and marketing certainly aligns with that.

Nick: And again, it's a, it's a fictional character, right? So, okay. Yeah, it's TV. It's so easy to watch, but I think, you know, my experience is it's dead on.

Uh, you know, I was, I was somebody who was promoted into leadership very early on. In, in my career and I didn't react well and I, I became somebody that was completely different than the person who I was to get me to that point. And I w I wasn't being authentic and, and what did it lead to? It led to me feeling like an imposter at some point.

It led to stress and anxiety. Um, you know, how do you feel when you know, you're not acting as your true selves? I view the whole Ted Lasso, um, character as, as an inspiration, right? It's a target. It's, it's okay to be your authentic self. And if you start to live life that way, it becomes easier, stress free, um, and it just allows you to do so much more.

Scott: We clearly could spend an entire series of podcasts on the tie ins to Ted Lasso, business and real life. And really a big part of that series would be focused on how to put those insights and parallels into real life action. But the good news is that it's enough to just buy the book. Just remember, the pop culture stuff is fun, but that's not the only reason to read the book.

Marnie: Um, you remind me of someone who gave us a review on Amazon and she said, I sat down with a cup of coffee and the fireplace and was going to read the book. And I realized I was reading it wrong, which made me laugh. I was like, you're reading the book wrong. She said, I really needed a notebook and time because I wanted to do the activities and reflect and take action.

If you really want to lead your life more like Lassa, right. And, and figure out who you are in terms of personal leadership, then it takes time. Yes. You can probably read it in a couple hours, but. Do the activities, you know, you can, you can work on you. Um, and it's interesting. We've talked to some folks who are kind of doing a book study through all of next year, where they're going to work through the book and help to grow, you know, at the end of the book, uh, we talk about a legacy and looking back on your life, like write your retirement letter.

As you look back on what you've done, if you're looking at the end of 2025. And you look and say, what did I accomplish? How can we, how can we get there? And, um, so yeah, we're excited to see what folks do with that.

Nick: We do boil it down to the fact that everyone is a leader. You know, we have, we have a role section of our pack.

We, we stalled, you know, Danny Rojas football is life and we reworded a little bit to leadership is live. So it, it does not matter. You know, if you're a CEO of a company, you're a leader in the boardroom, the locker room, the classroom, the living room. And the whole notion we look to as individuals is always about continuous improvement and becoming the best version of yourself.

And I think our realization over time has been, you got to put in the work to do that. And we just hope that this discussion or book is just one resource that will motivate people to start to put in that work. And remember, you know, I think we like to say, you know, How you do anything is how you do everything.

So you got to start building those habits. You know, you're going to be consistent with those habits. Um, you know, and then over time that compounds, it really, it, it makes extraordinary difference.

Show Clip: You know how they say that youth is wasted on the young. I said, don't let the wisdom of age be wasted on you.

I just came up with that. I feel pretty good about it.