Leadership Thought: What Does Picking Up Litter in a Hallway Have to Do with Building a Culture of Respect?

Dear Friend,

As a parent, pastor and former coach, I am always interested in ways leaders can help build  cultures of respect among church members, teams and children. 

Such  culture is often built around doing little things that may not seem all that  significant but when repeatedly practiced  they become a habit.

While teaching at a high school in Fort Lauderdale, I remember  being impressed when I would see our principal walking through the halls and always stopping to pick up any litter that had been carelessly dropped by some student. 

Our principal was not paid to be a janitor, and yet when the opportunity presented itself it was not beneath his dignity to perform that role. It was a little thing, but little things do mean a lot when performed time and time again. 

Taking time to hold the door for someone or smiling and saying hello to a stranger as you pass, or "yes, taking time to pick up the litter that someone has carelessly dropped in the halls of your school or in your work place has a way of building an important culture of respect in your home, on your team or within your  work place.

Legendary college basketball coach John Wooden recognized this and sought to instill the value of respect for others when leading his teams to 10 national basketball championships. 

The x's and o's of coaching were important to him but so were some other things that some might have overlooked or considered unimportant, but which enabled him to become one of the most respected and most successful college coaches of all time.

The culture of respect he established on his team carried over into every aspect of life as his players will attest.

Craig Impelman, one of those former players shares a weekly leadership lesson in which he  uses illustrations of values he learned while playing for Coach Wooden. 

Craig writes, "Coach Wooden created a culture in which team members paid attention to detail routinely, yet he was not regarded as a control freak by the team. It ultimately was culture, not constant controls, that drove the behaviors.

Culture is simply the consistent behaviors that a group of people have and which are passed on from generation to generation."

 A good example of this was the way all of Coach Wooden’s UCLA teams kept their dressing rooms clean both at home and on the road, without needing custodians or managers to pick up after them. Here are the steps Coach followed to create culture:

 1. Give the team members a clear, detailed description of what is expected. In his book Practical Modern Basketball, Coach shared what he told the players about his expectations for the dressing room:

a. Assist the manager and Coaches in leaving our dressing and shower facilities in even better and cleaner condition than when we came.

b. Be sure that showers are turned off, soap is properly racked, the toilets are flushed, the dressing fixtures are in the proper place and that there is no paper, tape, orange peels or other refuse on the floor.

c. Be sure you place your towel in the proper container or place.

2. Hold team members accountable. Coach Wooden checked the locker room himself after every practice and game.

3. Reinforce the desired behavior. Coach read the team letters he received from custodians at other schools thanking and complimenting them for the condition in which they left the locker room.

4. The behavior is passed on from generation to generation. I worked for three of the four coaches that immediately followed Coach Wooden at UCLA. The tradition of clean it up/pick it up (the players cleaning up after themselves) continued. I continued the routine with fourteen years of youth basketball teams.

Last year I ran into the dad of one of my former players from a ten-year-old team I had coached. The young man is now in high school, and his dad said his son, Griffin, was taking a college level science class at Long Beach State. He continued to tell me that when he goes to pick Griffin up, he always comes out ten minutes later than the other students.

When he asked Griffin what was causing the delay, he said: "You know Dad, I always stay after class and make sure everything is picked up and put back where it belongs. Clean it up….pick it up."

Griffin never met John Wooden but he was influenced by him."

 As I read Craig's account, I thought to myself, you never know the impression you're making on others and the influence you leave behind by doing little things that show respect for others.

To this day I still stop and pick up litter when I see it scattered in some hall, or locker room,  or even in some parking lot- all because of that example of Mr. Leroy Schwab, that high school principal whose image I can still envision bending over in that high school hallway to pick up the litter that some thoughtless student has carelessly dropped.

Who will you influence today by your example and what will you do to help build a culture of respect for those who follow in your footsteps? 

Oh, how we need such people today as we live in a culture where people show such little respect for one another.

Doing the little things again and again can play a big role in building that much needed culture of respect.

So, what can we do to help build it? Maybe picking up a few papers in the hallway would be a good start! 

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

Craig's illustration was taken from "Daily Leadership" produced by Clint Hurdle. Vol 6, Issue 274, May 1, 2024