'When You Make it Personal, They Remember You'

The Philadelphia 76ers were one of the worst teams in the NBA, and its 29-year-old head of communications was working tirelessly to generate some positive press.

“It was really a tumultuous time,” Joe Favorito said of the franchise’s plight in the 1990s. “You had to figure out ways to maintain relevance.”

So, Favorito and his small PR team worked with the two city newspapers to create a high school media day in which local students covered games and practices as part of a competition. The Sixers also spearheaded a mental health initiative and embraced digital media long before many other franchises.

“Sometimes, you walk into a brick wall. Sometimes, it’s the yellow brick road, but you don’t know unless you try,” he said.

Favorito would go on to serve as vice president of public relations for the New York Knicks, the director of media relations for the United States Tennis Association and as an instructor in Columbia University’s sports management program. He’s consulted for dozens of other leagues and top organizations in recent years.

The Daily Coach spoke to him about keys to communicating during a crisis, what to look for in a job, and the importance of a good “unwritten resume.”

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Joe, thanks a lot for doing this. I know you grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. Tell us a little about your childhood and some lessons from it.

I was very lucky. I played a lot of sports and was involved in a lot of journalism growing up. I was never particularly great at anything and ended up breaking almost every bone in my body. But I was always surrounded by people who appreciated and supported the effort.

When I was just way too hurt in high school, somebody asked, “Do you want to be the manager of the varsity basketball team?” That really led me down a path where I was lucky to be around some amazing athletes and some really important coaches. Chris Mullin transferred in. We had two other talented young players, Mike O'Reilly and Roger McCready, who went on to great college careers. We won the state championship in 1981.

It led a progression to being around sports without being an athlete. Whether it was on the media side, the managing side, the reporting side or the friend side, those relationships were invaluable.

You end up going to Fordham University, then become the youngest sports information director in Division I at Iona College. What’d you learn being thrown into a leadership position so early on?

Looking back, I learned that I didn’t know a lot. The sports information director (at Iona) quit in October, and they needed somebody to take the job. My mentor, the late Mike Cohen, called me and said I needed to do this. I reverse-commuted from Brooklyn two-and-a-half hours, subway, Metro-North, then I’d walk two miles from the train station every day.

I needed to learn a heck of a lot. I learned in the quiet moments being around great coaches and great mentors. I was always trying to figure out how I could not get in the way. It was listening to everything that was going on, figuring out how we could create a really cool narrative.

With the teams, and the leagues, and the brands I was around, it wasn’t always at the best of times, but you figured out how to make a lot of chicken salad. That comes from listening to the people around you and the lessons they impart so that you can become a better person.

I would imagine in your decades in communication, you’ve dealt with some crises. What are some general principles we can apply when we find ourselves in one?

I’ve dealt with everything from two suicides, to athletes endangering their wives, wives endangering their husbands, 9/11, lawsuits, hirings and firings. It goes on and on.

There are a couple of things that are really important: Listening and over-communicating. Listening to what is going on around you and being able to have the trust of the people who are dealing with their hair on fire, while also being able to differentiate whether the whole forest is on fire or just one of the trees.

Everybody has their own crisis going on every single day. (You have to) be able to be a bit of a calming voice and have a decent rolodex in your head to be able to talk to people outside to quickly understand how big or small it is. Every situation is totally different. You have to put empathy and humanity into everything you do. You can’t just go to a playbook — even if you have one — and say, “This is the way we have to do it all the time.”

Over-communicating is really important, especially in the world of social media. Whether it’s the janitor or the president of an organization, you want to make them feel like they at least know what’s going on and that there’s a plan. Establishing who the one voice is who’s speaking for you alleviates a lot of problems.

We’ve discussed some of the jobs you’ve taken, but I’m sure you’ve also turned down some work opportunities. What are the key factors when you decide whether to pursue something?

I think the biggest thing is that you have to like, enjoy and be on the same wavelength as the people you work with. I have a “No jerks” rule now where I can’t stomach a lot of the hypocrisy of some things that go on. Now, sometimes, you do have to move and go with the flow as you’re on your way out, but you have to be able to go home and enjoy what it is that you do. Joy is really, really important.

You also have to have your own credibility because one of the things that happens is people sit there and say, “I’m so and so from the NBA or the I.O.C.” You have a hammer that goes with you. You can either choose to swing that hammer and break a lot of things or you can use it with a velvet touch. When you leave a place or go to a place, the personal resume is all you take with you. Your integrity is a big part of that.

People think they’ve got a big-deal job at a big-deal place and use the word “We” like they’re actually playing on the court or on the ice, but they’re just a part in the process. You take a lot of pride in what you do, but you have to treat people well because you will meet the same people whether you’re on the lowest rung or the highest rung.

What does a good “unwritten resume” look like?

That unwritten resume is what people say about you when you’re not in the room and they’re making tough decisions on who to bring in for a consulting role or full-time role.

You have to be pre-prepared. What are the two or three things you do really well that help this person solve a problem? What is their problem and what is it that you bring to the table that’s different than everyone else? A creative idea, a different approach, part of your background, a story from the past?

When you make it personal, they remember you. You constantly have to figure out the one or two little things you do that distinguish you from anybody else who walks through that door. The biggest thing is helping them solve a problem. What’s the creative strategy you know going in that they need help with?

You wrote a piece recently on your website about expanding your identifiable skills: Being enthusiastic, being curious, learning from mistakes. How do you strategically learn from your mistakes?

It’s funny. Coaches are probably the only people who actually like to talk about the value of losing… The only place that I think successfully talks about learning from losing is sports because it’s a zero-sum game. You either win or you lose every time you’re out there.

There’s something a friend of mine calls the “entrepreneur’s nightmare,” where sometime in the middle of the night, usually a Sunday, you wake up with a knot in your stomach and say, “What’s going to happen tomorrow?” You have a constant drive to figure out how to tackle the next task, and I think that’s what drives a lot of people who are successful.

Never really being satisfied, but I think also learning from other people and what they did to get better and how do I apply that to what I do? Those are the interesting challenges and opportunities that exist.

Whether it’s my 10-year-old nieces or people in the Hall of Fame, you can always learn from anybody if you’re open-minded.

Can you be a great leader without being a great communicator?

I was lucky enough in the last three years of his life to spend a lot of time with (Former NBA Commissioner) David Stern. David would always go around and talk about two things. If you want to be successful, you have to be able to sell. That means selling an idea, selling yourself, selling a product, an organization. And you have to be able to concisely tell your own story.

Without being able to do that and communicate to the people around you, unless you’re the head of a sovereign nation, it doesn’t work. Communication and storytelling are probably way overused today, but are still essential.

You look at the best coaches, CEOs, the best clergy members, the best in anything. What they do is have an understanding of whom they’re talking to while being able to concisely communicate a core message that’s inspirational to everybody listening.

Q&A Resources

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