ON LEADERSHIP

Here are a few random thoughts on leadership from 360 Degree Leadership by John Maxwell:

Leadership is not just one quality, but rather a blend of many qualities; and while no one individual possesses all of the need talents that go into leadership, each man can develop a combination to make him a leader.

Most important of all, to be successful in life demands that a man make a personal commitment to excellence and to victory, even though the ultimate victory can never be completely won. Yet that victory might be pursued and wooed with every fiber of our body, with every bit of our might and all our effort. And each week, there is a new encounter; each day, there is a new challenge.

The leader must always walk the tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert. Despite the need for teamwork and participation, the leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he has to be. The leader is a lonely person. He must maintain a certain distance between himself and the members of the group.

You, as a leader, must possess the quality of mental toughness. This is a difficult quality to explain, but in my opinion, this is the most important element in the character of the leader.

You do not need to like someone in order to love them. Love is loyalty. Love is teamwork. Love is respect for the dignity of an individual. Love is charity. The love I speak of is not detraction. A man who belittles another—who is not loyal, who speaks ill of another—is not a leader and does not belong in the top echelons of management.

But remember that the will is the character in action. If we would create something, we must be something. This is character. Character is higher than intellect. Character is the direct result of mental attitude. A man cannot dream himself into character; he must hammer and forge one for himself. He cannot copy someone else’s qualities; he must develop his own character qualities to fit his own personality.

We should remember, too, that there is only one kind of discipline, and that is the perfect discipline. As a leader, you must enforce and maintain that discipline; otherwise, you will fail at your job.

BRIAN TRACY: THE PRACTICE OF DISCIPLINE

Discipline yourself to do what you know you need to do to be the very best in your field. Perhaps the best definition of self discipline is this: "Self discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not."

It is easy to do something when you feel like it. It's when you don't feel like it and you force yourself to do it anyway that you move your life and career onto the fast track.

What decisions do you need to make today in order to start moving toward the top of your field? Whatever it is, either to get in or get out, make a decision today and then get started. This single act alone can change the whole direction of your life.

Seven Steps to Success
There is a powerful seven step formula that you can use to set and achieve your goals for the rest of your life. Every single successful person uses this formula or some variation of this formula to achieve vastly more than the average person. And so can you. Here it is:

Decide What You Want
Step number one, decide exactly what it is you want in each part of your life. Become a "meaningful specific" rather than a "wandering generality."

Write it Down
Second, write it down, clearly and in detail. Always think on paper. A goal that is not in writing is not a goal at all. It is merely a wish and it has no energy behind it.

Set A Deadline
Third, set a deadline for your goal. A deadline acts as a "forcing system" in your subconscious mind. It motivates you to do the things necessary to make your goal come true. If it is a big enough goal, set sub-deadlines as well. Don't leave this to chance.

Make A List
Fourth, make a list of everything that you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal. When you think of new tasks and activities, write them on your list until your list is complete.

Organize Your List
Fifth, organize your list into a plan. Decide what you will have to do first and what you will have to do second. Decide what is more important and what is less important. And then write out your plan on paper, the same way you would develop a blueprint to build your dream house.

Take Action
The sixth step is for you to take action on your plan. Do something. Do anything. But get busy. Get going.

Do Something Every Day
Do something every single day that moves you in the direction of your most important goal at the moment. Develop the discipline of doing something 365 days each year that is moving you forward. You will be absolutely astonished at how much you accomplish when you utilize this formula in your life every single day.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to put these ideas into action immediately.

First, decide exactly what you want, write it down with a deadline, make a plan and take action - on at least one goal - today!

Second, determine the price you will have to pay to achieve this goal and then get busy paying that price - whatever it is.

Be sure to check out: www.BrianTracy.com

BILL BELICHICK: CONTINUAL LEARNER

We've had several posts the past month about the importance of coaches being continual learners.  Last night I ran across the article from the New York Times in 2006 written by Judy Batista on how Bill Belichick as driven to learn more and more regardless of his accomplishments...these are just a few of the excerpts from the article:

But even as Belichick flourishes at the highest level of his profession, he is engaged in the equivalent of a postgraduate education program, an independent study tour that has taken him from Annapolis, Md., to Gainesville, Fla., from a cot in Ted Marchibroda's hotel room to Jimmy Johnson's boat.

At each stop, usually in the off-season and sometimes involving intensive film study, Belichick has picked the brain of his host, gleaning bits of wisdom about everything from Navy's run offense to Johnson's philosophies on drafting and contract negotiations.

Such sessions are common among college coaches, who freely share information about their schemes with coaches whose teams are not on their schedule.

Bear Bryant, the legendary Alabama coach, went to Texas one spring to study the wishbone. Current college coaches frequently visit Virginia Tech to learn some of Frank Beamer's special-teams techniques. But Belichick's forays are unusual in the N.F.L.; limited time in the off-season and heightened paranoia result in most coaches avoiding anything more than the most informal sharing of information.

"He's a perfect example of what we've let slip away in the image of a coach - the job is a teaching job," said Giants General Manager Ernie Accorsi, who was the general manager of the Cleveland Browns when Belichick became the head coach there in 1991. "Bill certainly has a great deal of self-confidence, but he's got the humility to know that he can always learn from somebody that's successful. To me, the smarter you are, the more you want to learn."

It's just an exchange of information with somebody that you have common ground with," Belichick said in an interview during training camp. "You talk about things that are successful, and sometimes that has an application to what you're doing."

When Belichick took his first job as a head coach in Cleveland, he made an unusual request when he and his staff members went to the scouting combine in Indianapolis. Each assistant was assigned three other teams; they were to ask members of those coaching staffs what their practice routines were. The point was to see if anybody else had good ideas about how to run practices.

Another summer, Belichick put a pile of books on a table in a meeting room. Each book had something to do with sports or great athletes. Belichick and his father have enormous libraries of football and sports books, about 500 volumes each, some historical, some technical. He assigned two books to each of his coaches, and when they returned to work for the start of training camp, he asked them what they had gotten out of their summer reading. Book reports for the shoulder-pad set.

"He said, 'I think you can learn from others,' " said Pat Hill, who was a member of Belichick's staff in Cleveland. He is now in his ninth season as head coach at Fresno State.

He added: "Bill is a very good listener. He wanted your opinions. He didn't want yes guys. There's a big difference between listening for what you want to hear and listening to learn. When he listens, he has a reason for the questions."

Perhaps that explains what Belichick and his quarterbacks coach, Josh McDaniels, were doing in Gainesville during the off-season. Belichick met with Florida Coach Urban Meyer while scouting his players, and they spoke about Meyer's spread-option offense. It was highly successful in Meyer's two seasons at Utah and is all the rage in college football.

BOB STOOPS' NO EXCUSES PHILOSOPHY

This is an excerpt from a speech by Bob Stoops, head football coach at Oklahoma many years ago:

You will never hear me tell the players that we should have won a game. You will never hear me quoted as saying, “we should have won.” I do not believe in it. You either do or you don’t. It is as simple as that.

The big quote association with me is “no excuses!” To be frank, I have never heard a good excuse. They all amount to the same thing. They all amount to losing.

If you give your players a reason as to why they did not win, or if you are quoted as to why you did not win, they are going to latch on to that.

I never acknowledge injuries, and I am never going to acknowledge how young we are, or anything that has to with losing. The reason for this is because I never want one of my players to have an excuse not to succeed or to win.

10 COMMANDMENTS OF GOAL SETTING

1. Thou Shalt Be Decisive
Success is a choice. You must decide what you want, why you want it, and how you plan to achieve it. No one else can, will, or should do that for you.

2. Thou Shalt Stay Focused
Your ability to sustain focus from beginning to end determines the timing and condition of your future outcomes.
 
3. Thou Shalt Welcome FailureYou have no choice but to expect it as a temporary condition on the pathway of progress. Rather, the questions is how to anticipate failure and redirect resources to grow from the experience.

4. Thou Shalt Write Down Thy Goals
Your mind, while blessed with permanent memory, is cursed with lousy recall. People forget things; write down your goals.

5. Thou Shalt Plan Thoroughly
Planning saves 10-to-1 execution. Proper planning prevents poor performance.

6. Thou Shalt Involve Others
Nobody goes through life along. Establish your own “Personal Board of Directors,” people whose wisdom, knowledge, and character you respect to help you achieve your goals.

7. Thou Shalt Take Purposeful Action
Success is not a spectator sport — achievement demands action. You cannot expect to arrive at success without having made the trip.

8. Thou Shalt Reward Thyself
Rewards work. Think of what you will give yourself as a result of your hard work, focus, and persistence — you deserve it.

9. Thou Shalt Inspect What Thy Expect
The shelf life of all plans is limited. No plan holds up against opposition. Everything changes. Therefore inspect frequently and closely.

10. Thou Shalt Maintain Personal Integrity
Maintain your commitment to your commitment. Set your goals; promise yourself that you will achieve them.

From "The Ten Commandments of Goal Setting" by Gary Ryan Blair

COACH K: ZONE OFFENSIVE POST POSITIONING

From clinic notes I have from Coach Krzyzewski.  He talks about the importance of keeping a post behind the zone…

• stretches the zone
• opens flash against the zone
• gives post players great vision of the court
• puts them in great offensive rebounding position

BASKETBALL THOUGHTS FROM JOE CIAMPI

One of the best Match-Up Zone coaches in the women's game is former Auburn head coach Joe Ciampi.  Joe, a member the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame still takes the time to teach and share his thoughts on match-up play and a lot more in terms of basketball.  Here are a few notes I took when Joe visited with our staff at LSU in 2005.  They excellent if you are looking to improve the way you play zone defense but they are equally important for you to read in your attack of zone defenses:

Four Key Words To Multiple Defensive System:

DELAY...the ball coming down the floor

DEFLECT...inside passes...all passes inside 3-point arc...fingertips on the ball.

DISRUPT...offensive flow thru traps...always trap out of a timeout.

DISGUISE...Auburn played 60% Match-Up 40% man during Ciampi’s career.
Offensive thoughts vs. Match-Up

Screen Outside (Elbow Screens)

Screen Inside (Post)

Few teams screen long enough or move often enough to have success against a true match-up.

Overall defensive philosophy: Have non-shooters shoot.

Ciampi defines offensive players as “shooters” or “drivers” (non-shooters)

Multiple defensive system will test opponent’s offensive IQ

Advantage to multiple defensive system is that offense has to constantly think about how they will score.

Good defense can make more adjustments than a good offense.

Thoughts on pressing: “The can pass around us or pass over us but we don’t want them to pass or dribble through us.”

Defenses either act or react...multiple defensive systems force offenses to react.

Awareness becomes better with strength, quickness and speed.

Can run system in segments...Ciampi likes to change before half or to start the second half.

Important to have defensive goals...players want to see numbers.

In everything you do in practice, have winners and losers….anything 2/2, 3/3, 4/4 have winners and losers...assign a coach to each team...ask winners why they won and losers why they lost...important they understand what went into the process.

Assign one coach to be a “praiser” at practice.

Ciampi believes that the coach controls practice and officials control games.

Ciampi believes that coaches spend too much time correcting poor performance and not praising good play.

Excellent 5/5 defensive possession doesn’t allow a pass inside the 3-point arc...give defensive team 3 points when that happens.

Consecutive turnovers by offense — stop practice and run...place a value on the possession.

Timeout: 1 offensive thought

1 defensive thought

Give most important thought last

Assistant coaches don’t work officials...I’ve gotten better but not where I should be!

Half-time stats of importance:
.....Opponent’s FG%
.....Rebounds

Find something to praise

Extending defense forces opponents to start offense with :20 or less on shot clock — this makes offense basically work to get a shot with only 3 or 4 passes.

Ciampi has :25 on shot clock when working offense in practice...more game like.

Captain’s role is to voice and protect the coach's opinion.

Great statement: Leadership is more important in the 22 hours off the court than it is the 2 hours on the court!!!...reason Temeka was a great leader…(Coach Meyer: “Great leaders must be accessible”)

Important for head coach to have constant dialogue with team leaders.

Ciampi charts free throws by having player make 10 in a row to start and then chart the next 10...we need to do this in the fall with volunteer free throws….Ciampi also changes free throw pairs up each week...I think this is a great idea...we can do this easily by posting on the bulletin board who their FT and shooting partner is for that week...Ciampi likes to put good FT shooters with poor ones...veterans with rookies.

Two Main Concepts for Match-Up (in this order):
.....Where’s the ball
.....Where do I belong
.....(Can be said of our man-to-man defense as well!)

CHARACTERISTICS OF COMPETENT PEOPLE

Highly competent people have some things in common:

1. They are Committed to Excellence
John Johnson in Christian Excellence writes, “Success bases our worth on a comparison with others. Excellence gauges our value by measuring us against our own potential. Excellence is available to all living beings but is accepted by the… few.”

2. They Never Settle for Average
To be mediocre is to do a job halfway, to leave yourself far short of the summit.

3. They Pay Attention to Detail
Dale Carnegie said, “Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves.”

4. They Perform with Consistency
Highly competent people perform with great consistency. They give their best all the time, and that’s important.

From "The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player" by John C. Maxwell

FOLLOW THROUGH A BIG KEY TO EXECUTION

Follow-through is the cornerstone of execution, and every leader who’s good at executing follows through religiously. Following through ensures that people are doing the things they committed to do, according to the agreed timetable. It exposes any lack of discipline and connection between ideas and actions, and forces the specificity that is essential to synchronize the moving parts of an organization. If people can’t execute the plan because of changed circumstances, follow-through ensures they deal swiftly and creatively with the new conditions.

From "Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done" by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

SUE GUNTER'S 11 GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE PRESS OFFENSE

The following is a list I pull out each season of press offense guidelines that I wrote down through the years of working with Coach Gunter.  What I like about them is that I think they are universal for all pressure offense.

#1 Remember that the biggest of all keys is to always maintain good spacing. With good spacing, it leaves more room for the defense to cover, and longer distances for them to run before making a trap or steal attempt.

#2 Make all your cuts hard and sharp. If you are not cutting as quickly as possible, you are helping the defense to defend you. Cut to create help. The same holds true if you don’t cut properly, rounding off your cuts instead of cutting in straight lines.

#3 We must always keep someone behind the basketball. We don’t want that player “on top of the basketball.” Stay behind the basketball as a release valve, but maintain proper spacing.

#4 Always come back to meet a pass made to you. This one is critical. If you wait for the pass, someone near you can beat you to the pass and get an interception. Come back for the ball and catch it with both feet in the air to land with a jump stop for pivoting.

#5 If at all possible, we don’t want to receive the entry pass to close to the inbound baseline. Again, this is poor spacing. Try to catch the ball as deeply as possible to give you more room to operate.

#6 Utilize pass fakes at every opportunity. Almost all full-court pressure is based on active, gambling-aggressiveness and therefore will go for pass fakes. A good pass fake will get the defense in the air and allow you a chance to put the ball on the floor or give you an opportunity to make an easier, more effective pass — “fake a pass to make a pass.”

#7 Don’t waste your dribble. Catch the ball, pivot, and look ahead for a possible pass as well as to read the defense. If you pick up your dribble without looking ahead or reading the defense, you become an easy target to be trapped with very few options.
 
#8 Avoid the half-court area as a momentary position for the ball. Don’t pass the ball to a teammate just over the half-court line when there is a possibility she can be trapped. And certainly don’t dribble the ball just across the half-court line and hesitate where you can be trapped

#9 Always remember, once you beat the pressure, the good press defense teams like to come from behind and try to knock the ball away. You must always stay alert and watch out for back taps.

#10 At the end of the press offense, always look for a good shot. If we execute properly, we can get lay ups, short jumpers, and wide open three-pointers. We want to make a team pay a heavy price for pressing us. Always remember that a forced or bad shot is the same as a turnover for a pressing team.

#11 If we don’t get a shot from our press offense, get directly into our man-to-man or zone offense. Often teams that press, especially zone presses or run and jump presses, have a difficult time recovering to their proper defensive assignments in their half-court defense. Stay on the attack — let our offense be the aggressor and not their press.