INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY

"Ultimately it is up to individuals to decide who they want to be. You can encourage behavior and success, but you can't dictate it."

-Nick Saban

WHAT'S YOUR WIG? -- YOUR WILDLY IMPORTANT GOAL

In the book “The 4 Disciplines of Execution” written by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling, the subject of identifying your WIG is incredibly important. A WIG is a Wildly Important Goal. It is referred to in this manner because it is a goal that can make all the difference. On the topic, the authors talk about the fact that often it is obvious what your organization WIG needs to be – but there are many times when it is not as obvious and it becomes important to explore it at depth.

I love how the book frames the question that needs to be asked:

In determining your wildly important goal, don’t ask “What’s most important?” Instead, begin by asking “If every other area of our operation remained at its current level of performance, what is the one area where change would have the greatest impact?”

LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM STEVE JOBS

As most everyone did, I read “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson. It was extremely well written – thorough and brutally honest. While certainly Jobs route to success is not one that I would desire myself it worked for him and there were a number of things I took from the book. Many people wrote articles as a follow up to the book but the best was actually written by Walter Isaacson himself for the Harvard Business Review in a piece titled “The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs." Here are a few excerpts of those characteristics penned by Isaacson.  In yellow italics are my thoughts as to how these lessons relate to the world of coaching/teaching.

FOCUS
“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do,” he told me. “That’s true for companies, and it’s true for products.”

After he righted the company, Jobs began taking his “top 100” people on a retreat each year. On the last day, he would stand in front of a whiteboard (he loved whiteboards, because they gave him complete control of a situation and they engendered focus) and ask, “What are the 10 things we should be doing next?” People would fight to get their suggestions on the list. Jobs would write them down – and then cross of the ones he decreed dumb. After much jockeying, the group would come up with a list of 10. Then Jobs would slash the bottom seven and announce, “We can only do three.”

Focus was ingrained in Job’s personality…he relentlessly filtered out what he considered distractions.

In today's world of coaching, I believe this becomes more difficult.  There are so many more hats that coaches were today and they are pulled on from a variety of directions.  The best coaches are the ones that know and remember to, as Stephen Covey says "keep the main thing the main thing."

SIMPLIFY
Job’s Zenlike ability to focus was accompanied by the related instinct to simply things by zeroing in on their essence and eliminating unnecessary components. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Jobs aimed for the simplicity that comes from conquering, rather than merely ignoring complexity.

“It takes a lot of hard work,” he said, “to make something simply, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions.”

Without questions, simplicity makes the most important component in teaching.  All great teachers are able to take complex things and reduce them to their most simplest form.  To me this is one of the most important challenges we have on a daily basis as coaches.  Take what we teach and work to make it as simple as possible without losing the benefits necessary for supreme execution.

PUT PRODUCTS BEFORE PROFITS
When Jobs and his small team designed the original Macintosh, in the early 1980s, his injunction was to make it “insanely great.” He never spoke of profit maximization or cost trade-offs. “Don’t worry about price, just specify the computer’s abilities,” he told the original team leader. At his first retreat with the Macintosh team, he began by writing a maxim on the whiteboard: “Don’t compromise.”

Simply put, know what your program stands for and make that your guiding light.  Don't let things get in the way of you pushing your program through to the level you desire.  I loved the "insanely great" mantra of Jobs.  Not "great" -- he wanted "insanely great."

DON’T BE A SLAVE TO FOCUS GROUPS
When Jobs took his original Macintosh team on its first retreat, one member asked whether they should do some market research to see what customers wanted. “No, Jobs replied, “because customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.” He invokes Henry Ford’s line “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’”

Caring deeply about what customers want is a much different from continually asking them what they want; it requires intuition and instinct about desires that have not yet formed. “Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”

“The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do’ they use their intuition instead,” he recalled. “Intuition is a very powerful thing – more powerful than intellect, in my opinion.”

Again, a tough one for today's coaching -- especially the young coaches.  Too many coaches sitting in front of the computer reading the message boards.  Sure you have to listen occasionally to alumni, administrators and boosters -- but run your program and do what you think is best in helping it grow.

BEND REALITY
“You did the impossible because you didn’t realize it was impossible.”

One day Jobs marched into the cubicle of Larry Kenyon, the engineer who was working the Macintosh operating system, and complained that it was taking too long to boot up. Kenyon started to explain why reducing the boot up time wasn’t possible, but Jobs cut him off. “If it would save a person’s life, could you find a way to shave 10 seconds off the boot time?” he asked. Kenyon allowed that he probably could. Jobs went to a whiteboard and showed that it five million people were using the Mac and it took 10 seconds extra to turn it on every day, that added up to 300 million or so hours a year – the equivalent of at least 100 lifetimes a year. After a few weeks Kenyon had the machine booting up 28 seconds faster.

The great leaders (including coaches) can paint pictures.  I read once that vision is the art of seeing the invisible.  When Skip Bertman took over the baseball program at LSU, no one cared.  They averaged a couple of hundred a game.  They had never won.  When he retired, LSU had been named "The Program of the Decade" and captured 5 National Championships while annually leading the nation in attendance.  When a media person asked his mentor Ron Fraser, "Who would've ever dreamed this happening at LSU?" Coach Frazier quickly replied, "Skip."

IMPUTE
Job’s early mentor Mike Markkula wrote him a memo in 1979 that urged three principles. The first two were “empathy” and “focus.” The third was an awkward word, “impute,” but it become one of Job’s key doctrines.

“Mike taught me that people do judge a book a book by its covers,” he told me.

This is an important concept for us to understand as coaches.  Certainly we shouldn't judge a book by it's cover -- but people do indeed do this.  So the question is how are you executing your program around this concept?  Presentation means a lot -- often if you get the opportunity to move forward.  A smart, simple attractive "book cover" will get people to want to open the book to its first page.  This is important in recruiting.  It's important in attracting boosters and season ticket holders.  It's incredible important for teaching.

PUSH FOR PERFECTION
During the development of almost every product he ever created, Jobs at a certain point “hit the pause button” and went back to the drawing board because he felt it wasn’t perfect.

Job’s perfectionism extended even to the parts unseen. As a young boy, he had helped his father build a fence around the their backyard and he was told they had to use just as much care on the back of the fence as on the front. “Nobody will ever know,” Steve said. His father replied, “But you will know.” A true craftsman uses a good piece of wood even for the back of a cabinet against the wall, his father explained, and they should do the same for the back of the fence. It was the mark of an artist to have such a passion for perfection.

“Real artists sign their work.”

The key here is to have a passion for excellence in all that your program is responsible for.  You can't be undisciplined in little things and expect to be discipline in big things.  Demand the you and your staff do their absolute best in all areas of the program -- your players will see that and follow suite.

TOLERATE ONLY “A” PLAYERS
Jobs was famously impatient, petulant, and tough with the people around him. But his treatment of people, though not laudable, emanated from his passion for perfection and his desire to work only the best.

“I don’t think I run roughshod over people,” he said, “but if something sucks, I tell people to their face, It’s my job to be honest.”

“I’ve learned over the years that when you have really good people, you don’t have to baby them,” Jobs told me. “By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things. Ask any member of that Mac team. They will tell you it was worth the pain.”

Often programs and players will rise to the level of expectations of their leaders.  As Sue Gunter would say "Dream big...work hard."  It was the essence of what she built at LSU.  And make no mistake about it -- you must demand that those involved give you their absolute best at all times.

ENGAGE FACE-TO-FACE
“There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat,” he told me. “That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussion. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘Wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.”

He had the Pixar building designed to promote unplanned encounters and collaborations. “If a building doesn’t encourage that, you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic that’s sparked by serendipity,” he said. “So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see.” The front doors and main stairs and corridors all led to the atrium; the café and the mailboxes were there; the conference rooms had windows that looked out onto it; and the 600-seat theater and two smaller screening rooms all spilled into it. “Steve’s theory worked from day one,” Lasseter recalls. “I kept running into people I hadn’t seen for months. I’ve never seen a building that promoted collaboration and creativity as well as this one.”

This is another great point for today's coaching.  Technology has made it both easy and fashionable to have conversation via text and email.  I'm not saying at times it's not necessary but it will never replace the power of a face-to-face meeting.  Conversation now becomes unscripted and you can peel back the layers to get to know each other better or to better get the message across that you need.  I loved that Don Meyer at Lipscomb had a sign-in sheet that had his players come by the office so he could have some face-time with them.

KNOW BOTH THE BIG PICTURE AND THE DETAILS
Jobs’ passion was applied to issues both large and minuscule. Some CEOs are great at vision; others are managers who know that God is in the details. Jobs was both.

You can't get bogged down with details but you also have to know that they are important.  You also have to be able to what details are more important and valuable than other details.  It's a delicate juggling act but the best have the ability to see the big picture and know how to paint it with the details.

COMBINE THE HUMANITIES WITH THE SCIENCES
“I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics,” Jobs told me on the day he decided to cooperate on a biography. “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, sad about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”

He connected the humanities to the sciences, creativity to technology, arts to engineering.

Yet again another example of having so much technology that we overlook or don't give as much attention to the human development.  It reminds me of one of my favorite George Patton quotes: "Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men.  It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory."
 STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH
Jobs helped write the text for the “Think Different” ads: “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes…” If there was any doubt that, consciously or not, he was describing himself, he dispelled it with the last lines: “While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

The key here is to not get complacent and never be shy about taking calculated risks.  Don't ever think "I've arrived," or "We've made it."  That's the beginning of the end.  Continue to drive forward and raise the bar for performance and execution.  Being your best is a process not a destination.

GEMS FROM KEVIN EASTMAN

A few gems from Kevin Eastman of the Boston Celtics:

"Worry about becoming more vs. earning more."

“Once someone can do what you do and one more thing, you are replaceable”
 
Things to tell your post players:
 
“Stay clear between the ears.”

“You don‟t have to score to play.”

“If you want to find a niche, offensive rebound.”

“Need niche guys on your team, find a niche ENERGY guy.”

"When you work, make sure you and the players work with their heads.‟

“Maybe bad 1st shots, but rarely bad second shots.”

"Filling the lane and running rim to rim requires no skill but commitment and will."

“If you rebound too much you won‟t come out!”

ROLE: “May not be the one you want, but what we need to win a championship.”

“The more you go after the ball, the more you get!”

A BEAR OF A RECRUTING STORY

The following comes from a passout that was given to me many years ago by Coach Don Meyer.  It is obviously written by Paul "Bear" Bryant and speaks to the fact that in many phases of our job (especially recruiting) there are no little things:

I had just been named the new head coach at Alabama and was off in my old car down in South Alabama recruiting a prospect who was supposed to have been a pretty good player and I was havin’ trouble finding the place. Getting hungry I spied an old cinder block building with a small sign out front that simply said, “Restaurant.” I pull up, go in and every head in the place turns to stare at me. Seems I’m the only white ‘fella’ in the place. But the food smelled good so I skip a table and go up to a cement bar and sit. A big ole man in a t-shirt and cap comes over and says, “What do you need?” I told him I needed lunch and what did they have today? He says, “You probably won’t like it here, today we’re having chitlins, collared greens and black eyed peas with cornbread. I’ll bet you don’t even know what chitlins are, do you?” I looked him square in the eye and said, “I’m from Arkansas, I’ve probably eaten a mile of them. Sounds like I’m in the right place.” They all smiled as he left to serve me up a big plate. When he comes back he says, “You ain’t from around here then?” And I explain that I’m the new football coach in Tuscaloosa at the University and I’m here to find whatever the boy’s name was and he gives me directions to the school so I can meet him and his coach. As I’m paying up to leave, I remember my manners and leave a tip, not too big to be flashy, but a good one and he told me lunch was on him, but I told him for a lunch that good, I felt I should pay.

The big man asked me if I had a photograph or something he could hang up to show that I’d been there. I was so new that I didn’t have any yet. It really wasn’t that big of a thing back then to be asked for, but I took a napkin and wrote his name and address on it and told him I’d get him one.

I met the kid I was lookin’ for later that afternoon and I don’t remember his name, but do remember I didn’t think much of him when I met him. I had wasted a day, or so I thought.

When I got back to Tuscaloosa late that night, I took that napkin from my shirt pocket and put it under my keys so I wouldn’t forget it. Heck, back then I was excited that anybody would want a picture of me. And the next day we found a picture and I wrote on it, “Thanks for the best lunch I’ve ever had, Paul Bear Bryant.”

Now let’s go a whole ‘buncha’ years down the road. Now we have black players at Alabama and I’m back down in that part of the country scouting an offensive lineman we sure needed. He’s got two friends going to Auburn and he tells me he’s got his heart set on Auburn too, so I leave empty handed and go on to see some others while I’m down there. Two days later, I’m in my office in Tuscaloosa and the phone rings and it’s this kid who just turned me down, and he says, “Coach, do you still want me at Alabama?” And I said, “Yes I sure do.” And he says o.k. He’ll come. So I say, “Well son, what changed your mind?” And he said, “When my Grandpa found out that I had a chance to play for you and said no, he pitched a fit and told me I wasn’t going nowhere but Alabama, and wasn’t playing for nobody but you. He thinks a lot of you and has ever since ya’ll met.” Well, I didn’t know his granddad from Adam’s housecat so I asked him who his granddaddy was and he said, “You probably don’t remember him, but you ate in his restaurant your first year at Alabama and you sent him a picture that he’s had hung in that place ever since. That picture’s his pride and joy and he still tells everybody about the day that Bear Bryant came in and had chitlins with him. My grandpa said that when you left there, he never expected you to send that picture to him, but you kept your word, and to Grandpa, that’s everything. He said you could teach me more than football and I had to play for a man like you, so I guess I’m going to.”

I was floored. But I learned that the lessons my mamma taught me were always right. It don’t cost nuthin’ to be nice. It don’t cost nuthin’ to do the right thing most of the time and it costs a lot to lose your good name by breakin’ your word to someone. When I went back to sign that boy, I looked up his Grandpa and he’s still running that place, but it looks a lot better now; and he didn’t have chitlins that day, but he had some ribs that would’ made Dreamland proud and I made sure I posed for a lot of pictures; and don’t think I didn’t leave some new ones for him too, along with a signed football. I made it clear to all my assistants to keep this story and these lessons in mind when they’re out on the road. And if you remember anything else from me, remember this – it really doesn’t cost anything to be nice, and the rewards can be unimaginable.

PERIMETER SKILL DEVELOPMENT

I have received a lot of request for the notes from my presentation last weekend at A Step Up Assistant Coaching Symposium in Dallas.  My topic for "Perimeter Skill Development."  The first part of my presentation dealt with teaching philosophy.  Here are the bullet points to my talk:

GOAL #1: Improve and stretch the skill of the individual player

1. Technique: proper execution is critically important in all drills

“Be a skill coach, not a drill coach.”

-Don Meyer

2. Overload Drills: must take players out of their comfort zone to stretch them

GOAL #2: Improve skills related to your offensive system of play for your team

1. What does your team need for your players to do well?

2. Don’t improve a skill you don’t need

2 KEY AREAS FOR IMPROVING PLAYERS:

1. Teach ‘em to Talk

--Coach K has three phases of play: Offense, Defense, and Communication

--Incorporate Communication in your drills

--Echo yells (Coach Don Meyer)

#2 Teach ‘em to Think

--Don’t spoon feed them

--Notebooks

--Video (Good for players and coaches...of them and others)

CONCEPT #1: Don’t just work on your players’ weaknesses — stretch and further develop their strengths.

CONCEPT #2: Maximize individual workout time...don’t just work on fundamentals, work on relationships.

CONCEPT #3: Measure when you can...stats can help.

CONCEPT #4: Always utilize video when possible.

CONCEPT #5: Sometimes skill development needs to be in a team setting as opposed to individual.

CONCEPT #6: Singleness of purpose will create quicker improvement, confidence.

CONCEPT #7: “Catch them doing something right.” -Don Meyer

CONCEPT #8: Break down the whole and create a part-method drill.

CONCEPT #9: Constant repetition but with variation...same concepts.

CONCEPT #10: Be prepared...don’t wing it — you will gain respect of players when you have a thought out plan.

CONCEPT #11: Be a great communicator —Simplicity...less is more...terminology...not what you say but what they hear

PERIMETER SKILLS

Dribbling - Catching - Passing - Receiving - Shooting

DRILLS I USED FOR DEMONSTRATION

◄2 Ball Stationary Dribbling

◄Alford Drill

◄2/0 2 Ball Passing

◄2/1 Full Court w/2 Balls

◄Ball Screen to Transition

◄3/3 Flex Shooting

◄35 Point Game

IMAGINATION was the last concept I spoke about at the symposium.  In regard to teaching players and/or specific skills, the importance of having an imagination is critical.  The best coaches I have known or observed have a great ability to see a need and develop a drill to help teach or improve a phase of the game.

WE CAN ALWAYS DO MORE

“We always can do more than we think we can do. Anyone who has ever achieved anything significant knows this. We always can work harder. We always can put in longer hours, expend more energy. We always can perform better.”

–Rick Pitino

DOC RIVERS TALKS ABOUT COACH SUMMITT'S LEGACY

In an earlier post today, I shared some thoughts from Coach Marsha Sharp on legacy that included the amazing reach of Pat Summitt.  Here is further evidence (though none is needed) via an article written earlier this week by John Adams of the Knoxville Sentinel:

The Boston Celtics clinched their division championship two weeks ago, and coach Doc Rivers concluded his postgame media conference by talking about Pat Summitt. His comments were heartfelt and accompanied by tears.

They also were thought-provoking.

Why did an NBA coach feel compelled to comment on the resignation of the Tennessee women's basketball coach?

He hadn't worked with her. He wasn't a close friend. He only knew her as millions have — through her myriad of accomplishments in 38 years of coaching basketball and, most recently, a difficult last season in which she worked while dealing with early onset dementia. Yet you would have thought he was talking about a colleague.

"When you see a giant like that leave the game — and leave the game because of health — it's just sad," he said. "But she is responsible for women's basketball. She's not just a women's basketball coach. She's a great coach."

John also spoke to the fact that Coach Summitt was always genuine and took time out for fans to help grow her team and the sport:

Summitt helped advance the sport with her 1997-98 team. She also helped advance the sport through all the connections she made over the course of a coaching career that spanned almost four full decades.

Her ability to connect with people made her a great recruiter and a great promoter. But she wasn't just doing her job. She was being herself.

She never stopped signing autographs. Or speaking to civic clubs. Or talking with fans after practice or in a hotel lobby. She did that when she was laying the foundation for her program and she kept doing it even when she became the face of her sport.

When you win 1,098 games and eight national titles, your bandwagon is bound to become crowded. But Summitt's fan base has been magnified by the thousands of times she has taken the time to converse with a stranger or sign an autograph.

Read John's entire article -- very well written: http://bit.ly/IKJA6P

MARSHA SHARP ON LEGACY AND THE EXAMPLES OF PAT SUMMITT AND KAY YOW

This is Part II of my notes on Hall of Fame coach Marsha Sharp's talk at "A Step Up Assistant Coaching Symposium" held in Dallas a few weeks ago.  The major topics that Coach Sharp spoke about were integrity and legacy -- and you can bet that she felt strongly that the two should be closely tied together.

As Texas legend Jody Conradt had said the night before, "we are the caretakers of the game."  She spoke about our ability as coaches to help our student-athletes win and to win the right way.

She spoke about all the trophies she had captured as a collegiate coach as well as all the rings she had garnered.  She then quickly said the trophies were gathering dust and she doesn't wear the rings.  But what she does cherish from her many years of coaching are the relationships.

She then gave two great examples and got emotional speaking of both.

The first was in regard to Coach Pat Summitt.  As the many reports of her retirement flooded the airwaves of television, filled the pages of newspapers and magazines and covered the screen of our computers via the Internet, there were numerous quotes from many people that had played for her, worked with her, played and coached against her, or just learned from her from afar.  Of those people, none ever mentioned the number of wins or championships -- only her impact on them as people and teachers.  As Coach Sharp stated, "It wasn't 'what' she won -- it was 'how' she won.:

The second example was about Coach Kay Yow.  Of course we all know she is a Hall of Fame coach with over 700 wins and a Gold Medal head coach for our Olympic team.  But Coach Sharp talked about being with her in the weeks before she finally succumbed to breast cancer.  She talked about the amazing journey of so many people who came by to see her in her final days.

Coach Sharp: "No one said thanks for the wins and the championships.  They told her they loved her."

ATTITUDE AS A FUNDAMENTAL

Attitude is not something that comes by instinct. It has to be practiced over and over or relearned over and over. The more our players study and practice this fundamental, the more they believe they can decide how they feel. They realize they have power over their attitude. Their coach doesn’t have that power. Neither does the referee or their professor. How they approach their attitude is their choice. We have to choose to have a good attitude. And we have to keep reminding ourselves, in the midst of newspaper publicity or things other people are saying, that we are going to be in charge of how we think. That’s a powerful principle in the life of a football player, a trash collector, a pastor, a dad, a stay-at-home mom, or someone who works in an office.

From "The Winner's Manual" by Jim Tressel