7 Leadership Lessons From Great Basketball Coaches

 

 

 

 

 

 

March madness is sweeping the country. The NCAA basketball tournament is a welcome diversion for many of us during these challenging times.

When I was a young blade the first thing I remember purchasing with my own money that I earned was a basketball. I've always loved the game. I know longer  play but I do enjoy watching, especially college games. 

Time spent watching and really observing these exciting games has gotten me thinking about the lessons we all can take from the paid leaders of these teams - the head coaches. Even if you're not a basketball fan, I encourage you to read on because the lessons are powerful for everyone - fan and non-fan alike. 

These seven lessons are reinforced for me by the best basketball coaches. Look for the lessons you can apply today.

1) Great coaches flex their system, but not their philosophy. All great coaches have a coaching philosophy. They know it takes skill in all phases of the game, but it's their philosophy that informs their focus. Some coaches always have great rebounding teams; some focus on a fast break offense; some are defensive minded. Yet, if their current lineup gives them different strengths, they may flex their system or make adjustments to best take advantage of the current talent. 

Non-basketball leaders can do the same thing - focus on your core philosophy, yet be flexible in implementation based on the circumstances and talent on your team.

2) Great coaches measure performance. Of course, wins and losses are measured, but the best coaches measure far deeper than that. Assist to turnover ratios, number of offensive rebounds, number of steals, and free throw percentage in the last five minutes of games are just a few examples. What they can measure in their context is almost endless. Coaches who focus on rebounding will have deeper and more extensive rebounding measures that they follow. Those measures inform them on progress, development needs and more. 

The important lesson for us is that they measure those things that are important to winning, based on their philosophy. We must do the same if we want to achieve top performance. 

3) Great coaches practice everything (in a variety of ways). Supervised practice for college basketball teams begins several weeks before games. And once the season begins teams still practice most every day (including having walk throughs and film sessions on game day). They practice fundamentals and simulate particular game situations, so players are prepared for every situation on the floor. Most leaders in organizations fall far short in this area. 

Are you taking or allowing time for walk throughs, practice and review of results? Are you allowing and helping people prepare for the tough situations that may occur on their jobs? If not, this is an opportunity area for you and those you lead. 

4) Great coaches recognize and utilize passion and enthusiasm. Have you ever seen a really disengaged basketball coach? Like non-athletic leaders, different coaches have different personalities, and therefore their passions and enthusiasm may manifest differently, but they all show passion - typically so plainly that even the last person in the arena knows how the coach feels from moment to moment. They all are enthusiastic, and they all support and extend the passion and enthusiasm of their teams. 

Are you doing the same? If not, try the "Act As If" principle. Act enthusiastic and you'll be enthusiastic!

5) Great coaches are products of their coaches. Watch college basketball for long and you will hear about "coaching trees." This coach coached under that guy, who actually played for coach X. Coaches obviously benefit from a network of past bosses (a lesson for us), but the best also regularly credit their former coaches and mentors in helping to develop their skills and philosophies. Generally speaking, I'm not sure most leaders are as consciously aware of what they have learned from their former bosses. 

There are two lessons here. Make it a priority to learn from the best, and reflect and recognize what lessons and principles you have learned from others that you can apply for yourself as a leader. And, give credit to your coaches as often as you can!) 

6) Great coaches define their team broadly. The best coaches want their players to succeed both on and off the court. The best coaches start or extend these "coaching trees" by developing their assistant coaches. The best college coaches recognize the role they play as a part of the larger organization (the college or university in their cases). 

Leaders can learn from this example as well. When you define your role broadly you allow yourself to have greater impact and more overall success. 

7) Great coaches coach! They aren't just managers or leaders. They actually coach! They recognize that an important part of their job is to develop others and help them reach their potential. Perhaps they have an advantage because their job title is coach. 

Your title may not remind you of this priority every day (and you may say you have other priorities). However, if you look closely at the other everyday tasks of a head coach you will find many of the same tasks and distractions you face. Yet the best "coaches" don't stop coaching.  

The best "leaders" shouldn't either.

Click here to read a related post:  You Can't Be A Great Leader If You're Not Coaching Your Team

Stay hungry and humble,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's culture, employee engagement and leadership capability? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact:

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Curiosity: An Essential Attitude for Leaders During Rapid Change

 

If you’re a leader, a business owner, an investor, a manager, a salesperson, or a problem-solver, one of the greatest assets you can have for thriving during rapid change is your thirst for answers—your curiosity.

The Curious Thing About Curiosity

All of us have untold potential. Yet it’s easy to fall into behaviors that prevent us from reaching what we are capable of. These behaviors are almost always the result of self-limiting beliefs. There are millions of them:

I can’t lose control because the world will spin apart.
I can’t love because I’ll be hurt.
I can’t speak up because I’ll be put down.
I can’t challenge the status quo because I’ll be punished.
I can’t try because I’ll fail.

Although none of these things may be true, many people act as though they are. And limit themselves as a result.

Each of these beliefs is personal. It’s easy to see how they might affect a person's behavior, happiness, or chances for success. But underlying them all is another limiting belief—one that is more insidious and in many ways harder to deal with than any of the others. It is the belief that the way things ‘are’ is permanent.

“It is what it is” may be true.
“It will always be what it is” couldn’t be further from the truth.

Nothing is permanent. Your body and your mind change from moment to moment. Eventually, those changes (we call them aging) become so profound that you wear out: you cease to exist.

Even though we see the impermanence of life almost daily, we often cling to the belief that certain other things are permanent. Knowledge, for example, is permanent, isn't it?

Not at all. The history of science is the story of human beings converting what we know into what we thought we knew. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy thought the earth was the center of the universe with the sun and stars revolving around it. Today we know that our earth is a small planet on the outer edge of a remote galaxy billions of lightyears from the center of the universe.

And some time in the future even this sophisticated concept of the way things are will prove to be faulty. It will become as obsolete as Ptolemy’s.

Many people find the idea of impermanence unsettling. But there’s another way to look at it. Impermanence can actually be empowering.

If we can accept that everything is changing, and that even what we ‘know’ is not stable, we can actually exercise enormous influence over our lives. Far from making us helpless, this belief actually gives us leverage.

If Nothing Is Permanent, Curiosity Becomes A Source Of Power

Think of it this way: If what you ‘know’ to be true has become no longer true, and you act as though it still is true, you are probably limiting your options.

Here’s a story that illustrates this point: In traditional South Asian societies, elephants were trained as beasts of burden. If you owned an elephant, you were wealthy. But you had to invest in your asset. Not only did you have to feed and care for it, you also had to make sure it didn’t wander off, get into your neighbor’s garden, or accidentally knock over the outhouse.

How do you keep an elephant in place? If you don’t have easy access to metals and forges with which to make chains, it’s not easy. Elephants are strong.

But Indian mahouts discovered a simple and reliable method. Soon after a calf was born, it was tethered by a heavy rope to a tree or stake pounded into the ground. The rope was tied around the animal’s leg with a slip knot. If the calf pulled, the rope tightened painfully. Over time, even the slightest pressure from the rope would warn the baby elephant to back off.

Adult elephants are kept in place with a much lighter rope. They can easily break it. But they don’t. Because they assume things haven’t changed and the rope will still cause them pain. As smart as they are, the elephants aren’t curious enough to question whether what they once knew to be true still is.

Most of us have elephant’s tethers of our own. We repeat the same behaviors over and over, simply because “that’s the way things are”.

One simple way out of this mess is to be curious. Pull at the rope. See what happens. You never know, you might find there’s a whole world out there waiting for you to explore.

Curiosity To The Rescue

Curiosity—combined with courage—is the root of every major advance human beings have ever made. So how can leaders, managers, salespeople, and problem-solvers use curiosity to their advantage?

By harnessing the power of questions. From simple, informational questions to complex, probing ones, questions are the key. There’s nothing new in this. Socrates discovered the power of questions 2,500 years ago, and the world’s most successful leaders, thinkers, humanitarians, inventors, investors, and artists have been using it ever since.

The most basic questions are informational: who, what, where, when, how long, how much, and so on. When you meet a new person, you can use these basic questions to open up areas for mutual discovery. You can find commonalities and connections, you can give yourself the chance learn another person's perspectives.

The next level is the complex, often difficult question that relentlessly probes for causes, reasons, and speculations. This is where you begin to discover what’s working for other people—and what isn’t. What they hope for and what they fear. These questions open worlds of problems and opportunities and challenges and solutions.

Finally, there are the questions that have no answer. These are the ones that create the new—that move us both individually and as a species to the next level.

Questions—the basic tool of curiosity—activate a very different part of the brain than mere statements. Questions literally energize the brain.

A Simple Experiment

See for yourself. Here’s a quick thought experiment. Look at the following sentence and notice what happens in your mind when you read it:

New technologies will change the way we live.

Now look at the next sentence. Notice what goes on in your mind as you read it:

How might new technologies change the way we live?

If you’re like most people, you didn’t react much to the first sentence—the statement. It probably just sat there.

But the second sentence—the question—activated your mind. You may have imagined possible futures, or thought about how technology has already changed the way you live or do business. In other words, something happened when your curiosity was triggered. It’s almost as though you can’t help yourself. Once you encounter a question, your mind jumps to try to answer it.

Curiosity Generates Energy!

Curiosity is the way we build both knowledge about the world and connection with the people around us. It’s also how we discover the new.

Mutual curiosity is a kind of two-way street that carries the traffic of human thought, feeling, commerce, connection, and possibility.

Stay hungry and humble,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step...

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's culture, employee engagement and leadership capability? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact:

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.