Explore an Uncommon
Approach to Leadership!
Your Relationship With The Truth
Your relationship with the truth is essential to your ability to lead. How aggressively do you seek out the truth about you and your team? How comfortable are you with the truth? How willing are you to recognize it and process it? Are you strong enough to deal with the truth every day?
One thing I've found to be most common amongst the kids I've coached - they want the truth, and they appreciate hearing the truth. Are there some who avoid the truth and don't want to hear it? Absolutely. But those are kids who you won't want on your team to begin with. You can spot those kids pretty early (if you are willing to see the truth) and either address it with them or remove them from the situation. I've never come across a kid who wanted to win, who was willing to commit to excellence, who didn't appreciate the truth.
I have seen a number of coaches at all levels who don't like to deal with the truth. That may surprise you, and it surprised me at first. You'd think any coach or leader is going to say they want to deal in reality. But in practice for many that is not the case. So many coaches want to deal with what makes them feel better or what will get them past a difficult moment. They don't want to recognize or deal with the truth.
Insecurity is pretty common amongst leadership, probably more common than you would think. There's a lot of pressure on the leader of any organization at any level. Even just to stand in front of a small group and deliver a message, to have them counting on you for direction, comes with pressure. There is such a dynamic nature to leadership as well, with variables and constant change always a factor. You never really know what to expect so you have to be prepared for change. This can lead to a lack of preparation. So much can change and if things are going to be different tomorrow, I'll just deal with it when I see what happens. But not knowing what to expect isn't a good excuse for a lack of preparation - it's actually a strong argument for better preparation.
If you aren't dealing with the truth you are losing credibility with your team every day. And once trust starts to erode, it's really hard to get it back. If you screw something up, admit it to your team and tell them you'll do better. If you get a technical foul and you tell your guys "I was just fighting for you guys" when the reality of you just lost control of your emotions, they'll see right through it. If guys finish a couple of seconds short in a sprint at the end of practice and you just clap and yell "bring it in" to keep things moving, they'll see right through it. If one of your players wants to play more, and you keep avoiding the real conversation and just tell him "keep working, you'll get your chance," he's going to see right though it. If it makes you feel better to say "we just missed so many open shots" when the reality is you got outplayed by a team that was better prepared, your entire staff and team will see right through it. If you say "we are 3-4 possessions out of second place" because you've lost a few close games, the reality is you are 3-5 in the league because you aren't good enough.
It's easy and somewhat common as a leader to choose a narrative that makes us feel comfortable but isn't necessarily rooted in reality. If you want to be effective and really command buy-in from your team, you have to fight this. You aren't fooling your players, not one bit. Get comfortable with the truth. Surround yourself with people who will give it to you, regardless if it makes you feel good. Get comfortable with the idea of raw truth, good or bad, after a game, after watching film, in a team meeting. Learn to expect people to give you differing opinions and take the time to process them. Develop a relationship with the truth and embrace it.
It's still surprising to me to see how many leaders aren't comfortable with the truth. They don't want to hear it directly if it doesn't fit their own narrative, and they control it to the point where the people around them aren't comfortable speaking the truth. They also impose the opinions that make them feel better on their players, thinking they can communicate to them what they should believe. Leaders need to hear the truth and deal in the truth, always. Yet they often don't because they create an environment around them that controls the message to make themselves comfortable.
Take a hard look at your relationship with the truth. Ask the people you trust the most for direct thoughts on how you deal with it. The right relationship with the truth is essential to effective leadership.
Gary Parrish On Bully Coaching
"But far too many coaches, even Hall of Fame coaches, have spent their careers yelling and screaming, constantly demeaning and ridiculing their players in ways that should be unacceptable, and would be unacceptable, if not for the weird power dynamic that exists on many campuses.
No college professor would ever be allowed to talk to a student the way so many college coaches talk to student-athletes. It's crazy. But it's also very common, mostly because, I guess, it's just always been that way. There's a line between motivating and humiliating, and coaches cross that line all the time -- usually behind closed doors in practices shielded from the public, but sometimes even on national television during games. Things you rarely see NBA coaches do or say college coaches do and say all the time to the point where it's normalized, rationalized and excused. As a result, even in the year 2020, fans are still more likely to laugh than be offended when a college coach absolutely loses his mind on a college player.
Is that really OK?"
- Gary Parrish
Jimmy Butler
“Don’t be easy on them. Don’t be easy on them. You made me what I am. You turned me into who I am. You’re turning somebody else into something like that, too. Just don’t be easy on them. You changed my life.”
- Text Jimmy Butler sent to Buzz Williams after he left Marquette
Bob Gibson
A terrific profile on the great Bob Gibson - one of the most intense competitors of all time - from the New Yorker back in 1980.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1980/09/22/distance
“He was tough and uncompromising,” White told me. “Koufax and Don Drysdale were just the same, with variations for their personalities—they had that same hard state of mind. But I think a great black athlete is sometimes tougher in a game, because every black has had it tough on the way up. Any black player who has a sense of himself, who wants to make something of himself, has something of Bob Gibson’s attitude. Gibson had a chip on his shoulder out there—which was good. He was mean enough. He had no remorse. I remember when he hit Jim Ray Hart on the shoulder—he was bending away from a pitch—and broke his collarbone. Bob didn’t say anything to him. I’d been his roomie for a while on the Cards, but the first time I batted against him, when I went over to the Phillies, he hit me in the arm. It didn’t surprise me at all.”
I had been wondering how to bring up the business of his knocking down his old roommate Bill White, but now Gibson offered the story of his own accord. “Even before Bill was traded, I used to tell him that if he ever dived across the plate to swing at an outside pitch, the way he liked to, I’d have to hit him,” he said. “And then, the very first time, he went for a pitch that was this far outside and swung at it, and so I hit him on the elbow with the next pitch. [Some years earlier, Gibson hit Duke Snider after similar provocation, and broke his elbow.] Bill saw it coming, and he yelled ‘Yaah!’ even before it got him. And I yelled over to him, ‘You son of a bitch, you went for that outside ball! That pitch, that part of the plate, belongs to me! If I make a mistake inside, all right, but the outside is mine and don’t you forget it.’ He said, ‘You’re crazy,’ but he understood me.”
Cannot Be Misunderstood
"Don't write so that you can be understood. Write so that you cannot be misunderstood." - William Howard Taft
I think about this quote a lot when I think about coaching. Don't coach so that your players understand you. Coach so that your players cannot misunderstand you.
One of the most common mistakes I made when I first became a head coach - and one I still see a lot from different coaches - was in the way I delivered the message. Of course I wanted to be clear and make sure our guys understood the message. But I didn't take enough time to make sure it was impossible for them not to understand the message.
The challenge as a head coach - especially when you are new - is you know exactly what point you are trying to make and what you want it to look like. You've thought through the point you want to make and how you want to say it. But it makes a lot more sense to you because you know exactly what you are trying to say, and you understand the concepts completely. So in your mind it processes quickly, and it makes sense no matter how you are saying it.
You've probably head the saying "The slower you teach, the faster they learn." It's a great point. As coaches, if we are thinking about the way our guys will process the message, we are trying to slow it down and make sure they get it. But the pace of delivery is only one aspect of it. It's also crucial to think about the terminology you used, the order in which you provide the information, and the tone you use as you emphasize your point. There's a lot more that goes into them receiving the message than just the pace of your delivery.
There are a lot of situations in coaching where we aren't as specific as we need to be and we give our guys a lot of grey area. We speak in generalities a lot more than we probably realize.
"Rebound the ball!"
"We have to get tougher!"
"Sprint back in transition!"
We give our guys orders, but we don't necessarily give them a plan to execute. We assume they know what it means to block out or to sprint back and match up in transition. We raise the volume of our message, but we don't necessarily get more specific with our direction. We leave room for the message to be misunderstood.
As the head coach at Maine, one of the major issues we had defensively was in transition. For the first two years we were just awful at it. We would practice it every day, we would emphasize it, we would watch it on film - we'd do all the standard things to make our guys better. But we weren't getting better.
I finally got smart enough to realize I had to change the way I was delivering the message. I was emphasizing the effort - how committed we had to be and how hard we had to run every single time we went from offense to defense. So our guys knew as soon as there was a change of possession, they had to bust their ass to sprint back and try and get in front of the ball. But that message was so overwhelming and constant that it was really the only message they were getting. They weren't really getting an understanding of how we wanted them to guard in transition.
I had to learn that they were misunderstanding the message because I was leaving them room to do so. They thought that a great effort to get ahead of the ball was what was expected out of them in transition defense. They weren't processing anything after that, and our transition was still a mess. It didn't start getting better until I started delivering the message differently - and being very intentional about the direction and purpose when we were guarding in transition. We implemented specific rules about how we processed transition defense and what our responsibilities were - get ahead of the ball, talk to the ball, take away the biggest threat, positioning. We told them how we were going to understand our transition defense on the run, and tried to make it impossible for them not to understand it.
I learned as a head coach I had to spend a lot more time on the specifics of my messaging to make sure there was no grey area. No area where they could possibly misunderstand me. It took some intentional practice and a lot of preparation. You have to really know exactly what message you are trying to send, and then you have to work on the best way to deliver it. To do this, you really better know your craft and show a willingness to be definitive. Nothing allows for misunderstanding more than your own lack of specifics.
You also have to consider the timing of your message and how you want to reinforce it. When you have a minute in practice to stop everything and explain yourself slowly, you can deliver the message a certain way. When you have a 30 second time out late in a game and you need a specific coverage on defense, you have to be concise, quick and clear. You should consider a process for how you want to deliver your message in pressure situations - make sure you are the only one talking, ask them for confirmation, finish with a reminder of the basics.
Do not coach them so they understand you, coach them so they cannot misunderstand you. This takes a lot of time and effort on your part, to know the message and work on the best delivery.
Leadership is so much more than knowing what you are talking about. It's knowing how to deliver it in a way that your team absolutely understands.
Recruiting Jimmy Butler
The story of how Buzz Williams signed Jimmy Butler. A reminder that recruiting is an art, not a science.
"The connection between Butler and Williams is actually a man named Joe Fulce, who had committed to go to New Orleans and play for Williams in advance of the 2007-08 season. But when Williams resigned at UNO after one year to join Tom Crean's staff at Marquette, Fulce instead enrolled at Tyler Community College, where his roommate just happened to be Butler. After the 2007-08 season, Crean left Marquette for Indiana, at which point Williams was promoted to head coach of the Big East program. Because Fulce had already committed to Marquette, Williams called him to relay the news.
"So I called Joe to let him know I'd been named the head coach, and Joe says, 'Coach, you wanna sign Jimmy?' And I was like, 'I don't know. What do you think?'" Williams recalled. "And he's like, 'Coach, I think he's good.' And, of course, we need to sign like seven players. … So I said, 'OK, well, tell him we want to sign him.' And he said, 'Well do you wanna talk to him?' I said, 'Yeah, I'll talk to him. Put him on the phone.' And so I said, 'Hey Jimmy, do you wanna come to Marquette?' And he said, 'Yessir. I wanna come.' And I said, 'OK, I'll send the papers to you.' Signing Day was one week later -- April 15th ... So Jimmy went to the McDonald's and faxed the [national letter of intent]."
Ed Orgeron - Locker Room
What he said to his team the night before they won the national title:
“Early for curfews. Early for meetings. Relentless work ethic. You’ve kept this hotel clean. I’ve asked you to do it, and you did. No bullshit. Character. Character wins,” he says, his deep, unmistakeably halting voice booming throughout the room.
“Poise. No matter what happens, we go to the next play. Poise on the sideline. Poise on the headsets. Poise at halftime. Discipline. You just don’t wake up and say, ‘I’m gonna be disciplined.’ That shit don’t happen! You’re early. You work your ass off. You don’t go do the things that you’re not supposed to do. We set the LSU standard of performance, and up to now, there’s nobody that came close to you when you’re playing up to the LSU standard of performance.
“Your best will be good enough, and you will play your best tomorrow night. Why wouldn’t you? You’ve done it 14 times in a row. I think we’re gonna play our best game tomorrow night.”
Getting Duncan Robinson Wrong
Recruiting is an art, not a science. There's no right way to do it, no formula to make sure you are evaluating correctly. Even with the advent of analytics, and some schools using statistical data to evaluate recruits, there are still plenty of misses. As college coaches we spend an incredible amount of time evaluating talent, and most would agree it is one of if not the most important parts of the job. Yet we still get it wrong plenty.
In some ways it makes sense. We are limited in the number of times we can watch kids play, and often we don't get to see them at their best or against the best competition. We are taking a snapshot and trying to determine long-term productivity. Throw in how hard it is to measure what's inside a player - his willingness to work, his desire to get better, his mental toughness - and evaluating talent is not an easy job. The nature of evaluating physical talent is such that there are going to be mistakes.
But some misses are hard to explain. Duncan Robinson was a good high school player in Massachusetts who went to prep school, and got hurt the spring and summer before his prep year. He was known as a good player but was a borderline scholarship player. A tall, lanky kid who could shoot it, he was a smart kid and an elite division 3 recruit. He committed to Williams early in the fall, after a summer where he wasn't on the circuit due to injury. So he certainly fell under the radar due to injury, and in fairness when he was healthy during his prep year he did generate some lower level D1 interest. He honored his commitment to Williams, and if he hadn't he likely would have gotten a lower D1 offer.
Right now Duncan Robinson is starting for an NBA playoff team that is 2 wins away from playing in the NBA finals. He had the highest catch-and-shoot 3-point field goal percentage in the history of the NBA this year, and he's likely going to sign a pretty lucrative contract in the near future. He'll play in the NBA for ten years at least.
I understand why we all make mistakes in recruiting, but it's hard to explain how big of a mistake we can make on a guy like Duncan Robinson. Robinson was a great player as a freshmen at Williams, averaging 17 points per game on a team that lost at the buzzer in the national championship game. His coach, Mike Maker, left to take the Marist job, and Robinson transferred to Michigan where he had a solid career, but still went undrafted by the NBA.
So how do we miss that big? How does a guy who's capable of (likely) playing in the NBA for 10 years go end up as a borderline division 1 player? Keep in mind, Williams and all of the elite D3 schools are as good as many bad lower level D1 teams, so going to Williams is no sign that he wasn't good enough. But at the time, it wasn't like people were saying, "man, that kid has a chance to play in the league." He was a good get for Williams, and good gets for Williams were generally guys who could play D1, chose Williams for the education, maybe had a chance to play a few years in a lower level league in Europe, and then would go on to make a ton of money on Wall Street. As good as the NESCAC is, it's not like there is an NBA player in the league every couple of years.
Our ability to evaluate, and the mistakes we make, especially when that ability is essentially the #1 key to success in our business, is really intriguing to me. Trust me, I've recruited plenty of guys who I was sure would be great, who ended up barely making an impact, and I've also had some great players who I literally tried to talk out of coming to play for me because I didn't think they were good enough. It would seem that our ability to minimize the mistake-gap in recruiting is crucial to sustaining success.
I've always looked for natural ability first on the recruiting trail. I want to see how much a kid reacts naturally, and how much of what he does is forced. Can he switch to his off hand and make a play under pressure? How quickly does he change directions? Does he know where his second and third looks are on a set play, reading the defense and making the right play?Is he productive even when he doesn't play well? I've always felt that kids who have natural ability have the chance to come in and play right away, and also have a high ceiling for improvement.
I've also worked hard to try and eliminate bias when I'm evaluating talent. If you read up on how the brain and the mind operate, you realize how much bias and stereotypes play a role in what you see. There's no doubt there is a racial element to evaluating recruits, and probably played a role in Duncan Robinson being under-evaluated. We see potential in athletic black players, and we don't necessarily see the same in white players. That no doubt affects the way we evaluate. We tend to see what we expect to see. If we think a white kid is too slow or not athletic enough, we are likely going to confirm that when we watch him play. Confirmation bias is real, and it's something to be aware of. There is no doubt Duncan Robinson looked like a kid who belonged at Williams, and certainly didn't look like an NBA starter.
Daryl Morey has a rule with his staff with the Rockets where if they are going to compare a player they have seen to another player, he won't let them use a player of the same color for comparison. He forces his staff to compare him to a player who doesn't look like him, to keep them from putting players in a specific box. We expect to see certain things out of players because of what they look like, and it affects our ability to evaluate properly.
It also makes sense to keep statistical data on players when you evaluate them. These days at the highest level, many of the best events keep reliable statistics. Sometimes you'll be amazed at how productive a player is (or isn't) if you keep his stats when you watch him play. Your mind can get tricked by the one big-time rebound or athletic play in transition that a kid makes. I've always felt like production is underrated in recruiting, as crazy as that sounds. We don't focus enough on how consistently productive a player is - we look for potential, athletic ability and other things we think may translate into production down the road.
One year when I was recruiting at Maine I was watching Brewster Academy play, and I talked with Jason Smith of Brewster after the game. He had a 6-6 white kid who had played really well, could really shoot it and knocked in a bunch of 3s in a big-time game. He was pretty similar to Duncan Robinson when he was in prep school. I asked him who was recruiting the kid, and he said he was an elite student but he was only being recruited by the D3s. He didn't have any D1 offers, or legitimate looks (unfortunately, it was made clear to me that he was too good of a student to consider Maine). Coach Smith said to me "we have all these big-time recruits, but that kid is my second leading scorer. He brings it every night. But everyone is recruiting all of my other players, and only the D3s are recruiting him."
The kids name was Joe Sherburne, and he ended up getting a late scholarship to UMBC. He ended up as their 6th all-time leading scorer with over 1,500 3s, and he made over 250 3s. He's the only player at UMBC to ever score 1,500 points, grab 600 rebounds and record 200 assists. He scored 14 points in UMBCs win over #1 Virginia in the NCAA Tournament - and I had to coach against him at the University of Maine. He was very productive on one of the best prep school teams in the country, and still barely got any D1 interest.
There is no easy answer, the truth is trying to evaluate the physical and mental abilities of 18-year-olds isn't easy. I always look at NFL quarterbacks - the one position in the world we spend the most money trying to evaluate - and realize even the best in the business get it wrong. But there are certainly things we can do to eliminate mistakes. The fact that we can be so far off on guys like Duncan Robinson is pretty amazing.
Make Or Miss
"It's a make or miss league."
It's a common cliche' used to describe the NBA. You hear a lot of coaches at all levels going to something similar - "We got the shots we wanted, we just couldn't make any," or "We just gotta make some shots."
I'm not really a fan of that mentality. I guess technically it is true - if you make shots, you are going to be pretty good, and if you don't make any you are going to struggle. But it's sort of a given isn't it? It's like saying "We've got to score more points than our opponent if we want to win." We all understand it, and we all try and coach our teams to get the shots we can make, and keep our opponents from getting the shots they can make.
The reason I don't like the phrase, or the approach it represents, is I think it's a cop-out for coaches to make themselves feel better. The inference by saying we "just needed to make some more shots," is that the game plan was good, the guys were ready to go, we executed what we wanted, we just didn't make enough shots. There's a little bit of the I-coached-good-they-played-bad mentality in that approach. It's comfort food for coaches. There's really nothing else we could have done, right? We got good shots, they just didn't go in, and sometimes that happens. It's a make or miss league, right?
Going to the "we didn't make enough shots" approach to evaluating your team makes you feel better and takes the responsibility off of you as a coach. It's not like it's mean-spirited or you are attacking your players. It's just a way of rationalizing your approach and feeling comfortable with what you did as a coach. It's a lot harder to say "man, we didn't get good looks at all, our offense is really bad." That approach requires some self-reflection and a lot of work.
Of course make or miss matters. But it's not something you can really control. As a coach, you need to focus on the things you can control. There are times where you execute well and get great looks, and the ball just won't go in. There are other times when you make a lot of tough shots. I happens, although I would submit it doesn't happen very often. Rarely do we execute really well on offense and struggle to score. Likewise, when we play great defense and force tough shots, we usually don't give up a lot of points. I would ay that 90% of the time, the team that gets the better looks at the basket wins the game.
My job as a coach is to take make or miss out of the equation. We want to work on executing as a team on both offense and defense, but we have to be good enough to overcome those nights when we can't hit the side of a barn. That is what we prepare for every day. We've all had those nights where everything goes in, we knock down 15 3s and we win by 25. On those nights, you don't really need to do much as a coach. The nights you need to really prepare for are the nights where you can't make shots and you have to find a way to win.
Our teams always used the phrase "Win Anyway" to define our no excuses mentality. We can't get a shot to go down? Win anyway. We are struggling to finish inside? Win anyway. At RIC we beat Iona in an exhibition game with 30 turnovers. We won the Little East Championship game one year on the road with 25 turnovers. We won an NCAA Tournament game scoring 1 point in the final 13 minuets of the game to get to the Sweet 16. We won another LEC title shooting 34% from the field. My job as a head coach wasn't to prepare my team to win when they were playing really well. That was easy. My job was to prepare my team to win no matter what happened.
I'd never go to the make or miss excuse for winning or losing a game. To me, that was something you couldn't really control as a coach. That was basketball. Sometimes the ball goes in, other times it doesn't. Every league, every level, every game is a make or miss deal. your job as a coach is to handle what you can control, and prepare your team to win regardless of whether the ball is going in or not
Vulnerability
Admitting your mistakes and showing vulnerability is such an important part of coaching and leadership.
How We Can Make Racism A Solvable Problem
Philip Atiba Goff with a great approach to helping solve racial issues. Look at behaviors, not attitudes. 12 minute video.
A Myth About Accountability
I'm a strong believer in accountability. I don't think you can sustain elite success without a high level of accountability. It's an essential part of high-performing organizations. Accountability is about taking personal responsibility for your actions, and within teams a shared sense of accountability is extremely powerful. Sharing accountability amongst a group creates a very high standard of excellence, assuming you all want elite success. You feel not only a personal responsibility, but you do not want to let your teammates down.
Accountability is not running sprints in the morning because you skipped a class. It's not doing wall sits because you were late to the weight room or getting pulled out of a game because you jogged back on defense. Those are actions that are meant create accountability on a personal and a team level. So often we associate punishment with accountability that accountability can have a negative connotation, as if it is only something that shows up when we screw up. Accountability is much broader and more impactful then paying a price for screwing up.
I recently had this conversation with J.P. Nerbun on Twitter, after he mentioned that accountability was overrated. I had never heard that before, that accountability was overrated.
We had a good conversation, and I understand his point - that you have to behave the right way when the leader is not around, when there is no threat of penalty. My point, however, is that accountability is exactly how you get to that point - where you can count on everyone to do the right thing even when no one is around. You get there through a high level of accountability within your organization.
On the championship teams I've been a part of, accountability is a mindset that affects behavior, more than it is the behavior itself. It is feeling a responsibility to everyone on your team, and to the standards you have established. That mindset is created by necessary consequences when behavior doesn't meet your standards, and those consequences are always present. But eventually (hopefully) the mindset becomes the norm, and the consequences aren't necessary.
Despite being the leader as a head coach, and the one responsible for accountability to the standards, I still need accountability myself. While I certainly take pride in giving a great effort and doing my job at a high level regardless of who is watching, a high-accountability environment still keeps me at my best. Great players I have coached have always held me accountable just by showing up and giving their best every day. By doing that, they demanded the best out of not just their teammates, but their head coach as well. Knowing that my staff expects a high standard from me also helps make me better. In an environment where the standards of behavior are very high, I have to take responsibility for my actions.
Without accountability even the best of us can let our standards slip, sometimes without even realizing it. I can feel it myself at times. I don't need someone threatening me with 7 AM sprints to get me to do my job. But knowing that a group of people are relying on me to be at my best, and I can rely on them for the same, still has an impact on me. I think that environment has an impact on everyone.
We can take personal responsibility without the threat of a consequence. We all should be able to do that. But being accountable to a group of people and a set of standards still drives me, and I think it drives most people who consider themselves competitors. So much of the behavior I exhibit day to day is still driven by an environment of accountability, and my hope is it always will be.
Connecting With Your Players
It's a common narrative you see with coaches who are struggling, especially coaches who have been around for a few years. You hear questions about whether or not he can "relate" to his players anymore.
Connecting with your players is certainly important, but it's more than just being active on social media or having a conversation about Kendrick Lamar. I don't really think age has much to do with it. To get the most out of any team, you need to be connected with them as people. I think there are certain ways to go about it.
Listen To Them
Telling your team exactly how to act 24/7 is a good way of putting up a stone wall between you and them. I'd imagine that many of the older coaches who fall into the "can't relate to them anymore" category are those used to telling the kids exactly what to do and expecting them to do it. While you may get kids to do what they are told, you aren't likely to get the highest level of buy-in out of them.
Asking questions of your team is a great way to understand where they are coming from. And you can't run from the information. You can't just decide "well, they're kids, they don't know any better," and dismiss what they tell you. You actually have to listen. It doesn't mean you have to do what they want or that they are running the show. But listening to them shows them a level of respect, and it shows them that you care. I'm pretty sure they know who is in charge.
Learning more about your team is a great way to develop trust and a true connection. Listening to them is a great way to learn, and show them you care about more than what they do in the gym.
Know What You Don't Know
I've had great relationships with players over the years who come from very different backgrounds than I do. One of the keys to that is not trying to act like I know where they are coming from. It's one thing to hear them, it's another thing to tell them you know what they are going through.
It's hard to come off as authentic if you really don't know their situation. Resist the urge to tell them you have all the answers. You aren't supposed to have the answers, but you are supposed to help them handle their situation and find a way to be successful. I've seen many players lose respect for coaches because they tried to act like they were on the same level when it came to adversity or challenges that the player was facing.
In fact, I've found it really impactful to tell them I don't know what they are going through. To talk about my own experience and make it clear I can't imagine what it's like to have to handle that situation. At that point, they know you are being real with them, and they'll start to respect and trust you.
Be Flexible
The days of "My way or the highway" are long gone. I don't think the kids are different these days, but so much around them is different. Their access to information is different. What they expect is different. If you expect them to just blindly do what you tell the to do, they are going to shut you out.
You can be flexible without changing your core principles. A great challenge of leadership is to stand firm on what's non-negotiable but be flexible when things need to change. Leadership is highly contextual, and you have to be able to adapt. You'll have new personalities, different levels of talent and experience year after year. You have to fit your approach to get the most out of the players on your current team.
Flexibility allows you to connect because it shows your team you are willing to work with them. When things need to change, it isn't always you telling them what has to happen. Don't get stuck in your ways. Stay willing to look at a different approach.
Tell Them The Truth
Your players want to hear the truth. Good or bad, they want the straight truth. They may not always like it, but they'll definitely respect it. I can't tell how often I've heard from players that the reason they loved playing for a coach was because they knew he was always going to be straight with them. But so many coaches are insecure, so it's not easy for them to be direct and honest.
Don't ever tell your team one thing and do another. If you make mistake, own up to it immediately. When they come and ask you a question about playing time, give them a straight answer. Don't dance around the issues. They will see right through you. Make sure you are prepared and decisive.
It sounds pretty simple, but for some reason it really isn't. So many coaches refuse to be direct for fear of painting themselves in a corner. The most important thing you kids relate to is the truth.
Sweat Equity
The most important thing you can do physically for your players is make them better. Get on the floor with them and show them how to become better players. Sweat equity is a great way to connect.
Players really respect coaches who are in the gym with them, teaching them stuff they can use to improve. As the head coach it's still important to do it. Don't let your assistants do all of the workouts. Take the time to set up intentional individual development plans with each one of your players, and get in the gym with them and put in the work. Players will buy-in to anyone who makes them better.
Stay Away
Give them the space to be themselves. Don't feel like to connect with them you have to hang out with them during their free time. Let them play the music loud in the locker room. Let them talk on the back of the bus, and watch the movies they want to watch.
Trying too hard to connect is probably the worst way to actually try and connect. I remember hearing John Calipari talking about recruiting, and he said he'd tell the kids "Look, I'm allowed to call you once a week. But I'm offering you a scholarship. I'm 59 years old. You are 17. What are we going to talk about every week?" I thought that was pretty smart, and pretty real.
You can spend time with them off the court and talk about things away from basketball - I do think that is important. But don't overdo it trying to hard to connect. Give them some space to be themselves.
Load Management
Interesting look at a concept that seems to be prevalent in all levels of basketball these days, and is causing some tension in the NBA.
Things You Learn About Leadership After You Take Over
When you take over as a new head coach or the leader of an organization, things are naturally different. As much as you try and prepare, there are plenty of things you are going to learn as you go.
You Are Always On
When you are the head coach people always look at you as the leader, no matter what the setting. As soon as people see you they are starting to read you - your mood, your body language, your approach. A message is being received, whether you are sending one or not.
I've had players tell me they would determine what kind of mood I was in based on what color pullover I wore into the gym that day. One color meant I was in a bad mood, another meant I was in a good one. Of course there was no connection in my mind whatsoever, but my kids were reading me as soon as I walked into the gym.
If you are out to dinner, you are the head coach. If you are walking down the hall, you are the head coach. When they see you working out, you are the head coach. You are the primary decision maker regarding a very important aspect of their lives - so they are always looking at you as that decision maker.
You don't get to turn off being the leader of an organization when you are around your team. It's something you have to be aware of and get comfortable with.
You Now Make Decisions, Not Suggestions
Being in charge requires a different level of preparation. You no longer get to make suggestions to the boss about something that might work. Now you are making decisions. That doesn't mean you always have to have an immediate answer - that is certainly not the case. But when an answer is needed, you have to have a definitive one.
The preparation is different simply because you have to be prepared to make decisions. So you have to know what your approach is that day, what you are trying to accomplish and how you want to get the message across. You'll certainly get some questions looking for clarification, and you want to be prepared for that.
The days of saying, "You know what, let me ask coach about that and see what he wants to do" are over. You don't want your team to sense any doubt from you when it's time to have an answer.
It's 75% Mental
When I first became a head coach, I was prepared with all of the basketball stuff - our offense, our defense, special situations, practice structure, etc. I knew what I wanted the program to look like and how I was going to coach it. What I wasn't prepared for was how much time I'd be spending on the mental side of the game.
At least 75% of all of the conversations I had with my team were about mentality, approach and mindset. They weren't about basketball. Of course we felt like we were preparing them for the basketball but so much of that came natural to them as players. Getting the most out of them was about being mentally tough, staying focused and having the right approach.
I believe strongly that in leadership the mental side of the game is overlooked and under-coached. So much more of my time as a leader was spent on the mental side than I expected.
Solitude is Necessary
I wanted to have a great staff around me. I want others to challenge me to make me better. I want my players to have a voice. I seek out advice from mentors and colleagues I respect. I get better, and I'm more effective as a leader, when I'm learning from everyone around me.
There is a time, however, when I need to get away from all of that. I think any leader does. There is a time when you need to be alone to clear your head and get your thoughts in the right place. To really figure out what you believe, and what you think is right - especially when you have a difficult decision in front of you. Ultimately you have to be the one making the final call.
There are plenty of times where you need to get away from the noise to come up with the right approach. It's a great challenge to find that balance as a leader.
It's Okay To Be Wrong
Before I became a head coach I thought being in charge was about always being prepared and making the right call - letting everyone know exactly what the move was to get the job done. What I learned is that one of the most powerful things you can say as the leader is "You know what fellas, I screwed up."
Not only is it okay to be wrong, it should be expected and it's a sign of strength. It shows your team that you are vulnerable and willing to hold yourself accountable, and that they should do the same. It creates safety around your team, where they will also feel comfortable making a mistake. It develops trust.
The strength of your team and your culture will grow when they realize you are wiling to be honest about your mistakes. Don't feel bad about being wrong, just be up front about it.
You Don't Always Need An Answer
Phil Jackson often used the phrase "When in doubt, do nothing." It's a great mindset to have. Leadership comes with pressure, and there's no doubt you'll feel the pressure to have answers for your group. But no one expects you to have the right answer all of the time. Sometimes you need to take your time and process a situation before making a decision.
If you constantly try and provide an immediate answer, your team will start to lose faith. If you have to continually go back on what you said or did and change your mind, you'll chip away at your team's belief in your approach. They'll actually have more respect for you if you say, "You know what, I have to think about that." Getting to the right decision is more important than getting a quick one. Don't give in to the pressure of leadership.
Questions Are More Effective Than Statements
I never really understood how important the skill of listening was to leadership until I became a head coach. You think you are the guy in charge, so you'll be standing in front of the group making statements. The truth is the more questions you ask of your team, the more you learn about them and the more effective you are as a leader.
Asking your team questions not only gives you knowledge about what they are thinking, but it creates and environment where everyone feels comfortable contributing. It allows them to speak up when something isn't right (perhaps when you aren't around), and it gives them ownership of your culture.
I've asked a lot more questions as a leader than I ever thought I would, and it has made me a lot better.
Your Presence Matters
I heard former major league manager Buck Showalter say this once - "You are making a presentation every day. When you walk out of the office and into the clubhouse, you have to be prepared. The way you look, the way you speak, the message you deliver."
Having a presence as a leader is very important. You have to be able to stand in front of a group and command their attention. If you are unprepared, you will lose them right away. Your message will not resonate, and buy-in and belief will be hard to come by.
It's more than just knowing the game and giving them the right direction. It's the way you come across and how you deliver the message. They buy in to you before they buy in to your message.
Context Is Key
There isn't one approach to leadership or culture that works for everyone. Your approach has to fit your personality, but it also has to fit the culture of your organization and the players in front of you. Leadership is highly situational.
This means you have to be flexible, something I hadn't really thought about until I became a head coach. You can have core principles that are non-negotiable and you stick with no matter what, but you have to be able to adjust to what your team needs in the moment. I learned that I would rather win than be right. If you aren't ready to adjust or be flexible where necessary, long-term success will be hard to come by.
You'll Learn As Much As You Teach
It's one of the great things about being in charge. Every day your team will teach you stuff about leadership, culture and decision making. If you are open-minded and willing to listen you'll get better as a leader every day.
Switching Late
I've always been a man-to-man guy and I've never liked switching. I think it's taking the easy way out, and I want our defense to be ready to beat screens. It doesn't seem like a lot of teams try and beat screens these days. But my teams never switched.
When I first became a head coach we used to change our defense late in games with a lead to switch everything. We had a call for it, usually if we were up late with the clock running out and we wanted to keep a man on the ball without worrying about screens. If we were up 4-6 points in the last minute and we didn't want to give up 3s we'd go to our switch everything defense.
I did that until we gave up a couple of 3s late and lost a game when I was at Rhode Island College. We had some young guys out on the floor and they were late on switches, and we gave up 3s and lost the game. After that game, I changed my approach. When I thought about it, why would I want our team to play a different defense, one we weren't used to playing, on the most important possessions of the game? So I stopped switching.
A couple of different things can happen when you decide to switch that likely don't happen when you are playing your regular defense - Confusion or uncertainty, which then leads to hesitation. Switching forces your guys to think about something - is that a screen? With all of the ghost screens, slips and fly-bys you see in offensive action today, it's pretty easy for the offense to create some confusion. Are you switching on a fly-by or a ghost screen? What constitutes and actual screen? The offense can create hesitation in your defense if they run good action.
It's also easy to get lazy on switches. As soon as you see some action coming and two offensive players coming together, you just hold your ground and point to your teammate. You wait for an offensive player to come into your area.
If I'm in my regular defense, I know my job is to beat the screen. There is no confusion, and no hesitation. And there is no time to get lazy. If someone gets beat and we need to help, we help. Just like we do every day. But there isn't much to think about. We are doing what we do every day.
Watch the video of the last possession of the Celtics and the Raptors. Stan Van Gundy points out that Boston is "going to zone up" on the side out, meaning they are going to switch everything. OG Anunoby starts in the ball side corner with Jayson Tatum guarding him. When he cuts to the middle of the floor, Tatum hardly moves and just points to Jaylen Brown. Maybe he says something. But now Jaylen Brown is involved in some other screening action that grabs his attention. I'm not sure he every realizes that OG Anunoby is actually his man.
That split-second of hesitation probably cost the Celtics the game. And that's the danger of switching everything late in a game. You create a scenario where the offense can cause some confusion. I just don't like doing something different on the most important possession of the game.