How do you play when things aren’t going your way?

“What you think. What you do. What’s important to you.”

“I’ve never seen anyone work the way he does,” Thibodeau said of Brunson. “And he does it in front of everyone, he does it in our gym, does it all summer long, he does it at a game speed. He never has to adjust in a game because of the way he prepares himself.

(From Admired Leaders) Renowned Stanford Business Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer wrote a doozy of a book in 2015 entitled Leadership BS. It seems some titles create more noise years after publication, and that appears to be the case with Pfeffer’s book. It is getting some play once again in small and large organizations.

An interesting approach from Admired Leaders when you can't find a consensus.

Working toward consensus when making a major decision is a worthy goal.

Consensus fosters goodwill for future decisions, as well as ensuring the buy-in so critical to executing or implementing the decision. But smart and strong-minded colleagues sometimes disagree.

When consensus is not achievable, leaders must have an alternate path to make the decision without resorting to making the call unilaterally.

Reviewing the arguments on both sides of the decision and exploring the reasons one or more colleagues can’t live with it will assist the team and the leader in moving toward a choice. But the best leaders always listen for passion around a decision. They look to see who feels the need to champion the idea.

What's more important to you as a coach - your culture or your talent? I think a lot of coaches would answer that question by saying their culture, but that won't always be reflected in their actions. It's easy to say our culture is what's most important, but it's hard to pass up elite talent.

I don't know that there is a black and white answer to the question of culture or talent. You need a lot of both to win consistently. And there are plenty of players who are talented and great for your culture, so if you constantly face the question of culture or talent in recruiting, you probably aren't recruiting the right people.

I'm always willing to sacrifice a talented player for the culture of my team, and I think that can be very powerful. During the season, I'm definitely a culture first guy. But when I'm recruiting, I don't see it the same way. That's not to say I'd go out and just recruit all knuckleheads and not consider their character or how they'd fit into my team. But I do think in recruiting you are trying to acquire talent, not culture.

As a coach, what is your relationship with your decisions?

Good stuff from Admired Leaders:

Leaders develop a distinct relationship with the decisions they and others make. Decisions can be owned completely, partially, or not at all. Interestingly, the degree of ownership for a decision has little to do with the quality of the decision or whether the leader thinks it is a wise choice.

Even believing a decision is the right or best choice does not equate to fully owning that decision. The commitment to fully embrace a decision is left entirely up to the leader. It can never be forced or compelled. It is always a leader’s option as to how much they support or oppose any decision. When leaders fully own a decision, they hold both themselves and others accountable to every aspect of it.

Tampa Bay Rays President of Baseball Operations Erik Meander talks about their approach. Are you willing to look at things differently, and judge how much weight should be put into certain areas regardless of how everyone else is looking at it?

Their goals, he said, “are similar to any other organization’s goals.” And that is to win as many games as possible. But he conceded that they might look differently than other teams at the things that happen on a field and how those things connect to winning.

Said Neander: “Does the industry put more weight on some of those than others? Less weight on some of those than others? And how confident are we willing to (be to) invest in those areas where we think they might not be as weighted? Are we going to be right? I don’t know.

“Everyone has those beliefs and opinions of where that is. But you know, it’s just something that we constantly try to stay at that — and just try to make sure that we’re appreciating what we think is in front of a player and not just what’s behind him.”

This is a very interesting post between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from Admired Leaders. When trying to motivate our coaches, players and teams, I think this is often overlooked. We think of motivation as reward, punishment or incentive - giving our kids a penalty if they do it wrong, or a reward if the do it right. But that type of motivation generally helps in the short term, but doesn't last.

Studies have shown that the best motivators are intrinsic - autonomy, mastery and purpose. People are inspired by having control of their work, the ability to do that work at a high level, and the purpose behind that work - as in, what impact is this going to have? Think about that when you try and motivate your players and your coaching staff. A short term reward is nice and has an impact. But over time, what most people are looking for is autonomy, mastery and purpose.

In September of 2021, Ed Cooley wanted to have a meeting with his veteran players. We were coming off a below average year at Providence College (the covid year, played in front of no fans) and we had lost our best player, David Duke, to the NBA. We were fortunate that the NCAA granted everyone an extra year due to the pandemic, so Nate Watson and Noah Horchler came back for one more year. They would be our starting front court. We had Jared Bynum, Ed Croswell, and AJ Reeves returning, and we added two graduate transfers out of the portal, Al Durham from Indiana and Justin Minaya from South Carolina. We had seven players in their 4th, 5th, or 6th year of playing college basketball.

Interesting look at team chemistry from Admired Leaders. Chemistry is a buzzword for a lot of coaches that remains undefined. I really like the idea of chemistry as a "quality of the interaction" between people. I've never been a huge believer in chemistry because I don't think we look at it the right way. We think of it as teams that go out to the movies together and enjoy meals with one another.

Chemistry on the basketball court is about the "quality of the interaction", and not much else. Are we helping each other on defense? Are we keeping the right spacing on offense? Do we sprint back all of time? Do we make the right pass on time? Teams that are fully connected interact the right way on the court, and that has nothing to do with whether they like each other or hang out at night. I've had plenty of great teams with starters who didn't really get along away from basketball, but were locked in on the basketball court.

https://twitter.com/thewinningdiff1/status/1639230633510862851?s=20

"Engage your brain before you engage your weapon."

Fascinating words from General James Mattis to his troops on the eve of battle:

I sat in the hard pebbled sand eating cold vacuum-packed hot dogs as I watched Peter Jennings about 10 feet away from me broadcast live from Kuwait. It was mid-March 2003. How surreal this was, being the center of the world’s attention.

After he wrapped up, I walked back to our Hummer. The officer in charge of our detachment walked up to me with a stack of papers.

“General Mattis wants every Marine to get a copy. Make sure our guys get some, Sergeant,” he said.

I looked at my copy and read:

Really good stuff from Admired Leaders. Worth thinking about for a lot of coaches and leaders.

Common wisdom tells leaders that if they want everyone’s attention or to make their advocacy land with force, they must increase their speaking volume. Multiple people in a room or a meeting turn their attention to the loudest voice and often stop talking themselves when one voice dominates.

The intensity of the language the leader employs, as well as the emphasis they place on specific words and phrases, gathers attention like a magnet. Experience informs leaders that getting heard in a crowded room is never an easy task and they must resort to more extreme amplification of their points.

"Criticize yourself out loud, which shows people you’re open to being challenged."

https://characterlab.org/playbooks/proactivity/

https://twitter.com/CBSSportsCBB/status/1642543583243673600?s=20

With a six second differential, down by 1, I didn't think SDSU had to foul. But I did think they should have pressured the ball and trapped. I don't think you can just let the other team run their offense comfortably and hope they miss, you get the rebound, and get an opportunity on offense with just 6-10 seconds left. At the very least I would try and make them uncomfortable and get them out of rhythm.

If you think about it, if FAU gets an offensive rebound the game is just about over. An average team gets an offensive rebound on 20-25% of their misses. You are staring at 80% right there. Not to mention their offensive efficiency and the odds that they score on any given possession. Your chances of getting the ball back down by just a point are below 50% for sure. Likely close to 30%. And given that, you have to go the length of the floor in ten seconds or less and get a good look, even if you do get the ball back. It's not a high percentage situation. I'd have to trap, make them uncomfortable, and try and get a steal.