Right not I am reading “Leading with the Heart- Coach K’s Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life,” written by Duke’s head coach Mike Krzyzewski with Donald T. Phillips.
Just so you all know… I am most definitely a UNC fan but I saw this book at the store here on campus and couldn’t resist reading a little more about leading from one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time.
I want to share with you some insight that I read today and really enjoyed how to build a more unified team.
He compares a team to a fist. On the court there are 5 players at each time, just like 5 fingers. With 5 small fingers a fist is made a little easier and is tighter then to have 5 big fingers. He talks about egos of players and how at times he would rather have 5 players that are considered less-talented who work as a team than to have to work with talented individuals who can’t seem to come together as a team.
He then brings up 5 fundamentals, if practice can make a team great: communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring, and pride.
COMMUNICATION is key, we all know that, but what I love is that Coach K says “people learn how to think by communicating”. Though most people can communicate, leaders cannot assume that they will. They must teach people to communicate, train them to. When each person is able to communicate different sides are brought to the table and problems may be more easily solved having seen more than just one side to the story.
TRUST, “there are no words more important than trust”. In order for there to be success a high level of trust must be achieved first. To build trust a leader must be honest with himself and the members of his team. Straightforward face-to-face communication is something I feel we lack in our society at times. We are scared to stomp on toes or to hurt people’s feelings. Plus we lack being honest with ourselves, we fear failure and putting our weaknesses out there for people to see but I feel when we hold back we hold back the opportunity to learn and to build meaningful relationships.
COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY can be tough. It is so easy to put the blame on others, I recently have done it. Generally speaking the first thing we do when we are called out on a mistake is get defensive and think of all the other people who may have been involved so that we can pin it on someone else. A team that truly cares will all step up to the plate and take responsibility for each other.
CARE, it’s not just about caring for people as people, but also caring about how you perform. Coach K says that “caring can be a powerful motivational factor”. We must care about those around us and ourselves which leads to the next fundamental:
PRIDE. When many hear the word “pride” they instantly have negative thoughts, but a little bit of pride really can help a team succeed. We need to take ourselves, our jobs and our dreams seriously. We must give our best in all that we do.
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