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Monday, September 25, 2023

Basketball: In Search of Excellence

"Excellence is our only agenda." - Sign in UNC Women's Soccer Locker Room

Everyone talks a good game about excellence. But walk the walk. Excellence starts with attitude and continues with preparation, execution, and revision. Nobody is so good that they cannot improve. 

Where do we begin? Study excellence, including Tom Peters' book In Search of Excellence. 

For example:

In Search of Excellence: Key Points

  1. Focus on customers: Put yourself in the customer's shoes and determine what they need and want. In other words, focus on creating value for customers.
  2. Embrace innovation: Be open to new ideas and ways of doing things. Reinvest in your business to stay competitive and create a culture that encourages experimentation and risk-taking.
  3. Adopt a hands-on, participative management style: Allow employees to take initiative and make decisions on their own. Encourage problem-solving and collaboration among staff members.
  4. Cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit: Nurture a corporate culture that rewards creativity, encourages risk-taking, and celebrates success.
  5. Practice decentralization: Delegate responsibility to lower levels of management and empower employees to make decisions without having to seek approval from senior executives all the time.
  6. Measure performance against goals: Establish quantifiable objectives so you can monitor progress and measure results.
  7. Develop strong teams: Foster a team-oriented atmosphere where communication is open, trust is high, and everyone works together towards a common goal.

Petty also generously shares slides about his lifetime search. 

Each of us has our own experience as a 'boundary'. In medicine, it was said the only problem with being on call every other day was "you miss half the great cases." Learning opportunities do not take time off. 

Use coaching exemplars to study excellence and mediocrity. For instance:

- Dean Smith's "shot quality scoring" in practices. He felt that talent and emphasis on shot quality led UNC to the highest shooting percentage in the ACC

- Pete Carril conditioned within drills. The high academic demands at Princeton reminded him to seek maximal efficiency. Brian McCormick says, "no laps, no lines, no lectures." 

- Many coaches are readers. Get our heads in a book as do George Raveling, Mike Neighbors, Greg Popovich, and Steve Kerr. 

- Make dead friends. The Petes (Newell and Carill), John Wooden, Pat Summitt, and many others share basketball and life lessons. 

- Find the sharers. Most coaches willingly inform insights into their path and experience. Some leave footprints of their legacy on the Internet such as Coach Don Meyer. 

Develop your portfolio of stories and quotes. What did your coaches teach and what pieces of gold do you distribute?

"Basketball is sharing." - Phil Jackson 

"The ball is gold." - Sonny Lane (Take care of the basketball)

"Are you spending your time or investing it?" - Nick Saban

"Be specific." Players learn nothing from 'play hard' or 'play smart'.

"Show up." Don't allow fatigue or distraction to prevent us from 'getting after it' at work or our avocation. 

"Next play." - Mike Krzyzewski  Don't let one mistake bleed into a series of mistakes. "Stop the bleeding." 

"The ball is a camera." If you want to be seen, then you have to get open.

"How you do anything is how you do everything."

Lagniappe. Sometimes the best way to work on ourselves is hardware not software. 

Lagniappe 2. Ball pressure, rotation with help and recover, and switching made for good defense. 

 

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