Friday, November 15, 2024

Basketball - Rule of Three (Applied to Chuck Daly)

"Three" is magical. The Holy Trinity. Red, white, and blue. "I came, I saw, I conquered." NBA Big Threes. "Duty, honor, country."

Chuck Daly had a big three of accomplishments - a pair of NBA championships and Olympic Gold with the Dream Team. 

Studying great coaches, focus on memory and incorporation of a few concepts or ideas worth sharing.

1) "Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel." You know the expressions "poisoned pen" and "the pen is mightier than the sword." Getting into 'flame wars' with the media never turns out well. Too often, coaches appear as the people who attended "Five Minute Charm School" and left early. 

2) "I'm a salesman." Coaches sell. Players sell. Teachers sell. Everyone sells. Have something worthy of selling and a pitch worth hearing. Becoming a better communicator, a better salesman adds value. 

Study expert influencers. Find ways to get readers and players to buy what we're selling. Billionaire Sara Blakely reminds us to "make it, sell it, build brand awareness." 

Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator. "Never Split the Difference"

From Davies' summary:

  1. Negotiation begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin.
  2. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.
  3. Tactical empathy brings our attention to both the emotional obstacles and the potential pathways to getting an agreement done.
  4. Giving someone’s emotion a name, otherwise known as labeling, gets you close to someone without asking about external factors you know nothing about.
  5. “No” provides a great opportunity for you and the other party to clarify what you really want by eliminating what you don’t want.

Dan Pink, "Drive"

Robert Cialdini, "Influence" 

3) "NBA players want 48 - 48 minutes, 48 shots, 48 million." It's the minutes, role, and recognition triad that boosts or bounces coaches. Often players, families, and friends perceive our coaching not by any objective standard but how it affects their 'family'. 

As a young player, Jayson Tatum allegedly asked his agent for a trade when the Celtics acquired Gordon Hayward. Hayward's injury ended any impediment to Tatum's rise. 

Lagniappe. Sign on to 'intensity'. That breeds improvement. 

Lagniappe 2. Adopt the mind of a champion. 

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