Total Pageviews

Monday, September 1, 2025

Basketball - How Good Is Our Coaching Anyway?


"Examine what is said, not who is speaking." - African Proverb

Human nature judges the messenger before the message. We discount advice from someone we dislike, or elevate words of those we favor. Both habits are dangerous. As Charlie Munger reminded us, “It is better to be generally right than precisely wrong.” Good judgment begins with examining the content of an idea, not the identity of its source.

Judging the Message

The critical question is not who said this, but what truth does this contain? Leadership often requires listening broadly and filtering wisely. Arrogance dismisses a useful insight because of its source; embracing a flawed idea because it comes from authority is lazy. Both can sink teams, businesses, and even entire institutions.

We trust our basketball opinions not always on merit, but because of familiarity and ownership. Our coaching is far from perfect. 

The Art of Execution

Ideas only matter if executable. Execution rests on three pillars: people, strategy, and operations. Do we have the right talent? Do we understand the plan? Do we have the systems and experience to make it work? Align resources with goals.

That alignment is imperfect. It requires adaptation. 

  • A company built on speed and creativity should not bury itself in bureaucracy. Speed teams can't plod. 
  • An organization without a strong marketing arm will stumble if it pursues a mass-market strategy. In sports, don't pick fights with "writers who buy ink by the barrel."
  • A business without deep capital reserves should avoid models that demand scale before profitability. In a program with little political capital, don't step on toes. 
Play to strengths, minimize weaknesses, and adapt execution to the resources at hand.

Sustained Success vs. Change

When an approach has delivered durable success, stay the course. Consistency compounds results. But when success is absent, ask why not? Excuses waste time; diagnosis favors progress. Leaders cannot improve an unexamined experience.

A Habit of Reflection

One of the most powerful tools available to any leader is objectivity. Review your last project, meeting, or decision as though you were an outsider. What stands out? Where did execution falter? What assumptions deserve testing? Patterns often reveal themselves only when we strip away self-justification.

Stepping back adds clarity. It shifts focus from personalities to performance, from noise to signal. In doing so, it honors the spirit of that old proverb: wisdom is not owned by the speaker. It belongs to those willing to listen, reflect, and act. 

Lagniappe. Exceptional coaching. Coach Ladouceur 

Lagniappe 2. SLOB Magic from Coach Taveras 


Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)