Author Archives: b2badmin

As a leader, where do the best ideas for your organization come from?

I once heard that the mind is like a parachute. It works best when it’s open.

Through the years I have found that if you keep an open mind, you will find that you never know where the best ideas will come from.

When I served in high school administration, we always had a student, a senior, in our administrative cabinet. Each year it was a different student. I thought the best ideas annually came from that student.

I saw the same thing when, as the Athletic Chair at the university level serving close to 400 student-athletes in 14 sports, we established a Student Athletic Advisory Board composed of an athlete from each team. Some of the very best ideas we had for our Athletic Department came from these students. They brought ideas to our Athletic Department that we, as athletic administrators, never thought of.

As a collegiate basketball coach, we had to beat a certain team to advance to the national tournament. They had the best offense I had coached against in my forty-four years of basketball coaching. The coach with the least basketball coaching experience on our staff came up with the best idea to defend their offense. It was the singular best idea that advanced our team to the nationals.

In a recent blog post, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter calls for business leaders to “encourage new ideas, especially from below and from unexpected sources.” In short, she says that innovation is inclusive, not exclusive, and that it’s a mistake to assume that all of the good ideas come from an elite group of insiders. (Source)

The key, I believe, is for leaders to have an open mind and to be respectful of the resources you have around you. Everyone has unique experiences and insights that can be used to advance the greater good of the organization.

Keeping that parachute open can be the best thing a leader can do.

John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach used to say, “If you take care of the little things, the big things take care of themselves.”

Bob Boyd, the former University of Southern California basketball coach, used to say, “It’s not what you teach, it’s what you emphasize.” And if you emphasize the little things, the big things do fall into place.

As most successful basketball players and coaches can attest, investing quality time practicing free throws can pay substantial dividends in the big game. A former St. Francis player and current youth basketball coach reports that after spending considerable practice time this season on free throws, his 7th grade team recently went 21-of-30 at the line to easily defeat a much larger 8th grade team. Final score: 49-28. Yes, they won the game by the exact amount of free throws they made.

When I asked Dr. Jack Orr, the president of the College of St. Francis for nineteen years, what was the most important thing he did to have such a successful presidency, his answer was, “Attention to detail.”

How do leaders give attention to detail?

I think the best way is the written word. We had an event at St. Francis that brought a celebrity from the world of sport to a fundraising dinner. We averaged approximately 600 people in attendance annually.

There was a great deal of detail that went into planning for this fundraiser. We developed a ten page document delineating all the detail that had to be executed to make the program successful. Every year we would begin our first meeting by going over this document and assigning a person or persons for each detail.

This program has now had a 36-year run. I believe its success is due to the attention paid to the little things.

As Apple founder Steve Jobs said, “Details matter, it’s worth waiting to get it right.”

An ABC newscast recently featured Pope Francis and emphasized that he is living simply and that his life-style is having a profound effect on people – Catholics and non-Catholics alike. His impact has been so great that Time Magazine named him its 2013 Person-of-the-Year.

Isn’t it amazing how the simple can often be the profound?

It seems that throughout history, we have had so many leaders surround themselves with all things majestic. They use material things to show the rest of us that they are the leaders. They are above us. They separate themselves from us. They are the leaders and their surroundings express their supreme position.

Then we have leaders like Gandhi and Mother Teresa. They are leaders who walk with the people – not above them – and they are leaders who truly make a difference.

Gandhi summed up his leadership style with this simple quote, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Mother Teresa explained her philosophy of leadership when she said, “Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person.”

Pope Francis seems to fit the Gandhi/Mother Teresa mold and maybe he is teaching all leaders that we don’t need to be surrounded by all the hoopla. Instead, it is leading simply that has the most impact on those we lead. “Don’t wait for people to come ringing. You need to go out and look for the poor,” he said in describing his leadership values.

Leaders can learn from these leaders by living simply and leading simply.

It seems that the least respected teachers in American high schools are the Physical Education and Health teachers, many of whom are coaches. All they do is throw out the balls and play games. They are not really “teachers.”

This is not at all an accurate picture. Most P.E. teachers I know are as hard-working and dedicated as the best Chemistry, Math or English teachers. I have always known them too, to have the highest levels of energy and enthusiasm

Besides these character traits, another overlooked aspect is the importance of their role in today’s society and their impact on children and adults.

Recent research by the Physical Activity Council “emphatically shows that children in PE are less sedentary and participate in more activities outside of school.”

Risa Livisso-Mourey, the CEO of the Robert Wood Foundation, recently wrote, “The U.S. spends $2.7 trillion a year on health care, more than any other country by far, and yet we are not healthy….So my big idea for 2014 is the emergence of a ‘culture of health.’”

How important is the health of a leader?

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, leading medical professionals are drawing linkages between physical fitness and cognitive abilities. “John Ratey, a neoropsychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and others are finding that … physical activity seems to be important during childhood, powering the brain through the many changes that help us to mature into adulthood. But it may also play a role as we reach advanced age, with a decline in fitness explaining why some people are more prone to dementia than others.”

Coaches and Physical Education teachers are constantly stressing the importance of being in great physical shape and numerous studies have validated the value of physical shape in concert with mental performance.

If you believe in the mind-body connection, then exercise must be a priority in your life-style. And prioritizing is the only way you can attain this connection. You must decide how many times you will work-out each week, prioritize time for your work-outs, and then follow through.

Arguably, one of the most important tasks a leader does on a daily basis is decision-making. The better physical shape a leader is in, the better her / his decision-making may be.

Let’s recognize the work of P.E. teachers and coaches. Their work can lead to life-long health and quality decision-making.

A friend recently told me about a survey taken by senior citizens. They were asked about the most important things in their lives and their order of importance.

The first priority on the list was no surprise: It was health.

The second concept made me think as I did not expect it. It was FUN. Upon reflection, it made a great deal of sense because seniors do not know how much time they have left. So, whatever time remains, why not enjoy it?

I believe the second characteristic is something for leaders to consider. Many athletic coaches have picked up on this concept. They do add some fun into their practices, especially at the end of practice. We often ended a practice with a shooting drill we learned from a great coach, the late Rick Majerus. We pitted the big men against the perimeter players in the drill. After making five baskets at each end of the floor, the teams came to midcourt and the winning team had to score on a half-court shot. Balls would be flying all over the gym and the players would be wildly cheering for their team. This fun drill ended the practice on a high note.

Leaders and coaches have to be demanding, or nothing will be accomplished. However, work and practices can become long and tedious. Interspersing some fun into them can pick up the spirit of those whom we are leading.

The elderly continue to teach us.

Chris Carter, the NFL Hall of Fame receiver, made this point on the Mike and Mike Show recently. In short, he told young athletes that success in your career will be determined by what you do when nobody’s looking.

I was privileged to coach some outstanding athletes in my forty-four years of coaching basketball at the high school and collegiate levels. I never played with nor coached great athletes who weren’t great workers on their own time. They all practiced hard, but they took their game way beyond the practice court. Their off-season was spent working on their game!

Great leaders are men and women of character. The best definition I have heard of character is that it is who you are when no one is looking.

In recent years we have unfortunately had too many leaders who said all the right things in public. They presented themselves as men of character when the camera was rolling and often spoke to the importance of character in leadership roles. But in their private lives, they did not walk the talk.

Saint Francis of Assisi may have best summed up character in the fourteenth century when he wrote, “It’s no use walking anywhere to preach unless your walking is your preaching.”

I think it is sound policy for leaders to examine who they are when the cameras are off, when no one is looking.

With our inaugural newsletter arriving just after Thanksgiving, I would like to share four thoughts with you on two of the most important words that leaders should consider incorporating in their vocabulary – Thank-You. These two words carry a lot of meaning both for the giver and the recipient.

 
First, we all appreciate being thanked. We don’t do things for others to be thanked, but we do appreciate the Thank-You when it comes our way.

I spent forty-four years coaching and teaching at the high school and collegiate levels. As the years went on, I was fortunate to receive a number of Thank-You notes form former players and students. I was so moved by them that I named a drawer in my dresser my “Keeper’s Drawer.” This was the drawer where I put these notes. I have yet to take the time to relax and read through them, but I certainly plan to do so. Therefore, I know first-hand that Thank-You notes are appreciated by the recipients.

Secondly, I played in college for a coach named Gordie Gillespie. He was and is an extraordinary coach and man. He has been inducted into seventeen Halls of Fame and is the winningest coach in the history of collegiate baseball. No one I have ever known has written more congratulatory or Thank-You notes than Gordie. I recently had lunch with our former college president and the former executive director of our park district. When Gordie’s name came up in our conversation, both men referenced a Thank-You note they had received from him. These two men received tons of correspondence in their working years, but they remembered with great appreciation the note from Gord.

With email becoming so prevalent in today’s society, leaders may consider using the hand-written note more to thank their constituents. We know a Thank-You is appreciated and the hand-written note can make the Thank-You more personal. Something to consider.

Thirdly, the German philosopher, Meister Eckhart wrote something that succinctly covers Thank-You when he wrote, “If the only prayer you ever say is ‘thank you,’ it will be enough.” Especially in our country, we have so much to be thankful for. My good friend and fellow coach, Jack Hermanski, has a great perspective on this. He has fought MS for the past seventeen years, but consistently reiterates, “I look around and see so many people who have it so much worse than me.” Despite his plight in life, he remains thankful for what he has. “Thank-You” may very well be our greatest prayer.

Finally, years ago I heard an historian say, “You know who built this country? The top politicians did not nor did those of wealth. The ‘nobodies’ built America. The everyday working man whose work often goes unnoticed and unappreciated built this country.” So, leaders may want to consider thanking those in their organization who are rarely thanked. Thanking the nobodies could become an important part of your leadership value system.

Thanksgiving could have leaders reflect on how much Thank-You notes are appreciated; the value of the hand-written note; the prayer, “Thank-You;” and thanking the nobodies.