Dooley Long-Term?

When the University of Tennessee hired Lane Kiffin they were very interested in “winning the press conference.”  Clearly Kiffin had the “wow factor”.  He was handsome, had the LA background, had been an NFL Coach, had the beautiful wife and brought a confident and charismatic personality.  Following Phil Fulmer, Kiffin could energize the entire Volunteer Nation.  He immediately created a great deal of enthusiasm.  Yet soon thereafter red flags started to surface.  NCAA violations, disdain for authority and a marginal won-lost record raised doubts as to was Kiffin really the answer.  When last week USC came calling, without much concern for UT, Kiffin bolted Knoxville for the bright lights of Hollywood.  This time the Vols learned their lesson and chose Derek Dooley who assuredly does not command the national spotlight like Kiffin.  His 17-20 record at Louisiana Tech would not immediately put him on the national radar screen.  Yet there is no doubt that Dooley will build a program over the long haul and will do it right.  Remember as a leader this is a marathon not a sprint, you need to make decisions that are congruent with your mission.

Leaders Understand Failure

Out of nowhere, David Duval became one of the compelling stories in this year’s US Open at Bethpage Black.  There is a  great lesson to be learned from Duval’s amazing resurrection from the dead.  Clearly all leaders are going to have to deal with failure at some time during the course of their career.  Kyle Rote Jr. had an interesting take on being successful, he said, “There is no doubt in my mind there are many ways to be a winner, but there is really only one way to be a loser and that is to fail and not look beyond the failure.”

One thing that leaders must possess is an understanding of the reality that sometimes adversity in the form of failure will occur.  At that point we see the real substance of the leader.  Does he learn from the adversity and build a bigger and better plan and rally the organization?  The great leaders respond to failure with a new resolve and use it as a learning experience.  Leaders don’t make excuses, they evaluate why something happened and then fix it.

One of the best coaches I have ever been around is a guy named Paul Kostin (I will quite often refer to Paul as there are many lesson to be learned from him).  He is the tennis coach at VCU and has probably won more matches than any sitting Division 1 tennis coach in the country.  His normal  year is conference championships (M&W) and a deep run in the NCAA tournament.  This year neither his men’s or women’s team won the conference championship or advanced in the NCAA’s.   Talking to Paul there were no excuses, his response was simply I have to recruit better players and coach them better.  He did not mention the incredible number of injuries or the youth of his team, he just focused on what he needed to do to compete at the highest level.  That is the course of action of great leaders, what do I need to do and what did I learn from the setback?

As so clearly brought to focus by David Duval, all leaders must understand FAILURE IS TEMPORARY!  Like Paul Kostin understands the most important thing about adversity is HOW YOU DEAL WITH IT?

Wooden vs. Lombardi…Who Wins?

They both do…in very different ways.

John Wooden and Vince Lombardi are two great leaders who survived the test of time.  When we look at their personalities some might think they had very little in common.  Lombardi demanded toughness and was a rigid disciplinarian while Wooden was the quintessential psychologist who was focused on the mental part of the game.  Because of the differences in personality, appearance, communication style, etc., how can we extract any great lesson from this two remarkable leaders?

One thing that this two great coaches had in common, along with all great coaches, is that they had an incredible belief in what they were doing was 100% right.  They believed with all their heart that they were doing great things for their followers and their “system” was absolutely bigger and more important than any one individual.  They created a value system, committed totally to that value system and were able to get there teams to believe in their system.

An important question: What is the first step in getting followers to believe in the system?

Is participation winning?

I had the opportunity to watch my 4 year-old grandson’s last soccer game of the season today. Interestingly enough the other team presented each of the 4 and 5 year olds with a trophy after the game. This statement basically says don’t play for the pleasure of the game but play for the external reward.

Unfortunately a lot of folks in supervisory positions do the same thing. Don’t work to your maximum ability for the good of the team or the success of the initiative, but work so you personally benefit. When leaders can get their group to feel good about the outcome and take pride in that outcome and not their personal situation, then great results are inevitable.

Do you think John Smoltz wanted to go to the bullpen for the Braves when he made the move?