Values of the Game by Bill Bradley

Author:Bill Bradley [Bradley, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7953-2330-0
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 1998-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

BRINGING OUT THE BEST

LEADERSHIP

Leadership means getting people to think, believe, see, and do what they might not have without you. It means possessing the vision to set the right goal and the decisiveness to pursue it single-mindedly. It means being aware of the fears and anxieties felt by those you lead even as you urge them to overcome those fears. It can appear in a speech before hundreds of people or in a dialogue with one other person—or simply by example.

To the Bulls’ Phil Jackson, the key leadership function for a coach in the pros is getting the players to commit to something bigger than themselves. In the simplest sense, winning is the purpose of playing, but to achieve that end a coach frequently has to create a context larger than the immediate game. At each level I played, the desire to win was a reflection of a deeper desire: In my small-town high school, the motivation was to beat the big city schools; in college, the challenge was for a group of athletes who were primarily students to beat the best in the NCAA; in the pros, the larger purpose was to show that a team without a dominant star could win the NBA title. Pete Carril’s idea of leadership was to ask his players to give a little more than they thought they were capable of giving and by so doing achieve a bit more than they were capable of achieving. That’s why Princeton on occasion became a giant killer.

A wise coach doesn’t do all the talking. Sometimes, with the right group, he’ll let the team members put pressure on players who are problem children. In 1994, the Bulls, without Michael Jordan, were playing the Knicks for the Eastern Conference semifinals. In the last seconds of a close game three, Jackson called the game-deciding play, with Toni Kukoc rather than Scottie Pippen as the shooter. An angered Pippen took himself out of the game. Kukoc hit the shot and the Bulls won, but Pippen’s highly visible act of insubordination posed an immediate challenge for Jackson. Phil declined to come down hard on Pippen in his postgame interview. In the locker room, however, he closed the door, announced that he thought the team had something to say to Pippen, and then left the room. Bill Cartwright, a quintessential team player who was in the final year of his career, was so upset that he was close to tears as he asked Pippen how he could have let the team down after all they had sacrificed for as a group throughout the year. Other players chimed in along similar lines. Pippen, man enough to see his error, apologized on the spot, and in the next game he was back contributing to the Bulls’ performance. If Phil himself had confronted Scottie, the result might not have been as positive; by harnessing the team to do his work, he was more effective.

Coaches who seek the media limelight risk irritating their star players, and the results can be counterproductive: Pouting stars rarely win big games.

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