Category: Leading People

Leadership Lessons of Gregg Popovich

It's not about any one person. You've got to get over yourself and realize that it takes a group to get this thing done - Gregg Popovich

This is a big time of the year for the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the excitement of the playoffs and upcoming NBA Finals matchups, so it gives us a good reason to pause and learn some leadership lessons from the NBA’s winningest head coach.

Gregg Popovich took over as coach of the San Antonio Spurs in 1996.  With 23 years and counting, he is the longest tenured active coach in any of the major sports in the United States. Called “Coach Pop,”  he has led the Spurs to a winning record in every season, surpassing Phil Jackson for the most consecutive winning seasons in NBA history. During his tenure, the Spurs have won all five of their NBA titles; and Popovich is one of only five coaches in NBA history to win five titles.

A few years ago, Leadership Case Studies published The Leadership Lessons of Gregg Popovich: A Case Study on the San Antonio Spurs’ 5-time NBA Championship Winning Head Coach.

Click here for my summary of the book.

Great Teams Do These 16 Things

March Madness Bracket

This is always a fun time of year for our family, as each family member completes a March Madness bracket for the ever-coveted family bragging rights!  This year, favorites seemed to win in the early rounds with several upsets later in the tournament…but it’s been fun to follow throughout.

When you look at who makes the Final Four, it’s not necessarily those with the most talent but those who demonstrate the best teamwork (see my previous posts on Teamwork; Jon Gordon’s The Power of a Positive Team; and John Maxwell’s 17 Laws of Teamwork). 

Earlier this year, I read another great book about teamwork, Don Yaeger’s Great Teams:  16 Things High Performing Organizations Do Differently.  Yaeger points out that the teams—and companies—that “win” sustainably spend time building the team culture that allows them to do so.

Yaeger contends that the effort to achieve culture can be broken down to four essential pillars that set truly Great Teams apart from those that simply perform well:

  1. Targeting Purpose—The team is connected to a greater purpose. Members understand whom they are serving and why that matters.
  2. Effective Management—The team is able to think creatively and act dynamically in order to stay fresh, effective, and relevant.
  3. Activating Efficiency—Each member of the team brings a unique set of talents, experiences, perspectives, work ethic, personality traits, and know-how that melds with and complements those of the other team members.
  4. Mutual Direction—There is a strong sense of understanding, appreciation, shared responsibility, and trust that unites and motivates the team to work together.

Click here to learn how I’d compare my teams to Yaeger’s Great Teams