Wooden on Leadership

is an excellent book by John Wooden and Steve Jamison (isbn 978-0-07-145339-4). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:
Effort is the ultimate measure of your success.
I believe leadership itself is largely learned.
In the end, the choice you make makes you.
Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience. [Benjamin Franklin]
Sometimes during practice he would have the guards switch positions with the forwards - have us do the other guy's job. He wanted everybody to understand the requirements of the players in the other position… I was so impressed by the control of his practice. [Gail Goodrich]
There are no big things, only an accumulation of many little things.
What happened is a good lesson in how we can limit ourselves and our organisations without even knowing it - how we can say "no" when we should be asking "how?"
Success breeds satisfaction; satisfaction breeds failure.
Lots of repetition. You can't believe the repetition. [Gary Cunningham]
Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out.
I rarely assigned one player to a basket. Basketball is a team sport, and I felt it was unwise to allow players to practice by themselves. Always I wanted them to be interacting with their teammates.
How you practice is how you "play"… It's only natural for those under your leadership - perhaps even you - to focus on the end result rather than learning and doing what it takes to get there. I attempted to solve this particular problem at UCLA by occasionally removing the siren song; specifically, I made them practice and play basketball without the ball.
A good leader always seeks improvement - always.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing the excerpts from John Wooden's book. He has been one who has provided a number of 'mentor moments' during the past several years.

    You might enjoy the article about his life - John Wooden: A Lifetime Masterpiece

    http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/biography-john-wooden/34762.aspx

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  2. Thanks Dan. I will take a look when I get a moment.

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