As small things cumulate, bigger things will happen

Dave Ulrich wrote the foreword for the 2002 book "The Extraordinary Leader."

Ulrich, a management guru who Fast Company magazine recognized as "one of the 10 most innovative and creative leaders," outlined his advice for leaders. Here are three of his points:

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1. Start small. Going from good to great follows an "S" curve of learning. Starting small means doing something now, something within your control that will have an immediate impact. As small things cumulate, bigger things will happen. A leaders should identify some quick, simple, and readily visible things that can be done along the "S" curve path.

2. Excel at something. The worst leaders have an average profile with no great strengths or weaknesses. They are "vanilla" leaders, not standing out on anything. My advice to you as a leader is to figure what you are good at and improve it. Be good at something, then a few things.

3. Remedy fatal flaws. (1) The inability to learn from mistakes and develop new skills; (2) being interpersonally inept; (3) being closed to new ideas; (4) failure to be accountable for results; and (5) not taking initiative. Assess yourself and see how others assess you on these five fatal flaws. If any show up, work on them fast and furiously.

Providing your players with candid feedback

MIL center Andrew Bogut, out since the end of January with a stress fracture in his lower back, had a private meeting recently with Bucks coach Scott Skiles in which they had a candid discussion.

"It's the first time a coach has brought me in and given me positive and negative feedback, and I appreciated that. It's tough to swallow for some guys, especially some who've been in the league for five or 10 years. But I want to get better as a player. To have a coach tell me things like that was important to me."

Asked how it's been playing for Coach Skiles, Bogut's third coach in four NBA seasons, the 7-foot Bogut brought up two key themes, both central to effective coaching: Accountability and fairness.

"I think a team, and each player individually, must be held accountable by the coach," Bogut said. "Coach Skiles has done a fair job of not just calling out the seventh or eighth guy on the bench, but calling out your first-, second- and third-best players. I think that's been the biggest change. Playing for somebody like that every day, it only makes you better as a player. Your game is only going to get better if you have somebody who's going to stay on you every day. It can get tough, and frustrating on some days, but in the long run, there will come a day in your career when you look back and say, 'That's the guy who helped me become better.'

He's not only a great teacher, but he's fair as well," Bogut said. "The stories you hear aren't always true. Just because he's tough and defensive-minded, as most NBA coaches are, that doesn't mean he's cussing us out every single minute. If we play well, he's very fair to us. if we don't play well, practice will be harder, which is the way it should be. I think he does a good job of balancing that."

Your best players need to be your decision-makers

John Tortorella, who led the Tampa Bay Lightning to the 2004 Stanley Cup, is the opposite of the coach he just replaced with the NY Rangers, Tom Renney, who was let go after a rough 12-game stretch in which the team came away with just two wins.

According to this article, "In terms of on-ice, Renney was safe-safe-safe, whereas Tortorella is a 'safe-is-death' guy."

Says Rangers veteran Scott Gomez, a former NHL All-Star, "That's normal. You're going to hire the opposite."

An article in the Minneapolis paper from May 2004 said that when Coach Tortorella was in Tampa Bay, he had three signs posted in the locker room, "each intended to remind players of [his] philosophy."

One reads: Safe is death. Another: Good is the enemy of great. The other: Don't think ... do.

In his first day on the job, Coach Tortorella, who as a minor league coach in the mid-1980s "spent a summer hammering nails and painting walls so his guys would have a better locker room," had some interesting thoughts regarding coaching and the role of the coach.

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On his coaching style: "I'm not going to stand behind the bench and just calmly go about it. I'm just not built that way. I think honesty is what players want. They're going to get pushed, they're going to be held accountable, and there are going to be some bumps in the road. There may be some conflict, but I don't think we should be afraid of conflict. This reputation that I just kick the hell out of people, it takes on a life of its own. As a coach you'd better understand what your team is right now as far as how they feel."

On the coach's role: "I think the coach is the guidance counselor. That's an important aspect of a head coach, getting the most out of your top people."

On regaining confidence after a losing streak: "Losing knocks you down. I'm gonna push them, but as a coach, you have to understand when you need to be with them. This is a time to get them to feel decent about themselves. They need to get a little self confidence. We're going to allow them to try to work through that and try to find a way to get a win."

On his predecessors who were fired: "There's going to be a philosophical change here, but there's a couple of good guys who are out and I just don't want them blamed."

On team leadership: "Your best players need to be your decision-makers. They're going to get every opportunity to win hockey games for us. If they're playing hard, I'm going to send them right back out there."

It comes back to players wanting to be great and then putting that into action

Ask Bears GM Jerry Angelo (at right with CHI coach Lovie Smith) about the key to winning and he'll tell you this:

"It comes back to players wanting to be great and then putting that into action in terms of their work ethic, in terms of doing all the things that they need to do and holding themselves personally accountable to be the best they can be," Angelo said. "That's all we ask of our players: Just be the best you can be, stay within the framework of the team and hang tough. If you get a locker room full of players with that mentality, you don't need great talent to win on Sunday. Coaching will take you so far. Our coaches will be driven to be a great team. That's what we're expected to do, and we're all paid to win, but we're all incumbent to do our jobs. We're all held accountable."

Angelo adds that a team's identity is re-made each season:

"Every year, a team takes on a whole new identity. You can't look at last year and say, 'Well, they're going to pick up off here' to the good or the bad. A team takes on that identity starting when they come back in the offseason program, and that's incumbent of the players."

How ownership promotes accountability

One concept that comes up more than just about any other in the articles and quotes I come across is that of "accountability."

In his book on the subject, Sam Lloyd, a former management professor at the SMU Cox School of Business in Dallas, contends that people take "ownership" they have "a stronger investment in the assignment when they know they are responsible for the results and are trusted to use their judgment in obtaining the results."

He uses an interesting analogy to illustrate his point about ownership:

Have you ever driven a rental car? If so, did you wash it before returning it? Probably not. People who own cars are more inclined to wash them regularly. Ownership, whether in things or ideas, promotes accountability.

Seeking feedback from players

At the White Sox spring training facility in Arizona, manager Ozzie Guillen had a private meeting with a group of veteran players.

During the meeting, Coach Guillen says he asked what he "needed to change to make the ballclub better, my expectation for them with the ballclub, different ideas."

"I want them to take charge with the ballclub. Last year I was a little [too] involved with [players' problems]. But I have to be open. I wanted to know if [something] bothered them or not. If nothing bothers [those veterans], then I'm not going to [get involved]. You have to be aware of what the players think and what are the expectations for them.

They want me to be me. It was no big deal. Before spring training starts, I always talk to the players about what I have to do to get better, what I have to do to make sure the team is better.

After the meeting, Coach Guillen made it clear who is accountable in the end, saying:

"I'm the leader of this ballclub. I'm the face of this thing.''

A candid admission of fault

In the NYK's one-point road loss to POR on Sunday evening, "Brandon Roy was allowed to drive 35 feet to the basket, untouched, for a winning scoop shot at the buzzer."

What NY coach Mike D'Antoni didn't realize was that his team "had a foul to give with 4.3 seconds left against the Trail Blazers."

With reporters after the game, and again on the team's flight that night, Coach D'Antoni pulled no punches:

"I screwed up, period. That’s my responsibility. I made a mistake. I’m the guy. It’s my fault. So I should know. Probably won’t happen again. Can’t swear to it. But I messed up."

According to this article in the NY Times, "It was a candid admission, given the deep aversion of recent Knicks coaches and executives to acknowledging mistakes, on or off the court. But D’Antoni came to New York with a reputation for straight talk, and it was on full display..."

Knicks forward David Lee, who had 29 points and 11 rebounds in the loss, was quick to take up for his coach:

"He didn’t lose the game for us. The last play never loses the game, to be honest with you. There were a lot of things we could do, and a lot of improvements we can make, that we should have won the game in the first place."

You have to keep trying to get better

What's Jon Gruden been up to since being fired in Tampa Bay?

For starters, his day still begins around at 3:15 every morning.

As this article in the Orlando paper reveals, Coach Gruden heads to the offices of Tampa's Arena Football League team to study film.

As for getting fired, Coach Gruden, who led the Bucs to a Super Bowl, has a good attitude.

"You know what? Mike Shanahan got fired. Mike Holmgren is out of football. Brian Billick is out of football. That's the reality of it. Mostly though, I'm just really proud of working hard. I've always been taught you can only look yourself in the eye and ask 'Is that the best you've got? Is that the best you can do?'

And I'm not going to criticize anybody. That was the best I could do. ... In the NFL you've got to get to the Super Bowl and you've got to win it. That's the evaluation we're all accountable to. I wasn't able to get close enough and that's the way it is.

I worked as hard as I could work and I loved it. I feel a great sense of accomplishment, but I also feel a great sense of loss. ... I'm never going to point the finger at anybody, either. I'm good. I did my best. My body of work is out there for everybody to evaluate. ... We won three division championships; won 60 games in seven years; won a Super Bowl. It wasn't like it was total futility."

You have to keep trying to get better. I'm going to learn a lot about the spread offense, and about college football. I already know the questions I'm going to ask. I'm going to do clinics. I'm going to do appearances, but more than anything else I'm going to do research. I'm going to pick out two or three cool colleges that I think have great offenses. Great places. I want to go to Oregon. I want to go to Al Groh's camp in Virginia. I love the way Al Groh coaches that football team."

Little things add up

Just as Mike Singletary did in SFO when he took over as head coach of the 49ers mid-season, new Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins is focusing on "chemistry, defense and discipline" as the foundation for turning things around in Memphis.

An article in today's Memphis paper describes Coach Hollins' coaching style as "old-school yet flexible" and notes how he's "been a hard taskmaster in practices and a strict disciplinarian off the court."

Coach Hollins "holds players accountable in every aspect of their jobs," asking Darius Miles to remove his earrings before Miles went out for "a pre-game workout." Players must also "wear team-issued practice shorts and tops instead of the random gear that had been acceptable."

"These little things add up," Memphis GM Chris Wallace said. "Lionel is a stickler for practicing hard and having a team in excellent physical condition. He's working diligently on those two fronts. We're practicing hard, and we're practicing longer. There's a payoff on this. Plus, I'll say Lionel has a rare ability to relate to players. You have to be firm but you can't be firm in a high school and military way. You can't be overbearing in your firmness on this level. You have to be firm, but at the same time communicate with your players and have a different relationship off the court. You can't be a robot and a total dictator. He has that rare ability to walk down the middle of the street. He knows when to back off. To me that's the essence of NBA coaching."

According to Wallace, Coach Hollins has had an immediate impact on Rudy Gay, who "is starting to attack the basket more."

"He's like a baseball pitcher who can't just throw fastballs," says Wallce. "He's got to throw knuckleballs, curves and sliders. He's got to show a wide-variety of skills, and he's becoming more efficient. We're making progress as a team and our players are making progress individually."

The three functions of assistant coaches

Winning Hoops magazine had a good interview with former Marquette and current Indiana head coach Tom Crean.

During the interview, Coach Crean outlines "three functions" that assistants should fulfill.

1. Offset the mood of the head coach: If the head coach is in a bad mood, you as an assistant need to be a in a good mood. Assistants should not be carbon copies of head coaches.

“I love playing teams where the assistants act and teach just like the head coach because they just aren’t prepared as well,” Crean says.

2. Always be accessible to players: A head coach is often pulled in several directions through various responsibilities. An assistant must be available to players at all times. Players need that stability.

3. Do what's needed: As an assistant, Crean says, you are there to do whatever the head coach needs. An assistant’s primary role is to make the life of a head coach easier. You must be a willing participant in this process.

“When I was learning under Ralph Willard (Western Kentucky and Pittsburgh) and Tom Izzo, my job was to make them Coach of the Year. I wanted to allow them to do what they do best, so I took care of the things they didn’t want to do or didn’t have time to do.”

According to the article, Coach Crean contends that "when assistants know their role and players are energized about their part on the team, then your program is certain to get better every day."

Along these lines, Coach Crean encourages his assistants, and other coaches he meets at clinics and camps, to learn as much as they can about as much as they can.

“Never stop learning from others. It doesn’t have to be just in our sport. Look at military and business leaders. And, look at other sports. I bet you I have read more football books than anything else,” Crean acknowledges.

As the author describes, "your ultimate goal as a coach is not simply to win games... it’s to make
players better — as athletes and as people. It starts with accountability on and off the court. When you expect the best from players, you don’t have to harp on it day after day. Having to stress bringing energy and enthusiasm to the practice court each day gets old and
tired. Expect it and expect the best from everyone associated with your squad."

Once you start winning, you don't want to go back

In the week leading up to yesterday's Super Bowl, the Phoenix paper had a story about how, in two years, Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt took a team with "a legacy of losing perhaps un- rivaled by any team in sports" to the NFL's championship game.

In the simplest terms, Whisenhunt was trying to change the Cardinals from a team that lost more than it should to one that won as much as it could.

In short, he had to re-work the team's culture.

In a business, or on a football team, he said it boils down to one thing: "Getting people who are talented to work together as a team." But talking about it is easy. Actually doing it is difficult.

Says Coach Whisenhunt: "I think a lot of people want to say culture change. It's really about getting people to believe. Raise the expectations. Be prepared to work. It has to be everything. Practices, off-season workouts, preparation, accountability. It's got to be every day."

According to one management expert, "there was another important factor that led the team to change under Whisenhunt's leadership."

In his words, "Don't laugh when I say this. Winning culture depends a lot on winning" because it makes people willing to work even harder.

"A team gets into a rhythm of winning," the expert said. "It shows that effort leads to reward."

Another important note is that all of Arizona's coaches are on the same page.

Special-teams player Sean Morey, a 10-year veteran in the league, says the coaches are always on the players about how to do things. "They are consistent in holding players accountable," Morey said in the locker room. "Watching tape, sometimes you have this voice, you can hear it in your head, when things go wrong, saying: 'It's not OK. It's not OK.' "

Says Arizona offensive lineman Reggie Wells, who has played for three head coaches in his career with the team, "Whisenhunt's vision just sounded a little bit different."

"You can tell they believe it," Wells said. "They are sincere in how they think we should approach the game. It's not just words. Winning is habitual, just like losing. But once you start winning, you don't want to go back."

If they're not going to bring the intensity, he's going to bring the intensity

Interesting story here about Oregon State coach Craig Robinson (whose sister Michelle is the new First Lady).

Coach Robinson has, as one of his players puts it, a "'come at you' attitude."

Assistant coach Doug Stewart describes Coach Robinson as a guy who brings "a level of discipline and a level of consequences every single day."

According to Coach Stewart:

"If they're not going to bring the intensity, he's going to bring the intensity. ... if they're not going to bring discipline, he's going to provide the discipline. As a player, that's all you can really ask for, that you know what's expected of you every day, you know the outline of what you're supposed to do, and you know the consequences as well.''

Being accountable to each other

Ray Lewis on the importance chemistry and accountability have played in BAL's success this season:

"Our whole season has been about just chemistry. A lot of people don't know that, really when you look at our ball club and the way we practice and look at the things that we do, we prepare a certain way with each other. Coaches give us the game plan and give us their part of it, but our part is being accountable to each other. We have more guys over at each other's houses than anything. The togetherness and the brotherhood we have is kind of more overwhelming than anything."

Why spacing matters

Was flipping through Ron Higgins' 2006 book "Tales from the Memphis Grizzlies Hardwood" last night and came across a good passage about Hubie Brown's return to coaching at the age of 69.

What MEM players remembered most about Coach Brown was his intensity, demand for perfection, and incredible attention to detail:

"At our first practice, no one knew how to take him," [Lorenzen] Wright recalled. "He was yelling, he was cursing. He was screaming, 'Get to this spot, get to that spot, get to this spot.' Nobody knew the reason those first few practices. Then, we started playing games. You get to those spots. You have open shots."

Griz swingman Shane Battier loved Brown's attention to detail.

"He always talked about spacing," Battier said. "On certain plays, he wanted us three feet from the free throw line -- not four feet, not two feet. If we got it wrong, he'd stop practice and correct that one foot."

His team started to believe, even guard Jason Williams, whose lousy shot selection, wild passing, and penchant for playing soft defense got him benched in Sacramento, then traded.

He and Brown came to a quick understanding.

"I don't care if a player has got a style, as long as he makes no turnovers," Brown said. "As soon as you turn the ball [over], then you've got to be accountable."

Williams responded with the lowest assist-to-turnover ratio of his career.

The most important hire a coach can make

As you settle in to watch the OU-UF title game tonight, you'll have to appreciate how physically strong both teams are.

That's a credit to Jerry Schmidt (photo below) and Mickey Marotti (photo at left), the strength and conditioning coaches at Oklahoma and Florida, respectively.

According to this story in today's NY Times, "ask Sooners Coach Bob Stoops or Florida’s Urban Meyer to name the most valuable person in his program, and each would immediately point to his head strength and conditioning coach."

The increasingly important roles of Schmidt and Marotti are part of a booming trend in college football. N.C.A.A. rules do not allow position coaches to work with players in the off-season, so strength coaches become de facto head coaches.

Their booming voices are essentially the soundtracks of players’ collegiate lives, from predawn off-season workouts to the dog days of summer. Find a successful program like Florida or Oklahoma, and there is inevitably a strength coach serving as its backbone.

“He’s my first lieutenant,” Stoops said of Schmidt.

Meyer said his hiring of Marotti was “the most important hire that you can make.”

Marotti’s "unorthodox drills" have included "pushing tires and old maintenance vans around the football field" and pushing "wheelbarrows in sand pits."

Gators QB Tim Tebow says that Marotti "may be the most valuable coach on our team."

The article includes a story about how, during one workout, Schmidt "became upset because players did not run their warm-up lap fast enough. So he made the group run another and another and another. Finally, after seven unacceptable warm-up laps, Schmidt kicked the entire group out of the workout. When kicked out, players have to return later in the day and redo the entire workout."

Says one OU player (who passed out after his initial workout with Schmidt): "Everybody gets kicked out at least one time."

This article from the Palm Beach paper describes how Marotti "sets weight goals for players in the off-season, and helps them achieve the goals through tough love and positive reinforcement."

The 43-year-old Marotti, who Coach Meyer calls the "head coach of the first floor" (where the Gators' weight room is located), "is one of Meyer's top motivators, giving fiery speeches after practices and before games. Meyer calls him a 'master' of motivation and mental preparation."

"The biggest thing we do is hold the players accountable," Marotti said. "We basically try to suffocate them as much as we can, and stay on them 24-7."

In this article on ESPN.com, Coach Stoops describes why Coach Schmidt has a bigger influence on Sooner players than any other coach:

"He's with them every single day this time of year. We're not allowed to coach them. He's teaching them to be a better athlete. He gets more time with them. He isn't offense or defense. They look at him different. He works with everybody. He's my first lieutenant to the guys. They know I feel that's one of the strength points of the program. They know he's the guy. I don't have to be hands-on. He is."

Holding people accountable after a loss

DEN lost to ATL recently, 109-91, in a game with 16 lead changes. Denver led at the half, but "forced shots and was sloppy defensively" in the fourth quarter.

Two days later, in preparation for a game at TOR, the Nuggets watched film of the game. According to Chauncey Billups, "we held people accountable. I don't lose easy."

A team plays how they're coached to play

After losing by 10 to Arizona on Saturday in the Las Vegas Bowl, BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said his team had made a number of mental errors, something for which he took full responsibility.

"Championship teams don't do that," he said. "Championship coaches don't coach a team to do that. I've never shifted responsibility to anywhere other than myself. A team plays how they're coached to play."

Nobody is immune to getting yelled at

Love Ian Thomsen's story on SI.com about how Hornets teammates Chris Paul and David West hold each other accountable -- even during a game.

The article describes how Paul "drove to the basket and made a shot as he was fouled. To the surprise of fellow All-Star David West, however, Paul couldn't complete the three-point play."

West let him know that missing free throws wasn't acceptable.

"I jumped his ass," said West. "But you expect during the course of a game, when you need every basket, you just expect guys to make shots. I barked at him."

To outsiders, the exchanges between Paul and West appear to be contentious. That's not the case, according to their coach, Byron Scott:

"A normal fan would say these guys don't get along. But they get along extremely well, because they both want the same thing. They both want to win. Nobody is immune to getting yelled at. The great thing about it, to be honest with you, is they police each other so much that it makes my job easier. I very rarely have to pull those guys out and start yelling at the team and things like that."

Knowing how to kick them in the rear and kiss them on the cheek

Former Ball State coach Brady Hoke has taken over at San Diego State, where the Aztecs went 2-10 this past season.

Coach Hoke also played at Ball State, where "he was an inside linebacker... who compensated for inferior speed with advanced malevolence."

In his words: "I couldn't run very well. But I'd get your ass."

At his press conference, it was clear that Coach Hoke, who guided Ball State to a 12-1 record this season, emphasized toughness, respect, accountability, and preparation:

"We're going to coach hard. Whether that's raising your voice a little bit or not, we're going to make our emphasis on the things that are important and how we want to do things and the attention to detail you need to take to be successful. We are demanding. We're going to be fair, but we're going to be brutally honest.

This program is going to be a program that is based on toughness. You have to be physically tough and mentally tough. This is also going to be a program that is going to play with unbelievable effort every time we take the field.

This program is going to have people in it that respect each other. If we respect each other, then we are going to take the opportunity to lean on each other and hold each other accountable. When you have accountability on a team, then you have a chance to be very successful.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, `Success comes to those who prepare.' Well our preparation started today. We look forward to it; we are ready to hit the ground running and get this thing going."

Says his wife, Laura: "Brady believes in what he does. He's very demanding of the players, but he loves them, too. He knows how to kick them in the rear and kiss them on the cheek.”

Being honest with yourself is first step in rebuilding

In his first season as head coach at Texas A&M, former Packers coach Mike Sherman has gone 4-8, including a 49-9 loss to rival Texas on Thanksgiving.

But while the Aggies didn't reach their goal for wins this season, Coach Sherman says his team is further ahead than many sub-.500 teams:

"In spite of the fact that we didn't win and didn't perform well enough throughout the course of this season, I don't think you heard many excuses or finger-pointing or lack of accountability from the players or the coaches. And that's a starting point, because if you're not honest with yourself, you're not honest with your shortcomings."