Wooden's Wisdom | Leadership Resource Center

Issue 653 - "We Are All In This Together" (Daniel Coyle and John Wooden)


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 653
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"WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER" (DANIEL COYLE AND JOHN WOODEN) John Wooden Video Clip (1 min. 10 sec.): Coach Wooden recites his poem: "Don’t Look Back." Daniel Coyle is the New York Times bestselling author of The Culture Code. In his book, Coyle writes a key to creating a great team culture is to have a leader who makes everybody feel "we are all in this together." Coyle described one-way leaders can do that: "Pick Up Trash: Back in the mid-1960s, UCLA’s men’s basketball team was in one of the most successful eras in sports history, winning ten titles in twelve years. Franklin Adler, the team’s student manager, saw something odd: John Wooden, the team’s legendary head coach, was picking up trash in the locker room. "Here was a man who had already won three national championships bending down and picking up scraps from the locker room floor." Wooden was not alone. Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, was famous for picking up trash. "Every night you’d see him coming down the street, walking close to the gutter, picking up every McDonald’s wrapper and cup along the way," former McDonald’s CEO Fred Turner told author Alan Deutschman. "He’d come into the store with both hands full of cups and wrappers. Both leaders had a mindset of seeking simple ways to serve the group. These actions are powerful not just because they are moral or generous but also because they send a larger signal: We are all in this together." When a John Wooden team left the bench after a game it was spotless. The coaches did not leave papers and stat sheets on the ground and the players did not leave towels and cups for somebody else to pick up. The student managers, the players, and the coaches, led by John Wooden’s example, worked as a team to make sure there was never any need for a janitor to pick up behind them. By his actions, Coach communicated to the student managers, players, trainers, and assistant coaches that they were working with him, not for him. Everybody knew: "We are all in this together." Do you pick up the trash or ask somebody else to take care of it? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 653. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 653. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE Winds Of The Morning Winds of the morning, whisper low, Lingered you in the valley where Sleeps my love of the Long Ago, Under the pale green grasses there? Tell me, winds of the morning, sweet, There you paused in your gentle way, Before you came to the city street, To kiss the daisies that o'er her sway. There, from there, all your fragrance rare You gathered, winds of the morning, say; Whisper low that you come from there To cheer the heart of me today. Winds of the morning, so cool and sweet, Laden with fragrance; I know, I know You have come from that deep retreat, Where sleeps my love of the Long Ago. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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