Wooden's Wisdom | Leadership Resource Center

Issue 670 - "Never Criticize A Teammate" (Daniel Coyle and John Wooden)


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 670
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"NEVER CRITICIZE A TEAMMATE" (DANIEL COYLE AND JOHN WOODEN) John Wooden Video Clip (1 min. 42 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked: "Why was your coaching style so different from others?" Coach Wooden understood a key to peak performance is how teammates treat each other. One of Coach Wooden’s three rules for practice was: never criticize a teammate. Danny Meyer, one of the most successful restaurateurs in history, built his teams the same way. Restaurants in New York City have an eighty percent failure rate. In thirty years, Meyer opened twenty-five restaurants. Twenty-four were successful. In his book, The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle related an experience he had while interviewing Meyer at breakfast at one of his restaurants: "Behind me, a tray accidentally slips from a waiter’s hand, and several water glasses smash on the floor. For a microsecond, all the action stops. Meyer raises a finger, pressing pause on our conversation so he can watch what happens. The waiter who dropped the glasses starts picking up the pieces, and another waiter arrives with a broom and a dustpan. The cleanup happens swiftly, and everyone turns back to their food. Then I asked Meyer why he was watching so closely. "I’m watching for what happens right afterward, and I’m looking for their energy level to go up. They connect to clean up the problem, and the energy level goes either up or down, and if we’re doing our job right, their energy level will go up. They are creating uplifting energy that has nothing to do with the task and everything to do with each other and what comes next." I asked Meyer what a bad interaction looks like. "It’s one of two things," he says. "Either they’re disinterested—‘I’m just doing my job’ kind of thing. Or they’re angry at the other person or the situation. And if I were to see that, I would know that there’s a deeper problem here, because the number one job is to take care of each other." Coach Wooden and Danny Meyer insisted teammates treated each other in a positive way even when mistakes happened. How do your teammates treat each other when mistakes happen? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 670. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 670. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE Dreaming Just now I think I 'd like to be At the river's brink Beneath a tree, And stretched out flat On the cooling grass, Just gazing at The clouds that pass Like toy ships fair In a sea of blue; But I can't be there, I have work to do. Or I 'd like to be In an orchard gay, Where every tree Is in bloom today; Where the pink and white Of the blossoms sweet Blot out the fright Of the city street, Where there's nothing to see But what is true; But that cannot be For I've work to do. Oh, I'd like to steal From my little den, From the great unreal And the haunts of men To the joyous truth Of the open air, To the honest youth That I left back there, To the boy I was In the days of old; But I can't because I’m a slave to gold. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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