Issue 721 - "2025: Cooperation: Seven Levels of Collaboration (Level Six)"


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 721
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"2025: COOPERATION: SEVEN LEVELS OF COLLABORATION (LEVEL SIX)" John Wooden Video Clip (1 min. 10 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked: "What role has truth played in your life?" There’s a great quote here. This is the sixth of a seven-part series on The Seven Levels of Collaboration. The first three levels described negative behaviors that block collaboration. With Level Four: The Sincere Collaborator and Level Five: The Proactive Collaborator, we moved to positive models. Now comes Level Six: The Debate Maker. Level Six: The Debate Maker Collaborator Coach Wooden was famous for challenging his assistants. When they presented ideas, he forced them to defend each point. It wasn’t criticism, it was sharpening. He believed every idea had to withstand pressure before it could work in competition. Leadership author Liz Wiseman, in her book Multipliers, describes Microsoft executive Lutz Ziob as a true "debate maker." Lutz and his team faced a major decision: should Microsoft’s education business be refocused on schools rather than corporate providers? He gave his team two weeks to prepare positions, then had each person present. As Wiseman explains, when consensus formed too quickly, Lutz deliberately stirred things up. He pushed for unresolved issues to surface and then used his signature move: the switch. He required team members to swap sides and argue against their own position. Wiseman writes: "Imagine the effect this has on a team. By arguing from the opposite, or a different point of view, the individuals: see the issues from another person’s perspective, developing deeper empathy and understanding, have to argue against themselves, surfacing the problems and pitfalls in their opening position, find new alternatives that elicit the best ideas from the competing options, and separate themselves from a position. When the final decision is reached, it no longer has an owner or advocate. The group owns the final position." Coach Wooden and Lutz didn’t let their teams slide into quick agreement. They created debate that strengthened ideas, built empathy, and produced the best possible outcome. Do you let your team settle too quickly? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 721. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 721. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE The Gentle Gardner I'd like to leave but daffodils to mark my little way, To leave but tulips red and white behind me as I stray; I'd like to pass away from earth and feel I'd left behind But roses and forget-me-nots for all who come to find. I'd like to sow the barren spots with all the flowers of earth, To leave a path where those who come should find but gentle mirth; And when at last I'm called upon to join the heavenly throng I'd like to feel along my way I'd left no sign of wrong. And yet the cares are many and the hours of toil are few; There is not time enough on earth for all I'd like to do; But, having lived and having toiled, I'd like the world to find Some little touch of beauty that my soul had left behind. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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Issue 721 - "2025: Cooperation: Seven Levels of Collaboration (Level Six)"

Level Six: The Debate Maker Collaborator