Issue 722 - "2025: Cooperation: Seven Levels of Collaboration (Level Seven)"


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 722
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"2025: COOPERATION: SEVEN LEVELS OF COLLABORATION (LEVEL SEVEN)" John Wooden Video Clip (2 min. 17 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked: "Tell us how you went about preparing for UCLA practices?" This is the seventh and final part of our series on The Seven Levels of Collaboration. The first three levels described behaviors that prevent collaboration. Levels Four through Six highlighted positive behaviors that build it. We finish with the highest level: The No Recrimination Collaborator. Level Seven: The No Recrimination Collaborator Former UCLA Head Coach Gary Cunningham, and an assistant to Coach Wooden on eight national championship teams, told how he and Denny Crum once convinced Coach Wooden to try a 3–2 zone defense (a half-court defensive system Coach Wooden strongly opposed in principle). At the time, UCLA was undefeated and Coach Wooden had already won multiple national championships. He could have said, "We’re winning. Why change?" Instead, he listened and gave the idea a try. The Bruins won the first game with the new defense but lost the next night. The zone was abandoned. What stood out wasn’t the experiment, it was what happened after. Coach Cunningham described it this way: "That was the last time we brought up the 3–2 zone defense. But Coach Wooden had listened and given it—and us—a chance. He wasn’t afraid to make a change. And when it didn’t work, there were no recriminations. He moved on without making us feel we had led him down the wrong path." The No Recrimination Collaborator does not remind people of their past mistakes. Level Seven collaboration is not a passive-aggressive postmortem system where failures are brought up later as reminders or jokes. It’s an environment where analysis happens, lessons are learned, and then the slate is wiped clean—so people never hesitate to contribute again. Do you remind people of their past mistakes? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 722. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 722. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE Courage, Courage, Courage! When the burden grows heavy, and rough is the way, When you falter and slip, and it isn't your day, And your best doesn't measure to what is required, When you know in your heart that you're fast growing tired, With the odds all against you, there's one thing to do: That is, call on your courage and see the thing through. Who battles for victory ventures defeat. Misfortune is something we all have to meet; Take the loss with the grace you would take in the gain. When things go against you, don't whine or complain; Just call on your courage and grin if you can. Though you fail to succeed, do not fail as a man. There are dark days and stormy, which come to us all, When about us in ruin our hopes seem to fall. But stand to whatever you happen to meet— We must all drink the bitter as well as the sweet. And the test of your courage is: What do you do In the hour when reverses are coming to you. Never changed is the battle by curse or regret, Though you whimper and whine, still the end must be met And who fights a good fight, though he struggle in vain, Shall have many a victory to pay for his pain. So take your reverses as part of the plan Which God has devised for creating a man. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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Issue 722 - "2025: Cooperation: Seven Levels of Collaboration (Level Seven)"

Level Seven: The No Recrimination Collaborator