Motivate Your Team! Cheer Up A Friend! Inspire Yourself!
Motivate Your Team! Cheer Up A Friend! Inspire Yourself!
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| Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13 | Issue 756 |
| Craig Impelman Speaking | Championship Coaches | Champion's Leadership Library Login | |
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"BLUE CHIPS, WHITE CHIPS, AND FIRST THINGS FIRST" John Wooden Video Clip (42 sec.): Coach Wooden defines Cooperation. Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism, teaches a powerful idea: most people are not overwhelmed because they have too little time. They are overwhelmed because they spend too much time on things that matter very little. McKeown calls this "the trivial many" versus "the vital few."
One of my very favorite John Wooden quotes is: "Don’t mistake activity for achievement."
One way to think about priorities is through the idea of "blue chips" and "white chips." A blue chip represents something worth 10 points in importance. A white chip represents something worth only 1 point.
This creates a simple framework:
Some people feel productive although they stay busy all day collecting white chips. while the truly important work gets postponed.
McKeown writes, "If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will." Without intentional planning, the urgent will constantly crowd out the important. One of the strongest concepts in Essentialism is that successful people learn to eliminate, delegate, automate, or deprioritize low-value activity. They protect time for the work that requires deep thinking, creativity, leadership, relationship-building, strategic planning, and personal growth. McKeown summarizes the philosophy in three simple words: "Less but better."
Ken Blanchard’s book, The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, adds another important layer to prioritization. Blanchard explains that many leaders become overwhelmed because they constantly accept other people’s "monkeys" — problems, follow-ups, and responsibilities that should remain with the original owner. Instead of spending time on blue chip priorities like leadership, planning, coaching, and strategy, managers become trapped handling endless white chip interruptions.
Blanchard’s solution was simple: clarify ownership, delegate properly, and make sure every "monkey" stays with the right person. As he put it, "The best way to develop responsibility in people is to give them responsibility." Leaders who carry everybody else’s monkeys eventually lose time for the blue chips that matter most.
Coach John Wooden believed in "First Things First." and had his own list of Blue Chips:
He surrounded these priorities with "Love and Balance".
He organized his schedule around those priorities. Coach Wooden would not allow UCLA to schedule games on Sundays because attending church and honoring his faith mattered more to him than basketball. Practice always started at 3:00 PM and ended by 5:30 PM because he wanted his players focused on school, family, and balanced living.
Coach sat courtside at 2:30 each day in case a player needed someone to talk to and personally inspected the cleanliness of the locker room after every practice. Coach did not view these as white chips to be delegated because his relationships with his players and the personal example he set for them were blue chips.
What are your "Blue Chips"?
Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman
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“Love is the most important word in our language.” — John Wooden Sonnet 107 Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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