Building A Team In Any Sport Begins With Mutual Trust

The NSCAA’s Soccer Journal has recently published a series of articles about coaches from other sports than soccer. This article about Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski appeared in the July/August 2013 issue of the Soccer Journal. It was originally published in PGA Magazine.

Ten years ago, the CEO of General Electric was one of the speakers at a seminar designed to inspire top-level managers and increase productivity.
After Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University’s basketball coach, addressed the managers, the CEO asked his personal secretary, “Which corporation does he work for? Find out if he’s available. I ant him on my team.’
The CEO wasn’t aware that Krzyzewski would go on to become the winningest men’s basketball coach in NCAA history. He wasn’t aware that Krzyzewski had built a basketball dynasty at Duke and served as a mentor, coach, confidant and advisor to more than three dozen young men who went on to be selected in the NBA Draft.
He hadn’t heard of Coach K, the man who has guided Du[show_disconnected][show_to accesslevel=’Subscriber’]ke to four NCAA national championships and helped 22 players achieve All-American status. He thought Krzyzewski was an executive from another Fortune 500 company.
“I’ve heard that story, but I don’t remember that CEO offering me a job,” Krzyzewski writes in his book “Beyond Basketball Coach K’s Keywords for Success.”
The book describes how Coach K has transformed Duke into a dynasty by developing a special relationship with his players and emphasizing principals such as communication, confidence, discipline, teamwork, trust and responsibility.
Krzyzewski’s reputation as a teacher of young men has transcended his success as a coach. He speaks with passion and coaches the same way. He knows individual talent never will trump a team working in unison for a common cause.
He knows a team with solid leadership always will prevail against a team made up of five or six individuals interested in padding their personal stats.
Krzyzewski explains: “Visualize a wagon wheel as a complete team. A leader might be the hub of the wheel at the center. Now suppose the spokes are the connecting relationships the leader is building with people on the outer rim of the wheel. If the hub is removed, then the entire wheel collapses.
“In a situation like that, if a team loses the leader, the entire team collapses. Every leader needs to remember that a healthy respect for authority takes time to develop. It’s like building trust. You don’t instantly have trust; it has to be earned.
When a leader takes responsibility for his own actions and mistakes, he not only sets a good example, he shows a healthy respect for people on his team. When every team member trusts the other, you have the spokes in that wagon wheel working together to move the wagon forward.
Krzyzewski believes the four most important words in life are “I believe in you.” Coach K invites soccer coaches and managers from all walks of life to instill confidence and trust in their staffs by pausing to say, “I believe in you” or “together we can succeed.”
“There are five fundamental qualities that make every basketball or business team great,” explains Krzyzewski. “The five are communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring and pride.
“I like to think of each as a separate finger on the fist. Any one finger individually is important. But all five together are unbeatable. You develop a team to achieve what one person cannot accomplish along.
“All of us alone are weaker by far, than if all of us are together. Confidence shared is better than confidence only in yourself.”
Coach K believes communication is paramount to team success, but fears the art and science of communication and building relationships are disappearing in the business and basketball worlds.
“Effective teamwork begins and ends with communication,” says Krzyzewski. “Communication must be taught and practiced in order to bring everything together as one. Communication and trust go hand in hand in leadership, there are no words more important than trust and communication.
“In any organization, trust must be developed among every member of the team is success is to be achieved. Two are better than one if two act as one. And if communication is not strong, the left hand will never know that the right hand is doing.”
In the case of Krzyzewski’s program at Duke, the left hand seems to always know what the right hand is doing-annually making its way to another NCAA Tournament appearance and a position of college basketball prominence.
(Reprinted From Soccer Journal)