Teammateship with NBA champion Shane Battier

0:05LeBron James is one of the greatest basketball players in history. In fact, recently, he broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record to become the leading scorer in the history of basketball. He's won four championships and has been an MVP four times and is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame. He is also not my guest, but Shane Battier is. Shane is not a household name, but what Shane does is as important as what LeBron does. because it turns out championship teams cannot win with stars alone. Shane Battier's ideas on teammateship are as if not more important than what it takes to be a leader. We need to learn more about teammateship.

0:54This is a bit of optimism. You and your career, I think, are fascinating because you've played with some of the greats. You've played with LeBron and folks like him, And we celebrate these, what are often called the leaders, the Kobe's, the Michael Jordan's, the LeBron James's. And yet we forget that there's a whole team that enables some of those stars to become stars. And you talk about this thing called teammateship versus leadership, which I find absolutely compelling because I think it's an oft ignored subject. I talk about Navy SEALs and high performing teams. And it's amazing to me how many people take my work and try to apply it to individuals and forget that it's always about teams.

1:35I think it's an amazing term. And I have to thank you for coming up with that term in our conversation. And after talking about some of the stories in my life, you're talking about teammateship. And when I tell people about teammateship, it's kind of a weird word. It doesn't flow off your tongue. We say leadership, leadership, leadership, leadership, right? Leadership is like super flowing. And we all, if you say leadership, we exactly know what we're talking about, what we're trying to figure out. When I say teammateship, people say teammateship and doesn't flow off the tongue. And that strikes me as like really weird because it's an essential part of our experiences as people, as workers and as family members and temple members and you name it.

2:17It's what makes us human. And so I feel very passionate about shining the light on how to be a great teammate. We don't think about that consciously day to day, but it's intertwined in everything we do. Is that a common mindset for other players? You played for three different teams, three different cities. You saw a lot of players come and go. The ones who were good at the job but weren't the stars, did they share your mindset? The great stars I played with, they've always appreciated team. And I've played with some stars that did not appreciate team, and they are not as luminary as a LeBron James, as a Dwayne Wade, as a Yao Ming, as a Pau Gasol.

3:00You know, Hall of Famers, the best of the best. I played with some amazing players that didn't appreciate team. So the irony is, even the truly, truly greats understand the importance of team. Basketball is unique where to truly be a legendary team, a winning team, and a team that repeats winning, Everyone has to play their role to the best of their ability. And that's why basketball is an amazing sport. So I appreciate that some of the greats that you played with understood the value of their teams. But I'm interested in the teams. I'm interested in the rank and file who are good at their jobs, but they're not the stars.

3:32They're not getting the endorsement deals. What is their attitude? Is it hyper competitive? Were you unique? Or did a high percentage of other players believe in this? Or was everybody just trying to protect themselves and be a star? Well, the reason why I get singled out, it's not because of my stats. It's because every team I was on won. They won. Whether that was Little League basketball, Detroit Country Day, three state titles, Duke University, I left as the most winningest basketball player in college basketball history. In the pros, I won two NBA championships. And my stats were very modest.

4:05And so no one's looking at me and saying, Batty A's a star. But every team I was on won. And so I think it is unique from a standpoint that I was a very average athlete. I was a very average statistically, but every team I was on wins. So it begs the question, like, what the heck did I do to have this magical ability, if not by my own talent? It was that. It was stay on the floor, stay on the floor and create value for myself as a teammate to my coaches and my teammates. Where did you learn this? Because you went from being the star your entire life, you were the star in college where your stats actually did stand out, where now you get to the NBA and nobody knows your name because of your stats.

4:44How did you learn this new point of view? Because you were the star for your whole life. That's what got you to the NBA. First of all, teammateship is, there's a humility to it. But I had an ego, and it's okay to have an ego. I played for the legendary Coach K. And Coach K said, look, we don't want you to check your ego. For us to be good, you need to have an ego. But have an ego about the right things. And so I learned this when I was in first grade, kindergarten. I grew up mixed, tall, and poor. Mixed. I was the only kid with a black dad and a white mom in a very predominantly white neighborhood.

5:15I was poor. I had iron-on patches on my jeans. I remember what a government cheese sandwich tasted like, and I was a foot taller than everybody else. And so I was like a freak in every sense of the word. I didn't fit in. But the one place I always fit in was at recess, and that's playing kickball, baseball, football, you name it. And I realized that when my teams won and I made my friends look good, I'm accepted, I'm loved and they want me on their team. It was the same mentality I carried, you know, with me for 30 years of basketball at the highest, highest level. It was, how do I help my friends win and have success?

5:52And it's not about my success. It's about our success, 100%. So like, that's where, that was where I was born of. So is that unique? Maybe. Is it unique that I learned in kindergarten? Probably. I love this. And I think this is a very important point to underscore, which is there's nothing wrong with competitiveness. There's nothing wrong with ego. There's nothing wrong with ambition. But it's, as Coach K said, which is, is it the desire that I want to win or is it the desire that I want the team to win? That drive for the team to win underscores the ambition and ego of teammateship versus the misunderstanding of leadership, which is I want to win.

6:28Any other big lessons you learn from other coaches or other players that you carry to this day? Everything I learned, I learned from my dad, honestly, in first grade. My dad was not a well-learned man. He didn't graduate from university. He ran a small trucking company in Michigan, very middle-class, humble man. But the lessons he talked to me about controlling the things that I could control, my hustle, my attitude. He was a stickler not for how I held a bat, but he was a stickler of how I cheered for the 10th man on our team. If I wasn't as enthusiastic about supporting that 10th man as I was our second man, then I was wrong.

7:04And so he held me to a higher standard because I was one of the better players in the team. But he held everyone to a higher standard that we have to be the best team. And so it was never about wins and losses. It was about standards, how we carried ourselves, and the expectations that we had internally. That's all that mattered. How is teammateship different off the court, in the locker room, than somebody who's not practicing teammateship, for example? It's about trust. This is what we're talking about. Can I trust this person when there's fire on the line, they're going to do their job to the best of their ability, even if that's underperformance.

7:36I saw an amazing talk that you give about the SEALs. They would rather send an underperforming team in that trusts each other more versus an overperforming team that has lower trust because you know what you're getting. That's true for humanity. You've got to build the trust to know that you're getting the consistent effort time and time again. And that comes out when adversity and stress hits. That's when that's really tested. Look, it's easy to be a team player when you're winning. All right, easy, very easy. When the shit hits the fan, now you're tested. Now you're tested. Do you have the bonds?

8:08Have you built that trust through repetition, through consistency? You know, the best teams that I played on a basketball did that. I love this idea because it's, you know what it is? It's the difference between investing versus gambling, which is if I have a consistent underperforming teammate, as you said, I know where their weaknesses are, I know where their strengths are, and I can manage around that and know how to use that. And I want to coach that person. They have to be open to coaching. They have to be willing to do the work, right? We can't just leave them to be underperformers, right?

8:35And I can work with them to step up their performance incrementally. So they went from being a baseline zero to a baseline one to a baseline two. And I can see an incremental improvement. And what I'm doing is I'm investing in that player to get consistent increases in performance. Whereas you have another player who's inconsistent. Sometimes I get a star and sometimes I get a dud. And the problem is now I'm gambling because every time I put that player on the court, I don't know what I'm going to get. We may strike a jackpot or we may blow out, but every time I have to cross my fingers. And I love this idea that a strong team is a good team.

9:13The leadership is more likely to invest in the underperformers to bring their performance up to consistently higher levels rather than another team leader who thinks of one of their high performers as a star because they occasionally, not to belabor the point, but I had this challenge once personally where we had a member of our team that we didn't know what to do with because I had this inconsistency where there were times where they were a freaking star. Like the work that they did was freaking A work. And then there were other times we don't know what happened and it could only be classified as like D work, right?

9:51We've tried coaching this person. We tried working with them. They were somewhat resistant because every time we point out the D work, all they would say is, yeah, but look at my A work and really struggled with, is this person a high performer or not? And a friend of mine said, Simon, a player with A plus D work is a C player. can't win with them can't win with them you can't over the long run i'm sure you get this question all the time and what's the value of talent it's a loaded question what's the value of consistent talent so my advice the best way to work that and people like okay that's great how do i develop consistency something that coach k going back to duke he taught us was the power of the next play so in basketball there's literally like a thousand ways to impact a single possession all right i can make a shot.

10:38I can miss a shot. I can grab a rebound. I can make a turnover. I can make a steal. All those outcomes are either negative or positive. The people who celebrate their wins make a great shot. They come down and they're doing all the TikTok dances and pointing to the crowd and all that stuff. They're not focused on the most important play, which is the next play. Then on the other end of the token, the player that has a horrible play, they trip over their feet, they fall, team takes the ball, they go down and dunk it, gets the crowd in the game. He's embarrassed. Does that player slump his shoulders and say, oh, I'm not a good basketball player.

11:11Maybe I shouldn't play basketball anymore. No, you get your tail back and you move on to the next play. And in life, the people that can move on to the next play with the discipline, with enthusiasm, with a focus, with everything that you have quicker than the opponent, quicker than the next person, they win. They win. And it's just the mentality. Anybody of success, if note, has that trait. Next play speed. I agree, and it comes with some liability because I believe in balance, which is the player that over-celebrates the touchdown, the score, the basket, the run is the person who throws the racket and beats themselves up or yells at somebody when the shot is missed.

11:52The overreaction is balanced on both sides. I've worked very hard that when things go wrong, I tend to stay pretty even-keeled and be like, all right, that sucks. We're okay here. But the liability is I don't celebrate the wins either. So when we get a win, I'm always like, okay, yeah, yeah. Congratulations, everyone. We did it. But, you know, we're going to have to come back to work tomorrow. And, you know, it's like – and what I found that though that is a balanced approach, sometimes I've been on teams where they've worked hard for the win and it seems like I'm underappreciative or I don't value the win because my reaction is tempered.

12:29And so sometimes I've had to fake it where I'm like, amazing, guys. This is incredible. What's going through my head is, all right, this is great. But we've got to come back tomorrow. A hundred percent. But what you're trying to do, you're trying to be a dynasty. So your ambition is to not only win a regular season game or this season's championship. You want to win the next 10 years. And so that's where vision and ambition comes into play. and people who really get it. I am the same way. I wanted to be remembered forever. And you don't do that by winning a game or even one championship. You get remembered for winning multiple years.

13:08Not everyone has that, and that's okay. That's okay. And so, yes, you do have to celebrate the wins in moderation. Simon, I live by a very simple phrase. Everything in moderation, including moderation. You've had two NBA championships, right? Correct. Back to back. Correct. When you win a championship, I mean, the emotions are overwhelming. You celebrate hard. what does that team feel like, look like when they come back the next season and there's now the pressure to repeat? How do you reset to baseline after a huge win? What was the team like when you won the first championship that allowed it to win the second championship that you weren't able to win the third championship?

13:48There's a lot in that. We were very intentional about taking what was worth keeping on the first one but discarding that wholesale and saying, no, we got to do it in a different way. So before I got there, the year before they won the first championship, I was not there. They had lost the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA finals. And this was the first year of the big three with LeBron and Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. And they're promising seven championships. And there was a big hoopla. Well, they did not know how to win as a team. They were a great collection of individuals, but it was like my turn, your turn, my turn.

14:20And there was a dance in the end when they really needed it. they didn't have it. Dallas did. They're champions. So I come into this next year with the Miami Heat, and I'd never been a part of a team that was hungrier. Still was talented, but the edge on this team, they were not going to be denied. These guys are dogs. They are hungry. And that hunger was the propellant that got us the first championship. So coming back in year two, The edge is less. It's palpable. But the edge is different now because we know we want to be a legendary team, not just a great team. And you only do that by winning two championships.

15:00And so it was a new edge that was formed, a new challenge that the truly, truly greats win back-to-back because it's so hard. Again, we go through the fires. We almost lose to the Spurs in Game 6 in the NBA Finals. Ray Allen hits the most famous shot in NBA history. We win the championship. Third year.

15:46And they kicked our butt. And at the end, we all knew it. We all knew it. And there was nowhere to hide. There was no excuses. They said, you know what? That was a great team. They were hungrier than us. And that was the last of the Miami Heat. I retired. Ray Allen retired. LeBron moves back to Cleveland. And so understanding how temporary greatness can be is a motivating factor. When you have it, squeeze it for all it's worth because it goes quickly. That's so fascinating about the hunger. What specifically did the coaches or the players change between 2012 and 2013 that allowed you guys to win the second time?

16:19I don't care how good you are. You always have to introduce chaos into the system. As good as you are. Pat Riley, the great general manager of the Heat, he always used to say, you can't win with 12 milk drinkers. It's okay to throw a guy who drinks Jack in there. You have to throw in some chaos to keep people on their toes and say, wow. So we go out and we sign new players. The next year, we went and signed Ray Allen. And Ray Allen is different. And he's got a different experience. And Ray was a great teammate. But it gets you out of your comfort zone as a team and as an individual. And it makes you reexamine how you do things.

16:57And so no matter how good you are, you have to introduce chaos, controlled chaos, just to keep people on their toes. And when you stop doing that, that's when the competition gains on you. So is there a formula for how to introduce chaos? us? Yeah. In basketball, it's pretty cut and dry. There are certain players that you know can be additive and the talent is commensurate with the risk. In a corporate setting, in a leadership setting, you really have to understand what your team can handle, the personality of your managers, your operators. As a leader, you think you could handle the systemic chaos because also you wouldn't be thinking about it.

17:35But can your people handle that tension? If that's sort of a principle, an organizational principle of, look, we're always going to evolve and we're always going to learn. There are two types of organizations. And I'd say people in the world, there's knowing organizations and people and learning organizations and people. Knowing people, they know the answer. This is what we do and this is how we do it and everything else is wrong. And you have a learning organization, learning people. Like, okay, let's learn. Is this a better way to do things? It's not, okay, maybe this is a better way to do things.

18:06If that's like your mantra and that's your culture of like learning, I think you're more open to accepting that chaos because you know that like this could help us and this could keep us relevant and keep us innovative. Did you ever play on a team where the team was actually a little bit chaos resistant and how did the coach get them to be embracing of chaos or did you never see that transition happen? Oh, absolutely. Look, I've been on a lot of championship teams. I've been on a lot of crappy teams as well. So I get drafted by the Memphis Grizzlies. It was their first year in Memphis. They moved from Vancouver.

18:38And I go from Duke, which won a record number of games in four years, to the Memphis Grizzlies, who had the lowest winning percentage of the four North American sports. Literally. MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL. So literally the worst team in franchise history in North America. You talk about a team that had no trust organizationally, no culture of excellence. I show up on the first day of the NBA and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm in the NBA. I got to be in the best shape of my life because this is like the world-class athlete. So I'm in unbelievable shape because I'm terrified. I'm not good enough. And we take off for a one mile run, one mile, four laps around the track.

19:15And I lapped four of my teammates and four of those guys couldn't even finish a mile. And I'm thinking to myself, like, I see why this is the worst franchise in North America. And so you talk about a team that was comfortable, didn't have what I call mission focus, didn't know how to win, didn't have the habits, crumbled under adversity. There were a few people in the locker room who did care, who were professional, who were about the team. And so there was a management change and we got this old school coach named Hubie Brown. He came in and Hubie was 75 years old and totally changed the culture and said, we're going back to basics.

19:52we're a laughingstock and it starts with fundamentals. So during the middle of the season, we went back to two a days, which is unheard of. We're playing a game against the Lakers. We got two practices the next day to change the culture and change how we think about ourselves and change our fundamentals. And he said, guys, it's going to take a year. It'll take us one year. Second half of the year, we're going to kick some butt. And the next year we're making the playoffs. And that would have been laughable. But we had a core that believed. We had a core that did the right thing. and a funny thing happened, that core became very powerful.

20:25And the people who maybe didn't know what to do or how to do the right thing started to act like the guys who cared. And all of a sudden, we had critical mass of people who were about the right thing, staying late, not making excuses, discipline. And guess what? We made the playoffs the next year. We made the playoffs the next three years. Unheard of. So it starts with strong leaders and a core of people who believe and introducing that chaos in a controlled way, a responsible way that, you know what, if we do this, we'll be rewarded. We'll all be rewarded. And we were. The irony is here is introducing chaos isn't necessarily chaotic.

21:04The definition of chaos isn't actually madness. The definition of chaos is not the status quo. To the malcontents it was. It was chaos to the guys who were bad, bad news. Exactly. I think it's a misnomer to call it introduced chaos. It's introducing discomfort. Yes. Because as you said, the guys who couldn't run a mile, but they make a decent living. They got a good life. And the discomfort introduced wasn't novel. It was like, we're going to do the basics. If we're going to be a professional organization, you have to show up on time. You have to practice. You have to be able to run a mile. And I think that's so interesting about introducing discomfort.

21:37And from a corporate standpoint, from a business standpoint, it doesn't mean you have to replace the whole team. It involves the two things, which is good leadership who's willing to take the risk to introduce the discomfort, who's willing to say this is a building year, but next year we have no excuses. And as you said, a core group of people who fundamentally believe in teammateship who say, it's not about me being comfortable, about me being uncomfortable. It's about, I want to see this team win and I'm going to be a team player to see this team win. I think that's so valuable that you don't have to replace a whole team to introduce discomfort, but you do need those early adopters to embrace the new ways of doing it.

22:16and what you said, which is eventually people fall in line. They copy the ones who are enjoying the success and seeing things change. Can you tell me a specific experience that you had in your professional basketball career, a specific game maybe, or a specific coach, or a specific time that if everything like this, everything in your life was like this one specific time, you'd be the happiest person alive? Yeah. Well, it was the high point of my basketball life. And it came within two weeks of the lowest point of my basketball life. And I was a three-point shooter. I was a pretty good three-point shooter.

22:47Well, in the playoff run of 2013, I went through the worst slump of my career after having the best shooting year of my entire career. Couldn't make a shot in the playoffs. All right. I'm four for 30 at one point. I'm like embarrassed. I'm like, I'm not doing my job. I go to my coach before game seven of the Eastern Conference finals, go back to the NBA finals. I say, coach, I know I've been horrible, but I'm built for game seven. This is why I'm here. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do, but you put me in that game. I'm going to do something. I didn't play one minute that game that night.

23:21The first time I ever had the words DNPCD did not play coach's decision next to my name. The first time ever from YMCA ball to the NBA, my coach told me, Shane, the best chance of us winning doesn't involve you for one second. So I'm crushed. I'm thinking, is this it? Am I washed? Am I too old? So I had a pity party for a hot second, but next play, next morning, I said, I'm going to be ready. I'm going to prepare like a champion because that's who I am. And if I get my chance, I'm going to make the most of it. And so I kept the faith. I didn't play game one, game two, game three of the NBA finals.

23:55Game four, I get in the game. Game five, I get in the game. I bank in a three-pointer and say, that's a sign. Game six, I make a couple of three-pointers. Game seven, NBA finals, something every kid dreams about. And the first five times I catch the ball, the first quarter, start the game five for five from the three-point line and the game NBA game seven finals record six for eight from the three-point line score 18 points we win the championship and I give performance that no one no one maybe not even me knew was coming in game seven of the biggest game of my life and so again at that moment when the clock hit zero it was kind of an out-of-body experience.