The Five T's of Excellent Coaches - Part 7: Do Coaches Really Matter?

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0:27Ranjay Gulati:Together let's drive. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+.

1:01So, you know, you may ask, do coaches really matter? It's really about the team and the players. Is there value-add to coaches? Now, you might say, come on, Ranjay, I know it matters, but really, how does it matter? I want to just give you an illustration of why I think talent alone is not enough. Having the most talented team doesn't always do it. And let's go back in time. If you look at the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan had played for the Bulls for six seasons and not won anything. Scottie Pippen had been with him for those previous last two seasons. And then Phil Jackson shows up. And what do they do?

1:36Go ahead, win the national championship. But they go on to win multiple times after that. Next, let's fast forward in the same coach, actually. A decade later, you have the Los Angeles Lakers, who've got Shaq O 'Neal and Kobe Bryant, two of the top talents there are. and they haven't. They've been together for a couple of years. They haven't won anything. Phil Jackson shows up several seasons in a row. And we can go countless other examples of coaches that have turned around a failing franchise. It's really interesting to look at new coaches when they come onto a team or when an old legendary coach leaves.

2:15That's probably the best thought experiment to ask ourselves, does a coach really matter? There's so much evidence showing that there are teams that do much better when an old coach leaves and do much better when a new coach arrives, and some do much worse. So I think coaches can play a very unique and distinctive role. Coaches as leaders are the catalyst. They are the carriers of the culture. They set the tone. They set the standards. They set the environment for what is expected of everybody. As any employee or player, you want someone who is your connection to the entity, you're working for.

2:52They are the personification of that entity. And so when they speak, they speak as the team. If you are the coach, you know, of the Seattle Seahawks, Pete Carroll, you're not speaking, you're not only Pete Carroll, you're my connect into this diffuse entity that we call the Seahawks. You are the personification of that. Me as a player or as an employee, you know, for me, what you say, how you conduct yourself carries so much meaning. And it is through that that I decide how I choose to show up. It's not just calling the plays. A coach is not just a tactician, technician who does calling the plays.

3:33Coaches, some of them really know how to unlock that talent. Leaders also are the unlock. A very famous Stanford professor talked about leaders as poets or plumbers? And the argument is made was that many leaders think they're plumbers. I'm here to fix the plumbing. Leadership is as much about poetry as it is about plumbing. Leaders have to fix the plumbing, but they also have to be poets.

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