WASHINGTON–One of the winningest college basketball coaches of all time, as well as a three-time Olympic gold-winning coach, shared with credit unions here what he learned about leadership during his career.
Mike Krzyzewski, who coached at Duke from 1980-2022, during which he won five national title and went to 13 Final Fours, spoke to America’s Credit Unions GAC. Krzyzewski also coached the U.S. national team, which won Olympic gold medals in 2008, 2012 and 2016, and was an assistant coach for the 1992 “Dream Team.”
Coach K, as he is best known, had done some homework on his audience, but admitted, “I know we must have a dozen credit unions in the triangle area where I live in North Carolina, but I didn’t know you took over the world,” he said referring to credit unions’ more than 100-million members.
Putting Together Teams
Prior to participating in a Q&A, Krzyzewski said he wanted to talk about putting together teams and leadership.
He recalled one of his earliest meetings with USA basketball and the incredible NBA athletes he was preparing to coach, saying the person who spoke before him “said something I didn’t agree with. He told our guys to leave their egos at the door. I don’t believe in that. I said, ‘I want you to bring all your talent, all your ego.”
He jokingly added that Kobe Bryant and LeBron James “were going to do it anyway.
“All have individual teams and you have egos…I said ‘You can put all your egos under one ego umbrella and let’s call it USA basketball. If we do that we’ll win the world. We always had a picture of the gold medal up in our meeting room and I said, ‘We won’t win that unless you understand the very important thing—you’re not playing for the United States, you are the United States.”
The Value of Preparation
Krzyzewski stressed the value of preparation, something he learned under famed coach Bobby Knight when Krzyzewski played for Knight at Army. Krzyzewski would bring a relationship with the military to the U.S. national teams he coached.
Another practice Krzyzewski put in place was “standards.”
Two of the standards he said he had throughout his life was that everyone look at each other in the eye when talking, and that each person tell the truth.
“What happens as a result of that is the value that is developed for your organization. It’s called trust,” he explained. “Maybe the most important thing you could take from these few days is developing the speed to trust…Speed to trust is not just with your own teams. Keep renewing the relationships with the people you have the honor to serve.”
60 Years of Study
Krzyzewski, who is 78, said he has been studying leadership since he was 18 said the leadership standard Lebron James established with the national team was “no excuses.”
“That became our first standard. It’s been the first standard on every team that I’ve coached now,” said Krzyzewski.
He said it was similar to what he learned when he was at West Point, where the only permissible answers were “yes, sir,” “no, sir and “no excuse, sir.”
“I learned that stuff happens not to spend a second on excuses,” he said. “Instead, only solutions, because failure is not our destination and I’m not going to spend time with excuses. It’s a mindset of solutions.”
The Three A’s
Krzyzewski focused his remarks on what he called the “Three A’s of leadership.”
Agility.
Comparing the skill do what a quarterback does, Krzyzewski said it’s about the ability to make “reads.”
Adaptable.
“God played a trick on me: the guys I coached always stayed the same age and I kept getting older. So, I had to change maybe 15-20 times how I communicated. It’s on you as the leader to communicate and get your message across. Ten years ago I could speak to a team for 20-25 minutes; the last couple of years I coached, it was eight minutes.”
He said sometimes teams get tired of hearing one voice, which was why he would have others speak to the team, as well.
“If we’re going to do something I can come up and ask you what do you think about what we’re doing, or I can ask how do you feel about what we’re doing It hits you in a different place. Hopefully, you’ll tell me that it’s OK, but if we establish that level of communication. A good leader is sometimes perceived to be somebody who can solve problems. The great leaders avoid a lot of problems, and they avoid a lot of problems if they have that type of intel because maybe you saw something that I didn’t see. But I never asked you. Now, what happens is instead of talking beforehand and then it never happens. You never you own it.”
Accountability
Not holding people accountable means people and scenarios never change, said Krzyzewski.
But that doesn’t mean “berating” someone. Instead, it’s about telling them, “I need you to do a little bit better. But also don’t let that be the only thing you’ll ever say to anybody.”
He shared the story of having to hold Kobe Bryant accountable during the 2008 Beijing Olympics after the player who was the greatest player in the world at the time began taking too many bad shots. Coach K told Bryant the team could not win any medal if he kept it up. Bryant put his ego aside and took better shots.
Later, in a very tight game against Spain, when the team took a time out Krzyzewski began drawing up a play. But then the hand of “the guy I held accountable” touched Krzyzewski and told the coach, “We don’t need a play.”
The Americans won.