GREETINGS
FROM COACH JOHN WOODEN

Whether your team has talent to spare
or is spare on talent, a leader’s goal
remains the same; namely, you must bring forth
the best from those with whom you work.

Most leaders define winning as beating an opponent, gaining supremacy over the competition in the marketplace, achieving production or sales goals.

For any of these objectives to be met, talent must be present within your organization. A leader can’t create a competitive team out of nothing; no coach can win consistently, and no leader can prevail in the marketplace without good material.

However, while you need talent to win, many leaders don’t know how to win even with talent in their organization. Furthermore, we are frequently forced to compete when the talent match-up isn’t in our favor. What then?

Over and over I have taught that we all have a certain potential, unique to each one of us. A unique potential also exists for every team. My responsibility as a leader—and yours—is to make the utmost effort to bring forth that potential. When this occurs, you have achieved success. Then, perhaps when circumstances come together, we may find that we are very competitive, perhaps even number 1.

It is my belief that when this occurs—being number 1, winning—it is simply a by-product of leadership that knows how to get the most out of a team that is very talented. Thus, for me the highest standard is success—the knowledge that you have made the effort to teach your team how to work together at their highest level.

And that, in my opinion, is the first goal of leadership—namely, getting the very best out of the people in your organization, whether they have talent to spare or are spare on talent.

Coach Wooden’s Leadership Game Plan for Success seeks to offer details of how I went about bringing forth my own potential and that of our teams—striving to reach an uppermost level of our competency.

In some seasons the teams I taught were blessed with significant ability. Other years this was not the case. But in all years and with all levels of talent, my goal remained exactly the same, namely, to get the most out of what we had.

What I teach has stood me in good stead during nearly a half century in the competitive arena, and in spite of all of the changes we see around us, I believe it can be equally effective in the twenty-first century. Why? Because in many ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

And one of the things that has stayed the same is people—human nature hasn’t changed.