Page 112 - How to Create a Winning Organization

Wooden on Leadership
94
I began my career as a coach with a losing season in spite of all my
experience, awards, and accumulated knowledge in the subject of
basketball. In fact, one of the games we lost was to my alma mater,
Martinsville High School, led by my former coach, Glenn Curtis.
While I may have known as much about the game as Coach Curtis,
the difference was this: He knew how to teach it and I didn’t. It was
pretty much as simple as that.
As you might imagine, the leadership graveyard is full of failed
teams whose leaders, like me at the outset, were very well informed
but could not teach to save their soul. This is true in basketball,
business, and most other organizations.
Of course, knowledge is absolutely essential. I put it smack dab
in the heart of the Pyramid and called it Skill. But knowledge is not
enough. You must be able to effectively transfer what you know to
those you manage—not just the nuts-and-bolts material, but your
standards, values, ideals, beliefs, as well as your way of doing things.
Most of all, you must teach those under your leadership how to
become a real team rather than a group of individuals who simply
work at the same place for the same boss. All this is possible only if
you know how to teach.
If there is a single reason the UCLA Bruins enjoyed success in
basketball while I was head coach, it is because I learned how to be
a better and better teacher. The following is what I learned.

KNOWLEDGE IS NOT ENOUGH

Effective teaching is intrinsic to effective leadership, the kind
that can build and maintain a successful team. I am unaware
of any great team builders who were not also great team
teachers.