Page 192 - How to Create a Winning Organization

Wooden on Leadership
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effects of criticism—player to player, employee to employee—can
be extremely destructive to the group. I spent decades figuring out
how and when to apply commendations and criticism to achieve
optimum results with minimum damage. It was not something I
wanted left to chance, not something a player was equipped to do.
I did not tolerate such behavior.
On those few occasions when a player or two started going after
someone else, I would sometimes wait until we got back to the
locker room and then remind the group of how the Roman Em-
pire crumbled—not from the outside, but
“Opponents are working rather from within: internal fighting, bick-
very hard to defeat us. ering, and bloodletting. The Roman Em-
Let’s not do it for them pire, I told them, collapsed because of what
by defeating ourselves they did to themselves: “The very same
from within.” thing can happen to us,” I advised. “A team
divided against itself will not succeed.” The
few who didn’t heed my message would then be dealt with
privately.
While I was intolerant of players criticizing one another, I
instructed—insisted—that they acknowledge a teammate who as-
sisted them in scoring. In fact, I may have been one of the first
coaches to implement this policy.

Praise and criticism are volatile forces within an organization,
but they also can come from outside the group, from friends, fam-