Page 211 - How to Create a Winning Organization

Seek Significant Change
achieve my teaching goals under such conditions. It also had an im- 193
pact on my assessment of the possibility of winning a national
championship; specifically, in the back of my mind I just felt there
was no chance that UCLA would ever be able to go all the way. Un-
fortunately, some of my attitude may have carried over to those
under my supervision. The leader’s attitude, conscious and sub-
conscious, inevitably becomes the attitude of those he leads. Win-
ston Churchill’s resolution, courage, and defiance nourished an
entire nation in the worst of times; his attitude became the attitude
of those he led. The same thing happens with effective basketball
coaches and business leaders.
While I didn’t like the great disadvantages imposed on us by our
practice facility, I accepted it as the way things were going to be.
We might do fairly well on occasion, but we would never get all the
way to the top.
How did all of this affect my coaching? I can’t be sure, but I
know this: The events of the 1961–1962 season changed my per-
spective completely, took the blinders off my eyes, and removed
a barrier I had imposed on myself—one that should never have
existed in the first place. What subsequently happened is a good
lesson in how we can limit ourselves and our organization with-
out even knowing it—how we can say “no” when we should be
asking “how?”

SO CLOSE TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP
Much to the complete surprise of everyone, our unheralded
1961–1962 UCLA basketball team advanced all the way to the
Final Four before we lost 72–70 to Cincinnati in the final seconds
of the game. It was the first time in history the Bruins had ever
reached the Final Four.