I found myself with a longer than expected commute today, and got to spend some time with ESPN’s Mike & Mike program. Being from Indiana, basketball is a big part of the fabric of growing up. So when the guests announced were former Butler University coach Brad Stevens and basketball legend Oscar Robinson, I was pretty excited about my luck.
Brad Stevens vaulted to legendary status after taking the Butler Bulldogs to the national championship game not once, but twice in back to back years. The story of Brad Stevens is a great story of persistence, grit and determination; easily making him a Indiana legend. And being a Butler alumni, I am particularly found of him.
Quite simply, Oscar Robertson is the greatest basketball player ever from Indiana. There really is no doubt, and no room for debate. Others are also great – Larry Bird for example, but the Big O is at the top of the list.
So with that line up, I was expecting to be schooled on hoops. Instead, I got a nice dose of leadership. First up was Stevens.
He didn’t talk about “The Butler Way” which has become synonymous with his time leading that college team. Great leadership books and lots of columns have been devoted to that, and deservedly so. The Butler Way – by the way is:
The Butler Way...
demands commitment, denies selfishness,
accepts reality, yet seeks improvement everyday
while putting the team above self.
Stevens talked about the responsibility to be great. As the head coach of the Boston Celtics, the most honored team ever in the NBA, Stevens has inherited great expectations in his role. Rather than shying away from that past, he embraces it head on. He told the interviewer that playing under the championship banners helped push him and the team to greatness. And he is achieving great things, as his team is likely to clinch the top playoff spot for the NBA’s Eastern Conference later this week.
Robertson’s accomplishments are amazing. Until this NBA season, he was the only player to ever average a triple double for the year; more than 10 points, assists and rebounds per game. While I never saw him play, his abilities are legendary. As a former broadcaster of Indiana high school basketball, I heard countless stories about Oscar’s team at Indianapolis Crispus Attacks High School, where he won back to back state championships in the early 1950’s. And might have won a third, had he not lost to little Milan High School. Milan is the team that the 1986 movie Hoosiers is based.
Robertson’s interview spanned a variety of topics, focused primarily on his historic triple double season. But Mike Greenberg ended the conversation talking about the Big O’s role in the creation of free agency in the NBA. Robertson, many don’t know, was the player that sued the NBA for that right, over 40 years ago. Robertson commented that players today don’t necessarily know about his involvement with the league all those years ago.
NBA players are signed and are instantly millionaires, so they don’t always have an appreciation for the history, and the story of those people that came before them. He suggested that every rookie when signed should have to read the history of the league and the team they are a member. Again, a reference to understanding the history of your organization.
Why aren’t more businesses tapping into this? Stevens and Robertson are both correct in trying to create an appreciation, understanding and respect for the past. Millennials want to connect with their employers. Generation X and Baby Boomers are a part of that history as well as revere the past, thus giving multi-generations within the workplace a potential common bond. That common bond will lead to a better team, and thus better results.
We all have work to do here. I have work to do here. Currently, I work for a newspaper that won a Pulitzer Prize, and the primary writer for that is still on staff. Yet, I know very little about it. Established organizations have the pride, accomplishments, lessons learned and institutional knowledge of our past, and yet most are not leveraging it. Sounds like an opportunity to me.
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