The LA Lakers won the NBA championship earlier this week and with that Phil Jackson became the winningest coach in the NBA. They were talking about him as a coach on the radio and the following nuggets were produced. I’ve wordsmithed (most) them around so they can be applied to test leadership or coaching as well.

  • Convince your stars to be part of the solution
  • Be a great manager of ego
  • [Orlando coach Pat Riley] is old school; a motivator and a hard line guy but you play for him. Because your dad motivated you like that. Phil found out what made every guy tick and pushed that button. If it is 12 different things or 13 different things then that is what he used.
  • Finds out what makes your players go and leans on it
  • Coaching great players are harder to coach than not great
  • Use people properly
  • Here is what I need you do to. Don’t do anything else. This is what you do
  • A beautiful Mercedes has a $0.25 lug nut holding on the wheel
  • Get people not only to play a role, but accept it
  • Practices are a team’s private time
  • Most coaching is done at practice, not game time
  • Stand back and let the stars talk sometimes