Wooden On Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

In the final section of the book, Wooden includes excerpts of pages from notebooks that he used throughout his career. In the introduction to “Lessons From My Notebook,” Wooden writes that the excerpts include “notes, observations, reminders, suggestions, and lists of relevant goals and how to achieve them” (235). He also explains that he selected material “that has application to leadership beyond just basketball or sports and to suggest how it might apply to your own organization” (235). He begins the section with an approximation of the speech he would deliver to his teams at UCLA at the beginning of each season. According to Wooden, “it’s important that everyone in an organization be on the same page” (238). He also includes a list of rules taken from his notebook and a shorter list of instructions for how his players should take criticism. Concerning these, he argues that “an effective leader achieves positive and productive results with criticism. The leader who is less effective uses criticism in a heavy-handed manner that only compounds the problem. Thus, a leader must both know how to deliver criticism and teach others how to receive criticism” (245-46).

Wooden also includes a list detailing eight steps to good relations, about which he writes that “the relationship between a leader and those in the organization determines in many ways whether success will occur” (255). One of Wooden’s excerpted notes to himself shows that it was originally titled “Handling of Players” but was later amended to read “Working With Players.” The anecdote detailing why and how that change came about involves Hall of Fame professional player Wilt Chamberlain, who was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in 1968. At the press conference announcing Chamberlain’s signing in Los Angeles, he was asked by a reporter about his reputation for being “hard to handle.” Chamberlain responded, “[Y]ou handle farm animals. You work with people. I am a person. I can work with anyone” (259). Chamberlain’s words had a strong impact on Wooden, who immediately altered his notes to reflect that he was “working” with players rather than “handling” them.

In the latter part of “Lessons From My Notebook,” Wooden reiterates his opinion concerning awards. He includes a list of UCLA’s varsity team captains but acknowledges that when the team elects one, it “could be more of a popularity contest than having anything to do with a player’s leadership ability” (262). Wooden also discusses and includes lists of players who won various awards presented by UCLA alumni groups and booster clubs. He points out that he had no control over the players who were selected for these awards, but he “strongly encouraged them to honor personal qualities, characteristics, and contributions that were less prominent than scoring points” (266). Wooden also suggests to readers, in their own organizations, to “make every effort to ensure that individuals who contribute big things in little ways get the recognition they deserve” (267).

Wooden ends the section by discussing his final few seasons, from which he includes excerpts that include notes on things to consider and practice itineraries. He explains that during the 1972 season, he was hospitalized and missed two weeks with a heart problem. During that time, assistant coach Gary Cunningham served as head coach, and the team “didn’t miss a beat” (276). He argues that “a leader truly dedicated to the team’s welfare doesn’t make himself irreplaceable” (276). Concerning how practices changed, Wooden writes that over the years, he increased his ability to extract more improvement from each practice, “knowing exactly where work was needed, including not only the physical but also the emotional and mental” (280). He points out that a good leader should always seek improvement, so the excerpts he includes provide an example of the answers he came up with in 1974 when he asked himself the question, “How can we improve?” (282). In closing the section, Wooden shares another excerpt of notes he made to himself that includes thoughts, phrases, and poems about the qualities of giving and sharing.