I believe based on my experience with professional sports teams that a positive working culture does result in on-court success. Equally, a negative working culture produces on-court failures. In my opinion, a professional basketball team with a positive working culture looks like a place where every member of the organization respects the leadership group, feels valued by the leadership group, and as a result, is fully engaged in their work. High employee engagement is an affirmative indicator of a positive working culture. One of the great observations of how Celtics’ legend, Red Auerbach, managed his teams was how Red made a point to engage role players such as Wayne Embry as much as he engaged stars such as Bill Russell. When the time came for Embry to step up as Russell’s backup during the 1967-68 season, Embry performed beyond expectations and helped the Celtics win the title. This example of player engagement as an element of positive working culture is but one of many from the Celtics’ dynastic run in the 1960s.

I believe that employee engagement on professional basketball teams is a vital element of on-court success because of the nature of the work of being a professional basketball player. In my view, basketball players are an extension of what Peter Drucker termed as being “knowledge workers”. I would argue that motor skill development and coordination along with motivation and work ethic are all similar to the individual skills that make a knowledge worker. Where a typical knowledge worker brings skills such as programming, legal brief writing, or accounting to a job, basketball players bring passing, dribbling, or shooting skills to their role. Yet as much as the white-collar worker or basketball player has skills, they are also emotional beings with personal and social lives. As such, their level of engagement may wax and wane throughout a career for many of the same reasons (personal loss, success, office politics, etc.).

In my view, maintaining employee engagement is a key element of my leadership approach because that engagement creates and maintains a positive working culture. Teams with good players can win more games than they lose if they can work through the inevitable losing streaks encountered during a season. If I were to someday return to the world of managing a professional sports team, I would certainly invest in creating and fostering a positive work culture.

What makes a good leader on a professional basketball team? In my view, a good leader combines a few basic elements: (1) great listening and comprehension skills, (2) great judgment, (3) conflict resolution skills to be able to bridge differences, and (4) communication skills.

A leader needs to be able to listen to others and to pick up what is going on in the environment. A leader then needs to be able to judge the situation wisely so that they can select the right course of action. The act of selecting a course of action at the expense of rejecting another option may then create conflict between group members. The leader then needs to be able to adequately address those who aren’t immediately on board with the chosen course of action. Getting the group to agree upon said course of action is often easiest when the leader has great oratory skills. If the leader can be clear in how they communicate, there is no doubt that it will help them be more effective in getting the group moving in the same direction. Peter Drucker often recommended that the leaders of the biggest US corporations engage in the exercise of reciting poetry to improve their oratorical skills. Now I’m not recommending poetry readings to NBA athletes, but some emerging young leaders might want to find a moment at home to recite lines of verse from their favorite music tracks to practice how they sound out loud.

NBA front offices need to invest more time and resources in developing leadership qualities in their players. With respect to the qualities that make a leader, some of what I have said applies of course (e.g. listening skills, judgment, conflict resolution, and communication). Another factor in determining if a player is a leader is what their coaches and teammates say about them. NBA scouts often rely upon “intel reports” from those closest to the player (coaches, trainers, and academic advisors) from their high school, AAU, or college teams. If the intel source says that Player X or Y is a leader, it is usually noted in the reports. Through these reports from our team scouts, we develop an idea of whether a player has leadership abilities. If we are lucky, there will be enough reports such that we might triangulate and more accurately determine whether a player is indeed considered a leader by their coaches and teammates.

That said, the task of identifying leaders is not easy. It is an entirely subjective process, made more challenging because of how coaches often exaggerate to promote their players. Not that I am faulting the coaches – the incentive structure is such that coaches will rarely be completely honest about a player because of how that affects their chances of recruiting the next batch of players. More than enough times I have listened to a coach outright misrepresent the truth about a player when I know better than the coach what the player is about.

It occurred to me when I was working with the Minnesota Timberwolves that we could bring in a simple curriculum to teach leadership to our young cohort of players. A series of well-done leadership seminars or speaker series might develop leadership skills in those young players who might not have necessarily embraced leadership by themselves. It might benefit young stars to engage in learning about leadership and how they can grow as leaders or how they might grow into leadership roles as they become more prominent stars.

Currently, I am reading Where you go is not who you will be by Frank Bruni. I have a son who is going through the college admissions process and this book was recommended by my son’s college counselor to provide some perspective on the process of applying to college which has changed dramatically since I went to school. This book seeks to remove some of the pressure brought to bear by parents, friends, and classmates. As the book points out the Ivy League has no monopoly on corner offices or governor mansions. The pressure both internal and external is intense. Ultimately, however, it is not where you go, but what you do once you get there.

Currently, I am the Executive Vice President of Lift Sports Management. In this role, I represent athletes both in college and professionally. In returning to represent athletes after a 5-year absence, I have enjoyed connecting with a new generation of athletes. One of the things I have always liked about the agent business is the personal relationship I have with my clients and their families. Since returning to the agent business, I have had the pleasure of reconnecting with several former clients, some of whom I have known for over 15 years. A number of them have sons who are high-level basketball players and others who are embarking on the next stage of their professional careers. I value the positive impact I have had on the young men I have worked with in the past and continue to treasure the relations and impact I am having on my new clients.