Have Your People Help Create 'the Standard'

Esteemed leader advocated for people to bring their ego to work and also create and communicate "the standard" to each other

Mike Krzyzewski, also well known as Coach K, knew what he was doing in his profession. The Duke University men’s basketball coach was highly accomplished, historically elite and widely respected in his industry. People are going to be interested in the way that he did things over his career. He offered some interesting, if not surprising moments and comments an interview on the Glue Guys Podcast.

Krzyzewski won 1,202 games, had a dominant winning percentage of nearly 77 percent and led his teams to five national titles. Multiple times, he coached the United States teams to gold medals in the Olympics.

Intentionally Talking About the Culture

Krzyzewski told a story about how he told professional (NBA) players before an international tournament that he wanted to have a meeting, not about strategy but instead, “how we're going to live together,” meaning how they are going to cohesively interact and work as a collective to achieve their mission.

That’s not a phrase many leaders have communicated, at least not exactly. Look at what he said next. It’s not what you might think an extremely successful leader might say to his people.

"So the meeting comes and the very first thing I say to them, 'I don't believe in leave your egos at the door. Bring your egos in,’” Krzyzewski said.

Who thinks like that and says something of the sort? Like, really. A relationship builder, that’s who. There’s more to it than that, of course, something very important.