History-Making Leader: Communication Leadership Strategies
What worked consistently well for Tara VanDerveer
High-level, leadership success is unlikely without the strength and fruits of foundational communication practices and a talent-development process.
The now-retired Tara VanDerveer, is a historically-great leader of young adults, helping her women’s college basketball teams to 1,216 wins (accomplished at the University of Idaho, Ohio State and Stanford), the most ever – men’s and women’s — surpassing Duke University men’s basketball legend, Mike Krzyzewski, aka Coach K.
She recently talked about and revealed what most effectively worked for her and her assistant coaches regarding beneficial communication, talent improvement and collective achievement.
VanDerveer led the Stanford’s program for thirty-eight years (retiring in 2024), helping her people win three national championships and go to 14 Final Fours while also personally earning 17 Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors and 5 national Coach of the Year designations. Not to be forgotten, she was the coach of the 1996 U.S. national team that earned the Olympic gold medal.
This summer, she spoke with Matt Abrahams, a lecturer in organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the author of “Think Fast, Talk Smarter” and “Speaking Up Without Freaking Out.” He is the host of the “Think Fast, Talk Smart” podcast.
Abrahams asked VanDerveer, "What has helped you accomplish your communication goals in those moments when you have little time to prepare, the stakes are high and you have to get your message across?"
It’s an excellent question because those moments happen in leadership, business and workplaces, regardless of the industry.
"It’s really critical to have the right message and be concise,” VanDerveer told Abrahams. “I call it putting out the biggest fire.
“So what is hurting us the most? ... it’s really making sure that we’re getting the message across, this is exactly what I need you to do and this is how I need you to do it."
The phrasing, "putting out the biggest fire" is attention-getting. The significant importance of solving the main problem — the root, if you will — that issue that is most causing difficulty — and communicating it directly, concisely and specifically in a manner that can be clearly understood and followed, is a must-learn, must-know task.
“Many of us, as she alludes to, focus on the urgent rather than the important and what she’s talking about is how to distill down what is most important,” Abrahams says.
He says that humans are going to “get caught up in the emotions of what’s going on around us and what we see immediately in front of us rather than taking a step back and reflecting upon the bigger issue here. Once you identify that, think to yourself, what is the bottom line?”
With that clarity, Abrahams talks about the next move.
“Start putting together your communication from that bottom line, focusing on what is most important in the short term and long term,” he says. “I love that she leverages other coaches, who help her try to figure that out.”
It’s a point that VanDerveer made sure to point out.
"I get a lot of help actually from my assistant coaches too. So as the team is maybe coming over to the bench, a lot of coaches kind of make this big huddle and everything. I don’t do that, but I listen to my assistants and I’ll just say, ‘What do they need to know? What does our team need to know?’"
She trusts her assistants and respects and values input. Together, they decide: What has to be successfully communicated and conveyed.
“You have to understand who you are communicating to and what’s important to them,” Abrahams says. “We have to think through what is needed in the moment, take input from other people and think about relevance and salience and then craft messages.
“After delivering them, take time to reflect on the value those had, the input had — and leverage that in the future.”
When Abrahams inquired of VanDerveer how she communicates during challenging times as well as when her people are feeling good about themselves due to consistent success, she shared her process.
VanDerveer and her fellow coaches "... write up an individual feedback sheet for each player" that talked about the ‘great things’ that a player did while adding what specifically, factually that they improve on moving forward.
The thinking was, “... we give them feedback instead of coming in and after you lose and yelling and carrying on,” the VanDerveer explained.
Abrahams took notice.
“I was really impressed by her response about feedback,” he says.
He was drawn to “The idea of having a methodical approach that is consistent over time,” because, “You want to set up a culture of feedback where you get positive, neutral and constructive feedback all the time,” Abrahams asserts.
“And if people see that it is specific to them and it comes from a place of concern and compassion but also that it develops over time, you demonstrate that you are supportive – and any criticism is framed in the larger picture of being supportive.”
This can make conversations more connected.
“Any negative feelings can be talked about and shared in a different light than just reacting to negative feedback,” Abrahams says.
VanDerveer talked about her practice of getting together with her team to “watch a highlight tape,” adding that, “And don’t miss a highlight. Someone will let you know. And it’s watching, you know, the good highlights of good things we do. And everyone likes the highlights. And then we do a teaching tape, things that we want to do better,” she said.
That thorough, complete performance review is worthy of examination.
“Setting up rituals and expectations are what allow you to be able to do this proactively and productively,” Abrahams says. “It allows you to be effective and use these as teaching moments.”
It is needed, he adds, to focus on what type of success has happened, the specifics of it and how that aligns with the mission moving forward.
“A good celebration at the end challenges people to reflect on what’s being celebrated and what it means for the future,” Abrahams explains. “Just like any good reflection, it’s not enough to know what was done, it’s important to know what that implies and how it leads to future better actions.”
Perspective is important in reviewing performance, whether it is a success or not.
“We’ve developed that routine after a win or a loss,” VanDerveer said. “Our challenge in the game is not to necessarily beat the other team. The other team is there to help us be a great team. It’s to be the best team we can be.”
Leaders can more commonly incorporate celebrating individual and "team" highlights not only for morale but also as a teaching and coaching aid. Improvements can be positively addressed, if not with visual aids then in another fashion.
“Anytime you can use an additional modality to words, that can be very helpful,” Abrahams says. “Clearly, in a sports environment watching video, showing pictures can be helpful and the same is true in most environments where you can use some additional channel to get information across. So I challenge everybody to think about how they can deploy additional information”
VanDerveer told a story about a child that can benefit people in workplaces.
"One of my coaches' five-year-old daughter was at practice and she was watching and she’s a basketball player now. But afterward she said, ‘Mom, it was so exciting to hear the older players encourage and coach the younger players,” VanDerveer recalled.
Leaders at all levels of an organization can instill this in their culture, where more experienced people encourage and positively coach the inexperienced.
“Building a culture around values of support, transparency, connection and collaboration is critical,” Abrahams says. “And when you do that, you then can empower those who have more experience to take ownership and take leadership of others.”
An organization can more deeply develop a structure for this pursuit.
“Similarly, you can impress upon the newbies in any organization that they bring insight and value and that their point of view is important,” Abrahams says.
“Maybe you build in practices and rituals where you listen to the new folks at the beginning of every project or end of every meeting where they share their insight so both those who are experienced, the veterans — and those who are novice and new — have value in setting up a process to help.”
Abrahams asked VanDerveer about how she aided her team, in stressful times, not get bogged down in rumination. He was curious if it is possible to coach a player and team through that emotional, psychological struggle.
"I think it’s really important that myself, my staff and other teammates are really positive,” she told him. “Making sure that everyone knows we’re here for you... we want people to be successful and to encourage them."
Management, top down, can assist themselves and more importantly, all the people in their organization in moving away from disappointment, frustration or worse, depressive thinking, learn from it and move on to the next moment and task that requires focus.
“This notion of rumination versus reflection is really interesting,” Abrahams says. “Rumination locks you into the past. You’re focusing on what happened and you’re not moving forward. Reflection is acknowledging what happened but thinking about what that means for next steps and what happens in the future.”
He elaborates on how this can be accomplished.
“One thing leaders can do is publicly distinguish rumination from reflection and reward reflection and the actions that come from reflecting,” Abrahams suggests.
“It is important to celebrate the learnings that come out of reflection and remind people that reflection is moving forward and rumination is stagnating in the past.”
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