SOMEONE ONCE SAID that a 'good coach cannot win a game but a bad coach can lose one.' I'm not sure who said this (someone told me it was Jim Valvano, the loquacious, late coach of the North Carolina State men's basketball team, but I can't confirm) or whether that's an exact quote (thus the single quote marks). But it has always struck me as mostly true. And it might be something for us to keep in mind at this moment in time.
A good coach is one who leads, teaches, sets strategy, makes the best resources available and inspires and motivates. Ultimately, though, it's his players who have to put all those assets to good use. And it is they who have to play the game to win.
Thus a corollary aphorism, this one from Yogi Berra. When asked what makes a good baseball manager, Berra delivered one of the most straightforward, and precious, answers of his career as a folk philosopher: "A good ball club."
A bad coach is weak in those ways that a good coach is strong, that weakness can lose games, even with the best players. I won't mention any names, but I can recall a couple of college basketball coaches who could never seem to put the great season together and yet whose players went on to become all-stars in the NBA -- a sign that the coaches didn't know what to do with their talent. I've also seen some who, at crucial moments, made some ill-advised decisions that cost their team the game.
I think the same distinctions -- between the good and bad ones -- can be made about political and business leaders. The good ones cannot bring about success by themselves -- only their constituencies and their subordinates can. But the bad leaders can mean disaster.
That's worth considering during this interregnum between two Presidents. We know all too well now that a bad President can lose spell trouble for a nation, and perhaps many nations. We've been suffering under miserable coaching for the last eight years. He has left us ill-prepared to face our challenges, and he and his staff have made awful decisions at crucial moments in the game.
We are about to usher into the Oval Office someone who has all the signs of being not just a good, but a great President (though, as we know, so much can change, and quickly). And I think that a great, or even just good, President can help all the of the rest of us be better collectively and individually. He can enable us to win the game of ensuring widespread prosperity, security, stability and well being. But it's ultimately up to the rest of us to use the tools he and his administration provide to win the game.
I share with so many the enthusiasm for this newly elected president. As I said, I think he has what it takes to be a great President. But I worry sometimes that the expectations for him are beyond all reasonable proportion -- as if he will, somehow, single-handedly make all the bad stuff go away and the good stuff appear.
As I said nearly a year ago, when the primary season was just starting, "[S]o many of us Americans convince ourselves that if we can only put this one person in office, life as we know it will be transformed for the better. The economy will improve; social problems will be resolved; the general physical and mental well-being of all Americans will be better; the sun will shine every day."
In that sense, I argued, our elections -- not the way they work, but the way they sound and feel -- seem slightly un-American to me. "The political culture of this country," I wrote, "established by Enlightenment thinkers and reinforced over and over since then, is one that deemphasizes the importance of our leaders. This is not a monarchy or a dictatorship, where we must do whatever the Big Guy tells us. Indeed, our founders had precisely the opposite in mind when they laid down the fundamental American political creed, and this rejection of an aristocracy became one of the chief attributes of what is known as 'American Exceptionalism.'”
Apparently recognizing this and the danger of not living up to impossible expectations, our new President-to-be has done an excellent job, I think, of trying to tamp down the outsized anticipation without losing his ability to inspire. Take, for example, his brilliant and gracious speech in Grant Park on the evening of November 4. "The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term.... There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree."
The humility has even won over many who didn't even vote for him. And, during this period of transition, he has been measured so far in the manner in which he has talked about how he will tackle these difficult challenges. There is no swagger, no macho cowboy act, like hurling badass threats at adversaries or clearing brush at his ranch just for show. None of the usual political bullshit.
Once we have the tools that this leader -- this potentially good coach -- provides, the rest is up to us. It's up to the rest of us to manage our finances better. It's up to the rest of us to create real value in the products and services we generate at work. It's up to the rest of us to restore trust in our business and personal relationships, the real glue that keeps a society civil and prosperous. It's up to the rest of us to treat one another with respect. It's up to the rest of us to refrain from unprovoked violence against others. It's up to rest of us to use natural resources more carefully and less voraciously. It's up to the rest of us to understand more about the rest of the world, which has been growing more distant from and often hostile to us in recent years.
As our incoming President also said on Election Night: "And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand. What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you."
These are merely soaring words in a moment of triumph, of course. The real work is ahead. A good manager needs a good ball club.
Jeff
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