How Do You Sustain Elite Success?

The toughest thing to do in sports is to sustain success at an elite level year after year. It is underrated and overlooked. It's why I don't think things like Kansas' run of 14 straight regular season titles or Gonzaga's string of NCAA Tournament appearances get celebrated enough. We emphasize the tournament, the playoffs, the rings so much that we don't appreciate how hard it is to be consistently great year after year.

I was talking recently with a head coach who just had a great year in his first year as a head coach, and his question for me was a great one - how do you sustain it?

In nine years at Rhode Island College we went to 8 straight NCAA Tournaments, winning 5 regular season titles and 6 league tournament titles. Our regular season finishes were 1st five times, 2nd three times and 3rd once.

I had a special group of players and they bought into something uncommon. I've said it for years that I don't know if I'll ever be a part of a culture that good. It was special. But the conversation made me think hard about it - how do you sustain elite success?

It's not like I had a blueprint for this when I first became a head coach. A lot of these lessons were learned along the way, through success and failure.

Define Who You Are Clearly And Simply

As a head coach you have to have a clear vision of who you want to be as a program. And you have to make this clear and simple for your players.

Define the core values and standards for your program. Your values should define who you are as a team - and you should define them in behavioral terms. Your standards are your benchmarks of our conduct, how you measure and evaluate what you do.

Your culture is the behavior that comes as a result of your shared beliefs. It is not just the beliefs themselves. Think of your culture as action. Define the behaviors for your team. You cannot ever over-communicate your values and standards.

Think of it this way - if I asked everyone of your players to describe your program in one word, what would they say? Would they all say the same thing? Or at least something similar? At RIC our word was "relentless."

You have to clearly define your culture to get your kids to believe in it and to be able to sustain it at a high level.

Alignment

The culture of your program needs to align with who you are, but also with the culture of the institution you work at, as well as the players in your program. It will be very hard to sustain elite success otherwise.

You have to be true to yourself. You also have to be able to recruit talented athletes - and retain them - at your school, and to do that they better feel comfortable there. Your school, your program, your own beliefs and the character of your players should all fall in line for you to truly sustain elite success.

You have to live your culture, every day. Your players do as well. They should be walking billboards for what you believe in. If you don't have alignment, and your culture only matters to them when they are in front of you, success will be hard to sustain.

Put Your Culture First - Always

After my first year at RIC we had some issues in the spring with some guys being late for class. So our rule was we would meet at 7 AM as a team, and after the meeting the guys would run. I'm sure some of the guys were testing me because the season was over to see if I'd still follow through on the rules regarding classes.

I got on the guys pretty good that morning and made it very clear that we weren't going to put up with being late for class. I told them directly that if they didn't like it, they could leave. One of our rising sophomores, Benjy Nichols, who was frustrated because he didn't think he should be there because he wasn't late himself, spoke up and said "Man, this is bullshit." And he walked away.

Benjy was a great kid, and a good player, a rotation guy who would have a chance to start as a junior and senior. I loved having him on the team. When he walked away, I had a pit in my stomach. I was thinking to myself 'what if everyone starts walking away right now?' I was afraid we'd have a mutiny.

I stood firm, just looked at the guys and said "Anyone else?" And no one moved. Benjy would never play for us again, even though he would stay in school and go on to graduate. And he and I have stayed in touch.

I always think of that day as one of the most important in establishing our culture. From that point forward, our guys knew that if they tested me (or what we believed in) that I wouldn't flinch. I learned that day that you have to be willing to lose a good player for your culture. Always put your culture first.

Create Ownership

Your values, your standards, and your overall culture - they need to be things that are worth fighting for. If they are really going to be willing to fight for it, it has to be theirs. It can't just be something you are telling them about every day. It has to be something they own.

Creating ownership is a huge key to advancing your culture to an elite level, and progressively sustaining success. You are the leader, and you certainly have to guide the process. But let your players own it. Ask a lot of questions, and listen as much as you can. Ask them what they think the core values should be, and ask them how they would define them. When something doesn't meet your standards, don't declare that what they did isn't good enough, ask a question - Is that good enough for us? Does that meet our standard?

Don't just get them to buy into what you believe in. Get them to tell you what they believe in. Ask questions, and be willing to listen. Ownership of your culture helps create an environment where you can sustain success.

Talent Matters

Sometimes with all of the talk you hear about culture, it's to forget about the importance of talent. Getting buy-in to the difficult stuff you need to do to win big is certainly easier if it is easier for them to do what you ask of them. Talented players find it a lot easier to do some of the stuff you want them to do - and when they realize they can do it, they'll buy into it quicker.

This is a lesson I learned first-hand when I took over the Maine job. At RIC, I took over the best team in the league. At Maine, I took over the worst. It was certainly easier to get guys to buy-in to our culture given that we saw some success at RIC, and that they found it easier. At Maine, everything I was asking them to do was hard.

It seems obvious that to sustain a high level of success, you need to have talent. But it gets overlooked more than you think. Not every kid you recruit is going to be a foot soldier for your values or a great culture guy. But they might be able to get you 15 and 10 night in and night out.

You can't get too caught up in just recruiting guys that fit your culture. You have to make sure you get the talent you can win with. If your culture is right and your players take ownership of it, you can absorb some guys within that culture that aren't quite as bought-in. The strength of your culture and the leadership of your team will give you a feel for who you can take and how they'll fit in. But you certainly need talent to sustain success, so don't take that for granted.

Be Flexible

One thing I learned about our culture is that it was always fluid. My approach was constantly evolving. Of course there are basic core values that you always believe in, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try new approaches. If you aren't adapting, you aren't getting better. You are likely getting worse.

In my 7th year at RIC the dynamics of our roster had changed. We lost the best point guard in the league who was also the best leader I had ever coached, and he had led us to back-to-back Sweet 16s and four straight NCAA Tournaments. While we still had talent in the program, our two beset players were big guys and my junior point guard was more of a tough, physical player than he was the jet point guard we had been used to.

We were a fast team that liked to play in transition and go off the dribble, but our personnel didn't fit that style anymore. Our 3 best players all were physical players who got their work done inside. So instead of our wide open, dribble-drive attack we went to a flex offense. I was never a big fan of the flex because I didn't like the spacing, and I wanted our guards to have room to create. But it fit our personnel better that year, so in year 7 as a head coach we made a major change. We went on to advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament that year, running an offense I really didn't like.

My point is this - don't get stuck doing things the same way, just because you have been successful. Your basketball decisions, the way you advance your culture, everything about your approach should constantly be evolving.

Be Consistent

The reason why your culture has to be clearly defined and explained, and aligned with everything you believe in, is because your players need to see you living it every day. They have to see it in your behavior. When they see that, they'll know how much it really means to you, and it will mean more to them.

You must be consistent. Your culture has to be who you are, and you have to live it on and off the court, in season and out. The Program has a great saying that "whatever you walk past, that is your new standard." So if you walk past the gym and guys are going half-speed, and you don't say anything, that is your new standard. If one of your players comes out of the game bitching and moaning and it isn't addressed, that is your new standard.

Be consistent and live your culture every day. The strength of your culture will give you the chance to sustain an elite level of success.