Winning Organizations

|Peter Boettke|

This past weekend the Grove City College men's tennis team fell in the second round of the NCAA championships bringing to close another outstanding season. But the occasion also brought to a close the fantastic coaching career of Joe Walters at GCC. Fittingly, the GCC team won the PAC conference tournament for the22nd consecutive year, and Coach Walters was named the PAC Coach of the Year.  He retires as one of the most successful tennis coaches at any level of NCAA competition.

I am a very proud alumnus of Coach Walters program.  For his retirement celebration, which unfortunately I could not attend because I was traveling abroad, I was asked to send in some words and I did.  I described him as a "coach for adults" and how his method of team organization was one that gave tremendous 'ownership' to the athletes he coached, but one which also held them accountable for their success individually and to the team.  When I played at GCC we also tallied a strong winning record, and my senior year we ended the season with only 1 loss -- for a 9-1 record.  When I coached competitive junior tennis players in the early and mid-1980s, I tried to take the lessons learned from my experience at GCC and translate it into a way they could understand.  Tennis is an individual sport, but I often told parents of these HS players how much enjoyment I got from playing in college as a member of a team, and as a representative of a program.  Yes, we won tennis matches throughout my career at GCC, but Ws and Ls are not the only measure by which you can (or even should) judge a program.  Though there is something very important to be learned from what makes for a successful program like the one that Coach Walters ran at GCC.

I played tennis for 4 years in college, but in HS I actually played football, basketball and baseball.  I was introduced to tennis in MS, and actually trained with a tennis pro throughout HS but mainly for what now would be called "cross-training" for lateral movement.   -- Eventually all my athletic efforts were directed at basketball. My senior season, we produced the greatest record in the history of the school up to that point. My HS coach was in many ways the opposite of Coach Walters, but the issue of ownership, responsibility and accountability for individual improvement and team success was an area of overlap. I then spent 2 years trying to play college basketball (at 2 different schools), but repeated injuries limited and ultimately derailed that effort. Still the first college program I was involved with was the worst athletic experience of my life, while the second college program (at GCC) was first-class and very successful. First program -- no accountability; GCC program -- maximum accountability.

When I reflect on the programs created by great coaches --- such as Coach Joe Walters --- they get the most out of their best by demanding the most out of their best.  The worst coaches create an atmosphere where their best athletes lack accountability. In short, in winning organizations the very best work harder than everyone and demand that the entire organization try to keep up. But in losing organizations, the "best" take short-cuts, rest of past accomplishments, expect to always be excused for poor performance or lack of effort. The best organizations do not allow excuses, and they don't allow whining. They do insist on responsibility and accountability for all, but especially for those who are the most talented. To those who have been given the most, much is expected.  There is no such thing as an entitlement mentality in winning organizations.

Translate this as you will into any walk of life --- athletics, business, or academics to name just 3. Winning organizations require the creations of expectations of excellence.  Excellence, Aristotle taught, is not a single event, but a habit.  It is that sort of environment that permeates successful programs --- whether John Wooden's UCLA teams or Bobby Knight's Indiana teams or Mike Krzyzewski's Duke teams. Coaches come with different temperments and different styles, but in the end the successful ones all create an environment which demands excellence and holds the members throughout of the organization accountable to that standard.  Every detail is paid attention to and every action fits a purpose from the most minescule to the most significant.  Success doesn't happen by accident, it is cultivated by leaders who know how to create environments that get the best out of everyone involved. 

As I have tried to organize research and teaching activities related to economics at NYU and at GMU, I have always had these lessons learned from my experiences with athletic organizations.  I hope I have passed those lessons along to my former students as they are starting their own efforts at program building --- I think they have since several of them have been very successful in doing precisely that.  No short cuts, no excuses, no whining; just hard work, attention to detail, expectation of excellence, and demand the most out of those who are the most talented and gifted in your organization.

And, I thank Coach Joe Walters for the amazing experience I had as a young man to be part of such successful program and to learn so much from his example.  If in my Grove City days Dr. Sennholz is responsible for setting me on the path I have taken in economics, then it is also true that Coach Walters influenced tremendously how I have approached the organization of inquiry with graduate students and colleagues so we can build a winning program for our brand of economics and political economy.

Comments

[Woj]

Very interesting post and great organizational lessons!

My current organization suffers from an environment where the strongest contributors are provided little incentive to improve and there is minimal accountability. These factors are a primary reason the group is under-performing. When I lead an organization (or teach) someday I plan to fully incorporate these lessons.

[Military Universities]

Sounds like your coach had a great impact on your athletic career. I found that my coaches not only influenced my athletic performance but also instilled values that will sustain me through my life.

[Rob Bradley]

Great story Pete. Glad you memorialized Coach Walters in this way. I played competitive tennis at Rollins College in the 1970s under a legendary coach in Florida history, Norman Copeland. Our teams were not as good as in other school eras, partly because of my own shortcomings but also due to Title 9 that came in the year after I signed my (full) scholarship. With equal scholarships for women as men, we no longer could offer one full ride per year for men's tennis.

Tennis--what a competitive sport! Lots of running... And it is just you versus the opponent with little place to hide.

[Ravi]

Ken,The logical eiveualqnce between verification and falsification only concerns finite existentials or circumscribed universals. With regard to uncircumscribed universals the matter is quite different both verifications and falsifications can only imply the falsity of uncircumscribed universals. While there are important methodological or extralogical issues, the asymmetry between verification and falsification manifests itself at the logical level.

[pamorn]

Ken,I don't have a reference, uelnss LoSD counts. Anyway, it's not particularly complicated or controversial.To falsify all swans are white' one must verify some swans are non-white'. Thus falsification depends on verification. But this misses the point. Only existentials need to be verified in falsificationism, whereas the traditional problem of positivism was the verification of universals.

[Jacqueline]

Then also the editor at Science slohud have blocked the paper for the same reason. He slohud have sent it back saying Withdraw the claim of support for cold fusion. Just report that you failed to find any evidence to rule that out. Again, all would have been fine. It's verificationism that caused this thing to blow up.