Wooden On Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

In referring to one of his father’s favorite axioms—“make each day your masterpiece”—Wooden alludes to the leadership quality of time management. He argues that because there is never enough time in a competitive environment, “a leader must be skillful—a master—in using time productively and teaching others to do the same” (153). In pointing out that time is a tangible commodity, he makes the case that “time, used correctly, is among your most potent assets” (153). Wooden lays out, down to the 12,600 minutes available of actual practice time, how his two-hour practice sessions at UCLA were structured. The key aspect of his practices was placing great significance on every single one of those minutes and enforcing the lone rule that he kept in place during his entire four-decade coaching career: “Be on time. Period” (155-56). Wooden, however, does caution to not mistake activity for achievement, arguing that “bustling bodies making noise can be deceptive” (159). Rather, “activity must be organized with a productive purpose or goal in mind” (159).

Wooden discusses motivation, punishment, and criticism. He argues that the threat of punishment is sometimes effective, but leaders who resort to punishment typically do so because they lack “an understanding of its limitations as well as the skills necessary to create motivation based on pride rather than fear” (166).