John Wooden

  • LESSON: Use aphorisms, guiding principles, feedback, and authenticity to mentor others.

Background

Biography: College basketball’s greatest coach, English teacher, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient. Team popularized college basketball. Overcame significant cultural and generational gaps with his players to win championships. Proudest of the lasting impact he had on his players’ daily life.
Goals: Help others perform their best at work and daily life; always work towards improvement; impart wisdom.
Governing Principle: The principles to living the right way are the same as those for succeeding at work.

Traits

(Grand)fatherly, philosophical, teacher-like, thoughtful, observant, detail-oriented, demanding, compassionate, self-improving

Values

Doing and becoming your best is more important than results and competition. Teaching contributes more to society than any other profession. Life depends on teamwork, community and compassion. Believe in a well-rounded life. Success depends on intensity and mindfulness while engaged in activity, not on outworking others

Questions

  • Have you and others given your best effort?
  • What adages inspire you so you can share them?
  • How authentic are you?
  • What have you learned today?
  • What do you need to focus on to be better?

Behaviors

  • Use aphorisms and guiding principles – Find inspirational adages and principles and repeat them often so that your mentees will internalize them.
  • Be authentic – Be cognizant of and reflect on how your actions match your aphorisms and guiding principles.
  • Be observant – Pay close attention to your team’s work habits and deliverables, writing down observations of what you like and don’t like.
  • Provide immediate feedback without judgment – Provide feedback immediately after the behavior; focus on improvement rather than results.
  • Demonstrate optimal behavior – Provide model behaviors without judging current behavior as good or bad.
  • Be empathetic – Treat employees with care, concern, and understanding without tolerating unacceptable behaviors.

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Instructions

Here are some suggestions for using the icons. Click on the i icon to open this box again.

One-on-Conversations

The icons are useful when conducting any kind of port mortem or difficult conversations, like project, progress, or performance reviews. 

Each person chooses a card that reflects the perspective he wants the other to hear. One person shows the card, and, together, both brainstorm the feedback that the persona would give. Repeat using the second person’s chosen card. Both compare and contrast the feedback and agree on lessons going forward. If deadlocked or otherwise desired, they can choose a third card and perform the feedback again

Expectations Setting

Use the icons at the start of project or with a team to understand each person’s default behaviors and identify potential conflicts.  

Each person chooses three cards: one that best represents her, one that she would most like to work with on the project, and one she would least like to work with. Each discusses her picks and agrees to actions for working together.

Team building

The goals are to create awareness of missing skills and traits on the team, use the personalities to fill those gaps, and to improve team creativity by role-playing other perspectives.

Review the cards to determine which personas the team needs but is lacking. Conducting the expectations setting exercise first may help. Create virtual seats for these leaders and assign team members the responsibilities for representing these perspectives.

 

Brainstorming

During brainstorming, choose cards at random and generate ideas as the leader personas. Alternately, team members can act as the leaders during the meetings.

Meeting feedback

At the end of the meeting, each participant, including the meeting leader, chooses a card, either randomly or deliberately, and takes turns providing feedback in the manner of the personality. Alternately, the meeting leader can choose cards at random and ask participants for feedback in that leader’s perspective.

Personal Development (method acting)

1. Look through the profiles and read the summary sections with the lessons, goals, principles, traits, and values. Find one that “speaks” to you or that has a lesson you could use at the moment. Liking the person or sharing that person’s values is irrelevant, though it may require slightly more effort on your part.

2.  Keep in mind that you control the experience and can adopt as much or as little as you feel comfortable doing. Most of the changes you will be making will be internal, in your thought processes and resultant behaviors, and you are not expected to impersonate someone outwardly like you would for Halloween or a play.

3. Explanation of sections:

  • To get into character– This section describes clothing, speech, and eating habits to adopt. The purpose of this is to break out of your routine and ingrained patterns of behavior. If you start the day eating or dressing differently, you will be more likely to act differently. Use your judgment to determine the extent of the changes needed to change your habits without being disruptive.
  • Activities Alone – Conduct these activities first as they are meant to help you get into character and better understand that person’s values and motivation. They are also indicative of activities the character performs on a regular basis. Again, use your judgment regarding which activities make sense for you, but please make sure you do at least some.
  • Activities with Others – Again, choose which activities pertain most to your situation. These are an excellent opportunity to practice being your persona and solicit advice from others on “What would this person do?”
  • Behaviors – While activities are one-off or have a concrete start and end, the behaviors and questions should be ongoing when you are enacting the profile.

4. It should take you somewhere between 1-3 weeks to master the character. We recommend that you plan on two weeks, and continue if you need more time to fully internalize the persona. Thinking like the persona or exhibiting their behaviors without thinking are signs that you have internalized the skills. We encourage you to tell the people you are with what you are doing so that they can help you master the character and provide feedback. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask others what they think that person would do.

5. If you have trouble getting started or feel stuck, just ask yourself “What would this person do?