Saturday night was so bittersweet! The Duke Blue Devils fell in their March Madness bid, and it was also the final game for their longtime coach, Mike Kryzyzewski. You may not be a college basketball fan, but Coach K has an undeniable success record. In a 40+ year career, he’s men’s college basketball all-time winningest coach, achieving milestones like five national titles plus three gold medals for the US Olympic basketball team.
You might expect Coach K’s shortlist of required skills to include physical conditioning, discipline to run endless drills, and the mental toughness for athletes to keep going when they don’t see results on the scoreboard. But surprisingly, Coach K thinks success begins in the mind rather than the gym.
He said, “There are five fundamental qualities that make every team great: communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring, and pride. I like to think of each as a separate finger on the fist. Any one individually is important. But all of them together are unbeatable.”
Let’s recap those five qualities again: Communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring, and pride. Do you know what those qualities have in common? They’re all soft skills.
This insight is a crucial takeaway for anyone pursuing success. Like athletes, careers begin with technical acumen. Then life experience makes you a veteran player. But sustainable success requires practicing Coach K’s fundamental qualities. So, in April, we’ll take lessons from the Coach in the series, Cultivate a Success Mindset with Soft Skills.
Here’s a secret you might not know about Mike Kryzyzewski: Collaboration was a stretch for him. He thought being a powerful leader meant taking charge. Of every decision.
In this clip, he describes his turnaround from micromanager to champion collaborator:
“I learned a lot from one of the great men, [former Duke President] Dr. Keith Brodie. He helped me get through some really difficult times.
Basically, I was a wheel, and there were spokes, and they all had to go through me. And so, when I wasn’t there, the wheel fell apart.
From the mid-’90s, I started building our program based on connecting everyone. So, if one person is down for a little bit, we still go. You keep taking each other with you, and [that’s how] you win.
The best teachers at times in a school are your classmates, so lean on one another. Try and figure it out together.”
Have you ever been like Coach K, where you accidentally thought bossing up meant doing everything yourself?
Collaboration is a key soft skill, but it can also be tricky. It’s tough to take the vision you hold so dear and share it with others. However, as Coach K discovered the hard way, doing everything yourself quickly leads to burnout. What’s more, being the only decision maker undermines communication and trust, two of the five fundamental qualities for successful teams.
You might think, I hear you, but these ideas don’t relate to me—I don’t manage others. Maybe not, but you’re collaborating all the time. You’re engaged with a community project, part of a cross-group team at work, and maybe even in serious negotiations with the family about Spring Break activities!
So, if collaborating has been hit and miss in the past, take another run at it using soft skills. Cultivate successful collaboration by applying soft skill How tactics like creative thinking and taking a flexible, inclusive approach.
Here are three ways to practice:
Flip the bit on the worn-out idea that the only way to succeed is to do everything yourself. Shoulder tap one of your favorite people and figure it out together!