Steve Kerr discusses coaching and life

#4.2024.2.22

Everyone is talking about football this month. I want to talk about basketball. Or more to the point, how to be a leader.

The Golden State Warriors lost the 2023 NBA championship series to the Los Angeles Lakers. I read Coach Steve Kerr’s concession interview and nearly cried, both because of his— and the team’s — obvious pain, and also because I was stunned with his grace and humility.

I previously wrote about Kerr’s success as a leader in this blog [see link in comments]. This newsletter is about how he handled this massive failure.

The speech was astonishing to me because it was so honest and straightforward. Like many people, I wasn’t raised to fail. I was raised to win and succeed. I have experienced public humiliation, but never public failure. The very idea gives me the shivers.

Yet, here is Steve Kerr, giving a masterclass in how to lose gracefully, modeling the heart-rending task of acknowledging failure to a worldwide audience.

His concession speech touched on six important points:

Congratulate the rival, pointing out with specifics how they won.

Kerr began by congratulating the Lakers, saying they had played “a hell of a series,” were “a great, great team,” and coach Darvin Ham and his staff had coached “a brilliant series.”

He went into specifics on the coaching, praising Ham’s poise and behavior. And he sang the praises of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, saying they were “just brilliant players” and in “control of the series.”

Most people wouldn’t praise their rivals with such specificity about what made them superior.

Acknowledge the contest was fair.

Kerr acknowledged that the GSW had been fairly beaten: “I thought we had our chances. To me, the series came down to games one and four and the Lakers outplayed us in the key stretches of those games.”

Congratulate your own team with specificity, admit the challenges, and describe the successful parts.

“I just want to also say how proud I am of our guys. It's been a long and difficult season in many ways, but our guys hung in there. And to be here, to have a chance in the conference semis when for much of the season we were kind of adrift, it shows the character of our group and how they stuck together.”

Acknowledge the weak link who might be subject to outside criticism and defend their performance. Bring that person into the fold so they aren’t scapegoated.

“And I want to really salute Wigs [Andrew Wiggins] for being there for our guys tonight. He is in a ton of pain, and he did everything possible to be available and did everything he could to make an impact. It's been a difficult season for Wigs in a lot of ways, but he's always there for us and that's why we love him and need him.”?

Acknowledge the pain of losing.

He said he was “sad for our team, for our players – at the same time very realistic. The better team won, and I can't fault our players for the effort. Our staff, everybody, doing everything possible to win so there's no regrets. But it's, you know, losing sucks. It just does."

Make it clear you may have had a setback, but you are still in the game and will continue to strive for excellence.

“This is the highest competition in the world and our guys just thrive in competition and we came up short today. Because these guys are such competitors, it's going to hurt. But why we play: It's to compete against the best and see what we got. And we didn't quite have enough, but it wasn't for a lack of heart or effort.”

One of my favorite poems is the Desiderata. I read it to self soothe. This is my favorite passage whenever I begin to compare myself unfavorably to others – or to beat myself up if I seriously mess up:

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Kerr’s job requires that he compare his team with its competitors. Yet judging from this interview, he has found a magic formula to avoid becoming vain or bitter.

We can learn from him. Losing hurts. Second place hurts. Yet, we all must endure it at some point in our lives.?

The six key pointers in his speech show how.

I wish this kind of heart and wisdom for all of us.

The learning questions posed to our clients by this blog were:

1. Which of the lessons resonate the most with you? Which have less appeal?
2. How can you support your leaders in developing their own favored approaches?

Our most recent vlog was titled Stereotyping? Mental models? How to ferret them out and stop them, an interview with B?rí Williams.

In all our online leadership development programs, including Pathfinders and ChangeMakers, reading is a key aspect of our program. We write original blog content every two weeks, and we hope you are enjoying it!

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