The Blueprint For Organizational Greatness

I came across this recent article in Forbes and thought that it is definitely worth sharing.

In the article, Boise State Football And The Blueprint For Organizational Greatness, the author talks about how the Boise State Football program has achieved a consistency of greatness among the BCS schools with much less in terms of budget, resources, and recruiting. He examines – and Head Coach Chris Petersen explains – the need for a strong organizational culture and how to implement it correctly.

There a couple of ideas and philosophies that jumped out at me. First, Coach Petersen shares the 3 core values the Boise State Football program is built upon:

1. Accountability – Make decisions with the knowledge that your actions control not only your own destiny, but the programs too.
2. Unity – Understand and embrace your role; use it to lift others.
3. Integrity – Do unto others as you would have them do to you; free yourself of pride, arrogance and falseness.

The second thing that stood out for me is how they evaluate the players they are recruiting. They look first for players that align with the core values of the program. Overall football talent is secondary because they can develop the talent (and, if you follow Boise State football at all, they most certainly do develop their players). This, from the article:

Every Boise recruit is evaluated in a number of areas, including: Character, Attitude, Effort, Toughness, and Football Intelligence (FBI). More particularly, Petersen seeks both players and coaches who exhibit a “High Performance; Low Ego” work ethic.

Now, we may not be coaching at a level where we are recruiting our players, but as we build our program and teach our players, these area’s should most definitely be emphasized! How successful do you think your teams will be if you have individual players with great character, good attitudes, toughness, a solid work ethic and a high basketball intelligence or basketball IQ? Yeah, you would have a solid and consistent program!

I do recommend reading the entire article. Click here to read Boise State Football And The Blueprint For Organizational Greatness.

In the article, they also mention a book that was recently released titled ‘Wise Beyond Your Field‘. The book is written by several authors, including Coach Chris Petersen. In it, they show how creative leaders use ideas from far beyond their own fields to do things differently and out perform their peers. The book reveals secrets and examples from leaders who compete with the best and soar beyond the pack.

This book is currently on my reading list and I will follow up with a review once I have read it. If you are interested, however, you can get a copy right now from the Hoops U. Basketball Store! Click to learn more and purchase Wise Beyond Your Field…

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