The Leadership Ideas of Nick Saban

Outline your plan for success.

Nick Saban, former Alabama football coach, preached work above all else. But he had goals and a plan.

His strategy was MINDSET, PREPARATION, and PERFORMANCE. Here are quotes from The Management Ideas of Nick Saban. 

I absolutely don't square with everything Saban did. He is charming and sometimes horrible. He is generous and selfish. But he's never boring.

Mindset 

Saban is a worker. He believes that hard work, consistency, and talent will beat most opponents. He was also the best recruiter in America. 

 

The ill-prepared usually lose out. MVB has a culture of teamwork, off-season work, and learning. Invest your time don't spend it. 

Preparation. 

Your process reflects your attitude, choices, and effort. It also reflects your behavior. "Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior." Some people have a great eye for talent, character, and potential. Coach Celli is one of them. 

In The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis drills down on the theories and discoveries of behavioral economists Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Part is prospect theory, which partly analyzes loss. People hate losing twice as much as we like winning. That explains some bad decisions like selling winners (taking profits) and holding losers (avoiding losses). 

A losing strategy or ineffective player that coaches keep running out there, generate more losses. 

Performance

Performance means doing what you're trained to do, the way you're trained, when it will produce results. It's doing it RIGHT, RIGHT NOW. 

Model excellence. Strive to be your best daily. Strive to make those around you better because they help the collective excellence. 

MVB 2005 wasn't ready to win a title. A state title loss in 2011 prepared the 2012 team to 'get over the hump' with both mindset and a critical mass of talent. 

Nobody knows what MVB 2024 is yet. There are a lot of excellent pieces, experience, and a blend of veterans (nine seniors) and youth. How those all fit together will define potential and performance. 

Lagniappe. Be accountable. 

“You have got to be accountable.
You can have all the talent in the world, but if you’re not gonna listen and be accountable to do your job properly, you ain’t gonna play.” @juliojones_11

Your physical ability means very little without your accountability. pic.twitter.com/rO58pgVYfB

— The Winning Difference (@thewinningdiff1) August 21, 2024