The Gold Standard: Building a World-Class Team by Mike Krzyzewski with Jamie K. Spatola. Business Plus. 274 pages. 2009
*** ½

This book is part diary of Duke basketball coach Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski’s time as the coach of USA Basketball, culminating with the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and part leadership lessons. He writes that he is often asked how he builds a team. This book is his response to that question.
This book is divided into “times” and “moments”, with each chapter devoted to a particular quality of time he feels is vital to team building. Within each chapter, he includes some of the moments that defined that time for the USA Basketball Men’s National Team.
The USA had once dominated international basketball, but by 2004, when they lost the semifinal game in the Athens Olympics to Argentina, that was no longer the case. The USA had lost its competitive edge in international basketball.
A new approach was needed. When approached to be the first head coach under the new National Team concept by Jerry Colangelo, Coach K readily accepted the commitment. This was a three-year plan leading up to the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.
I enjoyed this book, the story about how he built his team, the three-year commitment he, his assistant coaches and players like Kobe Bryant, Lebron James and Jason Kidd made, and the drive to the Olympic gold medal in Beijing.
Here are twenty helpful leadership quotes from the book:

• You do not select a team; you select a group of people and then work together to develop into a team.
• Your team-building plan must be personalized and specific to your personnel, your competition, your goal, and your leadership style.
• Leadership can be lonely. But I believe you can fight that loneliness by finding kindred spirits and surrounding yourself with those people who will bring out the best in you.
• When building a team, the members of that team need to be explicitly told what the parameters of their commitment are going to be, what is expected of them.
• In team building, you want this foundation to be one of trust and forthright communication. There shouldn’t be any surprises.
• Remember that choosing your people is the first decision you will make as a leader. Take the time to make it a good one.
• Take the time to gain perspective. Let that perspective operate along with your understanding of context. Context should serve as your guide in what you do on the court, or on the playing field, or in the boardroom. It brings about the feeling that what you are doing is of great consequence.
• To be a world-class champion, you have to have both context and perspective. You have to understand how big and how small you are, and be able to internalize both. When you have that combination, you can approach your undertaking at a new level, one that allows your emotions to bring out your best.
• The single most important factor in bringing a team together is the formation of relationships.
• The relationships that a leader wants to see develop among his or her team are based on communication.
• In developing teams, I don’t believe in rules. I believe in standards. Rules don’t promote teamwork, standards do.
• Leaders should remember that not all the good ideas have to come from the top, and they should be secure enough to change plans based on the input of the team.
• Great teams have multiple leaders, multiple voices. A major part of building a team is discovering who those voices will be and cultivating them, making sure that their leadership is established within your group.
• Take the time to cultivate leadership. Recognize that yours is not the only voice that your team wants or needs to hear, and be unselfish with your leadership.
• In the formation of teams, every single person must adapt. And for those who have met with much individual success, adaptability can be a challenge.
• A lesson that any team leader can learn is that it is important to give everyone some autonomy.
• I’ve always believed that failure can be an integral part of success. When you attempt something in which failure is possible, you test your limits. Failure requires you to reevaluate.
• Internal leadership is good for a lot of things, but the team leader is the one who needs to step up when it’s time for confrontation.
• Self-assessment is not a thing that you do once in a while; it is something that should be taking place all the time.
• I believe that a common mistake that leaders make is not motivating their best people.