What employers can learn from Coaches K and Roy

It was not an April Fools’ Day joke. On April 1 of this year, Coach Roy Williams announced his retirement from coaching basketball at the University of North Carolina. Not to be outdone, two months later, on June 2, Coach Mike Krzyzewski announced he would retire from coaching at Duke University at the conclusion of the 2021-2022 season. The two Hall of Fame coaches have combined for 2,073 wins, 21 Final Fours, and eight national championships. Clearly, they did a lot of things the right way to yield such results. So what can employers learn from the two legendary coaches?

Learn from your mentors

Both Coach Williams and Coach K learned from two of the best coaches of all time:

• Williams was an assistant coach under Dean Smith for 10 years before he took the head coaching job at Kansas, where he had great success.
• Coach K was the starting point guard at Army under Bobby Knight and was an assistant under Knight for one year at Indiana before he became the head coach at Army.

Throughout the years, both Williams and Krzyzewski have cited the important influence the mentors had on them.

You should realize that in your senior employees, you have great sources of wisdom and experience that can be passed down to junior workers. Consider establishing a mentoring program to encourage a transfer of knowledge that will strengthen your organization now and in the future.

Surround yourself with good people