Jim Jabir was my RA in college, Nazareth College of Rochester, in the early 80’s. I have known him since I was 17 years old. Jim truly cares for those around him more than he does himself. He is the epitome of “selflessness.” His ability to communicate with those around him, to get in touch with who they are and to connect with them is better than anyone I have been around. He is caring; he understands the total student-athlete experience and makes it a priority. He is genuine and real.
Graham Hays does an exceptional job of capturing “who” Jim is and what his relationship is with his players. As you read this one thing jumps off the page… the article is being written about him and all he talks about is his players, the university and how fortunate he is to be part of their existence. Humility. This isn’t just because Jim had a brush with death, it is who he has been since I met him in 1983.
There is no question that if Jim had stayed at Marquette they would be the “UConn” of the Big East as well. Jim has the plan and the process and Dayton is his vehicle. Enjoy this.
Five seasons after dealing with cardiac issues, coach has Dayton on brink of NCAAs
By Graham Hays ESPN.com
HANOVER, N.H. — Kendel Ross embodies just about everything Jim Jabir believed Dayton women’s basketball could be when the school gave the veteran coach a second chance seven years ago. But for any of those plans to come to fruition, Jabir first needed to receive a second chance at something far more substantial than a profession.
Tim G. Zechar/Icon SMI Jim Jabir hasn't taken a team to the NCAA tournament since 1995 (Marquette), but his Flyers are 17-5 overall and 5-2 in the A-10.
Dayton’s coach admits he’s harder on Ross, now a senior, than just about any player on a Flyers team that remains in control of its postseason fate despite a loss last weekend at Atlantic 10 leader Xavier. Coming out of Canada four seasons ago, Ross was, in Jabir’s words, “the first kid we shouldn’t have got that we got.” He expects excellence out of her, and her mistakes pain him more.
For lack of a more accessible comparison, she is Dayton’s Shane Battier. She does everything that shows up in the box score and half a dozen things that don’t. For better and occasionally worse when stubborn will meets stubborn will, she has a motor and a competitive streak that will not shut off. Tell her you need 15 rebounds in a game and the result is predictable.
“She’s gonna get you 15,” Jabir said. “It’s like clockwork; she’s going to do what you ask her to do. Or she’ll die trying. So it’s this great intensity, it’s this intangible — this will is tremendous. I mean, she’s got this will — and sometimes it works against her, but for the most part it’s been beneficial to us. And I tell her this all the time, too, I love her and I hate her. I mean, she’s so stubborn, you know what I mean? I literally love her and I hate her. There are days I want to kill her and days I can’t get enough of her.”
Continue Reading…
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Here are the links to the Arizona Men’s Basketball Newsletters: November through February.
A lot of good stuff… articles, sets, BOB’s.
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News to Lead By. Need Some New Ideas?
To stir up some innovative thinking as we enter 2010, take a look at the following articles and posts:
I have not yet been through all of them, but wanted to share. As I work through them and adapt some of the concepts for basketball coaches/players I will add to this post.
- “The advantage goes to those who can outimagine and outcreate their competitors,” writes Bill Breen in a 2007 Fast Company article, The Business of Design. Breen interviewed Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Martin’s book, Opposable Mind: Winning Through Integrative Thinking, came out in 2008.
- More recently on FastCompany.com: The Most Creative People in Business: Top 25 and Eight Ways to Kill an Idea. Don’t Do It! By Cliff Kuang.
- The Decline of Western Innovation on Newsweek.com by Daniel McGinn.
- Can design change the world? An interview on CNN.com with Warren Berger, author of “Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World.”
- How Do Innovators Think? In a question-and-answer session with Harvard Business Review contributing editor Bronwyn Fryer, Professors Jeff Dyer of Brigham Young University and Hal Gregersen of Insead explain how “Innovators’ DNA” works.
- The Innovator’s Vulnerability. Self-confidence, ambition and a thick skin are the obvious characteristics of would-be innovators. Also necessary? A sense of vulnerability, by Saul Kaplan on BusinessWeek.com
- Redesigning Leadership, a Harvard Business column on leadership and design by John Maeda and Becky Bermont of the Rhode Island School of Design.
- Resonance: a short film about getting to the right idea. Continuum strategists how to guide the development of experiences and products that matter to people and keep them coming back for more.
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i have found so many good articles and ideas from the CCL. This is another exceptional set of ideas.
Five Leadership Skills to Accelerate Performance
“Leadership is like a muscle. The more intelligently you train, the stronger you get.”
John Ryan, CCL’s president and CEO, is a big believer in giving leaders a serious workout. Based on CCL’s research and practical experience and Ryan’s 40 years of leadership in the military, higher education and nonprofits, he advises leaders to step up their leadership training in five areas:
- Teamwork and collaboration are critical for organizations in two ways. Internally, you won’t get much done without it. Externally, you need partnerships with like-minded firms that advance your strategy, whether it’s developing new products or breaking into emerging markets. But fostering teamwork is not easy. In a recent CCL study, 97 percent of senior executives told us collaboration is a key factor in organizational success. But just 47 percent believed the leaders in their organizations are skilled collaborators.
- Managing change. In our work at CCL, we have found a few key principles for tackling change. First, view it positively and, of course, with a sense of urgency. There’s no point in fearing change since it’s inevitable and we can’t control it. Second, focus on adapting plans as necessary to external pressures. We all had our strategic plans before the recent recession hit. Some organizations stubbornly stuck with them, believing things would return to normal quickly. Others saw a sea change in the marketplace and adjusted their plans accordingly. Third, it’s important to manage the resistance to change you are bound to see in your colleagues. It’s your role and responsibility to help them understand what’s going on externally and why your organization needs to adapt. Be sure to involve others in the design and implementation of major change initiatives, whether it’s a workforce restructuring or a new product development process.
- Communication. As an executive with a demanding schedule, it’s easy to be cut off from the rest of the organization. We can all learn a lesson from A.G. Lafley, the retired CEO of Procter & Gamble. He was a great listener, often visiting consumers in their homes or joining them for trips to the store. In addition to being P&G’s CEO, Lafley also established himself as the company’s Chief Listening Officer. He knew that getting good ideas required asking people for input and listening to it very carefully. We should all be Chief Listening Officers in our own organizations.
- Learning agility. To succeed in a world where our work is always changing, where challenges are unpredictable and competition abounds, we need to be agile learners. We need to apply our new knowledge. Perhaps most of all, we need to believe we can rise to the challenge. There’s a growing body of neuroscience research that says we can learn new behaviors and modify deep-set behaviors at any age. It takes hard work and real focus, but all of us really can learn new and effective behaviors — and help take our organizations to new levels of performance.
- Judgment is at the core of leadership. Fundamentally, it’s about getting the most important calls right — when it comes to both people and strategy. Without good people judgment, you won’t have a strong team. Without a strong team, your strategy will not be executed effectively. Look first of all for men and women who have demonstrated strong performance, integrity and the desire to assume higher levels of responsibility. Watch out for candidates who treat others insensitively and abrasively and put their self-interests above the company good.
Strategy judgment calls require leaders to find new paths. Success depends on asking the right questions, experimenting and constantly adjusting your approach. It hinges even more on your level of humility. Are you too confident in your own judgment? Do you believe too strongly in your old ways of doing business? Do you think that because something has worked many times before, it will work again now? Do you have the humility to understand that even with great collaboration you will not get everything right, and that you can’t know everything yourself?
To read more about strengthening your leadership skills from John Ryan, download the paper “Accelerating Performance: Five Leadership Skills You and Your Organization Can’t Do Without.”
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