Who, What, When, Where, Why, How

Coach K was never after redemption.

“Redemption alludes to the rightful restoration of what once was,” he writes, “Our place at the top was no longer rightful; we had to earn it all over again. And we had to earn it operating in an international environment that had completely changed.”

The Redeem Team never referred to themselves as such, although they understand why the moniker took off. It was clever. It was catchy.

But for Coach K, his approach to coaching Team USA towards the 2008 Olympics was more about relearning than redemption.

In his book The Gold Standard, Krzyzewski outlines the methodical plan he put in place for the USA to relearn how to play international basketball, and return to the top of the podium in Beijing.

Scanning The Environment

As a well-known graduate of West Point, it’s unsurprising that Coach K leaned so heavily on military ideas to shape his USA team.

While his NBA superstars regularly visited military bases to understand their responsibility in representing the United States, Krzyzewski also pulled from the Army guidebook in how he approached his mission.

Before going into the field, Special Forces units will do what’s called an ‘environment scan’ to try to understand every element of what they’re about to encounter. I’ve met a Green Beret who told me that before he parachuted in Afghanistan, they researched the courseness of the sand to understand when and where they’d need to wear goggles.

In his book, Coach K tells us about the environment scan he did on international basketball so that he best understood the specific challenges the team were about to encounter.

Who

• are we playing against?

• will we bring together to face that competition?

• do we represent?

What

• are our particular challenges?

• was missing in our recent losses?

• is our motivation?

When

• are we playing?

• do we assemble to grow together as a unit?

Where

• are we playing?

• is our venue and what particular challenges does it present?

Why

• was the old system not working?

• do we care?

How

• do we change a culture?

• do we prepare to meet our challenge?

• much time do we have to prepare?
  

These may seem like quite unsophisticated questions, but Krzyzewski believed that the root of USA Basketball’s problems had been that they refused to ask themselves challenging questions. “The most difficult questions to ask are usually the most basic,” he writes.

From this list of who’s, what’s, and when’s, Coach K was able to understand every element of what they were about to encounter. This detail informed his scheduling, squad selection, team activities, and game plan.

While your team building process is unlikely to mirror The Redeem Team, you can use Krzyzewski’s environment scan as a planning tool to return to each pre-season.

If you answer the questions properly (ie. you don’t gloss over them like USA Basketball had been) you’ll find details that will help you plan and prepare for specific elements of your season that might otherwise trip you up.

Cody’s Notes

• Pair this planning tool with an After Action Review (AAR) for maximum benefit.

• An AAR can be done after games, after weeks, or after the season. Better yet, after winning a gold medal at the Olympics.

• An effective AAR is best completed right after the event, as a huddle meeting, with a time constraint, by answering these five questions:

1. What were we trying to achieve?

2. Where did we hit (or miss) our objective?

3. Why did we hit (or miss) our objective?

4. What should we stop, start or continue doing?

5. What did we learn?