Minnesota Timberwolves - Peter Drucker Case Study

The Minnesota TImberwolves are the hottest team in the NBA. If you follow basketball at all, you know it wasn't always so. They got off to a horrific start under coach Randy Wittmann. The new coach Kevin McHale with the same players has run off a remarkable streak, they are 10-2 in 2009.

Wittman was taskmaster who tried to teach the young team how to win, however he focused a lot of attention on defense. This young Wolves team has talent but its mainly offensive firepower on defense not so much...

Awhile back I blogged Motley Fool's Dave Gardner's summary of Peter Drucker

We've tried to manage our Motley Fool business the Drucker way for 15 years, too. Lemme ask you a question. I'm putting you in charge of your human resources group, in charge of your corporate culture, and you have two choices of how to spend $100,000 -- your call, here, Drucker or Anti-Drucker -- these are the two ways you can invest:

(a) a program to try to get D- employees up to a C, people who have motivational and/or social problems, toxicly bring down the teams they're on, and clearly aren't fit to be hired even by weak competitors in your field, or

(b) a program to invest in your stars -- invest in more training, outside experiences, and leadership opportunities for your best employees

You can see what McHale has done, since he took over the same players are high scoring, routinely putting up over 100 a night instead of trying to win 82-80, they are throwing their best at the opponent and daring them to beat them. Its Drucker at his finest. Randy Foye has been unleashed under McHale

"I was in a tough situation early on,'' Foye said. "There was a lot demanded of me in the beginning, let's just put it like that. And when it didn't happen, I was snatched off the court.

"Now I can make a mistake and still play my game. One hundred percent, all my success, recently, goes to Kevin McHale.''

In addition, if you are not great at defense the least you can do is rebound the basketball, until tonight the Wolves were  not outrebounded in 10 straight games (they were tonight by 1). 

On another note, most big time hoop programs like UNC and the Celtics produce many successful coaches and execs. Wittman went to Indiana. I tried to think of a single successful coach from that program and came up dry, in fact the worst exec in the basketball history, Isiah Thomas, came out of Indiana. Seems like Knight was more a great coach than a great teacher who created a program with many offshoots.

Finally if Aljeff is not in the all star game they should cancel it. There are only a few guys in the league who can score in a double or triple team and he is one of them

Comments

[kyle]

hmmm..... indeed....

[Daily1]

Many principles in talent management apply to both business and sports. Jim Collins’ principle of getting the right people on/off the bus and Buckingham and Clifton on focusing on strengths, not weaknesses, is two quick examples that come to mind.

In case of the Wolves, their turnaround coincides with moving a key player – Foye - to his natural position of SG. Both Foye and team have taken off since then.

Now some, or at least me, still quibble with the root cause of why McHale finally made this move. Injuries made this happen, rather than recognition that Foye at PG was holding back his and the team’s offensive production. Going forward, will the coach realize that a stubbornly held opinion is wrong and adjust, or, will he go with his gut instinct and hope for the best?

This happens in business as well, we just don’t always read about it in the daily newspapers or online media.

[Gunnar Peterson]

@Daily1 - maybe they finally spun the fly wheel long enough that things clicked into gear. They are the hottest team in the NBA in 2009