Compass Objective: Challenging the Hype

“The small business with the best technology rules. " - a Verizon 2011-2012 sales message

The Question of the Day

Do you know of an unique situation where an average leadership culture with Class A technology prevailed over exemplary leadership with Class C technology on the long run?


Analysis

In a competitive situation, the successful strategists understand that the cornerstone of any true blue strategic foundation is the leadership culture. Due to the attributes of trust, credibility, benevolence and unity, the organization with exemplary leadership and Class C technology usually prevails over those with flawed leadership and Class A technology.

Summary

Technology evolves.  But exemplary leadership culture prevails by knowing when to adjust their settings.


Question of the Day
What could be the prevailing factor what happens when both sides have a similar leadership culture and the similar technology?  


The answer might not be in your copy of the Art of War.

The Profile of a Strategic Leader

Therefore a skilled commander seeks victory from the situation and does not demand it of his subordinates. ... He selects his men and they exploit the situation. ... He who relies on the situation uses his men in fighting as one rolls logs or stones. Now the nature of logs or stones is that on stable ground they are static; on unstable ground, they move. If square, they stop; if round, they roll. Thus, the potential of troops skillfully commanded in battle may be compared to that of round boulders which roll down from the mountain heights. - AoW, 5 (Griffith translation)

#

Mike Montgomery a thinking man's coach

Vittorio Tafur, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, March 6, 2010

(03-05) 21:55 PST -- The consummate coach can take the five guys on his basketball team and beat you, and then take your five guys and beat his five guys. In the case of Mike Montgomery, he can build a power at Stanford and then years later find himself cutting down the nets for archrival Cal.

"Your job as a coach is to put your players in a position to be successful," Montgomery said. "Regardless of the situation."

Even if you're at Stanford, which has the most severe academic restrictions of any major-conference program. Or at Cal, where he coaches a freewheeling style very different from what he had on the Farm, with big centers down low.

Last Saturday at Haas Pavilion, Montgomery's Bears locked up the program's first conference regular-season title in 50 years, this after his Cardinal ended a 36-year Stanford drought in 1999.

"I'm sure it seemed weird to some people, going to work for your archrival, but the bottom line is he gets paid to do a job," said Utah State coach Stew Morrill, a close friend and former assistant of Montgomery's. "And boy does he do it well."

Cal athletic director Sandy Barbour put a scare in the rest of the Pac-10 when she brought in the gun for hire two years ago. And Montgomery's put some more notches on his belt. The Bears are 20-9 heading into today's game at Stanford and have all but sealed a second straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament - after finishing ninth under coach Ben Braun in 2007-08.

"It's very pleasing to see this group of seniors grow like they have, together," Montgomery said. "We're playing well right now."

Montgomery, 63, draws little attention to himself.

He was asked if he had gotten any phone calls congratulating him on Cal's title.

"No, people know me," he deadpanned. "Over the years, they know it's better to let me be."

Montgomery is happy for his players, who have been getting slaps on the back in the community.

"I think everybody's excited. A lot of people waited a long time and probably were fearful of being let down again," he said. "When we finally won, it was probably a load off a lot of people's minds. It's been pretty positive."

Winning approach

On Monday, Montgomery showed his players a videotape of all the things they had been doing well lately, from making the extra pass on offense to helping out teammates on defense.

Senior guard Patrick Christopher ate it up.

"Coach sees the glass as half empty most of the time," Christopher said. "So when he pours a little bit of water in there, it gets your attention."

Montgomery is admittedly a no-nonsense type on the court - " I want things done right," he said.

When he came to Berkeley, his resume - he now is 11 wins shy of becoming the 34th Division I basketball coach with 600 - demanded the Cal players' attention.

"Coach has had great teams in the past," senior forward Theo Robertson said. "Everything he says has worked and is proven."

"Obviously we needed some type of direction from Coach," senior point guard Jerome Randle added. "He put us in the right spots on the court to be successful."

/// The key is to explain to the players how an individual effort can improve the overall team result and how it can benefit each individual player.

A chess match

Montgomery considers the game a chess match, and clearly enjoys pre-game strategy sessions and late-game management.

"He is one of the most logical coaches there is," said Butler athletic director Barry Collier, a friend and former Montgomery assistant. "I know that's not going to win many points in a sexy contest."

Besides being an excellent evaluator of talent, Montgomery breaks the game down to a simple formula - if you shoot a higher percentage than you allow, limit turnovers to 10 a game and out-rebound your opponent, you win.

"In a world of chaos, he has unbelievable common sense," Morrill said. "It's a wonderful attribute. He never panics and is able to sort things out."

With the Bears, he's sorted out a roster that is more suited to shooting jumpers than scoring inside.

"We're not big and strong," Montgomery said. "Even if I wanted to be that kind of team, we can't be. We've gone with what we do best. And we've gotten better defensively and fundamentally."

He's given Randle, Christopher and Robertson the freedom to pull up for three-pointers on the fast break and has made peace with the fact that center/power forward Jamal Boykin prefers shooting 15-footers to playing with his back to the basket.

"One of the greatest things he's done is that he's allowed us to play our game," Boykin said. "He's never said, 'Don't take that shot.' He's allowed some unconventional players to still be creative, under his basic structure."

/// Focusing on one's strengths usually create a state of predictability for the well-prepared opposition.

Sister schools

Montgomery is not a flashy guy - the Long Beach native calls himself a homebody who prefers to curl up in a chair - and that helps explain why he is currently wearing a Cal sweater, with some Stanford ones still in the closet.

"There are places where it's national championship or nothing, and the graduation rate is not a factor," Montgomery said. "I don't think I would be very happy at those places."

There are obviously many things that differentiate Stanford, a private university, from Cal, a public school, and the cultures on the two campuses, but they do have similar values when it comes to academics and athletics.

The Cardinal hadn't finished higher than fifth in more than a decade when Montgomery arrived on the Farm in 1986.

"At Stanford, they didn't really feel like they could win," Montgomery said. "It didn't seem to be in the cards. 'This is what we are.' "

Were.

From 1986 to 2004, Montgomery led the Cardinal to 12 NCAA Tournament appearances, including the 1998 Final Four.

"One of the best things Mike did at Stanford was convince everybody nationwide that there is no excuse for not being a great student and a great basketball player," Collier said. "That's a testament to his ability."

After Stanford

Montgomery left Stanford to try his wares at the highest level, the NBA. He was 68-96 in two seasons with the Golden State Warriors, learning for himself how much more power the players wield than the coaches.

"The whole dynamic changes," he said.

He then worked as a television commentator for two years but was anxious to jump back into the college ranks when Barbour came calling.

"He is an expert at his craft," said Barbour, who was never concerned that Montgomery had become synonymous with Stanford. "But even more importantly, he has a passion for creating something special on behalf of the institution and the young men in the program."

Montgomery got to coach at a Pac-10 school that he respected, got to keep living in the Bay Area and got to work with his son, John, the Bears' director of basketball operations.

And simply, he got to coach. That's what Mike Montgomery is, after all, a coach.

"I like the way the game fits together," he said. "At the same time, it's made up of people with dreams and aspirations. And the bottom line is how you blend the different types of personalities into the same mind-set. That's where the challenge comes in."

Montgomery file

-- 589-264 record (236-123 in Pac-10, fifth all-time)

-- First coach in Pac-10 to win title with two different teams

-- Five Pac-10 titles

-- One Final Four and two Sweet 16 appearances

-- 12 straight 20-win seasons

-- 11 straight appearances in NCAA Tournament

E-mail Vittorio Tafur at vtafur@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/06/SPQ31CBG3M.DTL

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Strategic Leadership: Thriving Above the Pressure.

The successful strategic leader always uses the right set of numbers in their message, hoping that it would inspire the team to great heights.

#
The Outcome:
PSU volleyball makes history again
By Anna K. Clemmons ESPN.com

TAMPA, Fla. -- Penn State women's volleyball has followed a mantra this season: "One game at a time." Despite the numbers, streaks and records the Nittany Lions have carried on their backs, they refused to focus beyond what lay immediately in front of them.

They entered the season's final match Saturday night, the NCAA tournament's No. 1 seed against 2-seeded Texas, with much at stake: a 101-game win streak, an undefeated season, an elusive third consecutive national championship and an all-time record for consecutive NCAA tournament victories. And for a while before a crowd of 12,087 inside the St. Pete Times Forum, it looked that all might end.

Penn State's come-from-behind championship win solidifies the Nittany Lions spot in NCAA history. But records aren't created from nothing, and the Lions would rally from a two-set deficit to win their third consecutive national championship in five sets, 22-25, 20-25, 25-23, 25-21, 15-13.

Texas, the underdog that hadn't won a volleyball national championship since 1988, came out the more aggressive team, battling through long rallies, 11 tie scores and six lead changes to win the first set.

Tournament MVP Destinee Hooker dominated the second set almost single-handedly, leading Texas to a two-set lead. Penn State hadn't lost a set by more than two points all season -- and had lost only six sets total prior to the tournament.

But then, Penn State coach Russ Rose affirmed why he's won more than 1,000 matches and the Nittany Lions showed why they haven't lost since 2007. They became the more aggressive, controlled squad as Blair Brown and Megan Hodge found holes in Texas's spread and forced the Longhorns into errors. Junior Cathy Quilico, the shortest Nittany Lion at 5-foot-1, dug out improbable balls on the back line. And Penn State battled back, taking the next two sets.

In the decisive fifth set, with almost the entire crowd on their feet, the courtside ESPN cameraman telling his wire controller, "This really is exciting!" and an improbable 10 tie scores, a Megan Hodge kill gave Penn State the final set, 15-13, and the Nittany Lions took the championship for their 102nd consecutive victory. They became one of only three teams in NCAA women's volleyball history to claim four national titles.

More records for the books, more streaks to continue and as Penn State senior setter Alisha Glass said with a laugh after the match, "a lot of pressure for them next year, for sure." But Saturday night was about winning an unprecedented third straight NCAA title. Destinee Hooker was named MVP of the NCAA tournament despite Texas' loss Saturday.

"I blacked out; I was asking everyone after the match what happened on the last play, who got the winning point," Hodge said when asked how she felt in the seconds following victory -- a win sealed by her own play. "We've done a lot of silly things this season as a team as far as not stepping up, but tonight we fought. We knew we'd have to do that to win."
Initially, Penn State's fight looked like it might not come. The team appeared flat-footed and without an answer to Hooker's relentless attack. The 6-foot-4 senior outside hitter had 11 kills for 11 points in the second set alone. "She had 34 kills and she had 38 of 88 points," Rose said of Hooker. "I was disappointed we didn't do a better job getting the tip because you'd like to think that was something you could get. But as the players indicated, she hits from such a high contact point and she kept going hard the whole time. … She did what we thought she'd do but it's a team game, and we had some ideas of what we thought we needed to do to have success." Between the second and third sets, Rose, who says he doesn't like to focus on stats, reminded his team of an important one: The last time they'd been down two sets and still won the match was against Texas on September 8, 2006. (The last time they were down 2-0 since was a three-set loss to Stanford in 2007.)

Texas' early tenacity still showed in the third set, but the Longhorns couldn't dominate and control the tempo the way they had in the first two. As Texas senior setter Ashley Engle said of the first two sets, "I think we were playing pretty perfect. I think we stunned Penn State; they definitely weren't playing their usual match. We knew coming out of the locker room that they were going to be on fire."
The Nittany Lions transformed Rose's motivation into action, emerging in the third with blocking power and several key shots by freshman Darcy Dorton and junior Arielle Wilson. Quilico dug out balls in the middle back and suddenly, Penn State had a shot. Junior libero Alyssa D'Errico, too, saved many Hooker shots from another marker in the kill column. "I think D'Errico doesn't get a lot of credit," Texas coach Jerritt Elliott said. "The kid's a fighter, She has a tremendous amount of passion and she kind of willed them to get on the road to competing."

Megan Hodge had the championship-winning kill in the fifth set for Penn State. That determination carried over to the fourth set, which had nine tie scores and two lead changes before a Hodge kill gave the Nittany Lions the set. Hodge became just the fifth player in Division 1 history to be named First Team All-American four years in a row and was also named the AVCA National Player of the Year for 2009.

After Hodge's final kill, the entire team erupted into a circle of hugs, laughter and tears. Dorton held three fingers in the air as she hugged Hodge, reminding everyone present of the three consecutive titles claimed by Penn State as Texas players and fans looked on, stunned. These two teams had never met in the NCAA tournament and yet the matchup had been highly anticipated throughout much of the season.

The fourth NCAA championship for Rose's career ties him for the most all-time among Division I coaches with John Dunning (Pacific/Stanford) and Don Shaw (Stanford), "It's something that you look back on and just think it is amazing," Glass said. "It has been amazing for us to be a part of it. This was our goal. This was what we wanted from the beginning of the season. We just would not let it go, so we are really happy that we came out here and got what we wanted."
Anna K. Clemmons is a writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4758384

More on the Penn State women's volleyball team
http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/w-volley/recaps/121909aab.html

Strategic Leadership: Dealing With the Pressure of Perfection (1)

Following are two stories of how to deal with a winning streak.

#Wednesday, December 16, 2009
One Patriot's lament
By Greg Garber
ESPN.com

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Troy Brown walks, smiling, into the Renaissance Boston Hotel, which is a pooched punt's distance from Gillette Stadium.

Former Patriots star Troy Brown wishes the 2007 team openly embraced the challenge of finishing unbeaten.

Brown, who played for the New England Patriots for 15 seasons and caught 557 passes, is wearing a blinding piece of bling that goes above (and far beyond) most fashion statements. It's the ring he received after the Patriots won their third Super Bowl, XXXIX, over the Philadelphia Eagles.

He'd be wearing one with four huge diamonds, he insisted, if the Patriots had embraced their perfect regular-season run more openly during the 2007 season.

"We should have acknowledged the fact that we were undefeated," he said last week. "Tom Brady, myself or somebody should have stepped up and said: 'We are undefeated. It's a great thing. But we have a lot of work that's undone.'

"We spent more time and energy trying to cover that fact up and not really talk about it, [rather than] try to just acknowledge it and move along."

As it turned out, the Patriots fell one quarter short of an unprecedented 19-0 season when they lost to the New York Giants 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII. Like the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints of 2009, the Patriots' consistently downplayed their destiny -- to their detriment, Brown said.

"I just felt it put more pressure on us," he said, "and more tension in the room by just not coming out and saying, 'Yeah, we are the first team to go 17-0.' Every time that somebody interviews, just say it and put it out there and get it over with. And, boom, there's no elephant in the room."

What did that denial cost the tight-lipped Patriots?

Brown winced and said, "The Super Bowl."

Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=garber_greg&id=4746058


#Culture of hard work key to successBy Antonya English, Times Staff Writer
Published Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The unprecedented success can be directly traced to a culture, developed and nurtured over three decades, and based on the belief that nothing breeds success better than hard work.

In 31 years, Russ Rose has tried to instill that into every volleyball player he has coached at Penn State.

"I think all teams work hard," said Rose, the women's coach. "We have a culture that I work hard to maintain and try to keep people working hard all the time. And I don't care if they are mad at me, and I don't care if they are mad at each other. I care that we realize that the next team that we play is going to write a slogan on their T-shirt if they beat you. It's a lot different than just coming to work every day and being a college athlete. So you sign on for something, and when you get that chance to do something special and great, I hold them to that."

And he has held them to it. To say Penn State is in the midst of doing something "special" and "great" is an understatement.

The No. 1 ranked Nittany Lions (36-0) are preparing to compete for their third consecutive national championship this week at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa. Rose has taken Penn State to 29 straight NCAA Tournaments.

Penn State is on a record 100-match winning streak, which dates to September 2007. It is the longest win streak in Division I women's sports history and the second longest for any sport, trailing only the Miami men's tennis program, which had 137 straight wins from 1957 to 1964.

Yet "the streak" — as it has become known — is the farthest thing from Penn State's mind. When the team won its 100th straight match Saturday over Cal in the NCAA region final in Gainesville, the Penn State fans began chanting "100."

"Honestly, we had no idea what the streak is," junior middle hitter Blair Brown said. "They were chanting a number, and we had no idea why."

That is all by design.

"We don't talk about the streak at all," Rose said. "I don't know the number; it doesn't make a difference. We're not thinking about the streak. When you're in the NCAA Tournament, you need to win the next match or you're celebrating Hanukkah. I don't know the number. I don't care about the number."

When told the number was at 100, Rose said, "It's 100? Well triple figure is better than double figures for sure."

Others marvel at the streak.

"What's incredible about that is things happen during a season," Florida State coach Chris Poole said. "You overlook a team on the road, or you have a heavy test week for your team, or you have the flu going through them and you drop a match you really shouldn't have dropped. That happens to everyone. It hasn't happened to Penn State. … They obviously find a way to win no matter what."

The Nittany Lions have taken every opponent's best shot — and persevered. That alone has made them a better team.

"I think that's true; people said we have a target on our back ever since the streak began," Brown said. "I think it helps us that people come out with their A game all the time against us, because it pushes us to be better and to have to come out every single time with that energy that we need. We have to step up right away. We can't come out and be casual because people jump on us."

Rose credits outside hitter Megan Hodge and setter Alisha Glass as the strength of the team — both are seniors who have won national titles.

Just making it to the Final Four isn't the goal. Making history is.

"I think our team is very focused on our side of the net," Hodge said. "When we control what we can control on our side of the net, I think we're a very powerful force for any team. So it's kind of us having that mentality that when we do what we need to do, we can beat anybody."

Added junior Arielle Wilson: "Our goal this year was not to make it to the Final Four. We have higher goals for the season, and I think we're concentrating on that."

Which should be a concern for the rest of the field.

Times staff writer Brian Landman contributed to this report.
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/colleges/penn-state-womens-volleyball-team-relies-on-a-culture-of-hard-work/1058959


#
The hype before the game

With the correct strategic process and good performance data, Coach Russ Rose usually assesses the opposition by identifying their tendencies during the scouting process.

We presumed that he has positioned the team with a plan that is focused on creating technical mismatches against the opponent. As mentioned in a previous post, Coach Ross has prepared his team to align with his plan by explaining the reason why it will work and why their team will be victorious.


Saturday, December 19, 2009
Win streak adds to volleyball championship hype

TAMPA, Fla. -- It's a week before Christmas and it's raining and humid in Tampa. Despite the dreary weather, the Penn State and Texas women's volleyball players and coaches seemed in festive spirits Friday, the day before their decisive national championship battle (Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN2, ESPN360).

Before the day's press conferences, the Penn State players sat eating and talking together. They looked loose and relaxed, laughing at each others' stories and reminiscing over moments during the season. On the podium, coach Russ Rose was his usual entertaining, thoughtful and occasionally sardonic self. When asked if he remembered what it felt like to lose (the Lions haven't lost since 2007), Rose replied, "Yeah. I'm married with four kids."

Relaxed demeanor aside, the Nittany Lions have much at stake Saturday night. Their win against Hawaii in a semifinal Thursday was their 101st victory in a row, the longest Division I winning streak in any women's sport. They have been ranked No. 1 throughout the entire season and are one of only two teams besides Stanford to have been invited to the NCAA tournament every year since its inception in 1981. They have won 17 straight NCAA tournament matches, dating to 2007, and the win Thursday night was also Rose's 1,000th career victory.

Just mention those numbers to the Penn State players. Much like the NFL's 14-0 Indianapolis Colts, they profess that going undefeated wasn't an outlying goal at the season's start. Instead, it's been more about focusing on the match ahead.

"Our team takes it one match at a time," senior Cathy Quilico said Friday. "I can't say every match we know we'll win, but we go in and prepare very well for each match."

"We don't like to talk about the streak," added Blair Brown. "Before you [a media member] said it, we didn't know what number we were at. We don't focus on it, and like Cathy said, we take it one game at a time, especially this time. We want this game."

That they didn't know about win No. 101 is a bit questionable, given all the hype around it. However, Rose is pretty matter-of-fact about the reality of that streak eventually ending. He just hopes it isn't Saturday.

"Losing happens all the time. It hasn't happened in a while in this program, but it'll happen, and when it does, we'll work on the things we need to get better for our next match."

For now, players and coach said Penn State-Texas will be an intriguing battle, regardless of the outcome. "It'll be an interesting matchup because we're both so physical," Brown said.

"They certainly match us and surpass us in some of the physical aspects of the game," Rose said. "Juliann [Faucette] hits the ball as hard as anyone in college volleyball, Destinee [Hooker] has a high contact point. A number of these players we've recruited, so I'm very familiar with them. I think they're a very talented group and have all the right reasons to be in the position they're in."

Rose shied away from drawing too many similarities between the teams in increasing hype.

"I think maybe we're similar because the players are bigger players, but I wouldn't compare a 5-1 [player] and a 6-2 [player] and say they are similar," Rose said. "Each team has a dominant attacker and a middle attack. I think that the similarity is the teams have the same goals."

Indeed, Texas came to the podium next with a more businesslike tone. Coach Jerritt Elliott immediately pointed to the hype around the matchup, noting, "We know that this is the match that everybody associated with college volleyball wanted to see at the beginning of the year."

Texas has had an impressive season as well, at 29-1 and 19-1 in the Big 12. To return to NFL comparisons, much like the Minnesota Vikings, the Longhorns' one loss doesn't reveal many weaknesses. They are still very much a threat to every team they face, given all their weapons.

Earlier, reporters had fished for Penn State players to speak directly about Texas' Hooker, the 6-foot-4 three-time NCAA champion in outdoor high jump. While Rose pointed to Hooker's vertical abilities on her shots, he said the entire Texas team was a challenge.

Texas answered in a similar fashion when asked which Penn State players they'll target, drawing comparisons to earlier-season opponents.

"Nebraska is a good, strong physical team that we've faced, and Penn State has some tall players. … Blair Brown, I think that we've seen others that relate to those players," Faucette said Friday. "We've been challenged, but they are the No. 1 team in the nation and are there for that reason."

Some stats to note: Texas has made 60 blocking errors to Penn State's 41; Texas has had 76 service errors to the Nittany Lions' 60. Penn State has totaled 1,723 kills while limiting opponents to 1,167; Texas has totaled 1,446 while holding opponents at 1,149. The statistical edge slightly favors Penn State in almost all instances, including its impossible-to-ignore win streak.

"College athletics is about emotion, being focused and competing on a high level," Elliott said. "Russ has gotten that out of his team night in and night out. People think it's easy when you have talent, but there's so much more that goes into it. Hopefully his streak will end tomorrow."
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=4756749&name=college_sports


/// When the attributes of strength, speed, and skills between two competing  teams are equal, the coaches are focused on the team's will to win.