LAS VEGAS—Being in human resources is a lot like being coach of a team. And in both cases, it's most important to focus your attention on one winning strategy: people.
That was the lesson from Mike Krzyzewski, aka Coach K, longtime head men's basketball coach at Duke University and the winningest coach in NCAA Division 1 history, Sunday during the opening keynote at the Society for Human Resource Management annual conference.
"What you do is really set the heart and soul of every team you work with, with your company," he told roughly 15,000 HR professionals, adding it's important to set a good tone, value employees and understand just how important your role in your company is.
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But, he told HR professionals, just as he once told Lebron James: You're good at what you do now.
But you have the opportunity to be much better. Getting better involves constant communication, making people feel good about themselves, and exchanging ideas with smart people.
And, it's about three concepts HR professionals must embrace to build a great team. They are:
Adaptability. "On a day-to-day basis you have to be adaptable," he said. Employees will go through a host of unplanned circumstances—including illness, death in the family, and so on—that employers must learn to deal with when one arises, he said. But to properly deal with those issues, he said, there should be an "element of trust" between each employee and C-suite and HR employees, he said. That way the employee will trust you when those issues arise.
And how do you build an element of trust? That's simple: Get to know each and every employee on a personal level.
"One of the keys [to success] is to make sure everyone feels important. Everybody," Krzyzewski said. "When we start our season with our Duke team, I bring in everyone involved, including our entire cleaning group—I want everyone to know their names, I want them thanked and acknowledged. I did the same with the USA team [Krzyzewski also is coach of the USA Men's National Basketball team, and has two Olympic gold medals].
"Everyone will feel better if you know their name. Know something about them. In your organization you will hit a jackpot every day by doing something that doesn't cost something."
2. Ownership. One thing Krzyzewski likes to do with each team he coaches is to apply some standards for how to act. Some of those have included: don't be late; don't make excuses and have a good practice. That kind of standard-setting works, he said, and creates a culture where everyone has another's back. That creates teamwork.
"How do you get people to own what they're doing?" he said. "They aren't working for an organization; they are working with an organization."
3. Feeling. You can have talented people on your team, but it's not going to matter if you don't feel emotion or feel a connection to them or to what you do, Krzyzewski said. "I want you to open up your hearts and feel what you're doing," he said. "You should not just feel it but feel why you're doing it. Embrace the plural pronouns–we, us."
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