ORLANDO – During the closing keynote at HIMSS24 on Friday, recently retired University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban – who, among many other career achievements, led the University of Alabama Crimson Tide to a 201-29 record and six national championships in 17 seasons – offered his perspectives on what it takes to succeed, and how leaders should help inspire their teams, in any industry.
In a fireside chat with HIMSS board member Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips explained to the legendary gridiron tactician that he “never wanted to be a coach” early in his sports career.
But once he found himself in a leadership position — starting 34 years ago with a stint as head coach at the University of Toledo and moving on over the next three decades to jobs at Michigan State and LSU (with a two-year stint in the NFL) before arrived in Tuscaloosa – Saban, considered by many to be the greatest college football coach of all time, has collected some pearls of wisdom.
His appearance on HIMSS24 took place barely three months since he announced his retirement in January. In an extensive conversation with Compton-Phillips, he reflected on some of the lessons he had learned after a long career.
First, it’s critical that you cultivate the discipline to achieve your goals every day. It starts with a rigorous self-evaluation.
“If you can judge yourself – and it is easy to judge yourself – if I do this, what will happen? And what will happen if I don’t do this? You have little foresight and you can anticipate what will happen in the future can happen and what you need to do to change it – and you can also edit your behavior in terms of what you need to do to achieve the goals you have.
“And the next thing, which is the hardest part, is having the discipline to carry out an execution every day,” Saban said. “What is discipline? Doing what you have to do, when you have to do it. The way it should be done, doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, always. Those are great definitions of discipline.
“But self-discipline comes down to two things,” he explained. “Here’s something I know I should do, but I don’t really want to do. Can you force yourself to do it? And here’s something you know you’re not supposed to do, but you want to do it .” Can you stop yourself?
“If you can make those choices and decisions correctly every day, you will always stay on the path of being able to execute and do the things you need to do to achieve the goals that you have.”
Saban also spoke about the importance of culture in any organization where employees and team members are all focused on maintaining discipline and achieving goals.
People ask him all the time, “How do you win?” Saban said. “How do you have success? And they always say: Is it because you have a good game plan? Is it because you have a good system? Is it because you can adapt? Is it because you are a competitor? Is it because You Get all this talent?
“The most important thing is culture,” he said. “And the culture comes from the individuals who make the team what it is.”
Maintaining that culture year after year can be a challenge if the individuals who make up that culture are constantly changing as new people cycle through the organization.
But “as long as you continually challenge the individuals and show them how they can benefit from doing the right things, you have a great opportunity to strengthen the culture,” Saban said.
He explained that one of the core strategies is to tap into team members’ sense of pride and encourage them to take responsibility for their own success – and that of the team.
“We show everyone that they are the best version of themselves, that they are going to create value for their future, which will improve their quality of life and their chances of success in life,” he said. “Most people want to do that. But many people don’t know exactly how to do that, so they need someone and something to follow a plan.
“Everyone has to do what they have to do to be part of the team,” Saban said. “I’ve said before: mediocre people don’t like high performers; high performers don’t like mediocre people. You can’t establish principles and values in an organization and a standard and not have everyone make a commitment. Because if you let those two things coexist – mediocre people and high performers in the same organization – then you will never have any cohesion, you will never have any teamwork.”
Saban said he often told his players a story about when he was a kid in West Virginia.
“I used to go fishing, and there was an old man: he would catch big fish and throw them back, but then he would keep the small fish. He said, ‘I only have a 10-inch frying pan at home.’ .'”
“I always tell that story. Then I say, ‘How big is your frying pan? What is your confidence in terms of how you believe in yourself, in terms of what you can achieve and what you can do? Because the sky is the limit if you are willing to make the choices to do it, and you don’t put these self-imposed limitations on yourself.’”
But even the most dedicated and motivated player on a given team still needs a strong leader to look up to, someone who sets the course toward a strategic goal that is bigger and more important than anyone else.
“I actually changed my style as a leader,” Saban said. “I was always a transactional leader. I was a very results-oriented person. Winning the game was the most important, not how you played the game. When we won, I would pat people on the back. I was happy. I gave them a positive self-image satisfaction – which everyone needs, and it was good.
“But if we lost? I was very critical. It was always someone’s fault. ‘How are we going to solve this?’ Everything was based on results. If you’re negative to people, and there’s no teaching involved, it hurts people’s morale. You don’t really want to be like that.”
Saban said he remembers the moment he changed strategies in a profound way – from a transactional leadership style to a transformational leadership style. It was during his fourth season as coach at Michigan State.
“We’re going to play Ohio State in 1998,” he explained. “They’re undefeated. They’ve been number one since the preseason. This is the tenth game of the year. And we’re 4-5 at Michigan State. We’re average. And Ohio State is a dominant, very good team. And I said: ‘We have no chance of winning this match.’ No chance. I didn’t know what approach to take with the team. I didn’t know how, because I was transactional. How are we going to get this transaction, if I don’t think we have a chance to do that?
“So I call a psychiatrist. And he says, ‘You have to tell the players to play play by play. As if it has a history and a life of its own. Don’t look at the scoreboard. There are no external factors. There is no audience, there’s nothing there. Just go have fun and compete. And after the piece is over, concentrate on the next piece. Never look back. So it’s not about the results. It’s just one piece at a time.” Very process-oriented, very focused, not on the outcome, but on what you would have to do to achieve the outcome, and how would you compete to achieve that?
“And guess what? We won. We won. We were down 17-7 in the game, but nobody got frustrated. Nobody did anything. Everybody just kept playing. And it actually frustrated them because they were used to people just melt..
“From that moment on, I became a transformational leader. And if you look back from that match, I was a very average coach from that moment on. I have been very successful as a coach. Transformational leadership means that you will do that.” Set a good example. You will be someone to emulate, and you care about other people helping them for their benefit, not for your benefit, for their benefit.
“You care. You have a vision, you have a plan. You are willing to inspire them and teach them whatever they need to do to be the best version of themselves. It wasn’t transactional anymore. It was transformational. has just completely changed.’
Saban added, “I think this type of leadership is much more effective than the others today.”
Mike Miliard is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.