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Luka Dončić, Jimmy Butler and the culture question: What so many leaders underestimate

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  • Post last modified:March 1, 2025

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In 2020, two researchers at Harvard Business School produced a case study they believed could help corporate leaders develop their own culture. The subject was Steve Kerr and the guiding values of the Golden State Warriors.

The study highlighted a telling anecdote, from the months after Kerr was hired to coach the Warriors in 2014. As a first-time head coach, he wanted to be prepared. So he went to Seattle and shadowed Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll for three days. During the visit, Carroll asked Kerr how he planned to coach his team.

Kerr was confused: “Like what type of offense will we run?”

“No, that’s not what matters most. The key is what type of culture you create and what the guys feel every day when they show up to the arena.”

It was an idea Kerr understood but had never heard expressed until Carroll.

“He told me how it took him 10 years to figure out for himself that to succeed, a coach has to have core values that come alive each and every day and with which the players truly connect,” Kerr said. “Because if the players cannot connect, values just become words on a page.”

In the landscape of modern sports, perhaps no word has become more venerated, ingrained, and overused than “culture.” It is uttered at every introductory news conference, praised and cited after big wins, and emphasized by coaches, executives, and reporters alike.

But one of the most fascinating things about the corporate world, culture expert Spencer Harrison said, is how many leaders do not understand Carroll’s insight.

When Harrison speaks to business leaders, each one will state the importance of culture and their role in building it. But when he asks them how they achieve it, most do not have a good answer. The reason, he says, is most have never been taught.

When Kerr arrived in Golden State, he identified four core values he wanted to build his culture around: joy, competition, compassion, and mindfulness. He chose them after consulting with Carroll. The biggest reason was they felt authentic to him.

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