In a rapidly changing world, businesses must create a high-performing, metrics-driven workplace environment characterized by respect, inclusion, teamwork, innovation, and overall harmony—and it must be manageable and sustainable.

This book shows that returning to managerial basics will provide the way forward, as exemplified by legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, the model for a new people management pathway: the SCORE paradigm.

Generally considered the greatest coach in history, John Wooden’s recipe for team success was unique, culture-based, and ahead of its time. Building upon Wooden’s 21 coaching principles and his own 35 years of experience as a human resources leader, Bill Kane has created the SCORE framework to guide people managers in creating and nurturing effective teams and steering their organizations through times of change:

• Staffing: Attracting and selecting talent


• Cultivating culture: Defining how people should interact


• Organizing and planning: The need for direction and focus


• Reinforcing desirable behavior: Managing performance


• Engaging your team: A leader’s role and responsibility

Enlivened with stories from the careers of Coach Wooden, Andy Hill (a three-time national champion under Coach), and the author, the book clearly explains why each coaching principle works in practice and provides examples of success, as well as pitfalls to avoid. Readers will learn how to get the right people on their team, create meaningful participative and inclusive management practices, build a winning organizational culture, and achieve heightened results.

New and experienced people managers and leaders in corporate settings, as well as business and organizational psychology students, will appreciate this timeless reference tool, a roadmap to help people managers—as their own “work-in-progress”—develop strategies for success based upon a proven and simple model.