Book Title: The Power of Negative Thinking
Author: Bob Knight with Bob Hammel
Pages: 223
I’ve had this book for more than three years. I started reading it and stopped several times. I didn’t stop reading it because it wasn’t good. I kept coming back to it because I found it interesting, I just had other books that I found more interesting and wanted to read more than this one.
I’ve always liked to read, but business books like this, while interesting, have always been challenging for me to just read straight through. Again, I want to emphasize that I didn’t dislike this book. If you look through this blog at the books I’ve read and reviewed over the last three years, I just found other books more fun and entertaining.
With that said, I’m glad I finished this book. It had some interesting insights and advice. I can admit that I’ve never been a huge Bob Knight fan. Based on what I know about him and have read about him, I’ve always thought of him as a bully. There is also no doubt that he’s had great experiences and is a talented coach and motivator. His insights and the lessons he’s learned over the course of his career were highly instructional.
A couple things Knight shared in the book really resonated with me, specifically:
Talking about practice, Knight said: “Practice is the best of all instructors, if the person running the practice knows what the hell he or she is doing. Improvement, especially towards perfection, comes only if the practice is demanding, well-thought-out and constructive, by a coach who realizes that absolute perfection is unattainable – but is always the objective.”
On having a plan, Coach Knight wrote: “Every successful endeavor starts with a plan. Know that some things will go wrong. Adjust is one of the great works in the English language. Always, no matter how meticulously something has been thought out and planned, an effective leader has to be ready and willing to adjust.
I learned quickly in my early days as a head coach at Army that the title of basketball coach didn’t carry much clout at West Point. I would call an officer at the academy, and the noncom or corporal taking the call would ask, ‘Who’s calling?’ For a time, I said, ‘This is Bob Knight, the basketball coach,’ and invariably I would get back some version of, ‘He’s unavailable right now. Try again later.’
Then one day I read that there were 450 active generals in the Army at that time, and I figured, ‘Eisenhower and MacArthur couldn’t know all of them.’ I saw an active list, ran down it, and came up with one name that wasn’t present. So I invented No. 451.
From there on, I’d make my calls, and when I got the identification question, I’d snap, ‘General Webster.’ And I’d hear, ‘Yes, sire!’ and get right through.
Adjust is a vitally important word.
Coach Knight talked about leaving one job for another and shared advice about how to do it the right way:
“I was very good about how I handled leaving West Point. I had chances to leave every one of my six years there. A lot of things were involved when I was in that job., including my appreciation for the opportunity I was given there when I had no credentials at all as a head coach. And I loved coaching there – enjoyed the challenged or working with the great kids that an academy gets. I knew that eventually I would have to leave, but I waited until it was just the right set of circumstances, the exact right place to go, and that’s what Indiana was when I went there. There’s no question: It was a great place for me, the absolute right place, for a long, long time.
You can get overwhelmed with sentimental thoughts: Nice people here, they have been awfully good to me. Bet when it comes to life decisions, it’s got to be what’s best for you and your ability to do your job, not getting swayed by the things that have nothing to do with your profession. Comfort enters into decision-making, and that’s always dangerous. You have to decide what is the best thing to do, not what is the ‘right’ thing, in a theoretical sense.”
These three points are things that I’ve thought about over the course of my career. I appreciated the way Coach Knight articulated his thoughts and the way he shared his expertise. It made sense to me and provided some insights into specific topics that I find relevant in issues and things that I’m currently dealing with. These insights came at just the right time for me and helped me navigate and strategize some real life topics in my life.
I recommend this book to others. Whether you sit down and read it in a couple days or over the course of three years, It’s an insightful book well worth the reading.
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