Welcome to How Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Believe me, if you want to accomplish something big, you won't get very far without a team. My guest today knows a lot about the power of teamwork. Val Ackerman is the commissioner of the Big East Conference and one of the executives behind the iconic dream team at the 96 Olympics. She was also the first ever president of the WNBA. And as the new WNBA season tips off May 14, it's the perfect opportunity to sit down with Val and get some real insights on how to foster teamwork. Because here's the thing, it's not enough to build a good team and hope for the best. To get real cooperation, you've got to support and respect your team. Val does this in a really special way. In this conversation, it's going to have your head buzzing with ideas to show up for your team so you all can win big together. Here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Val Ackerman. Val, I want to get into your business career, but I understand that you taught leadership and personnel management at Columbia University at one time. How would you sum up your leadership philosophy? I have my five D's of leadership and I'll share them with you. The five D's, make it easy. And I'll tell you what they are, most are self-explanatory, but they are number one do. Leaders do. Sometimes you're the one that has to do the acting. Number two, leaders decide critical skill. We don't always get them right, but I think the more advanced you are as a leader, the better your decision-making capabilities become. Number three is delayed decision-making. Sometimes the best decision is to not make a decision and to hang out and wait and see if the facts change. The fourth D is delegate, can't do it all. So you have to rely on your team to do some or most of the work. And then number five, which for me became important in the space I'm in, is what I call dividing it up, which is figuring out who you have to involve in either the doing or the decision-making process. Sometimes the decision falls to you and you alone, but other times you got to get others in the mix. So those are my five D's and I probably rely on all five of them pretty much every day. And speaking of leadership, you've led the Big Ease Conference since 2013. What's something about being commissioner that caught you by surprise? Something you didn't expect. To be honest, not a ton because I had been in a similar role when I was at the WNBA as the president of the league. And so there is commonality in the job description of being at the top of a league office in terms of the things you do for your schools/teams, stakeholders, types of stakeholders that you deal with. So while I'd never worked in college sports before this position, I had worked, as I said, in a league setting. So that made it so there weren't many surprises. But I will say the thing that did strike me and still does, to be honest, 10 years in, is the complexity of the NCAA bureaucracy. I mean, our league's only 11 schools and so you can be somewhat nimble with your own group. But the NCAA is 1100 schools. Division 1 alone is 360 plus schools. And so it does create enormous challenges in terms of making decisions, getting things done, coming to a consensus on key matters. And I had never been confronted with anything like that before. I mean, even in the NBA and WNBA, we never got that big. And so decision making and getting things done was seemed easier. The most surprising thing to me was the cumbarness of the ecosystem. As a leader, how'd you get your mindset geared to deal with that? Because it isn't going away. It's hard. I'm not sure I'm there. There are sometimes moments of frustration, particularly because if I believe strongly in something and others don't see it the same way and because it's a kind of a bit of a democracy here, you know, things that you might believe in don't necessarily get done. So that part, I think, has been hard. But you, I think, learn how to pick your battles. As I said, you focus on what you can get done, particularly within your own group of schools. And you just kind of keep plugging away, probably all I can say and hope that maybe timing, there's something that you want to get done. The timing will be more in your favor the next time the issue comes around. How would you describe your daily responsibilities as a commissioner? It's pretty varied. You know, it's an office job at the end of the day, a desk job. So I spent a lot of time on email on Zoom calls. At the same time, there's a lot of travel going to sports events, being part of different groups of people throughout the day, whether it's my staff, whether it's colleagues from other conferences, whether it's our business partners, whether it's people on the NCA staff. They're based in Indianapolis. I do media requests today. I'm on the road today and spoke to a sports management class. Back to our earlier discussion about the importance I think of giving back to the next generation. It's definitely a mix of activities. And it keeps it fun, but the best part through it all is really you're working with some people who are very competent, pros in every sense of the word. I've got a long network of relationships in the business. So that's probably one of the most enjoyable aspects of the job. As I understand at the conference was in a bit of turmoil when you stepped in, how did you go about assessing the landscape and then how did you write the ship? That's pretty much true. The league that I'm running was founded in 1979, 1979, as a college conference focused on basketball. Over the years, the league added teams/schools, it added sports, it became more of a, in some respects, as much of, or it's not more of a football conference than a basketball conference. And that led to tension and fragmentation so that when I took over, the league in effect had been through a breakup. And the schools that were the basketball schools were staking out their own course. And so it was a relaunch, if you will, of the sort of the old Big East model. But in a new environment with new people, with some new pillars, including location of the conference office, and then importantly, it's network partner. For me, it was, as I said, a chance to use skills I'd learned at the NBA and the WNBA. I was familiar with college sports to a degree because I was an athlete myself. So I had a sense of kind of, you know, what the relationship was between a school and an athlete. And it was a lot of work, quite honestly, because I, as I said earlier, had never worked in college sports before. So a learning curve was steep, and just how did I do it? Long hours, trying to listen, talking to a lot of people, trying to get help from a lot of sources, and getting sort of the manpower on board to help me with things that I couldn't do myself. So kind of a, I would say it really probably took me the better part of two years to feel like I had gotten the conference back to where it needed to be, to be able to focus on some things that were more strategic rather than get through the day. So speaking of focus, what were your major tenets that really turned around where the conference was and got you to that point where you could think strategically? Well, it was, you know, a little bit of everything. I mean, again, it was, I had a higher staff when I took over as the head of the Big East. We, the staff had been essentially left behind in the prior iteration of the conference, which continued, but with different schools. So getting staff on board was an important to do. We really had nothing else. I mean, I had no office, so that was a big to do in the first years finding office space in Midtown Manhattan. We had to set up a website. We had to set up email system. I mean, sounds funny, but I was on Gmail for the first several months. So we got an office email account set up. We, one of our schools was managing our finances. So we had to reestablish that and all the controls that come with managing your budget, interfacing with our business partners. Of course, it was critical, especially in television. And then all the things that conferences do had to get done. So that's scheduling, dealing with officials, getting your conference championships up and running. We sponsor 22 sports here. So it's 22 conference championships that we've got to conduct over the course of the academic year. So I couldn't do all that myself. And again, it sort of mostly went back to hiring the right people who could get that done. And you have to bring in people and bring in high talent in a time of turmoil. What was your sales pitch? The excitement of it all, to be honest. It was, you know, I had the benefit of an established brand in the big East. It was known to many people in the sports business as a premier conference, which had had tremendous success over the years. Growing up shopping in New York City with the excitement that went with that. So it was really about, hey, come be part of this venerable organization that's starting a new, in a new place with new faces and a couple of new schools. And be part of getting it going essentially from the ground up again. And some people aren't up for that, to your point, maybe. Maybe that's who you're alluding to and others are. I mean, I was. That's why I took the job. I thought that would be an exciting challenge. You mentioned you had 28, I think 28 conference champions. And now you're so known for basketball. You're in the Hall of Fame. You've got all these accolades as a great basketball player. Came up in the basketball world. How do you overcome the perception to show that you cared about these other sports and these other athletes besides just the basketball programs? Early on, it was showing up at everything. My travel now is such that I don't quite get to everything every year, but I have a rotation for that and I have other staff that can step in. But early on, it was that. It was just showing up at championships for our other 20 sports, getting to know some of the coaches, developing a personal relationship with them, listening to their concerns, and being humble about the fact that I didn't know everything. I've been an athlete my whole life. I have a real appreciation for sports. Some of the sports we sponsor I did. I played field hockey in high school. I was a competitive swimmer. I ran track and field. So when I go to those events, I actually have a ball because I just remember, oh my God, I remember doing this. And it's actually quite fun to relive those memories. It just takes the effort and time you put into developed relationships and to show up. One of the schools in the Big East, Yukon, won the men's national basketball championship last year. How do you leverage individual team wins like that to grow the larger brand, to grow the conference? It is brand strengthening. I can attest to that. And we had it two other times because Villanova won the national championship in men's basketball in 2016 and 2018. And that was really incredible validation of this decision of these basketball schools to stake out on their own, separate themselves from football 10 years ago. And so Villanova, my hat goes off to coach Wright and their president, Father Peter Donahue, their athletic director, Mark Texan, they got it done. And that carried us the next year and beyond just in terms of brand recognition , probably helped a bit with viewership. Our ratings have gone up steadily every year. It helps with some of the sales efforts, we sell sponsorships to our conference championships and our men's basketball tournament in particular has become very attractive as a commercial property. We play at Madison Square Garden. It's been there 42 years. It's uber competitive and it sells out. And that wouldn't be happening if we didn't have a reputation for having basketball played at the highest level in the college space. And now we've got Yukon to thank for keeping it at a high level. So it's really those areas I think that benefit. And more than anything, it's just a source of great pride for our schools because basketball is their priority. And when you get something like that done, it helps everybody. Yukon actually left the Big Ease Conference in 2013, but you brought them back in 2020. Tell us a story of how you did it. Well, the sort of modification of the fact is they elected not to come with the seven old Big E schools who left to form the new Big Ease that I'm part of. They stay behind. And I think that had a lot to do with their interest in football. They are playing continuing to play at the FBS level of football, which is the highest level. FCS is the next level down. So they had a different agenda 10 years ago. And I can't speak to their interests, but we always kind of thought of them as a potential addition. They were very different and still are from the current Big E schools because they're a big public university. They have a different profile than our other 10 who are private schools, most of them Catholic schools. Again continuing to play football at a high level. But in Yukon, we saw history, we saw rivalries, we saw great geography. And we saw great fans and great basketball fans in particular and great basketball. And that all combined beginning in around 2019, 2018 to sort of get discussions going about the possibility of them rejoining the Big East for the second time around . And it was discussions with their AD, Dave Benedict, who's terrific. They had a consultant in the mix. It was a negotiation because these are, always are in terms of the conditions of reentry and some of the economics around that. And it worked out. And so we announced in 2019, we gave it a year to sort of get everything ready that they were going to come back in 2020. That was the good news. It was they came back during COVID, right in the heart of it and the teeth of it. So it was a funky first year for them back in the Big East in 2021. But they've added a great deal. They've been really great partners. They're women's basketball, of course under coach Oriama is among the best programs of all time. And so it's been for us win-win, hopefully for them too. And we're excited. Their basketball fortunes are clearly continuing this year. I think they've got a good shot as anybody to repeat as a national championship that men's basketball come April. You know, Val, it seems like colleges just jump from conference to conference. It's kind of hard to keep up with them in which conference you're in. How much of your job is really keeping the schools that you have in the conference? Is that a big challenge for you or is it, how do you do it? I mean, what's your strategy on that front? The answer is, yeah, we think about this a lot because of what's been happening in the last few years and we're very much monitoring what's been going on with these football conferences as we see teams jumping, schools jumping and cross-country travel now, you know, happening, hasn't happened yet. These new configurations don't kick in until this summer. So no one knows how that'll work out yet. We have a lot of communication within the Big E's. We talk about this. I do hope that, and I believe, that our schools do see a value proposition in what we are and being fine with what we're not, which is, you know, we're not a football league at this point, so we're not in that fray. And I think our schools basically are, you know, are content with that. You know, we're, I think, I don't want to sound immodest here, but I think we are the destination for a basketball school, for whom basketball is the priority sport. It's not a second priority to football. And that can't be said about many schools in the country because a lot of the good basketball schools are also football schools. You know, the combination of that camaraderie, the shared vision of our schools , being on national television in a significant way, which we are because of our partnership with Fox Sports, playing our men's tournament in the garden, playing our women's tournament in Mohig and Sun Arena in Uncustville, which is a prime venue for women's basketball, maintaining quality programs in our other sports that we sponsor, being academ ically mindful, doing other initiatives that enhance our brand. It's a mix of things. It's not one thing. I have no crystal ball here, David, on what the future holds for college sports . I hope it's a good future because it adds so much to so many lives. You know, I can say, I think right now the big East, ironically enough, because this league was picked apart 10 or 15, 20 years ago, this league is now in a stable position as anybody. That's great. You know, and speaking of movement, you know, there's this thing called the transfer portal. Can you talk a little bit about that, you know, what it is and how it's impacted your leadership if it has? I mean, how do you get the best at that as a conference? Well, just for your listener here, up until a few years ago, there was a role in college sports that if you transferred in one of five sports, football, men's and women 's basketball, baseball and men's ice hockey, you had to serve what was known as a year in residency, meaning you could transfer to the school. You could go to class, you could go to practice, you could do everything, but you couldn't play in games. And for a variety of reasons, that role was changed a few years ago to allow for what was then known as one time immediate eligibility in those five sports. Every other sport you could have transferred without sitting out, but those five sports you had the one year wait. The rule changed a few years ago, and that's where we are. There's a chance that for multiple transfers, they might also be able to play right away, but that versus sitting out, but that's under review. So the answer to your question is, it's really our schools that are feeling it on that one. I mean, they're the ones that are dealing with what this has meant for roster stability, roster composition, roster development. I mean, it used to be that a basketball coach, for example, would spend a fair amount of time recruiting a high school athlete. Now, maybe instead of doing that, or in addition to doing that, they go to the so-called transfer portal, which is basically just a way of saying, you know, that's your notice. That's where you give notice, if you're an athlete, do you want to go to a different school? And then that's sort of a, you know, it's basically a virtual holding pen. And then once you say that you're available, then other schools can come and they can, you know, try to get you to transfer to their school. So that's really, it's really our coaches that are dealing with the intricacies , the nuances, the ramifications of this new environment where athletes have much more freedom to move around. And in some cases, it's worked to the benefit of schools and others where you can't hold on to the player, it's worked to your disadvantage. Our hope generally is that the athletes who do this can maintain their academic standing because they need to maintain academic standing in order to stay eligible. It's sort of too early to say the trend lines on whether that's happening. Hey, everyone. It's Kula here from Three More Questions. And if you haven't downloaded the new How Leaders Lead app, you are missing out . If you're leading a team, I know it's really hard to find time to consume leadership development content and continue investing in yourself. That's the whole reason we launched this app. If you just take two minutes a day each morning to watch the daily leadership insight in the How Leaders Lead app, you'll stay inspired with practical leadership lessons from the world's greatest leaders. Imagine starting your day with inspiration from Condoleezza Rice, Tom Brady and Jamie Diamond, just to name a few. I've started using the app and I love how the daily leadership insight gets my mind right before the busyness of my day starts. Download the How Leaders Lead app today in the app store and stay inspired with amazing leadership wisdom in just two minutes a day. So as commissioner, then what would be your biggest challenge that you would be up against today? It's a little bit of everything. I mean, in the case of our league, it's trying to support our schools in every way imaginable so they can stay competitive in basketball. We do that by managing the business relationships that make that success at least in part possible. For me, as a commissioner, part of my job is keeping up with what's happening nationally. You noted before there's issues now around transfers and player movement. There's issues around conference realignment, which we discussed. There's a new world now with name, image and likeness opportunities for these athletes, which is just another way of saying they can now earn endorsement money from third parties, for using their likeness and ads or on social media posts or make speeches or make appearances. That's a whole new world for our schools. Without a lot of regulation, long story there, but it's a little bit of a free- for-all right now on that. So just trying to stay up with that, trying to figure out if any of that requires conference policies, conference rules, trying to figure out how to maximize revenue. Our schools get the net revenue that we bring in as a conference, so being mindful of our budget and what our schools need to stay competitive, particularly in basketball is top of mind for me and my staff. Then most of all, just recognizing our role in the ecosystem and trying to make sure that we're helping maintain a constructive work environment for our athletes, our staff, a constructive playing environment for our athletes, and trying to keep the Big E's brand healthy and strong because that adds a halo effect to our schools and helps them in other ways. Val, I want to talk more about how you lead, but first I want to take you back a little bit. What's the story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today? I'll give you a story, I'm not sure it shaped my leadership path, but it did affect my life in a very traumatic way and that is, you'll laugh. When I was in seventh grade, there were no sports for girls at my junior school . The only sport that was offered was cheerleading. So because that was the only offering, I tried out, I thought I did a really good job with my cheer, which I practiced a hundred times in front of my bedroom mirror, and I did not make the cheerleading squad. I got cut. The only team in the world you didn't make. Yeah, and I was like kind of an athlete. I was sort of a, you know, what we call tomboys back then. I thought of myself as a, you know, when I went to high school a few years later, I got to play sports because title nine had been passed by then and things opened up. But I got cut from cheerleading in seventh grade and that was, you're seeing my face here. I mean, I just, I couldn't believe it. So that one, I guess the leader lesson there was it just made me really determined not to have that happen again. I guess, you know, it really did help frame my mindset about, you know, being a girl, how come that was the only sport I got to try out for? And then sort of what that's translated into my career and trying to help women generally in terms of continued opportunities to play the sports of their dreams. You know, you, as I understand it, you were a lawyer or our lawyer. You've worked in the financial area for a while. And I was surprised that years later you were named the co-marketer of the year by brand week. How did you develop the marketing skill set? On the job, number one, I did not go to business school. That's a regret. I did get a law degree. She noted, I wish I'd gotten an MBA. I had a chance to go back and do it. I just kind of was moving on. So a lot of what I know about marketing was really just sort of picking it up on the job through my boss, David Stern, my dear friend, Rick Wells, who was to your point , the co-marketer of the year. And quite honestly, I think they sort of split it because when the WNBA launched, Rick was really the brains behind MBA marketing at that time. He was the head of MBA properties, critically, critically involved in the launch of the WNBA, the interface on our branding, on our sponsorship sales, on our licensing program. We name it, sort of all the visuals, Rick had a hand in that. And then I was sort of the operations person, working on kind of the basketball side of things, the scheduling, the officiating player acquisition, working with our teams on a host of areas. And so I think that was kind of the way that they were rewarding us both for our respective roles in the launch of the league. Of course, dozens and dozens of other people were vitally involved. So we represented an amazing group. But really, some of it with marketing is training, some of it is just what's in your gut. And some of it is just learning and making mistakes along the way and hoping sometimes you get things right in terms of how you're reaching your fans. When you were launching the WNBA, what was the biggest learning you had on the marketing front when you look back? Well, I'll tell you, A learning, when we launched the league, we had a vision about the target audience. We expected hope we would track women as fans. We hoped we would attract kids, boys and girls, who we thought would look up to the players as role models and want to bring mom and dad to the game and so on. And the third bucket was that we would attract men's basketball fans because we were playing in the summer. That was one of the reasons for the summer season, which continues to this day because we would be the only game in town. NBA's out, college basketball's dark, here we were. And what was interesting was we did not attract that men's basketball fan in the ways that we expected. We thought there would be a crossover between the NBA and the WNBA season ticket base, for example, and that didn't happen. And so that was a learn. That was a kind of a lesson, an interesting one. It really proved to be a different demographic. I think now there's more mainstream support for women's basketball than we had hoped for 25 years ago. As more men's basketball fans, I think take appreciation in the quality of play and the skill level of the players today. We had a little bit of that then, but not as much as we expected. So I would say if there was a surprise based on sort of what we projected, that would be the main thing I would know. Now, you worked your way up in the NBA, which is an industry where I could imagine you were surrounded mainly by men. How did you differentiate yourself? Your supposition is correct. It was very male dominated. Not many women when I started, no women to look up to when I started. There weren't any senior women at the league. There were a couple on teams. Jeannie Bus was one. Her dad owned the Lakers. She owns it now. Susan O'Malley ran the Washington then Bullets Now Wizards was another woman that I got to know and look up to. But other than that, it was, that was it. I mean, I just worked my butt off, frankly. I mean, that's, I would give that advice to anybody wondering how you get to the top. Just work hard, be good at what you do, understand what your boss is want. I'm trying to give them something they don't want, try to figure out what they want, what they're looking for. You know, if you make a mistake, admit it, try to fix it. Hope it didn't cost anybody a lot of money. I certainly made mistakes and I don't think I made any that cost a lot of money . Some were embarrassing. And you know, you really kind of learn to be you. I mean, I think part of being a good leader is being authentic, not trying to be too imitative of somebody else. I've learned from every leader I've worked for, taken little bits away from each one. But at the end of the day, I can't be them. I can't assume their personalities. And so, you know, I think for me, I like to think I've got a style that works well. I try to be friendly to people. I'm very respectful of others. I believe deeply in gratitude, telling people, "Thank you," when they've done something that helps me or that helps others. I don't think there's one thing, but I hope, David, those kinds of traits, attributes, behaviors, you know, have helped set me apart and helped get me to where I am today. And hopefully, I can be a good role model for others who are, you know, going to follow me in the years to come. Well, you're known for that for sure. And you got the nod to become the founding president of the Women's National Basketball Association. And making you the first woman to ever launch and operate a sports league. Did being the first to do something like that put more pressure on you? I mean, what's it like being the first to do something like that where you're really breaking some major ground? You know, at the time I wasn't thinking about that. I mean, there was enough pressure. You know, I didn't need to add to it that, "Hey, I'm a woman here." I mean, there was enough pressure because the NBA had made the WNBA a priority. It could not fail with everything that David Stern and Russ Granik, our deputy commissioner and Rick I talked to and others and the owners, the NBA owners at that time, gave David the green light to do this. So it had to be great. You know, the stakes were high. That was the pressure. It was okay. How do I not flood this? How do I do my part? Because again, it was a group effort of the highest order. How do I not let my teammates down? You know, how do I represent the league in the best possible manner? Because I was out there. They put me out there. I was the one doing speaking engagements and doing media interviews. And I just took very seriously this trust that had been given to me and this sacred trust that I've been handed. And so I think that was really what I was most on my mind in the first couple of years. And then, yeah, you know, yeah, I mean, it was obvious it was, you know, the women, I mean, that was a sort of a surprise that I was able to sort of break through. And now the good news is there's so many more women who are at a senior level in sports and many more will follow, I know. So that's the part I feel really gratified about that I was the first, but I'm not going to be the last. You know, the legendary David Sturney had the original idea for the WNBA and you helped shape it and execute it. What advice can you give leaders on being a great right hand to a visionary leader like him? You know, get a good night's sleep night before be ready for anything. Part of one of my jobs at the league was to be David's, his assistant and I would sit in his office as he was on calls. I really, I learned so much about what it means to be a commissioner and not just the things that the public sees, you know, the handing out of the trophies or, you know, the interviews that you see on television. It was really what goes on, you know, in someone's office or what happens when they're on the phone or how they're dealing with a particular matter. And I just, I feel, you know, so fortunate that I had the chance to learn from the best, you know, he was, he was the dean of commissioners and, you know, may he rest in peace. We've lost him, we lost him four years ago, beginning of COVID right before the beginning of COVID. The loss is still deeply felt by many of us. The things he taught us, you know, and I didn't always agree with the way he did things. He had a style very different from mine. You know, I learned a lot from the way he attacked a problem. He was a lawyer and he had a whole, you know, lawyer's mentality about how to do stuff and how to use precedent and ask a million questions before you made a decision on something. And that those are all lessons that served me in good stead. And, you know, I very much keep as part of my sort of internal creed to this day. Bill, how do you think about innovation for the product that you're selling, whether it's the WNBA or the Big East Conference? How do you think about innovation itself? With the WNBA, which was a new league, it was very easy to be innovated. That was the mindset, in fact, was because the NBA was behind it. The mantra was, let's just take everything the NBA's learned about how to run a pro-basket ball league over the last, you know, 40 years at that point. And all the mistakes made and all the successes that were accomplished and then just do it, you know, from scratch. As if the NBA, you know, had started anew and everything you learned could be incorporated into the new model. That was a mindset. It was innovation all the way. But also relying on, you know, things that had happened successfully in prior years. The Big East, a little bit of that too, but it just more, you're more confined, I think, in the college space because of NCA restrictions or other factors. You don't have the budget and the Big East that the NBA would have to be really innovative, which I had their budget. So it's a little bit harder, but we have, I have tried to create new initiatives. And we've done that in the Big East around mental health, critical issue today around diversity, equity inclusion, which we're leaning deeply into will continue to do that around programming for our student athletes. We have programs and men's and women's basketball directors. The athletes are kind of like personal development programs. We've done some innovative things on television together with Fox that have not been done by other leagues or other networks. If there is a way to do it, we, you know, my attitude to my staff is come to me with a good idea. And if we can pay for it, let's try it. And it has been in Dave, that was David's mindset. So I got that from him. But I do think it's important to have the mix of traditional, tried and true. Here's what you just, the normal job or whatever, things just no reason to change them and then being adaptive as much as you can. As you think about your team and just the shadow that you cast, you mentioned your style was different than David Stern's fantastic leader, your fantastic leader. What's the main thing that you're focused on in terms of culture and how do you drive that deep? I believe people when they come to work, they want meaning. They want to know that they're part of something that's special and important and they're making a contribution. That's certainly how I felt at the NBA. I mean, you know, if you love sports and love basketball, there was no better job than working at the league. You know, David was a tremendous leader. He always trusted him to make hard calls and the league grew phenomenally under his watch. And so you just felt energized, you know, every day going to the office because you knew that the brand was respected and people, you know, you go to cocktail parties and people would say, "Oh, wow, you know, you work for the NBA." And so that's kind of how I feel about the big yeast. I mean, I feel like, I used the word sacred trust before. I feel like I've got a sacred trust here. This is one of the most venerable brands in college basketball. You know, some days wake up, I can't believe I'm 10 years later, I'm running this league that Dave Gavitt found that I knew Dave, another one of my idols. And you know, I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility to not flood this. And the good news is, you know, I've got a great staff who also, I believe, care deeply about the league. I want to keep the brand relevant, you know, know what we're doing to help our athletes because they're the future. And so it hasn't been super hard, I don't think, to imbue with our work a sense of meaning and purpose. But as it relates to culture, I mean, I'm just, you know, try to hire people who I think are good people who care about being good teammates, who work well together, pick each other up. You know, we have events where everybody's, it's all hands on deck. So there's a premium on teamwork and camaraderie. And you know, making sure my staff knows how much I appreciate them each and every day, because I certainly couldn't do what I do if they didn't do what they do. So it's a little bit of all of that. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Val Ackerman in just a moment. Another fantastic leader in the world of basketball is Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden State Warriors. Just like Val, he's the kind of leader who's willing to embody the values he wants to see on his team. In fact, as he told me, that's key if you want to actually hold those standards up for everyone else to follow. It would be hard to throw it in their face on day one and say, "These are our values." What I did our first year was I tried to embody our values each day with my interaction with the players, with the staff's interaction with the players. Our other values, by the way, besides joy were competitiveness, mindfulness and compassion. Those values are all based on me personally, what makes me tick as a human being. And since I'm the leader of the team, those values have to really come alive as Pete Carroll talked about. And so I tried to be really compassionate with the team right away. I tried to be very competitive in terms of putting together drills and keeping score and constantly pitting the team against one another in drills and scrimmages. And then we tried to have as much fun as possible. We played music during practice. We showed funny videos. We celebrated guys' birthdays. We celebrated the birth of children. We invited family members on the team plane so that they could travel with us. We tried to incorporate everything that embodied our values. And then I think maybe a couple of months in, we sat down one day and I wrote all those values on the board and said, "This is what we're about. And this is what you guys need to enhance and grow every single day for us to become special." Go back and listen to my entire conversation with Steve Kerr, episode 62, here on How Leaders Lead. There's no question you're a real trailblazer. But only did you help start the WNBA. You also created the US national women's team. They won gold medals at the '96 Olympics. What you've done for women's basketball is absolutely remarkable. Because of your leadership, what's something that you hope more women will come to believe? That they can do this to. You hear this expression. If you can see it, you can be it. I really think having more women in leadership positions in sports reinforces that that could be me. That's my goal, career goal. I'd like to be able to make an impact too. And I think the more women we have at the top, the more likely we will continue to have women at the top and more of them. I tell women and men, frankly, all the time, it's not easy to get these jobs and to do well in these jobs. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, it's a lot of work. You got to be really good at what you do. You got to manage politics and relationship management and all that. You got to have a lot of stamina. You have to have thick skin some days because things aren't always going to go right. It's a marathon that has sprinted some ways. I've been at this for 35 years. Some days are just like, "Oh, wow. Okay." But again, I might seem to care about our league. It's special. We have good collaboration top to bottom. But back to women, I think that's it. If I can be a little bit of an inspiration to somebody who might take my job in five years or 10 years or 20 years, then I will have succeeded. If there's anybody that could really talk about building a winning team, I would imagine it would have to be you. What you did with the Olympics, what you've seen with the dream team, you've seen it all. What do you believe are the real keys to building a winning team? Understanding what your organization needs when I had to take over the relaunch of the big East, I had to learn fast. Like, "Okay, who do I hire? What functions do we have? What skill sets are needed for those roles?" And then just doing your best to match it up with people who are interested in taking that leap. It's a group effort. It is about a team. It's about hiring the right people. It's about giving them the direction they need to do their jobs, staying out of their way most of the time, assuming they've fired the right people. You can do that. Jumping in when you need to, making sure they understand the priorities of the organization, making sure that they're respectful to one another. You want to have the kind of workplace that people want to be part of. And accepting, frankly, that sometimes people are going to move on. I mean, I've had great staff members who've left. These cases for great jobs. And you've got to cheer mom and that happens too. You've got to stay a friend and a mentor and a source of support. And I've tried to do that as well in my career. People have their own ideas about where they want to be and you just have to accept that too. You know, this has been so much fun, Val, and I want to have some more with my rapid fire questions, my lightning round. Are you ready for this? Oh, boy. Okay. I mean, three words that others would use to describe you. I mean, I'm smiling with you, but people would probably call me intense, serious. I hope they would say compassionate. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be? Bruce Springsteen's manager. Just I would like to see how he spends a day. Yeah. Who would play you in a movie? Can you pick an attractive actress? There you go. What's your biggest pet peeve? Biggest pet peeve is laziness. You get two front row tickets to anything you want. Where would you go? Springsteen concert. There's a theme here. Probably picking up. So you get to have lunch with Bruce Springsteen. What would you want to talk to him about? Oh, God. I think if I had lunch with him, I couldn't speak. I really I thought about this in my head. Like if I ever had a chance to meet him, I think I would just break down and cry. He's been this guy's been the soundtrack of my life. Time to run came out when I was a sophomore in high school. The guy's from New Jersey. Just every important stage of my life. There's a Springsteen song attached to that. But I think I don't know. I think I would ask him what his motivation was behind Thunder Road, which is one of my all time favorite songs, like what inspired him to write that song and where do the words come from? The most points you ever scored in the game. I think it was in the 30s. I don't think I ever had a 40-point game. What you would consider your biggest business accomplishment? Well, again, it was shared, but I would say tremendous pride to your point in helping USA basketballs, women's national team get back on track in 1996, being part of the launch of the WNBA the next year, and then being part of the relaunch of the Big East in 2013 of all been high-water marks for me. What's one of your daily rituals something you'd never miss? Watching television at light before I go to sleep with my husband. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? You might hear probably a little bit of talk radio and probably classic vinyl, series XM, old songs from when I was in high school and college. What's something about you a few people would know? That's just an intense animal lover. Love animals. I love it. That's the end of the lightning round. Good job. Good quick. It's just perfect. Just a few more questions and I'll let you go. You've got all these accolades. I was looking at all the recognition that you've received. One thing that really stood out to me is that you were named by the National Mothers Day Committee as the Outstanding Mother Award. What's the best advice you could give to mothers out there? I wasn't always because of the distractions of my work and my intensity, but be as present as you can and know when it's time to be there to really be there. That was what happened to me. I gave up the WNBA, frankly, to be more present with my two daughters who at that time were 12 and 10. It was one of the best decisions. It was a gamble professionally. They didn't have an on-ramp in mind to get back out, but that was one of the best decisions I ever made. I think my daughters, I hope they really appreciated that. They tell me they did. Just knowing when it's time. How did you get the courage to do that? That's a big move. It was. Again, it was a mothers instinct. It was just a mothers instinct. My husband, he's an amazing guy, a hard job of his own. We were splitting the duties at home and he was doing a lot and I was traveling so much. I just, my heart of hearts just knew it was time for me to be more present as a mom, which I did. Then, as it turned out, the Big East opportunity came up as my youngest daughter Sally was going off to college. The bandwidth literally was restored, so that was the luck and the timing of that opportunity. You've given so much to the game of basketball. What's the biggest lesson it's taught you, Val? I think about the power of basketball and sports to do good is a big theme of mine. I think David was a forerunner in this. The joy, just to see the joy that watching basketball brings to fans, that playing basketball brings to players, having been part of USA basketball and then I did two terms as the president, as a US representative to the International Basketball Federation. I had a chance to see the impact of basketball in other countries. It really is a sport that brings people together from so many walks of life. It's sort of joy and peace and harmony and togetherness and all the good things that we need more of. For me, the ability of basketball to bring the world together is real and to the extent that we've been able to do a little bit of that on top of whatever else we do with the Big East, all the other things we do. That makes my job even more worthwhile. What would you say is your unfinished business? I don't know, David. I'm not sure I can answer it. I probably have something to do with until I take the last breath, helping the cause of women in leadership in the sports industry. Much advanced from when I started out, talked about that earlier, but just to see women getting their due, whether it's playing, whether it's leading, that is unfinished business. I think for me and probably many women who are in my shoes and so the more that we can contribute on that front, I know I and colleagues that are like me feel very committed to that cause. All right, last question here. What's the best piece of advice you can give aspiring leaders? I would say just be competent and confident. Competency and confidence go a long way and doing it in a manner that is effective because of the way you're communicating your confidence and your confidence is I think can be a winning combination for them. Well I have to tell you, it's been a real honor to be able to have this conversation with you. You're a Hall of Famer on many, many fronts and it's great to see you setting the tone and the standard of leadership in your industry. Forget male, female. I mean you're one hell of a leader and I think that's why you've done so well. David, thank you so much. I really appreciate those kind words. I really do. Thank you so much. [silence] Accomplishing something big is always going to take a team effort. The respect, the camaraderie, the willingness to help one another towards that collective goal. Well that's the mentality of every great team whether they're on a court or in a corporation and that's how Val builds her teams but you know what? It starts with her. By supporting her team and respecting them, Val sets the standard that everybody is there to cooperate and win together. That's a powerful takeaway. So let me pause here and offer you some coaching so you can put it to work this week. I want you to spend a few minutes reflecting on three strengths you see in your team. Now I know your team isn't perfect, no team is but focus on the good stuff this week. Cultivate that respect for your team and I can promise you it will help you create a more cooperative culture. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders respect their teams. Coming up next on How Leaders Lead is Progolfer Rory McElroy just in time for the 2024 PGA being held at Valhalla. The site where he won the 2014 PGA. So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I may get a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be. Thank you. a lot of people. (silence) (silence) [ Pause ]