NBA Hall of Famer Joe Dumars on managing eclectic personalities

Worklife with Adam Grant

TED

Management, Worklife Podcast, Worklife With Adam Grant, Work Life Balance, Ted Talks, Podcast About Work Life, Ted Adam Grant, Adam Grant Podcasts, Ted Podcasts, Adam Grant, Organizational Psychologist, Business

4.8 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Six-time NBA All-Star and Hall of Famer Joe Dumars spent 14 years with the Detroit Pistons. As the quiet leader of multiple championship teams, he guarded Michael Jordan –who said he did it better than anyone else– and helped keep teammates like Dennis Rodman focused. Although it was the “Bad Boys” era, Joe was the first-ever recipient of the NBA Sportsmanship Award, which is now named after him. After playing hard – and fair – Joe went on to spend another 14 years as the Pistons’ president of basketball operations, and is now a top executive in the NBA. Joe speaks with Adam about his leadership style both on and off the court, and shares the wisdom he’s learned about managing all kinds of people – and making teams better. Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective
0:08.6	Hey everyone, it's Adam Graham. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast on the science
0:12.8	of what makes us take. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the
0:16.8	minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.
0:26.2	My guest today is Hall of Famer Joe Dumanars. Growing up in Detroit, Joe was my favorite basketball
0:31.7	player. A six-time all-star and NBA finals MVP. It was his job to guard Michael Jordan,
0:38.2	who called him the best defender he ever played against and praised Joe for forcing him to
0:42.8	expand his towns. As much as I've looked up to Joe as a player, I admire him even more
0:47.6	as a person. He was the team captain and quiet leader on Back to Back Championship teams.
0:52.6	He was the first winner of the NBA Sportsmanship Award and is now named after him. It's called
0:57.1	the Joe Dumanars trophy. He's been recognized time and again for his citizenship and community
1:01.9	service. And he's been a remarkably effective leader off the court. Since retiring, Joe spent
1:07.1	14 years as president of basketball operations for the pistons, where he built another championship
1:12.0	team. And in 2022, the NBA hired him as one of their top leaders. Joe is executive vice president
1:18.2	and head of basketball operations.
1:22.2	Hey Joe. How's it going man? Good, how are you? Good, I'm doing well. Doing well.
1:26.9	The place that I have to start is to say one of the highlights of my childhood was my aunt
1:31.3	Paulette would take me to pistons games a few times a year. And watching your rainbow
1:36.6	threes was mesmerizing. You were like the early Steph Curry. It was a ton of fun. Yeah, I
1:44.7	did shoot a long ball and did shoot rainbows. I was thinking about that this past weekend and
1:51.4	how much fun it was coming out onto the palace floor. It was incredible, incredible.
1:56.9	Well, it was incredibly fun for me too. And whenever I couldn't go to a game, I would fall asleep
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -685 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.