What Everyone Can Learn from the NBA with Linda Choong

Intro: Welcome to the Daily Bolster. Each day we welcome transformational executives to share their real world experiences and practical advice about scaling yourself, your team, and your business.

Matt Blumberg: Welcome to The Daily Bolster. I'm Matt Blumberg, co- founder and CEO of Bolster, and I'm here today with Linda Choong. Linda is actually one of the first people I met after college. Linda and I worked in our first job together in management consulting after college, and I am thrilled to have you here, Linda, today. Linda has had a really interesting career. One of the things that she did for a number of years was work at the NBA, and I know a lot of people who are watching this or listening to this, are basketball fans and sports fans. And Linda was the head of global retail development at the NBA. She owned the store on Fifth Avenue at the time, like that Giant NBA store and lots of other things around the world, and has done lots of great things in marketing and in around sports and other topics too. So Linda, welcome to The Daily Bolster.

Linda Choong: Hi Matt. Thanks for having me here.

Matt Blumberg: So my question to you, and I know you've done things other than the NBA, but I would love to hear sort of top three lessons from the NBA that every CEO needs to know.

Linda Choong: Sure. I think people think the NBA and everything is already laid out for you, but because I was developing their direct to consumer channels, it was like founding a startup. You're developing a team, the processes and the systems from scratch, but you have all these expectations of being a high profile brand. So hopefully these lessons will resonate with many of your CEOs who I know are startups or young founders. My first lesson I would say is, be explicit about what your company believes in and what you stand for. Communicate everything to your team and to your customers. Your mission and values should be evident in everything you do. In this instance, you're the coach, you diagram the plays, you help your team train and practice, but you're also giving those motivational speeches before that big game.

Matt Blumberg: Yeah, I mean, mission and values are at the heart of every good organization, and it's interesting to hear that the NBA operated that same way.

Linda Choong: Yeah, absolutely. And it always starts from the top. Right. And in my time it was David Stern, so.

Matt Blumberg: Right, it was legendary at that.

Linda Choong: Yeah, absolutely.

Matt Blumberg: Okay. What's number two?

Linda Choong: Number two, I'd say each person on your team needs to understand their role in the big picture of the company, what their contribution is, what their impact is, how it's connected to the others. If they have a really true deep understanding, they should feel accountable to themselves and to each other in working towards their stated goals.

Matt Blumberg: That is certainly true, and that's something a lot of companies don't do. They feel like they communicate the high level well, but don't necessarily connect the dots. And was that something that... So how big was the NBA corporate organization? Obviously they're like the teams and everything, but...

Linda Choong: Yeah, corporate league is about a thousand people worldwide. It's significant but not...

Matt Blumberg: It's not 20,000 or 100,000... Yeah. Interesting. Okay. And then what's number three?

Linda Choong: Number three, probably an obvious one, but no less important. Listen to your customer, and in our case, your fans. However you engage with your customer, make sure you're listening, but actually hearing what they're saying, regardless of what the product or service is that you're delivering. The feedback should inform what you do, how you do it, and it may also uncover an opportunity for you that you hadn't yet considered.

Matt Blumberg: That is also great advice and interesting as I hear this, like NBA runs a normal business, just like every software company and hardware company out there.

Linda Choong: Yeah. I think that that is what surprises people most, that you have a thousand people across the world who were and are just bringing the game of basketball to the fans wherever they are and however they may want to receive it, frankly.

Matt Blumberg: All right. So who was the coolest person you met during your years at the NBA?

Linda Choong: Oh my God, that's so hard.

Matt Blumberg: Did you get to meet Michael Jordan? I forget exactly what years you were there.

Linda Choong: Yeah, no, I don't... Let's see. I've been in the same room as Michael. I'll tell you one funny story. One time during All- Star weekend, the NBA on the Friday of All- Star Weekend, we hold a pretty well known technology summit where you gather thinkers in the tech space, and that's really a highly coveted imitation. And I just remember one day I was rounding a corner to go into some room and literally walked into Shaquille O'Neal. It was walking into a wall. And he just kind of peered down at me in that very funny way that Shaq has and just started giggling. And I giggled back and we had a nice chat. So not the most profound moment, but a really enjoyable memory.

Matt Blumberg: And of course, he's like two feet taller than you.

Linda Choong: And just the way he was looking down at me, I felt like I was just, I don't know, on Gulliver's Island or it was just very, very funny.

Matt Blumberg: Linda, great to see you. Thank you for being here.

Linda Choong: Thanks, Matt. It's been fun. Take care.