Nice on the Ice

Nice on the Ice

MANAGEMENT by Mark Gordon | Managing Editor

NHL hockey coach learned to supervise with positives and yelling moments that were few and strategic.

Professional hockey players aren't synonymous with kindness and the soft-touch style of management.

But retired NHL great Larry Robinson, who in addition to his playing career with the Montreal Canadiens coached the New Jersey Devils to the 2000 Stanley Cup, says being nice is the only way to manage for long-term success.

"If you're an a-hole, you can get by for a few years," Robinson says. "But in the long run, the players will turn you off."

That goes for business, not just hockey games, says Robinson, who now owns a Lakewood Ranch-based horse farm and manages, and plays, for a polo team in Sarasota.

He also played polo briefly in Plant City after retiring as a player and full-time coach.

Robinson's management experience is strictly top-shelf. He was an NHL head coach for five seasons and supervised a broad range of players, and egos, from superstars such as Wayne Gretzky and Scott Stevens, to rookies and grinders, hockey's equivalent to a worker bee that does a lot with limited talent.

But Robinson says few people thought of him as management material while he was piling up points, awards and accolades as a player. "A lot of them said I was too nice," Robinson recalls.

Robinson, though, believed the yelling and screaming approach was shortsighted. During his 20-year playing career, he had seen many players tune out their coaches after constant berating and badgering. That coach usually found himself out of work when the team began losing more than it was winning.

Robinson's management approach was to be even with praise and criticism.

The laid-back and jovial Robinson yelled and screamed a few times, but he decided early on that those instances would have to be rare if they were to have a big impact.

The nice-guy approach worked. His players trusted him, even liked him, and he thinks as a result they worked hard for him - in some cases harder, and with better results, than under previous coaches.

Robinson quit coaching full-time after the 2006 season, citing the constant stress of the job; he still works as a consultant for the Devils, coaching young defenseman at various points in the season.

Management lessons

Retired Hall of Fame hockey player Larry Robinson learned several valuable leadership lessons during his career coaching two NHL teams. Three of his tips for a manager in any industry:

• Equal treatment: Robinson learned the value of treating everyone the same in his first management job, with the Los Angles Kings in 1995. The team's best player, Wayne Gretzky, was in the prime of his career that season, and if anyone deserved special treatment, it was the player known as the Great One. But Robinson says he earned the respect of the other players, and Gretzky, too, by requiring the same of the superstar as of everyone else. "In any kind of management," says Robinson, "you get into a lot of trouble when you play favorites."

• Reputation protection: "Reputation," says Robinson, "is everything." Robinson says no matter what message a manager is sending, he needs to be clear about it from the beginning. And if circumstances lead to a new decision, be up front about that, too. Failure to do this will lead to employees questioning future decisions. "It takes a long time to build up your reputation," Robinson says, "but a short time to ruin it."

• Move On: The concept of making a tough call and then living with it was one Robinson always struggled with it. But after a few years of making choices such as which player gets sent to the minors or which player gets benched, Robinson realized the necessity of moving on, both mentally and emotionally, after the decision was final.