Golden State Warriors President Rick Welts on Culture, Leadership, Alignment

Rick Welts (0:00)

The most influential people in my life are the people who are probably the most different from me because I felt like I learned the most. Not that I was going to be like them, but that I took something away from that relationship that made me better understand other people.

Michael Gervais (0:23)

All right, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais. And the idea behind these conversations is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery, to better understand what they're searching for, to understand their psychological framework, which is a fancy phrase for understanding how they see themselves in the world and how they understand other people. And then we also want to dig to understand the mental skills that they use to build and refine their craft.

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Okay, this conversation is with Rick Welts.

Rick has 40 years of experience in the NBA, and he's currently the president and the chief operating officer of the Golden State Warriors who have just won their second championship in three years. And what a phenomenal run. It's a very special point in time that we're observing a super team.

And when we watch the Golden State Warriors perform and play, it feels as if from a distance that they're in group flow more often than any other team in the league. And group flow, when you think about that, is like a swarm of birds that are moving and undulating in space following the rhythm of the lead bird that changes each undulation. And so it's just a phenomenal team to observe and see what they're doing. So he understands winning. He understands culture. He understands how to align people and thoughts and ideas and efforts to create something very special.

And in this conversation, we talk about that and how he organizes his thoughts and other people's efforts. And we also talk about risk, both private and public risk and how important alignment is in life. And that phrase alignment is really about knowing who you are and having alignment on how you live. So we get into the weeds with that. And then Rick is also known to be a world-class communicator and that definitely comes through in this conversation. So with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Rick Welts. Rick, how are you?