Refer to the article below, analyse the change in leadership and management approach in the 2008 Olympic Redeem Team case study. Evaluate the extent to which these changes contributed to the team's success. Apply the lessons learned from this case study on your understanding of effective project management principles.

• State your view.
• Apply relevant concepts, theories, logic, materials, information facts, data, evidence, or real world examples to support your point of view. (Cite the sources)
• Explain the implications & consequences of your view.

The 2008 Olympic Redeem Team*

In the 2004 Olympics in Athens, 12 years after Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan led the U.S. Dream Team to Olympic gold in Barcelona, the U.S. Basketball Team, composed of NBA stars, lost not once but three times to international competition. For the first time in Olympic history the United States settled for a bronze medal in men's basketball. Basketball was no longer America's game.

An autopsy of the debacle in Athens turned up a severe case of negative synergy. The causes were many. The team featured only three holdovers from the group that had qualified the previous summer. Seven of the original invitees withdrew. In the end, 14 players turned down Uncle Sam, invoking excuses from family obligations to nagging injuries to the security situation in Greece. As a result, coach Larry Brown took charge of a team with an average age of 23 years, and it showed. Behind the scenes, problems of dress and punctuality festered and, on the eve of the games, Brown wanted to send several players home.The million-dollar players were overconfident and assumed that their individual brilliance would prevail.An overreliance on one-on-one basketball and poor team defense doomed them as they lost games to Puerto Rico, Lithuania, and Argentina.

Enter Jerry Colangelo, 68, former coach, player, and president of the Phoenix Suns. "The way they conducted themselves left a lot to be desired," he says of the 2004 team. "Watching and listening to how people reacted to our players, I knew we'd hit bottom." Colangelo told NBA commissioner David Stern thathe would only assume duties as managing director if he was given complete control. As a measure of how abysmal the situation was, he immediately got what he asked for.

In 2005 Colangelo met face-to-face with every prospective national player, to hear in their own words why they wanted to represent their country. The few good men to set things right wouldn't be paid or guaranteed playing time, much less a starting spot. A key recruit was superstar LeBron James, who had been tagged "LeBronze" after his performance on the disappointing 2004 team. Colangelo says, "I got buy-in. Halfway through my talk with him, LeBron said, I'm in." Kobe Bryant soon followed and all but 2 of the 30 top NBA stars accepted Colangelo's offer.

Mike Kryzewski, the college coach at Duke, was hired with one project objective in mindwin the gold medal. To do so he had tochange the attitude of team USA. They had tosubordinate their superstar egos and buy in to the concept of team ball. A blessing in disguise was being knocked out of the 2006 world championship by a Greek team. The players came away from that disappointment committed to team ball as extra passes became the staple in practices. The change in attitude was evident in more subtle ways. The USA on the uniforms was bright red, while the players' names were muted blue. The players no longer referred to hoops as "our game" and spoke about how it had become the world's game. Even the team's official slogan (United We Rise) and unofficial nickname (the Redeem Team) implied room for improvement.

The team bought into a common objective. Team USA marched to the final gold medal game by beating opponents by an average margin of 30+ points. Experts marveled not so much at the victory margin but at how well they played as a team."Our goal is to win a gold medal and be humble about it," said Jason Kidd, six-time all-pro point guard, "and if we do it by 50, to make sure it's because we're playing the right way." Nothing exemplified the right way more than a moment in the final, in which flawless ball movement from the Redeemers for 16 seconds, without a dribble being taken, culminated with Dwight Howard receiving a perfect pass for an uncontested dunk.

In the end, they didn't dominate the gold medal game. Spain proved to be inspired opponents. They simply closed the game out and for the first time since NBA players have gone to the Olympics, the USA played as a team rather than showboating individuals.