The secret to Hawks GM Rick Sund's success: listen, communicate and lead.

By Michael J. Pallerino

It’s not surprising. Rick Sund is busy. And his plate keeps getting fuller. It’s just a few days before the Atlanta Hawks officially report to their 2009-2010 training camp to pick up where they left off last season – a season in which they secured home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. A season where a young team – sprinkled with some key veterans – finally found their footing in the ever competitive and always exciting NBA Eastern Conference.

In just his second year as the Hawks’ executive vice president and general manager, Rick Sund has a million and one things on his “to do” list – the continual shuffling of which stretches each of his days to their fullest. Contract negotiations. Coaches meetings. Paperwork. And the list goes on. After returning from a quick meeting down the hall, Sund is ready for the questions.

“What was the best advice you ever received in this business?”

“The best advice?” he asks, taking time to reflect with some nostalgia.

When you look at when and where Rick Sund grew up in this business, it’s not surprising that the best piece of advice he received came from one of the game’s greatest pioneers. In 1974, while finishing the sports management program at Ohio University, Sund was an intern for Wayne Embry, the former Hall of Fame player and first African American general manager of a professional sports franchise. The young intern had just earned All-Big Ten honors his senior year at Northwestern. The NBA was a different world in those days. Your typical NBA front office typically had a handful of staffers: a GM, a PR person, a controller and a ticket manager, a far cry from the global, multi-billion dollar machine it is today.

“The best advice was that you have to be able to communicate. If you can communicate, you can manage people,” Sund says.

With more than 30 years of NBA front office experience – with stints in Milwaukee, Dallas, Detroit and Seattle – Rick Sund knows a thing or two about how effective communications not only serves as a foundation for leadership, but how it helps build championship organizations, too.

“The ability to communicate to the athlete and to reach him is imperative. If you don’t have the ability to be a people person with basketball knowledge you’re in trouble. It’s about being able to get everybody on the same page. It’s about management.”

On Court Player Development® caught up with Rick Sund to get his thoughts on succeeding in the game of basketball and why helping strengthen the development of young players is important to the sport.