NEW YORK — University of Louisville Coach Rick Pitino and agroup of uncoordinated 12-year-old girls know how credit unionscould conquer big banks in the financial marketplace. Run thefull-court press.

During his general session at CUNA's America's Credit UnionConference at the New York Hilton, best-selling author MalcolmGladwell shared an anecdotal example of how basketball teams haveemerged victorious over more talented teams by running thefull-court press, a defensive strategy that seriously hampers theother team's ability to run its offense, but requires considerableendurance.

He told the story of a group of 12-year-old girls in Menlo Park,Calif. who lacked athletic ability, yet went all the way to thenational championship because of the defensive strategy. The gameplan was the idea of their coach, businessman Vivek Ranadive, whosedaughter was on the team. ­Ranadive purchased the NBA's SacramentoKings earlier this year.

Gladwell said Ranadive, who before coaching the girls' team wasunfamiliar with the game of basketball, couldn't believe how littleeffort American teams put toward defense. Knowing the girls lackedathletic talent, Gladwell said Ranadive instead leveraged traitslike hard work, endurance, courage, intelligence, knowledge of thecommunity and the willingness to be disagreeable into success.Ranadive recognized that if players were willing to work hardenough to run a full-court press for an entire game, their effortswould negate any offensive strategy, he said. University ofLouisville Coach Rick Pitino, whose team won the 2013 NCAAchampionship, uses the same full-court press strategy, headded.

“What appeals to me most about that story is it appeals to somany of our attitudes about ­underdogs,” Gladwell said. “Wemisunderstand what is so powerful about underdogs.”

Underdogs do win, he said. In fact, in the last 300 years, inmilitary conflicts in which one country is much smaller than theother, if smaller opponents don't play conventionally, they win 63%of the time. 

“Dribbling and passing and playing the conventional way is fun,easy and satisfying,” he said. “The full-court press is hard.That's a ­crucial point. So often, when we look at any competitivesituation we assume that what is rare is talent.”

Instead, he said, what is rare is effort.

“It's far harder to find someone willing to work hard than toget someone who practices three point shots,” he said.

So what is the credit union equivalent of the full-court press?The question was posed to Gladwell following his address by alistener who submitted it via Twitter.

Embracing the fact that credit unions will never be as big asbig banks, and that's a competitive advantage. Unless credit unionsembrace being small and bring that to people's attention, they willfall into the tendency to think bigger is always better, hesaid.

And when a credit union pitches its small size, it should addthat it works harder to please members as a result, he said.

Management leadership is key in motivating employees to workharder, he said. On the girls' basketball team, the key to successwas that every player contributed equally, playing an equal numberof minutes each game.

“The minute you start overwhelmingly rely upon a few players,it's hard to maintain that common cause,” he said.

Being disagreeable–a willingness to go against the grain withoutpeer approval–is also key.

“In the years leading up to the financial crisis, allinstitutions were agreeable,” he said. “They were all in lockstepmarching off the cliff.”

However, when a leader is disagreeable, it's difficult to knowwhen an innovative idea is indeed innovative, and when it is wrong,he said. And being disagreeable doesn't mean you can take a poll ofthose around you and use it as a measure of whether an action isright. While a disagreeable person isn't infallible, they at leastare steadfast in their actions, back them up with reasons, and arewilling to admit when they are wrong and need to change course.