Cue the song, Sirius, by Allan Parsons Project. Enter one of the greatest sports dynasties of our generation, The 1990’s Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson at the helm. Six championships and 20 some years later, we are left with a legacy that inspired and moved countless 80’s and 90’s babies to be like Mike, despite our ambitions. But what can Jordan and the 90’s Chicago Bulls still teach us about ourselves, our aspirations, talents, leadership, and business? Surprisingly a lot.
I know what you are thinking, “Here we go again, another generic article that is drawing comparisons from sports stars into peppy motivational language, talking about goal setting, blah blah blah.” I promise I won’t torment you with such nonsense. Instead, I want to take you through an in-depth analysis of optimization, focus, strength building, and strategy. Working hard is a waste of time if you don’t meet this criterion. Many of us, as many basketball players from the past, work tirelessly, go to the gym, read countless books, and continually strive to be overachievers. Yet, our execution ranges between mediocre to sometimes good. In this competitive environment, however, being good barely pays the bills. We must strive to be great if we want a life that is both fulfilling and plentiful.
Strategy and Leadership:
In The Last Dance, a series about the Chicago Bulls’ 1997-98 path to their sixth and final championship, we see in the second episode a frustrated Michael Jordan who is losing game after game at the start of the season because Scottie Pippen was out with an injury. “Whenever they speak of Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen.” Jordan says in the docuseries. It was meaningless that Jordan was the best player of all time, or he could score 63 points against Larry Bird and the Celtics in a playoff game. He still lost. The Bulls lost without a critical member of the team to give them the balance and structure needed to compete.
Jordan and his teammates were tired, overworked, and emotionally bitter, with a poor start to the season. They were now playing on hopes and dreams, and putting a heavy workload on Jordan, who, while facing the Clippers had to reach deep to pull out a victory against the worst team at that time in the N.B.A. Sound familiar? Perhaps you are employed at an organization where you are working weekends, 10-12 hours a day in the office, and you and your teammates are bitter and feel resentment about the environment as a whole. After a certain amount of time, you and your colleagues may begin to feel checked out, hopeless, leading to you doing the bare minimum. Now the business has reached the point of no return and is on a collision course with certain doom because they either relied on too many cutbacks or are incredibly unaware of the day-to-day operations that make up each department. If your organization is missing deadline after deadline, it’s time for the leadership to step up, evaluate every measure of the process, and implement a new game plan.
I have seen countless managers, vice presidents, and executives come into a thriving business. Through one poor decision after another, they pave a path to something which is left barely operational. These individuals had an impressive resume, all the right names, and perhaps a remarkable portfolio to wow the hiring manager. When it came to execution, however, they fell flat on their face for several reasons. One, they failed to first adequately evaluate the team they were working with. Second, they did not analyze the challenges the organization was currently facing or anticipate coming across in the future, which can be remedied with decent communication skills. Lastly, their ego became their bottleneck, and decisions became a throw of the dice rather than having sound research to drive strategy. There is nothing wrong with having a bit of an ego, but you must first earn the right to have one with proven results at your current organization. The failure to identify strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities from the beginning is a failure to be a sufficient problem solver, leader, and member of the team. Strategy before execution, always!
A problem with the word strategy is it’s often said, but there is no substance behind it. Many think they have a plan, but the reality is their team is showing up and tackling challenges with their current skillset and calling it a day. There is no growth, or a deep dive into the best tactics to approach the situation. The next thing they know, their competition, who has been adamantly focusing on trends, evaluating key performance indicators, streamlining their workflow, implementing Artificial Intelligence, and quickly adapting to a rapidly changing industry, just took a massive chunk of their business. Checkmate.
The 1992 Dream Team, known as the most exceptional team ever assembled, lost their first game to the NCAA team 62-54. A group of talented individuals does not translate to them being a team until a challenge is identified, dissected, and thoroughly analyzed. Teamwork does not happen until each member’s strengths and weaknesses have been identified, dissected, and carefully examined. A game plan does not happen until a team optimizes and structures themselves based on their skills and talents to take down the obstacles ahead. Adaption and survival do not happen until leadership communicates and instills the growth required of all members who make up the team to face against an always-evolving industry.
The 1990 Chicago Bulls team had all the right players and came close to winning their first N.B.A. championship, which would have given them seven championships in total instead of six. They faced the Detroit Pistons, known as the bad boys of the league at the time. The Pistons played a harsh psychological game, pushing players around, and ultimately beating the Bulls in game six of the Eastern Conference Finals. It was not just 1990, but the previous two seasons as well. In 1988, the Pistons embarrassed Jordan and the Bulls 4-1 in the conference semifinals. In the summer of 1990, Jordan had enough, and the next year they came back, picked apart the Pistons, and swept them 4-0 in Eastern Conference Finals, going on to earn their first N.B.A. championship.
Analyzing and optimizing each component to best compliment the team:
During Jordan’s second year playing for the Bulls, he broke his foot. Before this moment, Jordan never missed a single game, dating back to his years playing Basketball in High School. As a result, he became passionate about conditioning and optimizing his body, not so much for peak performance, but to avoid future injuries and to focus on critical areas of his game. He wanted to rebuild from the ground up to be the perfect round peg precisely fitting in a round hole. Enter Jordan’s trainer, Tim Grover.
Grover’s philosophy involved stripping away many layers of an already world-class athlete, digging deep, and pinpointing limitations of Michael’s athleticism. Together, they identified and focused on weak areas to avoid future injuries. Next, they worked on balancing Jordan’s body out, so one side was not stronger than the other. Finally, they worked on strength and conditioning to improve Michael’s game, optimizing his body to be more resilient, and perfectly calculated down to Jordan’s weight for each match based on the makeup of the opposing team. Critical muscles were isolated and reshaped for Jordan to shoot a perfect arch 24 feet away from the basket, improve his ability and confidence to cut to his right more than his left making him less predictable in the paint, and build upon his already high level of stamina to raise the probability of dependability during a game’s final stretch in overtime.
There is no doubt that Jordan has an ego, and he always strived to be the best. Still, he knew he had to be a specific size, have a certain amount of stamina, and condition his body not merely to be the best player in the world but to be the best shooting guard that meshed well with the then Bull’s Roster. It was about being the best component for the team.
The N.B.A. and college basketball has seen countless talent come and go due to injuries. Several professional teams have had the misfortune of drafting that number one pick who turned out to be a bust, such as Kwame Hasani Brown, who was selected to the Wizards with Jordan as his teammate. Again, this all comes down to the individual, making an effort to become the right piece for the puzzle and optimizing their game and body, taking every variable into account for optimal team performance.
Whatever your ambitions are, there is a high probability you won’t be doing it alone. If you are a graphic designer aspiring to be a Creative Director, are you optimizing your game to become a great mentor by studying leadership philosophies, inspiring younger designers, and effectively leading your team? If you are shy, are you working on your communication skills and confidence to discuss tactics and budgets with your chief marketing officer? Or, are you spending your time learning software, and thinking your design talent alone makes you the perfect peg for a leadership role? Perhaps you want to start a business, and you feel that you know enough clientele and saved enough money to make it a reality. Do you know what a balance sheet is, or how you will reduce overhead strategically? Do you believe you can start this business and run everything on your own? Have you accounted for the consequences on yourself and your clients when you are sick and miss critical deadlines because you had no contingency plan? Maybe you want to be a wedding photographer because you take great photos and you have a decent camera. Have you accounted for the amount of endurance, and stamina you will need to carry a load of heavy equipment up and down stairs? Did you think about how you are going to sprint from your car back to the event because of equipment malfunction, or you simply forgot something? Do you know how you will handle yourself when you come across a bridezilla, how you will calm them down, and make them feel like they are in good hands? Have you accounted for all the variables so you can effectively and competitively accomplish the tasks of today and tomorrow?
While Michael Jordan was not able to foresee every obstacle he came across, he pressed forward. He conditioned himself to take on about 95% of the challenges he approached because Jordan learned the art of anticipation. Many of us, including myself, tend to live in the moment, not thoroughly evaluating the entire picture, and when an obstacle approaches, we fail to conquer. The Jordan philosophy is simple. We all want to succeed, but that involves evaluating the tools needed for the job and not merely showing up to a challenge on hopes and dreams alone. I know it sounds stupid, and you are shrugging your shoulders and saying, “duh!” But honestly, have you evaluated your strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, threats (SWOT Analysis), and calculated a solid game plan? Are you optimizing yourself and talents to take on that 95% of obstacles that may approach? You may be world-class or feel you are world-class at what you do, but there is always room to grow and reach the next level. Achieving this involves stripping away the layers, digging deep, and pinpointing limitations to your talents, personality, and skillset. Once you isolate your weakness, you focus on turning that weakness into strengths.
Focus and Leadership:
“My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.”
-Michael Jordan
One of Jordan’s many mottos was turning weakness into a strength. James Worthy, one of Jordan’s teammates during his Tar Heels era, said, “I was better than Jordan. I was better than him for about three weeks.” Worthy was the star of the Tar Heels at the time and recalled how a freshman Jordan relentlessly focused to improve his game those first few weeks and became the emerging star of the Tar Heels roster.
What exactly is focus anyways? It’s almost in a sense one of those fancy business cliché’s that can blanket any situation. In this instance, focus means identifying a weakness either through failure or competitive analysis versus your best efforts.
How do you keep yourself and your team focused on the organization’s goals and milestones? In Michael’s case, it was winning basketball championships that drove him. In the corporate world, it’s essential to know that money will not fix your problems, create loyalty, or instill enthusiasm in your team members if there is no prize for them to focus on. In this case, you can translate the word prize to legacy: legacy and a sense of accomplishment. It’s not the gold basketball trophy, but the legacy Michael was chasing after. The ability to have an incredible story to tell when he is older. Isn’t that what we all want our lives to be, a heroic tale of us relentlessly overcoming challenges to triumph and say we mattered, we created our little segment in history?
Countless corporations and small businesses throw pizza parties, have a foosball table, and rave about corporate culture. Occasionally they may have motivational sessions where executives give pep talks to staff members, speaking to them like they are five years old and don’t understand the complexities of business. We have all seen it, the manager who is disconnected and has lost the ability to communicate to employees with meaningful dialog. Their ego and lack of focus on the workforce becomes a liability, creates a high turnover rate, and the organization loses its competitive edge.
“I think the most important thing about coaching is that you have to have a sense of confidence about what you’re doing. You have to be a salesman, and you have to get your players, particularly your leaders, to believe in what you’re trying to accomplish on the basketball floor.”
-Phil Jackson.
If you watched how Phil coached his team, you would see him get emotional, perhaps use an occasional curse word, but what the players saw was passion, a devoted leader, a mentor, someone who wanted what was best for them. He instilled loyalty by talking to the players the same way he would speak to the GM, owner, or a friend. There was no change of tone or different use of language from one person to another. If you can’t have a meaningful conversation that is mutually informative and delightful with your lowest to the highest-paid employee, don’t expect a loyal following, or devotion to your cause. Expect a high turnover rate and minimal effort.
As a leader, you must be a salesman who can paint a clear picture for your team to identify with, and want to be a part of. It may be pushing employees to grow by focusing on a skillset or talent which sets them up for promotion. And let’s get this clear, I’m not talking about sending them to Human Resources to fill out a sheet of paper talking about where they want to be in the next five years. I’m referring to having a heart to heart conversation just as you would with your buddy over some beers at your favorite bar. Another instance would be the organization as a whole shooting for a goal that won’t burn your workforce out but excites them. What is your industries’ version of an N.B.A. championship that will keep your team focused, loyal, and overly enthusiastic? That’s something you will have to define, but remember, it’s not about you; it’s about the team. Make sure your goals are not yours alone.
Optimism and Conclusion
Finally, there is nothing wrong with being foolishly optimistic, but optimism without a strategy is pretty much the equivalent of gambling. Every component must be built, tested, and optimized to work at peak performance with other parts of the machine. Regardless if you are a leader, or are working your way up the corporate ladder, there is a lot to consider in our own abilities as well as our team’s. We only have a certain amount of time in this world to reach our optimum potential, to have a story that matters. How we spend the 86,400 seconds, we have each day will determine how good that story is in the end.
“I hope the millions of people I’ve touched have the optimism and desire to share their goals and hard work and persevere with a positive attitude. “
-Michael Jordan