I am normally very disciplined in terms of screen time and on a normal day the time spent by me on watching a show or movie does not exceed 90 mins. There are so many things to do in a day that it becomes impossible to spend more than this on entertainment.
But yesterday was a like a perfect storm, break day so no run, only one call of 90 mins and no pressure from wife to clean up the house. So,I ended up watching 10 episodes of 50 minutes each over the course of the day. For those who don’t know about it, “The Last Dance” is the storyof the Chicago bulls and their complete dominance of the NBA from 1991 to 1998. Actually, it is the story of Michael Jordon and how he built himself to be arguably the best basketball player of all times.
For an executive coach, these 10 episodes are a treasure house of coaching moments and it
It is tough to pick the best coaching lessons, however, what kept me hooked was the single minded devotion of Michael Jordon to become the best and push his team mates so that the Chicago Bulls became the best team in the NBA winning 6 championships in 8 years.
Michael Jordon comes across as a very competitive individual who wants to win at any cost. In addition to everything else, he would motivate himself to go beyond himself to perform at almost super human standard. And there is a very interesting method that he uses to do so. He constantly looks for situations where he makes it personal with any of the opponents and then uses this ‘perceived slight’ to motivate himself to excel. There are multiple instances of his doing it through the 10 episodes.
he ensures that the highest scorer of opposing team does not score much while Jordon becomes the highest scorer, and the Bulls win the series 4-1
Another instance which I found very interesting was when in one of the finals, the Chicago Bulls lose the first games of the 7 game series and Jordon is eating dinner in a restaurant, the opposing teams coach is there and he ignores Jordon and walks by. Jordon tells himself “so this is how it is going to be?” takes it as a personal affront and goes on play out of his skin tothe ensure that his team wins the title.
I found these instances to be a great example of setting up a process or as we say in coaching parlance “support systems” to ensure that one is able to reach peak performance day in and day out. As a coach, it is imperative to set up such support systems for your client so that he/she is able to stay focused on the task even when things are not going well. These are the times when the client is alone in the moment with the challenges that he/she is facing and it may not be possible for the coach to be available all the time. In the absence of the coach this support system can help the client get through difficult situations.
Taking the same analogy to anyone who wants to be at peak performance day in and day out, all of us need some trigger or process which motivates us to bring in our best game. As a business owner, founder or a professional, what process or trigger are you using?
Would love to hear from you, do contact me at rajiv@rsqaureconsult.in or if you are in the UAE prasad@nexbiz.net
R square consulting provides customised and holistic HR interventions for developing the human capital of an organization through:
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