Last week, my home town University of Memphis
men's basketball team was defeated in the national
championship game by a talented, well-coached
squad from the University of Kansas. Though I've
been a Memphis resident for better than two decades,
I am not a Tigers fan. I don't root against them, but I'm
not wild about them either. It has nothing to do with
basketball, but a rather sorry bureaucratic gauntlet my
daughter had to run in order to graduate from the
school. Hence, I can hardly be accused of sour grapes
for saying that the game needn't have turned out like it
did.
Indeed, Memphis pretty well had the game put away
with an eight-point lead with a little over two minutes
remaining. Then, the Kansas team began deliberately
fouling Memphis players in order to stop the clock and
put the Tigers' notoriously poor free throw shooting
skills to the acid test. The tactic paid off as Memphis
players missed four of five free throws in the last two
minutes, allowing Kansas to tie the game, sending it
to overtime, where Kansas prevailed. Had even one
more of those shots from the charity strip gone in,
there would have been no overtime, and the NCAA
would now have a different champion.
In the game of basketball, free throws and lay-ups are
fundamental. They are the first two offensive
maneuvers every player is taught. You are expected to
make a very high percentage of such shots. Free
throws are a gift in that you're not required to hurry your
shot, and no one is putting a hand in your face to block
the shot or distract you. With each team generally
getting fifteen or more free throws in the course of a
game, the difference between a 60% completion
average and an 80% rate often decides the game.
Though Memphis coach, John Calipari is an excellent
coach and a great motivator, his persistent failure to
address the team's poor performance (58.7% season
avg.) in this critical dimension cost them dearly.
In the world of work, leadership skills are as
fundamental to success as free throws are to the
game of basketball. Teams (organizations) that fail to
thoroughly incorporate them into selection, appraisal,
and reward criteria for managers are ruining their
chances at being a winning organization.
It's not enough to take your star sales rep and convert
him or her to a sales manager. In fact, that is often the
exact wrong thing to do, especially if the person lacks
fundamental leadership capabilities or interests. An
individual who is largely self-absorbed, for example,
will never make a good leader because one of the
basic tenets of leadership is the ability to subordinate
one's self interest for the larger good. Ditto for those
who would rather hear the sound of their own voice
than listen to others.
The good news is that, as with free throws, we can
improve many of our leadership skills with good
coaching and regular practice. If it has been a while
since you worked on your game in this area, you better
get with it, because as the Tigers found out,
competitors will take advantage. Read a book,
hire a coach, take a seminar, or perhaps subject
yourself to a 360 survey. But don't wait, because time
is not on your side.
