Employees during recession and a sports team losing

Think of any sports team training. The coach spends a LOT of time developing strategies, improving skills and motivating the players, building up for that moment on the field when they could put it all together and achieve victory. The coach is hailed as a visionary, the players as heroes and the hurrahs go around for a long time.

 

Now, what if the best laid plans go horribly wrong, and the team loses? There are two scenarios. If the team puts a solid fist in the fight, then there’s praise on the effort and the ‘we’ll get them the next time’ jargon. Yes, the coach and non performers could face a lot of grief and spared no slack, to the extent of being given the pink slip. However, if the team gets a pasting, the situation changes. there would be talks of lack of spirit, lacking motivation, wrong strategies, new methodology in training, finding inspirational leadership and so on and so forth. This would lead to sacking of the coach, new captain, and re-shuffling of the squad. The non performers could kiss their careers goodbye. 

 

End of the day, if the going is bad, the blame game in bad times pretty much drowns everyone with it. What if the conditions work in favour of the opposition? What if the main player gets injured? What if the opponents are much better trained and “pumped-up” for the fight? Do we remember the fact that the team trained hard for years and the coach kept them motivated for all the time? Probably not.

 

Most of us wouldn’t care, because even in our everyday lives, we crouch down and praise all the successes, but our rewards our subject to the end results, the goals, the pre-set targets and expectations; there is are performance appraisals based on efforts and in tough situations, it causes more angst than one can envisage.

 

Like for a sports team, the work force never lost the apparent talents they had; hence the most motivation required is when the going gets tough. This is where a good coach and a bad coach differ. A bad coach would try work on the lacking skills of his player or look for some other player making up for those skills. A good coach would target the cause of the problem, and ensure that not only would he remove the fear and anxiety from his troubled players’ hearts but imbibe a spirit of confidence as well as work on the lacking skills. Similarly, good managers and leaders nurture their employees during a downturn.

 

Make your quarter-back realize his importance; let the pitcher know that its his job to achieve the strike-outs; the best batsman does not simply give an account of runs scored on a dead pitch in a dead-rubber; the pouring down rain and puddles wont make the best strikers run back to defence; if the majority workforce played the baseline in the sun, maybe its time to run up and volley when it gets cloudy.

 In short, believe in your team, and believe in yourself. Don’t bring in too many changes if this was the unit that brought in the championships in the previous years; a couple of bad series’ wont alter the course of great players. Winning is a habit- in life as in sport. Form of a player would come and go; however, if the ability, fitness and desire to win goes a-lacking, maybe its time to bet on a new horse.