Find the Right Players not the Best Players
“I’m not looking for the best players, Craig. I’m looking for the right ones,” Herb Brooks told his assistant coach after Herb selected the players for the US Olympic Hockey Team, the team that would compete and win gold in the 1980 Winter Olympics. Herb recognized a very important fact that seems to be overlooked now a days, the best players aren’t necessarily the right players to win. Herb Brooks put together what is considered to be one of the best teams in sports history with a bunch of misfits. They were all good players, but if that team was built by the numbers half of those players wouldn’t have made that team.
Alma mater, GPA and class rank are just some of the ways by which we evaluate future talent. Even though Herb Brooks showed us that a Harvard MBA with a 4.0 GPA who graduated at the head of his class might not be good enough to make our team we are still unwilling to listen. Society wants a short cut to predicting success. The truth is there is no shortcut. If you try and play it by the numbers then chances are you’re going to discard the people that would not just have made you successful, but that would have made you legendary. Every time Human Resources trashes a resume because it doesn’t have the right key words in it HR isn’t being efficient in it’s search, HR is playing Russian Roulette with corporate success out of laziness.
There is statistical evidence that shows that a non-stop full-court press defense is the best defense you can employ in basketball, yet no one employs it as their primary form of defense for an entire game. Teams with sub par talent can even the odds, if not flat out stack the deck in their favor by using the full-court press, but they don’t use it.
The full-court press isn’t used for the same reason HR tosses out those resumes after a quick key word search, laziness. The success of legends isn’t easy to achieve. Success is hard work, and there are no shortcuts. If you’re in search of success be like Herb, spend the energy to find the right players, don’t be lazy and just look for the best players.
© Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
