Adjusting as Leaders to the New Norm

Whether you are a sports fan or not, the news of the NBA returning should put a smile on your face because it indicates we are making some progress toward our regular life. We may never return exactly to our old ways, but we can embrace the news that sports, that competition between teams, will be available for viewing.

If you’re a leader of one of these teams returning to play, some severe challenges await you. First, the rules of past engagement no longer exist. There will be no home-court advantage. There will be no travel once teams arrive at Disney, the host of the NBA for the next three months. Travel in and out of the hotel will be restricted. There will be free time, but that’s not to be spent perusing hot spots around town. Players and staff must protect themselves against the spread of the virus, which means limited contact with those from outside the bubble of Disney. Disney will be the “safe zone” with constant testing and monitoring.

The biggest obstacle for any leader who enters Orlando will be to understand there is no normal. The old way of doing anything from team training, meals, and pre-game rituals is finished. These will be uncharted waters for all leaders, which means an uncharted course of leadership.

So what is the best way to lead now? Well, the same as before, only with a few adjustments.

1. Re-develop Trust. Trust builds from everyday interaction. But since the suspension of the season, there has not been personal interaction with anyone. Therefore, leaders cannot just assume trust will return when the players return. It’s a new day, so start new. When people are unsure about the future, they need to trust someone to help them along. Leaders who establish trust first handle uncertain times.

2. Conditioning matters more than ever. With everyone being away from the gym, the first area that will suffer is the overall conditioning of the team. The team that wins the NBA title this season will be a team with great skill, but, to a more significant degree, great conditioning. The players need to trust your emphasis in this area. It will prove to be necessary.

3. Competitive Stamina. Because the next three months will be the same routine, with no breaks in-between, the team that can rise above the boredom and remain competitively strong will prevail. As leaders, we must give examples of being competitively strong each day. No one can break the bond of competitiveness. There was a German study years ago regarding people who played the game of tug of war with a rope. One team had four people; the other had six. Naturally, most expected the team with more people would win. But the team with fewer actually won because whenever there are more people involved, some members of the team would take time off and not try as hard, losing their competitive stamina. You want to convince your team you need EVERYONE pulling every day.

As leaders, we cannot expect that our same messaging will work after something radical has rocked the norm. Leaders need to prove that they can adjust to these times by finding the critical areas to focus on. What may have worked for years in the past is not guaranteed to work for months in the future.

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