Brad Stevens is the coach of the Butler Bulldogs, the darling of the NCAA tournament. He is in his second straight NCAA title game with Butler, not exactly one of the blue bloods of the NCAA.
What is his secret? Well one comment he made over the weekend caught my attention. He posted on the locker room wall the words below.
"You are not going to play perfect!"
So what is he doing by making this statement? I believe he is leading like a sinner, recognizing that we all are sinners, and thus cannot play perfect. There was only one guy who could do that, and we crucified him. So since there is no one else who can play perfect, lets make that an important expectation for our team to understand. No one is going to play a perfect game, so lets expect that we won't either.
So what happens to the team that expects it won't play perfect? Do they become resigned to that fact and let failure move in? Do they make friends with mistakes and thus make more? Well obviously I don't think so. What I do think happens is people have more patience with one another, they don't loose focus on the team goal when a mistake is made, they will be less likely to think here we go again. And maybe they keep working hard on their goal and a mistake since its expected does not cause them to shift focus from that goal and this ability, to stay focused on the goal, is what then gives them success in greater measure.
Just google the headlines on Butler and Brad Stevens and wonder why he is having such incredible success. I think its because whether he knows it or not, he is leading like a sinner!
2 comments:
I'm glad he warned them because they just shot 19%.
I stand by my comments that this team realized success in a dramatically greater fashion because of how they were a team. They lost the openning tip and were outmanned at almost every position but still fought hard to the end.
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