If you are like me, you need some form a healthy diversion or outlet during the coronavirus. For me, it is my subscription to the online sports magazine The Athletic. Its daily content features a collection of many of the best sports writers in America. With all I (and you and everyone else) have to deal with on a hourly basis as a leader, some good sports content is often just what the doctor ordered!
Before getting to What Your Team Needs To Do When It Faces Hard Times Caused By The Coronavirus COVID-19, my friends at The Athletic are offering the readers of this site a FREE 30-Day guest pass to enjoy its content. Simply click HERE or on the image provided to get immediate access.
On Monday, March 9th, the wonderful writer Seth Davis chronicled how the Wisconsin Badgers captured a share of the Big Ten college basketball championship. This team has faced significant adversity. Last summer, assistant coach Howard Moore was involved in a serious car crash that claimed the lives of his wife and daughter. Moore has been in ill health since.
While being interviewed, the team’s head coach Greg Gard said, “This group has been through real life adversity. When we hit some trouble in terms of wins and losses, the guys knew we could either splinter and fracture, or we could come together. They chose to be unified.”
Whether you lead a church, business, non-profit, or athletic organization, you too have faced real life adversity in the last couple of weeks. Coach Gard would tell those in your organization they have one of two decisions to make when faced by hard times caused by the coronavirus or some other challenge:
- They can splinter or fracture. Or….
- They can come together and be unified.
Here is what the Wisconsin Badgers basketball team teaches us – organizations that come together and maintain unity have a better chance of surviving the coronavirus and perhaps even thriving afterwards. Organizations which become selfish will not prevail.
Which decision will your team make during this difficult time? That will likely be determined by how you behave as the leader. Choose coming together. Choose unity. Lead now like you want to tell your story in three months.
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