Every year the NCAA March Madness basketball tournaments remind us of lessons beyond sports related to leadership, culture, teamwork and winning teams that we cannot afford to forget. Jason shares reflections on this year’s tournaments.
SHOW NOTES
Jason introduces Season 7 episode 15 of the podcast, Lessons From Another March Madness. Welcome back to the podcast on corporate culture and leadership and thank you for listening. We engage thought leaders like CEOs, CFOs, managers, VPs, directors, and more for this podcast. We wish to create content that engages your mind and heart and allows you to step back and think and add some positivity to your life. We deep dive into today’s topic.
We can’t control everything but what we can control is our response. Still a lot of work to do but wanted to remind the audience what is within our control is the temperature we create in the organizations and teams we work with. If you have a suggestion, please send it to info@jasonvbarger.com
Please leave a review for the podcast It really helps the podcast to spread these messages out into the world. Please share this podcast with your organization, on your team, or in your life to help spread these messages. Thank you!
“We need to be reminded of these realities each year of building the best teams.“
3:00 – Jason introduces today’s topic about March Madness and the lessons from victory and the agony of defeat. The tournament is a reminder each year of lessons for life about teamwork, about grit, about teamwork, about coaching, and ultimately about the power of winning teams. Jason shares some of the great lessons from March Madness this year and lessons we can’t afford to forget for the cultures we hope to be part of and create. We need to be reminded of these realities each year of building the best teams.
7:10 – Whether you know much about basketball or not, Jason breaks it down for you about the realities of building the best teams. We had some wild tournaments this year. The men’s tournament didn’t have a single number 1 seed in any of the eight teams that made it; that’s never happened! None of the top 12 seeded teams that came into the tournament made it to the final four this year. Some major underdogs made it this year. Jason shares why this happened and how teams and their leaders made the difference. In the women’s game, the number three seed won the tournament.
9:40 – Jason shares some highlights from the tournaments:
- There is no perfect team. Even when you come into the tournament with a perfect record, all are open for upsets and in fact, were! Every team had imperfections. We sometimes get tricked that the biggest, the most talented, are perfect in some sense. The truth is they are not and there are no perfect teams.
- The older more cohesive and experienced teams seemed to advance. The players who stayed and didn’t go to the NBA were the ones who advanced to the next round. It’s not as simple as saying whoever has the most talent wins. This year we witnessed that older experienced, better aligned, that had the ability to weather tough challenges were the ones that advanced.
- There is a lot of talent out there! With the landscape of the transfer portal, there are tons of talent out there with so many good basketball players out there. So many players are able to move from different teams. A lot like the working world, people can be attracted to new organizations to build something great and make a difference. Many of the great players that fit the talent team’s need were ones that transferred over. Business is going through that right now with talent moving. The organizations that can attract talent and develop it will be the ones that advance.
- Bench players played huge roles. We love looking at the stars but the highest performers at this tournament in big ways were the bench players. Every organization has off nights so we need other people to step up. This was clear in the woman’s game when Jasmine Carson came off the bench for the LSU Tigers and in the biggest moment, she delivered five 3-point shots and 22 points. She became the biggest difference in that game to help them win the national championship. Either in their ineffectiveness or in the ones that had surprising fuel to help them succeed.
- The teams that advanced believed it was possible
- They are connected to each other. Playing for each other.
- When adversity arrives, they pull toward each other rather than away from each other
- In the top moments, they are able to execute their game plan
- They lead during the pressure moments.
Questions to Ponder
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How is your team intentionally growing your culture? Your vision? How are you doing?
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What are you doing to attract, retain, & develop new players?
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In what ways are you developing your bench players? Or emerging leaders in your organization?
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What are you doing to cultivate belief and alignment toward how and what you are trying to create?
Please leave a review for the podcast It really helps the podcast to spread these messages out into the world. Please share this podcast with your organization, on your team, or in your life to help spread these messages. Thank you!
If any of these topics are interesting to you please or you want a deep dive on any specific topics, please reach out to us at info@jasonvbarger.com
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Remember, the best leaders, teams, & cultures stimulate progress by recalibrating their thermostat together.
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ABOUT THE THERMOSTAT
Conversations and micro-thoughts to engage your mind and heart.
A thermostat is proactive. It sets the temperature in a room. Controls the temperature. Regulates the temperature. But in today’s distracted, fast-paced and digital world, it’s easy for individuals and organizations to act more like thermometers, slipping into reactionary thinking, becoming scattered and inconsistent. The most compelling leaders, teams, organizations, families, or collection of humans of any kind operate in thermostat mode. They calibrate their mind and heart to set the temperature for the vision and culture they want to create. Jason Barger, globally celebrated author, keynote speaker, and founder of Step Back Leadership Consulting, is the host of The Thermostat, a podcast journey to discover authentic leadership, create compelling cultures and find clarity of mission, vision, and values.