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By Dr. John C. Maxwell
Back in my basketball-playing days, I learned a valuable lesson about employee placement from an early season experiment my coach conducted with our team.
He began by telling the first team, of which I was a member, that he wanted us to scrimmage the second team. There was nothing unusual about that, except that all the starters were to play out of position. "I'm going to show you why it's important to understand your place, your niche and your position on the team," the coach explained.
I had to play centre, guarded by a six-foot-seven-inch guy named Doug Roth. Needless to say, every time I shot the ball, it came back at me rather quickly. I don't think I even got the ball to the goal one time, and I know for sure I didn't get any rebounds. Doug got all the rebounds, and the first team—well, we just got slaughtered.
Mercifully, the coach stopped the scrimmage after 20 minutes. "Are you getting the point, players?" he asked. Of the two groups of players, the first team had more athleticism and better skills, he told us. But the second team was victorious because they stayed in position, while the members of the first team were completely out of place.
"Remember this," he cautioned. "Talent will never overcome being in the wrong position."
He was absolutely right. Whether you're talking about basketball players, gymnasts, marketing experts or software developers, one huge factor that separates a winning team from a losing team is how the team's good players are placed. Look at it this way:
This reminds me of what I call the Law of the Niche, which says all players have a place where they add the most value. But having the right individuals in the right places leads to a winning record only if those people know the value of preparation and have a strong work ethic.
Let me illustrate this with another story from one of my favourite leaders, former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. During practice sessions, he'd sometimes see one of his players slacking off. When that happened, he'd put his arm around the young man and say, "Now you do understand that if you're not giving 100 percent today, you can't make it up tomorrow."
Although that sounds quite simple, it's a very powerful truth.
"Think about it, John," Wooden said as he shared this story with me. "If you're giving 50 percent today, you can't give 150 percent tomorrow. What you don't do today is never retrievable or recoverable."
In other words, every day counts, and the best way to have success tomorrow is to take care of today. Or, to quote Wooden again, "Make every day your masterpiece."
What does all this mean to you as a leader? It means that if you want to be successful, you must have the right players in the right places on your team. And when you're determining who the "right" players are, don't just look at their skills or resume. They should be highly competent, of course, but they also need to be team players who possess solid values, a strong work ethic and a good attitude. As Henry Ford once said, "Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, and working together is success."