Do you play better than your issues?

MANILA, Philippines - Skip Prosser, a leading US college basketball coach, has a simple philosophy about recruiting and retaining players on his team: “Does he/she play better than their issues?”

We are all familiar with cases of famous athletes and their dramas, be it womanizing, partying, drugs, and the like. The Diego Maradonas or Latrell Sprewells of the world of sports.  And sometimes we wonder, “Why does the team put up with their antics?” And the answer always comes rooted in Prosser’s philosophy. As long as they play better than their issues, they stay on the team. And what you see is, once these “problem players” decline even slightly in performance, they get let go — very fast. If one is going to have star-level issues, then they better put up star-level performance!

Life mimics sports. Certainly, business mimics sports.

We are all players on a team. We all come with issues; nobody is perfect. And if we want to know our value to an organization, it is a simple question at the end of the day: “Do we play better than our issues”?

Let’s bring it to life with some examples.

I once had a secretary in Morocco who took more sick days than anyone in the company. Now, whether we like it or not, being sick is an issue, because when you are sick, you are not at work delivering value to the business. She also complained a great deal and consumed a disproportionate amount of my time and other leaders’ to manage her ego and constant need for coddling. And interestingly enough, her performance when she was working was average at best. She was sloppy, slow, and had low output. So when the time came to target employees for a downsizing, guess who came first? She did. And I can still remember how shocked she was when I told her that her role was eliminated and she would get a separation package. She never took feedback. She never stepped back and assessed herself, looked around at others and asked, “Do I play better than my issues?” Her big argument was, “I gave X years of my life to the company,” implying she must have worked for free and now earned the right to be a poor performer. This is the worst argument one can take. When you work and are paid, the scales are balanced at the end of each day. There are no “credits” in business. You have to earn your keep, every single day. You can’t live off the past, particularly in today’s competitive world.

Or let’s take a banker I know. She is charged with selling new corporate clients. And how is her play versus her issues? She hasn’t brought in much, if any, new business for her bank. She has taken a great deal of work leaves for various reasons. She has lied to her management about the basis for her leave days, creating fictitious illnesses and family events to justify trips abroad. She has also been ensnared in a personal public-relations scandal that has likely undermined the image of her bank as well as herself. She consistently backstabs all her bosses and has a victim mentality: “Everyone is jealous and hates me because I am so great.”  So, it’s safe to say after six months or so in the job, she has played far too poorly relative to the issues she has. If she’s in touch with reality — and that is a big “if” — and understands how to see things from a coach’s view, she would understand she’s not a valued member of the team. And perhaps she needs to reflect on her core values and character.

Each of us has issues. Each of us has quirks. Some are more absent than others. Some are more high-maintenance than others. Some create more workplace dramas than others. Some are better team players than others. Some make more silly mistakes than others. The list goes on and on. The question, though, is very simple: “Do you play better than your issues?” Take a hard look in the mirror. Put yourself in a position of empathizing with your management. If your answer is truly “yes,” well, congratulations! You are in good shape. You are someone the coach values having on the team. If your answer is “no,” then it is time to snap out of it and start delivering, and at the same time reduce your issues. Because your time on the team may not last too long.