It’s too obvious not to bring it up: the global interest in the Jeremy Lin narrative underscores again how fast and dramatically the game can change…and how a player like Lin–or you—can create the change and benefit from it when it happens.
First, it’s important to point out (again) that people—not events, products, strategies or tactics—are gamechangers. Only people have the power to change the game in each and every moment. Everything else is either fantasy or history.
Here are five ways Jeremy Lin changes the game…not has changed…not will change. Changes. Now. A gamechanger is always in the now.
Emphasize preparation over planning. It’s good to have a plan, but plans are subject to a lot of forces beyond our control. Our preparation, however, is something we can control. When Lin’s chance came, because his team’s plan to have other guards playing ahead of him did not pan out—a situation entirely out of his control—he was prepared. He was in shape to play a full game, even though he’d only played a few minutes at a time prior to that. Because he had studied and practiced his coach’s offense, he was able to execute it in game conditions. Lin understood that in the NBA, the planning is the area of concern for coaches, owners, trainers, schedulers, the Commissioner, and that what a player needs to do is prepare. As the great John Wooden once counseled my son about his own basketball playing, have faith that your chance will come. In the meantime, work at being ready for when it does.
Be willing to change your role and your status from scene to scene. Lin has changed his role to fit the needs of his team, both situationally within a game, and from game to game. In Lin’s first games as a starter, the Knicks needed scoring, so he played the role of a scorer. When they needed a change in momentum or tempo, he created it. When the team got too passive, he got aggressive. Now that the team’s acknowledged stars, Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, have returned to the lineup, we see Lin changing his game to accommodate and include them. He understands that changing one’s role or status within the game does not change the essential nature of one’s character. He is same person today, in the glare of the global spotlight, as he was when he was sleeping on his brother’s couch, before the spotlight hit. He will be the same player whether he’s scoring 31 points in a game, or scoring three points, with 14 assists.
Embrace your mistakes. That doesn’t mean making more of them, it means seeing them as an opportunity to improve your game. Accept mistakes as pointing the way toward an improved standard of performance. Lin made too many turnovers in several of his early games as a starter. He made it a point of focus and his performance has since improved in this area.
Add vocabulary. Before I’d ever seen him bounce a basketball, I saw this clip of Lin and Knicks teammate Landry Fields doing an elaborate pre-game handshake. I call it the You’ve Got the Yin I’ve Got the Yang Dust Off Confucius 3-Point Binocular Pocket Shake. In the history of sports handshaking, this was a new one. It was the first indication that we were looking at a gamechanger. This isn’t the kind of handshake a person makes up on the spot. This is a move Lin and Fields had to have worked up before Lin got any playing time. It wasn’t a response to celebrity, a personal signature, or a religious statement. It was a couple of smart people (Lin a Harvard grad and Fields a Stanford grad) adding vocabulary to the lexicon of their profession.
Make your teammates look good. Giving support is the highest form of gamechanging. At first, I thought Stoudemire and Anthony, who have been in the spotlight for most of their careers, would resent the attention Lin was getting. Now I’m thinking this won’t be an issue, because they see that Lin is going to help the stars of the team shine brighter, not dim them. No matter what game you’re playing, making your teammates look good is always a winning way. And a recipe for happiness.
In hierarchical organizations, leadership moves primarily from the top down. That’s its sole direction. In this model, the CEO is automatically the leader in every scene that doesn’t involve the Board of Directors. The people who report to the CEO are the leaders in every scene that does not involve the CEO or the Board etc. etc. etc. until you get to the janitor, who is the leader of the broom. Every scene has a pecking order, and the pecking order has been decided before the scene begins.
Looks like the design for Pippa Middleton’s outfit at the Royal Wedding. Simple. Elegant. Easy to understand. Ultimately, appreciated by all. Beneath this design, of course, was a lot of complexity–but the business problem, as Herb Kelleher saw it, was as simple as how to build a triangle.