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Could this week get even better? It's St. Patrick's Day AND March Madness. I'm coming off an evening where I watched ESPN's 30 for 30 on "I Hate Christian Laettner" and was spurred to comment about the need to constantly pressure yourself to raise your game.We might all have colleagues that we don't like, but Laettner's point was it's not about liking, it's about performance and if that colleague gets you to play to a new level, then that's the best colleague you can have.
We're holding our own March Madness this week at HighRoad with the launch of a series of initiatives designed to help raise our collective game. While we don't work in the same association or company with you, we consider you a colleague--albeit virtual. There's nothing wrong with being virtual and sometimes, the very idea that you've got a colleague out there that has your back can give you the courage you need to be innovative. Similarly, as many of the opposing players who had to go up against Laettner noted that the mere fact that Christian Laettner was out there in their mind's eye ready to come at them with all he had pushed up the level of preparation and play.
This idea that your competitor is outworking you and outthinking you is one that spurs many organizations to change. This continuous pressure, the "tick tock clock" as I call it whereby you can hear the market moving and consumers making decisions is perhaps a new idea for your organization to embrace. It's not the competition that comes from a zero-sum mentality, but is the competition that comes from the mindset of great sport--and as Christian Laettner would undoubtedly say, hate the game, but don't hate the playa.
Innovation is not the fruit of luck, it's the fruit of labor. While none of us are going to turn down a little extra luck, the path to innovation looks a lot more like a March Madness bracket where you become intensely focused on advancing one game at a time. It's a lot like prospecting for new members in today's consumer-driven economy. While we would all like people to arrive at our organization's doorstep with membership money in hand and without demands, the likelihood is that's not going to happen. We are going to have to identify new prospects, nurture them and convert them to hard playing members who push us to continue to strive for organizational excellence. Coach K in discussing his time with Laettner explained that his level of play forced Coach K to elevate his coaching game. This tension was the necessary element that electrocuted the entire Duke basketball organization to a level of play that netted two back-to-back championships, an almost impossible achievement.
Ask yourself if you have a Christian Laettner that moves you to perform. Ask yourself if your organization can be like Duke, can have staff members who, like Shane Battier, can comment on an individual performance with a "Well, that's just Duke Excellence". Duke is both beloved and hated for its reputation of excellence, but that isn't going to stop them. They are internally driven and motivated to push the boundaries of excellence. Is your organization ready to bring on the haters which are inevitable when your focus is solely on growth?
Why should you commit to innovation and growth when it could possibly bring on haters? When it could be controversial, when people might not like it or want it or feel it? As Duke would answer, "because you can" and with that "can" perhaps brings along a should which easily slides into the obligation of "must".
I think Gatorade's commercial with Durant-Wade is a great way to reinforce this idea of finding your own Christian Laettner to help you evolve. And while I am not a Duke fan (although now that Maryland is in the Big 10 and Coach K hit 1K, I have softened), I have mad respect for their program of excellence. They are so good that they really are the team you love to hate.
By the way, don't think I don't know that this is making many of you uncomfortable--competitiveness in associations? That's just not us. If you're squirming, consider this: the for-profits are the Christian Laettners of your world and they're coming for your members. That's our shared nightmare in the association world. I vote for using luck AND the Laettner Tension Effect to spur us to evolve as organizations. Let them drink the Hatorade and let us continue to be steadfast in our innovation.
