Crunch Time Leadership

How do you respond to life’s big moments? Are you a “crunch time” player who wants the ball, or someone who would prefer to not be in that position? Let’s take a look and find out…

I love basketball. I also love good funny writing with pop culture references. As such, Bill Simmons Book of Basketball was right up my alley. If you don’t know him, Bill Simmons (the “Sports Guy”) is a writer with a fantastic column on espn.com where he writes on a variety of sports topics. Unlike most other columnists, Simmons uses a lot of humor and many references to pop culture. In fact, he will sometimes do entire columns or interviews that have nothing to do sports (like talking about MTV’s Jersey Shore, or 90210, or professional wrestling, etc.). I love his stuff.

Simmons is a giant basketball fan and a few years ago he decided to write a book about it. The end result is the 736 page tome, “The Book of Basketball.” If you are a fan of basketball and good writing, then you need to check this book out.

A giant section of the book consists of Simmons ranking the best players of all time, in order, and with an in-depth analysis of why each one is on that place in the list. It’s ridiculous, brilliant, and fascinating all at the same time (kind of like how I aspire to be…)

I noticed that one of the criteria he kept coming back to that determined how high a player ranked was whether they wanted the ball in crunch time. (for non-sports fans, “crunch time” is the time at the end of the game when the score is very close and someone needs to make big shots and come up with big plays to win the game.)

For the most part, the highest players were the ones who wanted to have the ball in their hands when the game was on the line. Other players, according to him, looked like they desperately wanted to get the ball into someone else’s hands in those moments.

To quote Gene Hackman from “The Replacements,” (a not great but still underrated sports movie), “Winners want the ball.”

My favorite example of this is from a somewhat obscure example. When I was in college, I was watching the ACC championship tournament. This was a 8 team tournament featuring all the teams from the ACC. One of these teams was Wake Forest, and on that team at the time was a player named Randolph Childress (also on that team was a player named Tim Duncan, who…um…went on to a lot more success than Randolph Childress. But that’s not the point of my story).

Childress was just in a tremendous zone in this tournament. He averaged 35.7 points and 7 assists per game, won the MVP, and led Wake Forest to the ACC championship (unfortunately he peaked too soon and they did not win the big NCAA tourney).

During one crunch time moment, one of his teammates brought the ball up and did not pass to Childress. Instead, he took a shot and missed. During the next time-out the camera was on the Wake Forest huddle. Childress was exclaiming to his teammates, “give me the ball! Every time! Give me the ball!”

You can look at that and say, “what a selfish jerk.” You would be wrong. In this moment, in this scenario, that is the textbook example of a player who a) knows he is in the zone and b) wants the ball in crunch time. And he backed it up with his performance.

You may never find yourself in crunch time in a championship sporting event. However, reading Simmons’ book and reflecting on that Randolph Childress moment, I thought of the concept of “Crunch Time Leadership.”

How do you (or would you), as a leader, respond in crunch time? Do you hide away, hoping thins will go away? Do you try to defer and pass the buck on to someone else? Do you get paralyzed trying to please everyone Often impossible) before making a decision? Or do you step up, say, “I am the leader,” and make a strong decision? In tough moments, are you the one saying “I want the ball”?

There are a few important elements understanding Crunch Time Leadership:

Anyone Can Do Well When Things Are Going Well

A lot of people think they are great leaders because they have a good team, things go as planned, and no major catastrophes have occurred (yet). Granted, some of that may come from your excellent planning and foresight as a leader. But at some point, Ding is going to happen. What separates a great leader from a lucky “organizer” is how they step up and handle those problems.

Crunch Time Leadership Can Be Stressful

There’s a lot of pressure involved in taking the big “do or die” shot at the end of the game. In the same way, there’s a lot of pressure on a leader in a crisis. The buck stops with you, and whether it’s having to deal with two bickering parties, letting a bad worker go, or facing a setback that threatens an entire project, there is a lot of stress involved with being the one in charge. Learn to deal with that stress or you will never make it as a successful leader.

Crunch Time is Not All the Time

Leadership is all about balance. In his book, Simmons talks about the importance of a player wanting the ball in big moments. He also talks about how the best players involve their teammates throughout the game. Just as players who don’t want the ball in crunch time dropped in his ratings, players who were too selfish also dropped.

This sounds like a contradiction (wanting the ball but also being unselfish?) but it’s not. It’s all about balance. The best players get and keep their teammates involved throughout the game, but then, in crunch time, they take over when they need to.

Leadership is the same way; you have to find that balance. Keep your team involved throughout, but when those big moments come, step up and take charge.

This is where a lot of people mess up the whole leadership thing. Some are great crunch time leaders because they take charge in big moments, but they are terrible leaders the rest of the time because they still micro-manage and bulldoze over people. Others are great “normal time” leaders because they are nice and inclusive, but in big moments they try to apply the same mind set and never make the big hard decisions.

Recognize the moments and find that balance and you too will be a great leader.

It’s not easy. I’ll be honest: as I have been writing this article I have been thinking back over my own leadership history. Have I been a great crunch time leader? Have I found that balance? Tough questions. I’d like to say I have tried. I can definitely say that now, having articulated the thoughts to myself, I know I will be much better about it in the future.

I hope you will too. Remember, keep your team involved, but in those big moments, when people need and are looking for leadership, you should be that person saying (not out loud, just to yourself), “give me the ball! Every time! Give me the ball!”

P.S. Here’s a treat – watch this sick crossover move Childress puts on someone in that 1995 tournament:

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