Managing Greatness

They're calling it the Year of the Quarterback in the NFL.  Which is less that QBs have been singularly awesome this season (although they have been) and more that coaches have designed schemes around the strengths of their signal callers rather than ramming them into the square pegs of their old reliable schemes.  Lamar Jackson will win MVP and Patrick Mahomes is elevated as a generational talent, and it's because they freaking awesome, but also because their coaches, Jim Harbaugh and Andy Reid respectively, sublimated their usual way of doing things and were able to see how their QBs unique strengths could be exploited on the playing field to devastating consequence.  And we the fans are reaping the benefits of it.  

Which, as a long aside, is why as a championship-greedy Philadelphia 76ers fan I'm calling for Brett Brown's ouster.  Much has been made of how the 76ers stars' strengths and weaknesses don't fit.  Joel Embiid is soft.  Ben Simmons needs to shoot 3's.  Tobias Harris and Josh Richardson can't create their own shots.  All statements with some ring of truth.  Yet the way to a championship for this team lies not in swapping out players but in using the existing ones better.  And that responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of Coach Brown.  All of us armchair GMs think NBA teams are puzzles waiting to be solved if we can just find the right pieces.  To a degree, this is true.  But the 76ers have the pieces.  They're just not using them right.  When the whole is less than the sum of the parts, to me that's a management problem, not a players problem.  OK, end rant.

There's a lesson for us managers.  Sure, it helps to have a managerial style, which both the outside world and your employees can rely on.  The worst is a boss who is such a loose cannon that you don't know what you're going to get, from one day to another or even from one meeting to another.  But it's also bad for a manager to be so focused on their style and plan and perspective, that they fail to learn and elevate the styles and plans and perspectives of the people they work with.  Like NBA stars, those people have their strengths and their limitations.  And like NBA stars, there's something to be said for moving pieces around and bringing pieces in, but there's also something to be said for making the most of the pieces you have.  

It is my hope that someday soon, the 76ers will be hosting a championship parade down South Broad Street.  When they do, I suspect that it'll be because the players, whoever they are, knew their role and fulfilled that role exceptionally, and that the coach, whoever he or she is, figured out how to make space for that to happen.  And, in a less prominent way, I hope that I am the kind of manager that learns and respects the strengths of the people I get to work with, and gets to watch them thrive as they are given room to use those strengths.