6 NBA championships.
14 NBA All-Star Selections.
10 NBA scoring titles.
Ranked No. 1 by ESPN’s Top 100 Athletes of the 20th century.
His all-time leading scoring title in one All-Star game history was recently broken by one Kobe Bryant.
Michael Jordan played the majority of his career for the Chicago Bulls before taking over a front office position with the Washington Wizards.
Have you heard of a TV show called Suits? It’s my favourite drama to watch from the USA network right now and they’ve just started airing new episodes a couple of weeks ago. There are some minor spoilers in today’s post from last week’s plot.
Here it goes.
One of the leading characters, Harvey, is a senior partner in the fictional law firm Pearson-Hardman. He goes up to his boss Jessica, and says to her that he wants his name on the door. She then proceeds to tell Harvey a story about Michael Jordan because she knew this day would come.
Looking up from her desk, Jessica asks,“Harvey, what was Michael Jordan’s record on the Bulls?”
“664 wins, 285 losses.” Harvey confidently responded.
“More than twice as many wins and losses. Do you know what his record was in the front office?”
“No.”
“185 wins to 291 losses. Almost twice as many losses as wins.”
The lesson Jessica was getting to is that just because someone is a star on the court doesn’t mean they can translate their skills off the court.
Next time someone asks to be an officer and you don’t think they’re quite ready for that role yet, tell them this story about Michael Jordan that Jessica relayed to Harvey. Some people are better off playing than they are managing.
Success on the meters doesn’t always translate to success in a leadership role.
On the flip side, in professional sports, there are several good coaches who were not great players. These individuals understand the mechanics and fundamentals of the game more than most and also have the ability to teach these fundamentals, which is also a large part of leadership.
6BigZ6 Oh absolutely. There’s some fantastic coaches who’ve been able to get more out of their team. I’d have to do some research to look some of them up some more. Vince Lombardi. Phil Jackson. Scotty Bowman.