Champions Adjust and Adapt and Adhere Using AAA for Winning Solutions
Yes…it’s March and madness is everywhere. What is madness? Webster’s Dictionary has its definition of madness as folly, insanity, enthusiasm and ecstasy. Two big events every March bring out these characteristics in all of us. They are: Champions who adjust and adapt for winning AAA solutions.
St. Patrick’s Day
NCAA College Basketball Championships
I’m in New York City and the talk is all about the NCAA College Basketball brackets.
From coast to coast, college hoops has put politics, business, weather and academics in the trunk of the car and I doubt they’ll fully surface until the Final Four has concluded. Even A-Rod and J-Lo are an afterthought. Will executives be working these next few weeks? Attend a board meeting? No. Take customers to dinner? No. Scrutinize profit & loss statements? No. They’ll be drinking green beer in an Irish pub somewhere, while watching college hoops.
Are they mad? Yes!
Will this year be different? No!
On March 17th all of us will become Irish. We will celebrate St. Patrick, the apostle saint from the 5th century. Some say he banished snakes from Ireland. Awesome! I’ve been there. I saw no snakes. His celebration has its parades, alcohol and mad partying into the wee hours. I’m Irish. I will wear green. We will all wear green. There is a legend that wearing green makes you invisible to leprechauns that will pinch you if they can see you.
Are we mad?
Getting into the “Big Dance” is paramount for most college basketball programs. Millions of dollars will change hands as university coffers grow with every win. Baby-faced, scholastic ballers will launch their professional careers by getting in the Zone at the right time and place. Campuses across America will go crazy as their favorite team runs onto the court with shouts of “We’re #1!” reverberating from students, faculty and alums everywhere.
Why do we wear the cloth of madness in March? After a long winter, we want to let our hair down and root for our alma mater. We want to celebrate our Irish heritage, even if we’re only 1/10th Irish or not. We long to be a kid again. We need to put aside our economic challenges, political views, family squabbles and other hardships. With two events we can party in the moment, forget our troubles and recapture our youth. Who doesn’t want that?
March is a mad, mad, mad Zone month. Adjust and Adapt.
It can be easy to lose focus of the big vision during these exciting and “maddening” times. As the first quarter of the year comes to a close we can find ourselves raising our Relaxation and Enjoyment levels while our Self-Discipline and Concentration may falter. What do champions do however? What do the best in the world do during times of chaos and uncertainty? They use AAA. They never lose focus of their Blueprint.
We’ve all been in an emergency situation. We have flat tires. We run out of gas. We get into collisions away from home. We get stuck in the mud or snow.
What do we do? We call on AAA.
The best in the world do the same when they are performing and something goes wrong. Even the best performers forget their lines in a play. Professional athletes twist an ankle or become dehydrated. They even begin to choke during crucial performances. Salespeople find themselves not as prepared as the consumer. Parents freak out when their child is performing poorly. Students can go blank when they don’t know an answer to a test.
What do champions do? They call on AAA. They Adjust. They Adapt. They Adhere.
Adapt.
Champions acclimate themselves to the external conditions of an upcoming event. Football teams practice indoors with loud, blaring noise piped in to replicate the possible hostile environment of an opposing stadium. Athletes that perform in a cold environment acclimate their bodies to this temperature change. If the weather is frigid, the performer becomes an Eskimo. If the weather is hot, they adapt like a nomad in the desert.
The best adapt to all weather changes while they perform. They may pick up the pace or slow things down. They can adapt to a muddy field by changing to longer cleats or go with shorter cleats when they perform on faster turf. Tennis players adapt when they change court surfaces from hard, grass or clay courts.
You can adapt to the opposition. If they are too aggressive for your style, adapt by focusing on defense. If the opponent is cheating then you can adapt by seeking referee or umpire assistance.
Adapting to the spectator environment can be a serious challenge for most. A speech in front of 10 familiar associates is not the same as a speech in front of 5,000 strangers. It’s the same talk, but one must adapt to the size and nature of the group.
I was totally prepared (so I thought) for a parent speech entitled “Coach Your Child to Greatness” at an indoor tennis club in Peoria, IL some years ago. It was just a tennis club. I expected the audience to be in warm-ups or tennis clothes and that was how I was dressed.
Was I caught off guard! Upon arrival I couldn’t find a parking spot. As I approached the building, I met a couple and asked them, “What’s going on?” They said, a top speaker from Chicago was giving a parent talk on coaching their children to greatness. The father was wearing a suit and mom was business casual. Yikes!
Upon introduction, I gazed into a sea of two thousand people with most dressed business casual as they just arrived to the club from their work. Within 90-seconds I needed to adapt to the formality of the event. Swiftly, I asked all of the parents that wore a tie to take them off. Then I said, “let’s get comfortable and talk about one of your most favorite subjects…your kids. Adjust when things aren’t in your favor.
Adjust.
Every performer has the same amount of time as their competition to get prepared. Some do this better than others. If the condition, circumstance or situation changes, you may need to adjust your performance. Champions do this swiftly. Others may adjust but most of the time it was too late and the damage was done.
You can adjust your behavior by picking up the pace or tempo or slow it down. You can adjust your strategy or tactics at any time. I’ve seen simple tactical adjustments completely reverse a negative performance and turn the tables into a victory. We love watching this unfold unless it’s with our favorite team or player that’s on the losing end. The best can and do adjust sooner than later.
You can adjust your technique in sports by preparing a technical key word that triggers the needed adjustment. This must be practiced so it can be deployed under pressure. This is called a swing key in golf, but it applies to everything where technique is required for a solid performance.
The best in the world adjust seamlessly within a performance. Sometimes the adjustment is so subtle you don’t see it. I coached a seasoned stage actor that forgot his lines in a crucial part of his starring role in front of a packed audience. Without a hitch he adjusted his monologue and adlibbed his way to a standing ovation. As I sat in the audience, I knew what had happened and was the only one that noticed. He was a master of adjustment.
Adhere.
Even though you may need to adjust or adapt your performance, you must adhere to your principles, values, convictions, personality, talent strengths, and overall performance style. If you are passive and defensive minded, then adhere to this personality trait. Years ago a world’s top 10 ranked professional tennis player was arguably the best defensive player in the world. He was a nightmare to play against, especially on the slow, red clay tennis courts of his beloved Italy. He told me, “I aggressively go to the net less than 10 times a match, but I win most of those points when I do. I want to double that statistic and attack more frequently.” I vehemently disagreed. We parted ways due to this vast difference in philosophy, regarding how he could ascend higher to the #1 ranking in the world.
In his very next match he began attacking relentlessly. Within a few months of his decision to NOT adhere to his personality and core strengths, his ranking began to plummet. He continued to attack. Soon he fell out of the top 10 and eventually left the top 100. His tournament winnings shrank and financial woes entered his once opulent life. Along came an injury, frustration and impatience. And “so long,” said his wife as they divorced.
When things DO NOT go your way or when the opposition seems insurmountable, remember to Adjust, Adapt and Adhere.