Adam Markel argues leaders should plan for the miracle, not just the probable outcome. Using a sports comeback story, he shows how coaches who strategize for unlikely wins keep teams believing and sometimes pull off the impossible.
Chapters
The last 10 seconds of a football game or a basketball game can take, what, how long? Like, 30 minutes sometimes, right? What the heck is going on? Strategy. Let's change the scenario. Okay? It's the last 10 seconds, right? And one team is down by a lot of points, almost impossible to come back, and yet it still takes 30 minutes. Why? I heard the word advertising, right? All the cynics in here, the marketer, we know, Commercials. Commercial timeouts, right? What else? Coaching. What kind of coaching? Here's the kind of coaching it looks like, right? You get in the huddle, you go, hey, listen, there's. There's 10 seconds left. We're down by 12 points. It's a basketball game, and we gotta be in, like, Detroit. They're in Cleveland, and we gotta take a bus and go to Detroit tonight. So there's no way we're gonna win. We get this right, we're not gonna win. So let's just dribble the ball out, you know, run out the clock. Let's get showered, get in the locker room, you know, get into the press conference, get it over, get in a bus and get a good night's sleep. So we come out and win that game tomorrow. That's what the coach says, right? How many of you think that's what the coach says? That's good. I saw some of you nodding up and down. Then they got the clue. No, I don't want to move my hand going up. Why is that not what the coach says in that huddle? It's not over till it's over. What happens if that coach gives up right there, says, hey, game's over. We clearly cannot win. Next. What happens? Yeah, players give up. What do they give up on? Themselves? They give up on that coach. That Coach is finished. 10 seconds left. They're down by 12 points. It's virtually impossible to win. Calls every last time out. Why? Any coach worth her salt knows this. You plan for the why? You plan for the miracle. It's part of the business plan. You plan for a miracle. Miracle can be a mere change in consciousness, a change in awareness. You plan for the miracle. And how often have we seen it in sports? All the time. Where it's seemingly impossible. And yet what happens? The impossible in any organization, that even when success is improbable, what do you plan to. Hello, you do you plan for success no matter what?
