Creating Winning Habits: Talent Isn’t Enough

The modern sports world sometimes gets a bad rap because of the excesses and extremes that get reported in the media. In spite of the bad sports stories that are reported nearly daily, every now and then we get invaluable nuggets of wisdom from sports that when applied to our business or professional lives provide a great roadmap to success. If you follow professional basketball then you know that Jeff Van Gundy is the coach of the Houston Rockets. If you follow basketball really closely then you also know that coach Van Gundy has gained a reputation for being a rather intense coach with a somewhat surly disposition. You might even remember seeing new reports with Van Gundy clinging desperately to the leg of Alonzo Mourning while trying to prevent an on-court fight during the 1998 playoffs. Hardly the guy I would have expected to come up with a great business lesson. The following is an interview with Van Gundy published in the Houston Chronicle on October 27, 2004.

As often as he has said that talent in the NBA is a given, and therefore does not determine winners, Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy offered a discourse on the subject after Tuesday’s practice.

“I crack up,” Van Gundy said. “(Media) always say it. Players always say it. Players, when they’re losing, say, ‘I don’t understand why we’re losing. We got a lot of talent.’ Obviously if you’re one of the top 400 in your profession in the whole world, you have a lot of talent. Obviously. Unfortunately, so does the competition.

“So what separates teams is not talent, it’s habits. Whatever habits you have will come out. What you’re constantly trying to do as a coach is create habits that are winning habits. What I’m trying to get our team to understand is not to be one of those teams that has to be the famous, ‘I don’t understand why we’re losing, we have a lot of talent.’ I’d rather not lose. I’d rather try to explain, you can’t win until you understand what loses, in any sport.

“What loses are turnovers, bad shots, poor containment of the ball, (not) helping on defense, not rebounding, lack of poise under pressure. There’s a lot. Not one of them is decided in this league … on talent. ‘We got out-talented tonight. We don’t have enough talent.’ What does that mean? We didn’t have enough production. This is a production-oriented business, as are most.”

“I don’t understand this obsession with talent.”

It is rare that I actually pick up a printed version of the Chronicle these days, but on this occasion a small segment buried among the extras in the sports section emphasized a lesson that every working professional needs to know. You’ve heard examples before – “I don’t know why my company/department/team isn’t doing well, we have so much talent”, “I don’t know why I didn’t get promoted/get a raise/get the job, I am really talented at doing [fill in the blank]“, “I have job security because I am good at…”, well you get the picture. Wanna know a not so secret, secret? Every company in the world has talent! No one goes out and looks for people who aren’t talented. Much like a basketball team we look for the people that will lead to a ‘championship’ combination for our team. The problem is that most people/companies confuse talent with skill. Skill is your ability to do some task, talent is the ability to apply that skill resourcefully. This confusion is the reason why every year we see highly ’skilled’ athletes get drafted in the 1st round and then quickly fade into obscurity, while some guy drafted in the 6th round goes on to a long, productive career.

So, what is the real lesson that Jeff Van Gundy is teaching us? You can’t win at anything until you truly understand what will make you lose. In today’s fast paced and sometimes extremely complex workplaces your skills are a commodity – not your winning edge. Your skills will contribute to your success, but your habits or how you apply those skills will determine how far you can go. So remember to develop good habits. They will carry you through tough times and accelerate your success when times are good.