Last Friday I played two tournament volleyball games with my intramural team, Garies'. We have only lost one game in our double elimination tournament. We have plenty of people on our team, but it doesn't help when they don't show up. On Friday we started with 4 players and luckily the other team had only 4 players as well. We beat them pretty easily. The challenge came when we played the second team.
With only 4 players we were already at a disadvantage since the other team had 5 players. Most of their players were decent also. Half way into the first game, one of our players rolled his ankle and was out for the rest of the game. Intramural rules say you can't start a game with less than 4 players, but if you start and one of them gets injured, you can still play. So, here we are playing with three players against their five. The odds were not in our favor.
We were already way ahead in the first game, and we beat them, 25-21. The second game was a scramble. Because there were only three of us, we all knew that we were extremely important to the success of our team. Needless to say, we hustled on the court the whole game. To our frustration, the other team beat us 27-25. Barely. We were pretty pissed.
The third game we turned up our energy and killed them 15-9. It was a satisfying victory against tough odds. That keeps us in the tournament and we play again on Wednesday.
The lesson learned from this experience is about the importance of the teammate on the team. With four players none of us played to the best of our ability. There were a lot of errors due to miscommunication and assumptions that the other teammate would get the ball if you didn't. The truth was that no one on the team really believed that he was an integral part of the team, and that without his complete effort the team would suffer. Once we were forced to play with three players, we all knew we would loose if one of us slacked.
I have always known this principal, but not until now can I really draw on my own experience as to how important it is, and how it works. In management, everyone on your team must know how important they are to the team. They must have a deep down sense of value and responsibility to their team. Without that, your team will suffer and perform below their capacity.
2 comments:
It's really true that you all played so much more efficiently when you were down to 3 players. I was so dang proud of you guys when you won to the team of 5! That's my baby!
I hope Garies' will never die, no matter what it is.
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