Oklahoma Thunder and Good Business
Perhaps the NBA can help us think today.
Kobe Bryant scored 42 points for the Lakers in their loss to Oklahoma in Game 5. See the report here. Kobe was all about me. He was the hero, but Oklahoma had a team. Check out this quote.
”That’s a tough team, man. They weren’t laying down,” Westbrook said. ”We got a little down on ourselves and we had to come together and be better teammates, and we did that.” Go Thunder.
The article mentions Oklahoma contributions by Harden, Sefolosha, Durant, and Ibaka as well as Westbrook.. It mentions all initiative came from Bryant. They had enough talent, but not enough team. In fact, only Gasol worked for the team for Los Angeles, and no one in the newspaper even noticed.
There is a Chinese saying, 一个好汉三个帮, that says a hero has three helpers. The hero does not actually do it all on his own. San Antonio will have to work as a team or lose to the lowly Thunder as well.
Business is a lot like a basketball team. No one should be the expert of purchasing, finance, sales, AND service. Neither should they just work in their silo’s and not closely cooperate.
Everyone in basketball knows that teamwork is important. Then why do so few teams achieve that magic or even so rarely? It takes a leader of humility and not someone filled with himself. In fact, it takes a whole team that is working for one goal and not just themselves. It can be learned, but it takes effort, training, and coaching. The results are great, and it is great to be on a team like that. Business is actually more like basketball than you might imagine.
My GM, Paul Wang is an NBA fan and gave me the information for this blog.
Other members of our team are:
Frances Shi, Leo Zhang, Alice Ge, Annie Yan, and Xiao Dong.
Interested in making your team better? Send us an email at info@shigroupchina.com