Hopefully you can make the linkages to the sport of basketball and the workplace, the different perspectives and lived experiences of referees and your co-workers, and diversity of strengths that are necessary for team members to show up as their whole self and play the role they have been assigned to the best of their ability.
Drawing on your bench means knowing who you have in reserve to call upon when needed, what their strengths are, what plays are happening and whose strengths are most appropriate for responding to the other team.
And if I haven’t made those linkages clear, I challenge you to think about the people on your teams and about how their diverse perspectives on the teams that they are part of are either held against them by the “fans in the stands” who may be other team members, or how their diverse perspectives and strengths are seen as valuable by the coach, or the manager.
If someone has a different cultural background then that valuable perspective may be needed in many situations an organization is facing today. Knowing another language is an additional asset. Having high emotional intelligence to interact well with others is a great strength that every team should have – and hopefully more than one player has it!
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