March Madness and Lessons in the Unexpected

Today and tomorrow are officially holidays in our house as March Madness kicks off. Getting our middle son to go to school today, knowing he was going to miss the first three hours of games this afternoon, was an act of God, but I reassured him he would still have eight hours of games to watch this afternoon and evening.  

As I hit the final submit button on my bracket for our extended family’s March Madness pool, I reminisced about how much I cared about my picks when I was fourteen years old. It was life or death, my worth as a basketball aficionado wrapped up in how accurately I was able to pick upsets that no one could have expected. I still care, don’t get me wrong, but as I watch my kids attach themselves to “their” teams this weekend, I realize the importance of evolving our mindset to embrace the unexpected, to genuinely cheer for the underdog, while empathizing with Goliath as he falls. 

Organizations and their leaders, as they move from adolescence to adulthood, must follow this same trajectory of maturation in how they handle unexpected situations. With each unforeseen, unplanned moment of turmoil, leaders only have control over one aspect of their organization: their response to the unexpected. Will they act as I did when I was 14 and lament the unfairness of my champion being knocked out in the first round? Or will they respond with perspective, empathy, and the calm understanding that there will always, always be bumps in the road that challenge organizations? 

As leaders, our individual response to the unexpected shapes our organization’s reaction to learning that our plans need to shift. When we are able to take the long-run perspective, our calm permeates the organization. We are able to communicate to our colleagues that no matter how complex or challenging a situation may be, we will successfully navigate the whitewater rapids of the moment. Our job is not to tell others how to respond to or feel about the uncertainty that barges through the door of our lives when crisis occurs, but rather to simply show them, through the clarity of our actions and our voice, that there is, indeed, a path forward. 

I am sure I will yell at the television at least once during the opening rounds of March Madness this weekend, but my goal is to model for my kids that we need to embrace the unexpected, to learn from the moments that challenge us, and that our response to plans falling flat on their face is far more important than the plans were in the first place.