Individualistic Traits & Leadership

Back in the 90’s when the super eagles had a dominant team, they were the pride of Nigeria and also the reason too many people contemplated jumping from the balcony. They were super talented but frustrating as hell, always getting knocked out in tournaments they were favored to do well in. Nobody represented this era of Nigerian football better than Austin Jay Jay (So nice, they named him twice) Okocha, super talented midfielder with exquisite skills, he had a magical touch with the ball. There was no move he could not make, no space too tight for him not to attempt an overhead flick, the more defenders you put in front of him the better he liked his chances.

At the same time if any player was going to dribble in infinite circles away from the goal line, it was him. He could boot a devastating shot into the stands, even when he has wide open teammates he could have passed to, sometimes you felt like his teammates were playing at half speed because they were tired of watching him monopolize the ball. Contrasted with Oliseh, his less talented but more efficient midfield partner, most people preferred Oliseh’s game. Oliseh was economical with his approach, he seemed to like one touch football and all that; but at the end of the day, we all came to watch Okocha play, if anybody could create magic on the pitch he was the one. It was common place to blame Okocha whenever Nigeria lost. He dribbled too much, he does not pass, he is too offensive minded and does not do enough on defense.


Which now brings me to the point of this conversation, is it his duty to tone down his game to make his teammates comfortable or should they be the ones to raise their game in order to play at his level? Last night on TNT, Chris Webber in discussing the upcoming NBA All-star Game noted that he played for good teams and bad teams. On both teams, his workout routine was the same and his effort was the same. Unfortunately, outcomes were different because on the bad teams the other people (team managers, teammates ETC) were not as good, so he did not win as much. Since C-Webb did not get to pick his teammates, he didn't think he should be penalized for this outcome? I guess what he was basically getting at was, whether he is still a winner if he does the same things a winner does but does not get the same results? You will find that this occurs more often in life than you would care to admit.


Imagine this, you are working hard, doing everything right but your company is failing, one day they layoff everybody and you hit the unemployment line through no fault of your own. While you can take solace in the fact that it is not your fault, but the fact is you are in the same position as the bum that shows up for work late and rarely achieved any of his job goals. In this example while your individual performance was stellar, your team sucked. How can you be considered a success, when your team is not doing well? In basketball more than any other sport this is a common phenomena. Back in 2005/2006 Kobe Bryant of the Lakers, was surrounded by four stiffs, he played like a maniac, even once scoring 81 points in a game. He was willing to taking on a disproportionate proportion of his team’s offensive possessions just to make sure his team had a chance, despite all this, his team did not do very well and he was called a loser, not a good leader, whatever. Now his team is winning at a ridiculous clip, he is still putting out the same effort but all of a sudden, he has matured and is now a team player but the truth is, the only real difference between then and now, is that his teammates are better.

Consider this, you work in a call center, the layabouts that are your colleagues find any excuse not to show up for work or answer the phone. They are constantly rude to customers, they don’t follow procedure and generally create a hostile work environment. Is it your place to show them how do a better job? knowing that if they fail, you all fail. Or is it enough, for you to do your very best and hope that when the end comes you can hold your head high knowing that you did all that you could? Even if in the end you all fail collectively as a group.

Half Full Or Half Empty?

To most people, the half-full or half-empty question relates to whether a person tends to be pessimistic or optimistic in their views of events. I always tended to believe that the question was a lot more fluid than the answers it tended to generate. In the course of an ordinary day, anyone can swing from one to the other. Generally and curiously, I find that people tend to be more glass half full (optimistic), after a tragedy or an event where the loss or the outcome could have been worse. For example if armed bandits rob you, you are thankful that they did not shoot you. On the other hand, when you enjoy some good fortune but you feel like the outcome could have been better, your outlook is generally half-empty.

The game show “Deal or No Deal” uses this quirk in people to ensure that 80 percent of their constants walk out of there losers. You see, winning a VW when there was the possibility you could have won a Benz, leaves most people with a sense of loss regardless of the fact that neither vehicle was a guaranteed get when they started out. The other curious thing about the way we view events, is that our views of our own fortune is colored by the relative good or bad fortune of other people. Watching the Joneses get richer would give most people a perpetual glass half full view of life even if you are not doing too badly yourself. Basically; we allow someone else’s circumstances to distort our view of our own self worth and most times this is without knowing the mitigating reasons for the other person’s success.

This displeasure could usually carry over into the all other areas of ones personal life, even into areas were your lot really is good, like marriage or your job or your friendships. To get clarity and to be able to balance out how we view things we will need to undergo a true paradigm shift (a change of position so profound, relative to our original position as to completely change our interpretation of events).

Experiences like finding God or surviving a truly harrowing experience tends to leave a lasting change in people where they are always thinking they are blessed. NBA basketball great Tracy Mcgrady returned from a trip to Somalia, with a completely new understanding to the words misery and hopelessness. For him, someone, who always thought that the worse that could happen was growing up poor and black in America, he experienced a paradigm shift that things could have been be a lot worse.

Here are some answers to the question Half Full or Half Empty? From Wiki answers

• 
  Answer: Neither, It is always full. It may be filled with 50% of water and 50% of air, or any variation of competing percentages, but it is always full of something even if it looks empty, as it could be FULL of air.
• Answer: That is relative. Depends whether you are drinking or pouring.
  Answer: Logical point of view, the cup is half-full. A glass cannot be half-empty because half of nothing is still nothing.
• Answer: I think that the cup being half-full or half empty can and should both be looked at as positive viewpoints. For even if the cup is half-empty you have taken in half and you yourself are half-full. So in one sense (half full) you have more to consume, and in the other (half empty) you have consumed already a part of what there is.
• Answer: In Yorkshire they'd say the glass was too blummin' big
• Answer: I do not know how in the first place this could even be asked since your glass was empty to begin with, then it is logically half-full. HOWEVER, if you have filled your glass and drank half of it then it is half-empty so, you can not answer this question without knowing if the glass was completely full before you have stumbled upon it