Two lessons the Djokovic situation can teach us at work.

So, first - full disclosure: I am not a fan of Djokovic. I think he’s a phenomenal player, but I think he’s the worst kind of winner. His unsportsmanlike behavior at the Olympics was really the last straw for me….and, I believe, many others. In his defense I know that he is very active in charitable giving, so I'm not making any judgements about him as a person. That said…

I don’t know if you’ve been following the situation in Australia with Djokovic and his legal struggles to gain entry into the country to play at the Australian Open…which ended this morning in a final ruling of deportation. The Twitterverse has been hypercharged over the past week with discussions over what’s wrong and what’s right. Some were arguing that he’s not vaccinated and shouldn’t get to enter. He applied for an exemption visa although it’s unclear if he was entirely truthful about the events surrounding his exemption. What we do know is that he tested positive and then went to do a promotion with children (though he claims he didn’t know the results of the test at this point), and then sat down with a journalist, aware of his positive diagnosis. Both behaviors that are questionable at best, criminal at worst.

Many have centered on the fact that he has not been vaccinated. But that’s not what this drama is about. The vaccine is only the “excuse” that gives us the opportunity to discuss something much bigger: Are we all equal before the law?

Australia had some of the harshest measures during the pandemic and people have their government under a microscope now. If the government had let Djokovic flaunt the rules without any consequence the response from the public (….voters….) would not have been positive. We know this because they took a poll and over 50% of Australians wanted Djokovic out. This is surely what Minister Hawke intended when he cited public unrest as the cause for Djokovic’s deportation. At the end of the day, Australia opted for a semblance of coherence. The majority of Australians will be pacified, Djokovic fans will be incensed, and one lucky loser (who happens to be from Italy!) is having the best Sunday ever as he slides into the #1 seed.

To me what this Djokovic situation is really about is equality. Yes they made it about vaccinations, but at its heart the question was "is rule are rules" valid? And are we all equal before the law? These two questions touch us even in our own microverse. A felt sense of inequality within an organization, or a team, is one of the key contributors to poor morale, counterproductive behaviors, and a contributor to poor mental health. Perhaps you’ve heard of Adam’s Equity Theory. To cite Robert Tanner:

"Equity theory shows that inequities (perceived or real) harm employee motivation. Employees who feel that they are receiving inequitable treatment will be emotionally motivated to gain equity. What does this behavior look like? When inequities persist, employees may do any of the following:

???????Decrease inputs (give less time, do less work)

???????Push for more output from the company (more pay, authority)

???????Go into survival mode (do their job and little more)

???????Become resistant (act out on other issues)

???????Become overly competitive (focus on reducing the outputs of others)

???????Quit"

Once an employee feels that there is a situation of inequity in the office they will look for evidence of it in everything they do. They will share this information with their colleagues and try to rally their teammates to see the situation the same way as they do. Common situations that can provoke a sense of inequity are when an employee puts a lot of effort into their work without getting sufficient positive feedback/recognition, excessive appraisal of others for doing the bare minimum, varying treatment of similar situations within the same team, pay discrepancies, poorly explained decisions that affect the employee, being overlooked or not considered for promotions, and the list goes on and on.?One simple situation like this can fester and only rear its head later on down the line when it has turned into a cancer affecting performance.

What’s the solution? Clear policies. That apply to everyone. And if that’s not possible, then clear and open communciation about WHY things are different and why this is an exception…without violating the rules that have been established.

This is the first lesson. It boils down to communication and coherence. Clearly communicated rules and coherent behavior in implementing and respecting them. The giant gaffe that the Australian government made is that they approved, then disapproved, then approved, then disapproved his exception visa. Blend Djokovic's "win at any cost" mentality with a communication trainwreck and it's an opportunity for everyone to chime in, with no winners on either side.

The second message that I think we can draw from this situation is about likeability. Djokovic is profoundly unlikeable. Imagine if this situation had happened with Tom Hanks. There would be nothing to talk about. We'd want to help him out.

Of course it’s true that work should be merit-based and objective in its evaluation. I’m not suggesting that everyone spend their day socializing in an effort to be the most-liked on the 22nd floor. Where Djokovic fell short is that he has years of over-entitled temper tantrums that are a clear communication to the world around him that the laws of the universe shouldn’t apply to him because he is better. This kind of egotistic behavior will bring you to a point when suddenly you find yourself in need of support from the larger group, but they’re only too happy to see you get resized. We need to be careful about allowing the super-talented to confuse their gifts with entitled superiority.?Do you exalt members of your team who will do anything to win? Do you allow the high performers to more entitled behaviors and rulebreaking? These are things that build resentment and are just begging for a moment of poetic justice.

I almost felt bad seeing the images of him heading towards his flight for Dubai instead of warming up for tomorrow's first matches. But then my mind always goes to this:

And I remember that sometimes the best thing for us is to learn where our behaviors are getting in our own way. So maybe there's three lessons here after all.