What I learned from the best sports documentary

This is my first LinkedIn article, I couldn't stop myself from sharing my views on what I have learned watching THE LAST DANCE thus far. The docuseries based on the best basketball player to ever play the game - Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls and their road to the two 3-peat's as a team. The docuseries is still underway, we still have few more episodes left but I couldn't stop my itch to share this post. I also did not see a story on LinkedIn around this extraordinary docuseries so I thought why not I'd give it a try and see if folks on LinkedIn would care.

Winning & Greatness has a price - A lot of people wish to win but fewer want to chase greatness and win consistently. When you chase greatness, a lot of people around you won't like it or won't like you because greatness comes with price - pain, un-comfort,micro failure, heart break and more.

A punch line is good enough if you want to make a huge announcement - Jordan abruptly retired from basketball before the 1993–94 NBA season. He returned back to the NBA and the Bulls in March 1995. At the time of his return, Jordan and his team were strategizing on the best way to announce the return, Jordan came with just a punch line that said "I'm back". This made prodigious impact as opposed to writing a not so interesting long form public letter/announcement. A small but a powerful message is all it takes some time.

All distractions are NOT bad - James R. Jordan, Sr. Michael's dad died in July 93, this was probably the biggest loss to Mike, he took it to his heart and announced his premature retirement. He then focused to play Baseball as his dad always wanted him to play baseball. This was a good distraction for Mike and also a therapy that allowed him to gain the passion back for playing ball.

Keep experimenting, Fail Fast & use the learning - After Jordan's return to the NBA, he started with Jersey # 45 and retired # 23 (his original jersey). He was getting settled after his return but the process was rough, he was making a lotta changes like training, conditioning amongst other things, he wasn't playing at his best as he wasn't 100%. While speaking to media another player - Nick Anderson made a comment that “Number 45 is not number 23". I couldn’t have done that to number 23." He made this comment after he had stolen the ball from Jordan in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semi-finals, which led to the Chicago Bulls losing the game. Right after that game he brought back #23 un-retiring the jersey and went on to get another 3-peat.

If you want to be a leader, you gotta work hard - Jordan was a great leader who is known to hit game winning shots, put his best in the defense, make assists to lead his team to victories. From the documentary it appears that he never asked another player to do something that he wasn't ready to do. Great leaders are both architects and masons, they are doers and Jordan was no different a leader.

Do it together - You can't do it all alone, you have to surround yourself with other good players no matter how great one is. Jordan, surrounded him self with other good players like Pippen, Rodman, Harper and gave them room to grow. He even let players like Rodman to be himself, take vacations, behave the way he liked to etc. etc. Together can help win championships not one but many.

Focus, Focus, Focus - GM Jerry Krause wanted let go the legendary coach Phil Jackson after the 1998 season and there were a lot of stories floating off the court. Jordan and the team kept the focus on amidst all the off court speculations, drama and frenzy media stories. This helped them bag their last title as a group.

Make undervalued valuable - Jordan’s manager David Falk came up with a strategy to have a shoe that's going to be focused on the individual Jordan brand. This was never done before in the basketball world and a lot of questions came around turning a team sports player's brand and treat it like an individual sports player brand like Tennis, Golf etc. Jordan & David did the deal with Nike and turned it into one of the most valuable shoe brands on this planet. Nike which at that time was not as valuable of a brand as what it is today

Use negative events to fuel the fire within - Jordan has seen quite a few loses like many of us, he used some of the events from these loses as the motivation to jump back. In one of the occasions the Bulls lost to Hornets in Game 2 of the 1998 Eastern Conference semifinals. In that game, BJ Armstrong, a former Bulls helped the Charlotte Hornets beat the Bulls, hitting a shot in the final seconds, BJ knew so much about the bulls considering his history with them. He roared at the Bulls bench after hitting the game winning shot which definitely did not sit well with Jordan. Jordan in a press conference said he (BJ) woke us up as the Bulls needed to be reminded how dangerous they were as a unit. Jordan used this negative event to fuel the fire and came back pretty hard at the hornets.

Enjoy life while chasing greatness - Jordan enjoyed gambling, cigar when not playing. He gambled and smoked cigar when he needed some time away to relax. He treated these two habits well, he even gambled on the plane rides to games with his team mates. He often got into trouble by the media when he gambled especially at times when the bulls were not winning.

I tried to pen down what I could learn from the docuseries thus far, if you haven't seen the The Last Dance give it try even if you do not know much about basketball. I am thinking of writing more as I get a chance when I am not working at Taliun.

This is one heck of a documentary that could teach you a lot like above mentioned points and much more. Please let me know in the comments below what you think of this post and also anything that you learned from The Last Dance docuseries