Are you adding plays to your playbook?

Every team sport has a playbook. A set of plays that, when executed, will positively impact the game for that team. If you have seen Ted Lasso, even AFC Richmond had plays, whether it was for set pieces or corner kicks. A playbook is a set of ways of doing things that work for the organization and/or team.

In high school, I played both football and basketball. In football, we ran a variation of the Wing T offense. As the picture I chose this week shows, we had a single split-end (SE), a tight-end (TE), and a wing-back (WB). Our playbook included all sorts of plays based on the formation you see above, including this dive play. That playbook everyone on the team learned and knew inside and out. We had to know it to be successful.

But as the year progressed, our coaches started to throw in different plays for our opponents. One thing I remember and loved was the fact that we would scout our opponent and then use some of their plays from their playbook when we played them. Our coaches taught us the opponents' plays, and then we would practice them. We would then use them for the first couple of series against our opponents. This gave us an advantage as our defense was able to practice all week against what we would face and throw our opponent off when we would line up with their plays against them.

As a leader, you have your playbook for how you do things. For a majority of the tasks, your plays work. But sometimes, you have to think out of the box and add different ways of doing things to be successful. It may be your approach with an employee or new manager you are now under. The way you have been doing things may need to be adjusted in order to be successful. You may have to borrow a play or two from someone else.

Don't be afraid to use plays from someone else. Be always learning and open to new ways of doing things. I look back at running the Wing T offense, and obviously, it is not used as much as it was back when I played, but it was effective for our team. But I really enjoyed the plays we learned every week of our opponents and executing them against them with success.

Doing things a certain way can be effective for a time, but life changes. People change. You have to be adaptable. What new plays have you added to your playbook recently? Comment below.