Recently a question was posed in an online forum. Jeremy Lin was not expected to be a star. He was waived by other teams and wasn’t considered good enough to hold a starting position.
Surely many companies have employees who aren’t performing to potential, creating a huge opportunity cost for these organizations. What can they do to identify these individuals and take advantage of them?
Lin finally shone when he became a starter. I’ve seen that happen on a smaller scale with other players (I’m a WNBA fan) who became starters when the coach got desperate: once they got the playing time, they showed what they could do.
There’s a saying, “Nobody believes you’re a sergeant till they see the stripes on your sleeve.” Companies tend to label their employees and the labels stick like cement. As a result, some people never get a chance to show what they can do, while others keep getting more responsibility even when they blow it over and over again.
From the worker’s perspective, it’s critical to enter an organization from a position of strength. It’s hard to overcome a perception of, “Well, he was the best we could get but frankly we don’t expect much … ”
One study of basketball players showed that players drafted in the first round tended to have longer careers in the league, regardless of their actually performance. I’ve seen some anecdotal evidence, in my role as ardent WNBA fan.
What do you think? Comment below (if you can’t see a place to comment, click on the title of the post and you’ll be taken to a new page with just this post and a place to comment).
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