In the late 80s and early 90s, basketball players never considered doing strength training during the season as it was thought that it affected their throwing ability. All strength training was reserved for the off-season.
Before Michael Jordan lead the Chicago Bulls to two consecutive three peats, the Chicago Bulls came to the finals 3 times and lost to the Detroit Pistons. The Pistons prided themselves on playing a rough and physical game. Having enough of being pushed around, Michael Jordan did something most basketball players wouldn’t consider — strength training. He wanted to improve his ability to play a physical game and match up to the Pistons. The rest as they say is history. He helped the Bulls end the Detroit Pistons era and proceeded to dominate the game like few sportsmen have.
Michael Jordan’s strength training laid the formation for what was fondly called the breakfast club. A few players met at his home, did the workouts in his gym, had breakfast and later headed to the arena for regular practice.
In order to get better, Jordan broke the mold. If he had looked around for inspiration within basketball, he wouldn’t have found too many top players who incorporated strength training in their practice regimen.
It was writer CLR James who said “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?”
Each industry has its very own ‘Best Practices’. These are a set of practices that are proven to be the most effective. Looking for inspiration and ideas only from your specialization or field can be limiting.
Why can’t an ad agency look to a small business to see how they manage to retain their customers and treat their employees?
Why can’t a gigantic corporation learn from a local chocolate manufacturer that helps farmers about ethical practices?
Why can’t a sports icon learn from a surgeon about concentrating for long hours?
When we open the doors and look at how other successful people and organisations who are not from our field are going about pushing the bar, we can learn a lot.
Most people stick to status quo because of this — ‘people like us do things like this, so why should we do it differently?’
Stepping out of the bubbles that we live in can help us expand our minds and give us ideas that we would never have thought of.
