Every day reality and perception flavor our world. What people feel and believe confront what is.
In Good to Great, Jim Collins shares "confront the brutal facts." "Productive change begins when you confront the brutal facts." Brutal self-assessment challenges us.
Erik Spoelstra shares, "there is always a pecking order." Envy and jealousy accompany that.
How do achievers ascend the ladder?
Achievement = Performance x Time
Performance = Training x Execution
ACHIEVEMENT = (TRAINING x EXECUTION) x TIME
Differing perceptions of achievement may relate to our perception of the training and the time (which includes both physical time and sacrifices made). And mostly, players and their entourage (friends and family) have a poor understanding of the "training" and the "time" that other competitors on the ladder have invested.
We see 'our' training and sacrifices, but those others have made are mostly invisible to us. So we invoke seniority or ego to justify our position (my player deserves more minutes, more recognition). But return to ACHIEVEMENT. "It's not about belief, it's about the evidence." None of us are completely objective.
So what's a rational person to do?
- Understand we have endowment bias (we value more what is ours)
- Understand confirmation bias (we listen to and read what confirms our beliefs)
- Appreciate that others are multidimensional not monolithic
- Remain open to the possibility that we are wrong
- Work to become the best teammate and observer possible
- Grow our skills (training) to help ourselves and the team
- Work to value the team first, however hard that may be