Attitude matters most

As I grow up, I loved basketball. It all started for me in Primary four when I watched NBA for the first time. I was captivated. After that, I could be found practicing my shooting and playing layups games on the many courts at school. Soon, I started on the basketball team as reserve and continued on to Junior College.

From my school basketball experience, I learnt that talent is not enough to bring success to a team. Of course, there is a need for talent. But as I remembered my coach teacher saying “You got to have great players to win… You can’t do without great players, but you can lose even with them playing!”  So, it takes much more than talented people to win.

Since then, I came to realize that talent needs to be combined with the right attitude in order to win. And if there ever a match between talent and attitude, I have no doubt which will emerge the winner. Perhaps that is why I placed such importance of a positive attitude for myself, for my children as they are growing, and for my teams I lead.

For some reason, there are those who think that it is “hip” to be negative. What is worse is that bad attitudes can influence others to show similar traits. I suspect that they think it makes them appear smart or important. But the truth is that a negative attitude hurts rather than helps the person/situation.

Do you have any experience in interacting with a person for the first time and already suspected the person to have poor attitude? I personally have such an experience. And yet the person with bad attitude may not be doing anything illegal or unethical, yet his attitude may bring down the team just the same. I found out that one of the reasons may be that attitudes are subjective. People always show on the outside how they feel on the inside. I am trying to list down negative attitudes and group them under a common theme. Are you able to recognize common bad attitudes that can ruin a team?

Finally, repeating what my coach teacher said: Good attitudes among members do not guarantee team’s success, but bad attitude guarantee its failure.