Recently, a story surfaced in my head that turned out to be a literal demonstration of my very first managerial choice — choosing soft skills over hard skills.
I was 14 years old. I was in 9th grade, just like my friends. There were also a few guys in 10th grade who played basketball, and a couple more in 11th grade. At that age, a one- or two-year difference creates a huge gap in physical ability.
At every practice, the coach picked new team captains, and one day the captains were me and one of the 11th graders. As the weaker one, I had the first pick — and I chose Edik, the “star,” my classmate. Ruslan picked two 10th graders. Unexpectedly for everyone, I then chose two of my friends: Tolik and Dima. Ruslan picked two more 10th graders, I completed my team with my last friend — Egor — and the tenth player went to Ruslan’s team.
“On paper,” Ruslan’s team was stronger. So why did I build my team out of friends? Out of the four 10th graders, three were completely unable to control their emotions. If you made a mistake — they yelled at you. If you couldn’t catch a hard pass — they yelled. If you missed an uncontested three-pointer — they yelled. In short, I chose coordinated communication over technical skill. And of course, I was also lucky that Edik was both the strongest player and very calm.
I’ll be honest: I don’t remember the final score of that game, but I do remember how the initial smirks on the opponents’ faces — and even the coach’s (“Mikhailych, are you out of your mind?”) — turned into smiles. They realized that we were actually holding our ground pretty well. We played as a team, and all of us really, really wanted to show the guys that if you don’t yell at us, we can actually handle things. And it seems like we handled them fairly well in the end. It’s even possible that the game ended for technical reasons due to someone getting injured.
By the way, Zhenya — the most shouty of the guys — is an example for me of how a person can work on themselves. The very next year he came back to the basketball court friendly and supportive. I have the impression that one of his friends talked some sense into him and explained why people didn’t really want to play with him. Or maybe he figured it out himself. Either way, respect to Zhenya — not everyone can do that. I hope he’s doing well these days.