Showing Leadership and Adapting to Change – Work In Sports Podcast - a podcast by Brian Clapp - Work in Sports

Hey everybody, I’m Brian Clapp, VP of Content and Engaged Learning at WorkInSports.com and this is the Work In Sports podcast…Three straight days of sunny weather and I’m feeling good. We’ve been mid-70s and bright sun the last three days, which is perfect. And weather definitely affects my mood, so expect some positivity today!If you haven’t listened to last week’s podcast with Ari Kaplan, you need to. Seriously, it’s a long episode, but it didn’t feel it.  Ari is one of the OG’s of baseball analytics and has some great, great stories. Plus, he shares how to break into the world of sports analytics, and much more. As I said, long episode but worth it -- there are some episodes, just being honest, that feel like they drag or take a long time to get to grandma’s house. Ari, man, loved this interview.Coming up on Wednesday is Averee Dovsek -- Averee is on the women’s golf team at Hofstra, so we talk a good deal about being a student-athlete at this time. AND we discuss interning and gaining experience as a student-athlete- it’s unique being an athlete, your time is allocated to training traveling competing… so many struggle to gain career experience. Averee is the exception - she’s done internships at the Golf Channel and PGA Tour Radio - and we talk about what she's learned, how she’s focusing on her career, and managing her time. Really great stuff coming up later this week.  As for today…The sports career-focused question comes in from Josh in Indiana - “Hey Brian, I’ve heard a lot of people on your podcast say they look to hire people who are leaders or have leadership potential. Two-part question -- how do I develop leadership skills, and how do I show them off in the applicant process?”Josh -- good stuff. It’s true, for a long time I’ve been saying the main attributes people need to be successful in any industry is to be coachable, curious and competitive. They are all pretty self-explanatory, but being coachable means you listen well, take to teaching, can be molded, being competitive means you will work hard work extra, want to be the best, learn new skills, look for an edge and being curious means you are a constant learrner, always curious and always strviing for more.But we really need to add to that list. In these times, and in the development of the new normal, we need to stress adaptability and leadership. Let’s talk a minute about adaptability before we get into leadership. I have spoken to hundreds of people over this quarantine, and I’d say they can be broken into two groups. 1: Those who freak out. The sky is falling, I will lose my job, I’m going to get the virus, the economy will crash, we’ll be in a depression, I’m in a depression. Everything is panic and overwhelming. 2: Those who are seeing the problem, analyzing it, and figuring out how to adjust and adapt. They are looking for opportunities, taking some of this in stride, adjusting to virtual meetings, learning, and saying to themselves, I may get this thing… but I’ll beat it if I do. Now, I’m not being naive here -- there are people at massive risk for this virus and I am not advocating taking it on face first -- I’m just pointing out that there are some who adapt, and there are others who get overwhelmed. I know someone who is an at-risk case, she has every reason to fear coronavirus, but she’s not letting it overwhelm her. She’s quarantining, she’s adjusting to zoom life, she’s working remote and she’s hell-bent on proving her continued value to her company. She’s not wallowing, she’s adapting. That adaptability is important now, and forever moving forward.

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