Timeout: The premise and the promise of enhanced performance
In sports timeouts play a strategic role that often alter the course of the game. Timeouts serve several important purposes. Drawing up a key play, making substitutions, maintaining possession, resting players and psyching out the opponent are just a few of the ways that timeouts play an important role in sports.
The Premise:
There is an underlying premise when calling timeout. The premise is an expectation that the players will return to the game performing at a higher level than when the timeout was called. So what can the coach do during that brief break in the action that will enhance performance? Decision number one is, “what does the team need to hear?” Do they need inspiration, motivation, a reprimanding or something more strategic or tactical? Next, “what information can the coach share with the team that will alter their behavior and performance as the game restarts?”
There is something very deliberate about calling timeout because time is precious and in sports teams are only allotted so many timeouts, so they must be used strategically to maximize performance.
The Promise:
For a timeout to have its intended outcome, the players must be bought in. They must believe in themselves and the promise that they can return to the game playing at a higher level. This gets into the psyche of sports. So much of sports is mental and visualization and belief are important tools to boosting performance. In the heat of a game it is hard to reflect and adjust and that is where timeouts come in.
The Timeout Application to Business:
At Groove Management we facilitate team meetings weekly for our clients. In fact in 2022 alone, we have led of 60 team meetings. We refer to these meetings and our approach as The Team Timeout. In sports teams are allocated a certain number of timeouts and they are typically all used before the end of the game. In business, there is no allocation for timeouts. In fact in many organizations they are never called. Yes there are team meetings and offsites, but they seldom serve the same purpose as in sports.
We like to ask the question of CEOs, division heads and department heads,
“When was the last time your team called timeout?”
The response if often silence followed by excuses like, we are too busy to take time away from the work or financially we are not in a position to invest in an offsite.
What would happen in an NBA or NFL game if one team was given the full compliment of timeouts and the other team was given zero timeouts? Would it impact the outcome of the game? We would posit that it very much would and that not being able to call timeout would put the one team at a major disadvantage.
So why don’t more work teams call timeout? It might go back to the premise and the promise. If the leader believes that a timeout can enhance performance in recognizable and measurable ways, they would certainly call more timeouts. We have established a formula for our Team Timeouts that starts with selling the team on the premise behind why calling timeout in business has a high return on investment (ROI). In fact we have proven through our work that teams leadership teams who call timeout once a quarter deliver better results, have higher employee engagement and lower turnover.
Our timeouts, while they do touch on strategy are much more focused on the team dynamics. We have teams grade their overall performance, identify human factors that are enabling and hindering performance and we work through team dynamics. We help teams create a recipe for a high performing team recognizing that they recipe will vary by company. Through an interactive and experiential approach we build purpose and alignment. It all starts with getting buy in on the premise and the promise that the time spent together will yield enhanced performance..
The Art of Calling Timeout:
According to Law Murray in his article NBA head coaches unplugged: The art of calling timeouts he states:
“In the NBA’s official rulebook, a request for a timeout by a player in the game or the head coach is granted only when the ball is dead or in control of a player on the team making the request. A request at any other time shall be ignored.
The rulebook does not, however, specify how exactly that request is made. For the most part, calling timeouts is a mundane gesture for a head coach in the NBA.”
Law’s article goes on to share examples of various head coaches and their approaches to calling timeout. Some step out on the court, others flail their arms in the air and some are more casual. Ty Lue says of his approach: “I don’t know, I step on the court, give them a little signal,” Lue said. “But for the most part, I call timeouts a lot of different ways. I don’t know. Just call it, just take it.” It is less important how you call timeout than it is the fact that you call one at the right time.
Business leaders must have the courage and gumption to call timeouts at the right times. In business, there is rarely a bad time to call timeout. Some of the best timeouts happen when new members join the team, when financial performance is falling short of expectations or when there is an opportunity to explore a new opportunity.
Regardless of when or why business leaders call timeout, the issue that we have found is that not enough leaders call them and see the true value to calling timeout.
