Business Lessons Learned From The Pickleball Court

There’s a new game in town called pickleball. It’s a fun sport and a great way to learn business lessons.

Here are some of the many business lessons I learned on the pickleball court.

Keep your eye on the ball. Pickleball is a fast-paced game that requires focus. If you take your eyes off the ball, all bets are off. The same holds true for work. Most people are working at lightning speed to complete all the tasks on their plates. To succeed in this environment, you must remain focused on what’s in front of you and block out all distractions.

You’re only as good as your team. I’ve played many a game of pickleball where we should have won had it not been for my teammate and vice-versa. You see, you can’t win this game alone unless you’re playing singles, which most recreational players don’t seem to do. When you’re playing with a weaker player, you must compensate.

The same thing happens in business. If you’ve got a team member who is weaker than you, you’ll need to compensate for them until they master the skills required to be proficient. This may require a bit of coaching from you (and a lot of patience) as they look to up their game.

Never judge a contender by their looks. Many a pickleball game has been lost because a player made assumptions about the ability of a competitor based on their looks. My partner and I have been decimated on the courts by people twenty years our senior, a gentleman with an artificial leg, and a person who played in a wheelchair.

I see the same kind of biases playing out in the workplace. Older workers look at younger workers and assume they don’t have the experience to perform flawlessly. Younger workers believe seasoned workers are well past their prime. And, of course, there are biases that occur when people think women aren’t up to a task that may have been best done by men in the past.

We need to put these assumptions aside and play nicely together. Everyone deserves a fair chance to prove themselves.

Some people will do whatever it takes to win at all costs. I played in my first pickleball tournament this week at Fenway Park. I was excited to compete until I discovered that a member of the opposite team was playing below their level. We got creamed.

We weren’t surprised that this couple took first place in our age group and skill category. The lesson here is that not everyone plays fair. This team should have been playing in a more skilled bracket, but if they did, they might not have won.

Was I angry that this team played the system? Absolutely! Then I realized that this sort of thing happens frequently, and I needed to toughen up my mindset.

In your career, you’ll meet many people who break the rules. They will do whatever it takes to win, even if that means trampling over you. Don’t give these people a second thought. Play your own game—the game that allows you to look in the mirror every day and know you haven’t run over anyone to get where you are today.