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Street Smarts: The Tournament

Morale took a real beating this fall. But there's nothing that lifts the spirits like some friendly competition.

Street Smarts

Morale took a beating at my company in September -- and probably at yours as well. A business didn't have to be located in New York City or Washington, D.C., to feel the emotional shock waves of the terrorist attacks and the falling economy.

In our case, there was trauma on top of anxiety and general distraction. Because the World Trade Center had been plainly visible from our premises in Brooklyn, dozens of my employees had watched the terrible events of September 11 unfold before their eyes. Everybody knew somebody who'd lost a loved one. Several people lost friends.

But tragedies can sometimes bring out the best in people, as we've seen repeatedly during recent months. With a little inspiration, moreover, it's usually possible to find an answer to even the most difficult morale problems. In the process, you may discover that your company has hidden strengths you didn't know about.

Our flash of inspiration came from my wife, Elaine, who worked diligently after September 11 to help employees cope with their emotions. The week after the attacks she brought in grief counselors, who held a couple of group therapy sessions, and later she ran some sessions on her own.

But despite her best efforts, a cloud continued to hang over the company.

"We've got to do something," she said one evening as we were driving home. "Yeah," I said, "but what?" "Maybe that basketball tournament," she replied. "Now would be a real good time to have it."

The basketball tournament was an idea we'd been talking about half-jokingly for several months. We'd set up a makeshift basketball court behind our main building, where some of the guys from the warehouse played pickup games during their lunch hour. I would occasionally come by and watch them, and we'd banter back and forth.

"You guys are good, but I'm better," I said one day.

They all laughed. "Why don't you come play with us?" they said.

"Well, maybe we'll have a tournament," I replied. "What do you want for prizes?"

"We want your new sports car," they said.

I laughed and told them I'd see what we could do, but I didn't take the idea any further. As I thought about Elaine's suggestion, however, I realized she was right: now would be a good time to hold a basketball tournament. If nothing else, it would give people a way to take their minds off the troubles of the world.

So the next day, Elaine and I went to see Mike Harper, a supervisor of the warehouse and one of the regulars on the basketball court. We told him what we had in mind and asked him to help us organize it. We said we wanted teams of three people, or four if one person was a substitute, and everybody in the company was eligible to play. If Mike would get the names of the players and the makeup of the teams, we'd take it from there.

As word of the tournament spread there was an almost audible buzz around the company. People began putting together their teams and speculating about the prizes. In the end, about 40 employees signed up, men and women from every department. Some of them had never played basketball before, but they understood what we were doing, and why, and quickly got into the spirit of things.

Meanwhile, I focused on the rules, which were straightforward enough. We'd have half-court games, with one point per basket. In each game, the first team to score 16 points would win, provided it was ahead by two points. Otherwise the two teams would keep playing until one of them took a two-point lead.

Every team in the tournament would play at least two games. We would follow a so-called double- elimination format, meaning that a team wouldn't be eliminated until it had lost twice.

As for prizes, I decided to hold on to my sports car, but we didn't skimp. First prize would be $500 a person. Members of the second-place team would each get a set of two tickets to a Knicks game. The third-place team would get $100 gift certificates to a sporting-goods store, while the fourth-place finishers would win $50 gift certificates to another sporting-goods store.

There was a catch, however, as people discovered when we posted the list of teams and a chart showing how the double-elimination format would work. The players on one of the 10 teams were identified only by their last names: Brodsky, Weiner, and Kaplan. Those just happened to be the names of the three top executives in the company. According to the elimination chart, moreover, Brodsky's team had to play just one game: the final.

"Whoa, what's that about?" some of the guys said when they saw the chart.

"It's my basketball," I said. "You got to beat me to win."

Now, on the surface at least, a team of Brodsky, Weiner, and Kaplan didn't appear to be much of a threat. No one would ever confuse the three of us with, say, Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman. As luck would have it, moreover, I threw my back out right around the time we posted the chart, and so I was hobbling around the office with a cane.

Most people thought I was faking. They figured I had a trick up my sleeve -- as I did, of course -- and they tried to guess what it was. "We know," they said. "You're going to bring your own ref."

"No," I said. "The other team can have whatever ref it wants."

But that didn't end the speculation, and my teammates and I did all we could to keep people guessing. I spread a rumor that I'd once been an All-American. Weiner started coming into the office early to work out in the gym. Kaplan smoked cigarettes -- to increase his lung capacity, he said.

The tournament began, appropriately enough, on October 11, exactly one month after the attack on the World Trade Center. We'd decided that Tuesday and Thursday would be tournament days, with one game around lunchtime and another in the late afternoon. We'd also decided that, on those days, employees would get an hour off in addition to their lunch hour. That way, everybody would have a chance to take in at least one of the games.

In fact, most people came to watch at one point or another. At the designated hour, someone would roll the basketball net out of the warehouse and onto the court we'd marked off on the dead-end street behind the building. People would bring out chairs and take their places around the perimeter of the court. The players would start to warm up.