Play the Cards You’re Dealt

On Saturday night, after the North Carolina Tar Heels defeated the Duke Blue Devils 79–70 in men’s basketball, Kenny Williams III, a senior guard for North Carolina, said:

“We play the cards we’re dealt.”

His statement was in response to questions surrounding the Tar Heels’ two wins this season over a Zion-less Duke team (if you are unfamiliar with Zion Williamson, check this video out courtesy of the ACC).

Kenny’s response meant that the Tar Heels played their game, whether Zion played or not. The story isn’t that the Tar Heels played their cards, but how they played their cards. Later in the interview, Kenny said:

“All we can do is control what we can control. And that is ourselves.”

As a young aviation Officer in the United States Air Force, that was the best advice I received — control what you can control. Our crew would plan and execute missions with that mindset and used two rules to do so.

1. Don’t get frustrated with uncertainty and change — prepare for it with detailed mission planning. In aviation, we would develop multiple Courses of Action (COAs) and identify how to manage the risks and opportunities for each. Furthermore, we would identify ‘triggers’; in other words, what would cause us to transition to a different COA, or game plan. It is a lot of effort on the front end, but it reduces your vulnerability come mission execution or game time.
2. Don’t use qualifying statements for things you cannot control. You cannot control the weather, and to a certain extent, you cannot control the enemy. We did not say, “If the enemy does not show up tonight, then we have a chance for mission success.” Having an airworthy aircraft and proper flight training would always give us a chance and we controlled both of those qualifiers. Using qualifying statements on things you cannot control will kill morale and reduce your team’s confidence in the game plan.

Control what you can control and play what you are dealt.

In training and at war, our flight crews played the cards we were dealt; however, we were prepared for uncertainty and change and we did not use “If” statements. We controlled what we could control. North Carolina took this approach Saturday night, UMBC took this approach last year before toppling #1 Virginia, and Saint Mary’s prepared similarly prior to defeating #1 Gonzaga last night. History tells us that teams will take a similar approach next week when the NCAA tournament kicks off.

Remember, we play the cards we are dealt just by playing the game. It is how we play those cards that matters. Control what you can control.