The Story of Dennis Rodman and Managing Talent Liabilities
Surround your challenging talent with culture carriers to offset the issues that will arise
The Worm. A nickname that resonates with hard core sports fans across multiple generations. An athlete that changed his respective game. An athlete who is forever inducted into the Hall of Fame and recognized as the best of the best. An athlete, who despite his contributions to the teams countless victories, caused you to think twice about wanting him to wear your uniform.
Few athletes can create such strong emotions within a fan like he did and often it was for all the wrong reasons.
Dennis “The Worm” Rodman was drafted into the NBA by the Detroit Pistons with the 27th pick in 1986. Rodman had played at Southeastern Oklahoma State, a Division II school with less than six thousand students. He spent his first 7 seasons with the Detroit Pistons where his bad boy persona was developed, surrounded by additional attitudes and tough personalities. Rodman won 5 NBA Championships during his fourteen year career and played for 5 teams. By the time Rodman retired he was at the top of the list in almost every defensive and rebounding category. Debated by few, Rodman was one of the best Defensive players of the generation and an instant upgrade to your team.
While Rodman was a stellar athlete, he was an on-court and off the court liability. Rodman found himself in trouble with the law several times during his career including multiple arrests for alcohol related incidents, domestic disturbances, and he famously once kicked a photographer in the middle of a game.
The media loved interviews with him because he was the ultimate wild card. Nobody knew how to control him and many of his own demons caught up with him over the years. Rodman bashed his team, his front office, published books with wild accusations, and was known as a liability in every sense of the word. He was bizarre to say the least with piercings, bright hair colors, and outfits. Nobody knew what Dennis they would get off the court, but when the game started, he was all business focused on helping his team win.
At the start of the 1996 season, Rodman was traded to the Chicago Bulls which was already a star studded team featuring Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. The team went on an unprecedented run including three straight NBA Championships and a season where they finished 72–10, a regular season record that stood for over twenty years. The team was famously known to be the most competitive group of athletes ever assembled and it showed racking up wins and stats that put the rest of the NBA in second place. Rodman’s talent was never in question, it was his level of liability that you had to put up with.
As a leader, would you want a Dennis Rodman type on your team? My answer is a *yes. The asterisk is there for a reason. I’m a yes, but only under a few circumstances. My circumstances are:
*I have leadership level talent currently on the team to surround him by as peers
Rodman falls under the category of “challenging talent” or a “talent liability.” He was a challenge to manage and lead but the flip side was that he was incredibly talented and added wins to your team. Rodman was surrounded by Hall of Fame talent his entire career but no two players were more important to his career than Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. The duo of Jordan and Pippen allowed Rodman to have leadership level talent as his peers, and in many ways these two were able to control the on and off the court chaos.
Talent liabilities are able to be controlled by those they are surrounded by. Consider a team with 2 Dennis Rodman’s and no leadership talent around them. The coach would lose their mind in their endless attempts to control these liabilities associated. The team would crash and burn and eventually no leadership level talent would want to come into that culture.
*I have a good grasp on the needs and culture of my team
Adding a talent liability to your team is dependent upon you understanding where you have strengths and weaknesses in your culture. If your team has run strong for quite some time with little to no adversity, I can argue that adding a talent liability will enhance your team’s current skills and traits. You have to be able to prepare that team for what’s to come though.
I imagine that the day the Chicago Bulls traded for Rodman they had a group meeting with Jerry Krause, the General Manager, Phil Jackson, the head coach, and Michael Jordan, the team leader and captain. I would be surprised if they didn’t have a debate around the pros and cons of adding him to the mix. The Chicago Bulls knew that they could add the liabilities of Rodman because Pippen and Jordan would smother this issues controlling the output that would ensue.
As a leader it is your job to have a pulse on the culture and what you need to add and remove and when you need to do it.
*I have a talent management plan in place to guide and direct him
Part of adding and or managing talent liabilities is the plan that you put into place to lead these folks. Talent liabilities who perform at the highest level are controlled and guided by the leader. The plan has to be built where the employee knows they can still be themselves, but they have to understand the guidelines. If you trade for a player like Rodman, you have to let him be himself. You can’t trade for a player like this and expect to completely change him as an individual. The same goes for employees. If you willingly hire a high performer who is also a high level of challenge, you need to be prepared to let them be themselves all while sticking to a plan that you both can agree to.
If the Chicago Bulls would have reprimanded Dennis at every turn, they would have spent more time fighting him and less time focused on team wins. The team knew what they were getting themselves into so they created a plan and braced for the choppy water ahead. Part of that plan included surrounding him with veterans. Getting your top performers included in the plan adds transparency into your vision and up levels those around you.
As a leader, I love talent liabilities. Talent liabilities help you win because they are usually high level performers. Talent liabilities also make you a better leader. Good leaders are shaped by the highest performing talents who bring the most unique challenges.
There has never been a top level leader who got there by managing the easiest of employees.
The best coaches find ways to win with talent liabilities and they embrace the talents they bring. You can’t always hire the best of the best culture carriers, but you can embrace the culture around you by creating a game plan for the liabilities.
Look around your team and identify the talent liabilities. If you don’t currently have one then great, you most likely have an easy to operate team. Challenge yourself to add someone to the team that diversifies your opinions and thoughts all while helping the team win at a faster rate. Never allow the talent liability to bring the team down though and understand when it’s time to cut bait. The Chicago Bulls traded Rodman at the end of their third championship once Michael Jordan announced his retirement. They also traded Scottie Pippen in an attempt to get younger and released many other veteran players. At this point, the Bulls knew they couldn’t build a team around someone like Rodman. The Bulls knew when it was time to be done, as a leader, you must have the pulse on your team to know when it’s time to move on too.
The key to talent liabilities though is that they are top performers. You trade Wins for issues. Talent liabilities that bring you no victories are not worth it and you must move to immediately remove these employees. The Chicago Bulls would never have traded for Dennis Rodman and taken a gamble on their future and culture if they didn’t know for sure that he would immediately add wins and championships to the mix.
