Sunday Scaries: Why you need an Udonis at your company

Udonis Haslem was a key player in the Miami Heat’s team that won a championship in 2006.

Not a star player but an important part of a very successful team, known for being the guy that held even the biggest stars accountable. A glue guy. A locker room guy.

But where his role & career becomes interesting was the rest of his career at Miami.

Udonis went on to play for another 17 years with his role reducing each year. For the last 7 years of his career he rarely got on the court, played about 10 games a year and only a few minutes when games were blowouts or there were injuries.

So why would you keep someone around for that long when they aren’t contributing?

That’s the thing, he was contributing. You just didn’t see the contribution in his stats.

Udonis was the glue between everyone, the players, the coaching staff and the front office. If players were out of line, he was the one that could bring them back in.

He could do the same with coaches.

He wasn’t in a Leadership position like a Manager would be at your company, he didn’t officially have direct reports. But people went to him for advice, people listened when he spoke.

Culture is often driven from the top but Udonis lived the Miami Heat culture, it’s hard to find someone that invested in a company culture that was also willing to play this kind of role.

So what could this person look like at your company?

Think of the Senior people at your company, ones with years of knowledge about the business. The ones that know where all the skeletons are buried, the ones carrying the keys to your culture, the ones that stuck around when times got tough.

How can you keep them around when they’ve hit their ceiling? Or when they are at that career point where they are thinking about a change, maybe they are thinking about setting up their own business. Could you be their first client instead of loosing such key people to your business?

Most businesses don’t have unlimited money to spend on employees that aren’t actively contributing but is there not value in having people around that are mentors, coaches, confidants, culture advocates?

So instead of thinking of this as another headcount cost and overhead, shouldn’t we look at is as an investment in the rest of your team?

We’ve all seen the data on what the cost is to companies when they loose good people, so if this Udonis helps to keep your best people around that’s a smart investment, right?

Great people like Udonis are hard to find, too often we make it way too easy for them to leave.