Someone once said, “Don’t refuse to go on an occasional wild goose chase — that’s what wild geese are for.”

Those words come to mind after an episode in our gym the other night. One of our teams was flat. No emotion, no energy, no purpose.

I asked the coaches what they could do to shake things up.

“We have no options,” they said.

“No options,” I asked, looking at the four substitutes on the bench.

Of course there are options. There are always options. They may be scary ones, but they are options just the same. They are a chance to go on a wild goose chase.

When your team or company is not functioning well, you’ve got to fix it. And this involves risk. There’s no guarantee that your changes will make things better. But there’s also the guarantee that if you don’t change, things won’t get better, either.

“Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone,” said Tim McMahon. “Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking.”

As for options, I always think of Sherlock Holmes, who told Watson (his colleague, not the computer on Jeopardy), “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

No matter what problems your group is going through, there’s likely an option to fix it. The current situation is impossible. It’s time to turn to the improbable.
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Mike Tully speaks to sports, business and educational groups. He also works with coaches, athletes and teams to make their practice time more productive and efficient. He and Gary Pritchard are co-authors of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know.” To see Coach Tully and Coach Pritchard discuss “Seven Ways to Prepare for Adversity,” click here.