Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Gisele misses the ball

I suppose we can understand why a supermodel, who lives in the dog-eat-dog world of fashion design, would blame someone other than her husband for the Patriot's loss against the Giants in this last weekend's Super Bowl match.  We can understand her loyalty to her man.  But she sure does not understand how to create effective teams. And she probably also doesn't understand how her remarks could potentially undermine the leadership role of the man she so clearly wants to extoll.

As reported in the New York Post:

Gisele Bundchen ripped into the Patriots receivers for the failed plays she believes cost her quarterback husband Tom Brady a fourth Super Bowl ring.

The Brazilian supermodel was caught on camera lambasting No. 12's teammates after Sunday's game in Indianapolis.

"You [need] to catch the ball when you're supposed to catch the ball," she is heard saying. "My husband cannot [expletive] throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can't believe they dropped the ball so many times."

Maybe a futebol analogy would help this person understand.  When a striker misses what would be the game-winning shot in the last minute of a soccer match, if you blame that person you have ignored the role of the entire team over the previous 89 minutes.  Why did the defense fail to keep the other team from scoring?  Why weren't there more shots taken by our team earlier in the game?  Why did some players let up during earlier stages of the game?  Why didn't the coach spend more time working on certain skills, tactics, and strategy during practice sessions?  And so on.

In this 60-minute Super Bowl game, there were many opportunities to have achieved a different result, but it just didn't happen.  There has to be one winning team and one losing team.  When you win, you enjoy the moment, knowing you were lucky sometimes as well as good.  When you lose, you hate the result, and you relive every moment that could have made a difference in the score.  What you don't need is someone who does not understand team dynamics assigning blame to individuals.

Brady's teammates apparently feel betrayed by Gisele's words, with a source saying, “It's like knocking someone when they are down."

Let's hope they can find it in their hearts to be more understanding than she was.  Knowing this team, its coach, and its owner, I am confident they will be.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. As if they don't already feel badly enough. (and as if she has any standing to criticize anyway).

I guess that's the equivalent of firing a nurse or doctor for an inadvertent mistake, eh?

Anonymous said...

I think I heard before the game that this was the first game of Brady's she ever attended in person.

"But she sure does not understand how to create effective teams."

I guess that's the advantage of being a supermodel - the world normally does revolve around you?

Mark Graban said...

Giselle may have learned from the Pat's coach, who sounds like he is quite abusive when players make mistakes.

http://espn.go.com/boston/nfl/story/_/id/7518409/bill-belichick-everybody-critic-film-sessions

"He doesn't care if you are a young safety or a first-ballot Hall of Famer; if you mess up, he's going to hold you accountable.

And then he's going to degrade you."

Not an approach to model in healthcare...

Anonymous said...

I applaud Giselle for sticking up for her husband- and let's face it, she was right. She politely smiled off the first several verbal taunts from Tri-state Neanderthals before she decided that life was too short. Tolerating verbal abuse does not make a person- even a supermodel, "classy." And if Welker, Hernandez, Branch, made their routine catches, we'd be at a parade today. -Dave

Jim said...

Paul, I had a feeling you would write a note on this subject. What you wrote is absolutely correct. Many years ago while in graduate school there was a wives club for the hospital administration students. They convened once a month and always had some type of program for the wives because for many of them their husbands were entering a career field which was new and unknown to them.

One Saturday a professor from the hospital administration school was the guest speaker. His topic dealt with the wife’s role in relationship to the hospital where her husband was employed. He told them that if you want to do volunteer work “do not do it in the hospital where your husband is employed”. He went on to add a number of reasons which might have done Mrs. Brady well to know about.

For example, he said (1) your husband is not going to do everything right and people will be critical, (2) there will be some who think the wife is there to “spy” on them and that will cause unneeded stress, and (3) he had several other reasons. He concluded the litany by saying your natural response will be to rise to your husband’s defense and you may say something you will later regret; or your response will polarize people in the volunteer group who are either on your side or the critics’ side. This polarization doesn’t do anyone any good especially the hospital where you all are engaged.

At any rate when I heard Mrs. Brady’s comments I thought she could have really benefited from hearing Professor Rappaport’s presentation over 40 years ago. Tom Brady certainly has the ability to withstand a very narrow loss. He and his team wouldn’t be as good as they are (and they are good) if it wasn’t for their capability and confidence. Unintended consequences of a protective loved one can sure stir up a mess. Sometimes it’s just best (no matter how much it vexes you) just to shut up and press on, and let Tom speak for himself.

Anonymous said...

Wall Street Journal ran an article on this today, taking a pro-Giselle stance (as I did above). Just because it would please the Jims of the world to have her tolerate public verbal abuses doesn't mean she should. And Mark, holding professionals accountable and "abusing" them are not the same. Belichick is known as a player's coach who is tough but fair and who is prickly with the media. I would argue that heavy doses of Belichikian preparation, execution, review, analysis and culture of accountability is EXACTLY what healthcare is craving. -David

Mark Graban said...

Yes, you can hold people accountable without abusing them.