Play the game and the conditions. How can we better factor the conditions in to help us achieve what matters in a way that feels true to us?

‘Play the conditions’. 

A sporting term when teams have to adapt to the conditions, often weather that changes the way they may typically play. For me, as a rugby fan, it can often feel like what it is really saying is ‘we didn’t play very well but we had to not play well because of the conditions so we could get the win.’ 

This perspective is likely the grumpy, too cynical reading when a team cannot play an expansive game or reverts to a kick-heavy and therefore often less entertaining game. 

However, in reality, when the aim is to win and presented with conditions that may make playing your natural game less feasible or even detrimental — for example a torrential downpour makes it far less likely a lot of long passes are going to be caught — playing the conditions makes sense for the sake of the outcome in mind.

This begs the question, is there a balance to be struck between playing your game, living and leading according to your values, and playing to the conditions? 

How may this apply in our lives? 

If you are captaining a sailing ship you most likely have a destination in mind and perhaps even a timeframe. 

However, how much you can control when or if you arrive is as much up to your navigational abilities as the weather and the currents. Again the conditions are crucial. 

In these cases what may playing the conditions and staying true to your game look like?

What are the conditions you need to consider and what is the destination you are sailing to? 

What would be the impact of only focusing on one and not the other? 

Only focusing on the conditions risks overadapting and shapeshifting, losing sight of our direction or our game for the sake of navigating the conditions. And then to what end? 

Only focusing on playing our game means we may miss conditions that could hinder or help our game. 

It is likely never a case of either or. 

Do I focus on solely playing the conditions or solely playing my game? Do I force my way through the storm to sail to my destination or do I let the weather drift me completely off course.

Sometimes there will be times where we have to do more to navigate the conditions, other times we have the perfect conditions for the game we want to play. Either way unless we observe the conditions it will be impossible for us to adapt to them to the benefit or detriment of our game. 

How are your conditions shaping how you move towards what you want and how you lead? 

It could be that a way of working no longer works so we can consider how it can work in these changed conditions. It may be that we need to optimise the conditions or we cannot control the conditions and need to adapt our game.

It could be that the conditions in a certain environment may never be right. If we think of crops, not everything can grow everywhere. To play our game we may need to find different conditions. For example players move teams and thrive, probably partly because of environment and  partly because of the game they play fitting a players game. 

How are you shaping or reinforcing those conditions in how you move towards what you want and how you lead? 

If we don’t have a clear destination, maybe a vague direction, or even none, then what if we can use the conditions to guide us instead? 

What helps us better consider the conditions?

What would knowing the conditions and navigating with them in mind give us?