An IT Lesson from Williamson’s Shoe Blowout

Whether you follow basketball or not, you might have heard about Zion Williamson’s shoe blowout, 33 seconds into the February 20th game between Duke and the University of North Carolina. Williamson, a freshman who plays forward for Duke and is the projected #1 overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft, fell to the floor when his Nike shoe ripped apart. The result was a mild knee sprain that took him out of the game.

The impact of this event goes in two directions. What happened to Nike, and what happened to Williamson.

Certainly, Nike suffered, as its stock dropped, and the company hustled to come up with an answer that would rebuild their crumbling credibility. I’ve been thinking more about what happened to Williamson, and how his fate ties into a message that I’m trying to get across to business leaders as I talk to them about how they’re managing IT.

After his shoe malfunction, it didn’t matter how much talent Williamson had. It didn’t matter how much he worked and prepared. It didn’t matter how much he wanted to win. He was out of the game. (And Duke lost the game, by the way.)

Think of IT as your shoe. When IT is unreliable or has a blowout, it can take your business down.

This is what I was talking about in VC3’s January webinar. Let’s think about two things that you absolutely must get right with IT as two shoes – on one foot, you have network management, and on the other foot, you have cyber security. These are basic needs for every business, just as shoes are a basic need for a basketball player. Yet, so many business leaders aren’t paying enough attention to these facets of their business.

Why? A lot of times, it's due to a discomfort with managing IT. Sometimes, executives think that they have to be super technical to manage IT, and they’re at a loss as to how to manage it the way they do other aspects of their business. Add to that, they are making decisions about IT all the time and living with the ripple effects. More often than not, they still end up frustrated. 

I’ve talked with enough business leaders to know that you want to make good decisions, and you’re bound and determined to get remarkable business results. Helping you to get good “shoes” is what I can do to guide you away from an IT “blowout” that might just take you out of the game.

Marty