Relaxed Intensity

March Is upon us and that means two things for me personally: fast swimming and college basketball. Being from Arizona, I grew up as a University of Arizona fan. They are having a stellar year this year, being ranked #2 overall in the country, and capturing the regular season and tournament championship for the PAC 12 conference. They have a leader who is experienced but in his first head coaching job. His name is Tommy Lloyd and was a longtime assistant at Gonzaga. He is on his way to winning National Coach of the Year honors, and when he was interviewed after seeing his Wildcats would be a #1 seed in the tournament this year, he credited it all to one thing: “relaxed intensity.”

I've been on many teams that had no shortage of intensity. I had a baseball coach growing up named Meno Wickey that expected perfection with every ground ball we took, every fly ball we got after, and even how hard we ran in and out of the dugout to our positions. These were all great things to instill into an athlete, but we were 11 years old. I was terrified to go to practice sometimes because of the intensity, but we did win a lot. On the other side of things, I've been on teams where fun and tomfoolery were normal. These mostly included little league baseball and school soccer/basketball teams. We laughed. We enjoyed it. We appreciated it. We unfortunately were not very good, and as someone who is ultra-competitive, that was not fun for me at times either.

Lots of laughs, but not enough intensity when it counted is not a solid core of super-competitiveness. The ideal lies somewhere in the middle, with coaches and athletes that create an atmosphere of what coach Tommy Lloyd calls "relaxed intensity."

What is relaxed intensity?

The term means having a very intentional balance of the seriousness and commitment it takes to win with the camaraderie and fun it takes to win on a sustained basis.

Everyone wants to win. No one doubts the importance of intensity in doing so. But it's not as clear why the "relaxed" part should be in the mix for peak performance. Unfortunately, the “relaxed” portion of an approach to success is often mistaken for goofing off.

Having fun and laughing at work can change attitudes, draw people closer together, and improve engagement levels. Using humor eases tension, helps you sell, and gets the creativity flowing. Dr. David Abramis at Cal State Long Beach has extensively studied the field of workplace fun. He's found that people who have fun on the job are not only more creative, they are more productive, better decision-makers, and get along better with co-workers as well. They also have fewer absentee, late, and sick days than people who state they aren't having fun. The bottom line is that the blend of intensity and fun can't be underestimated for its effectiveness.

Working in an atmosphere of relaxed intensity enhances the feeling that you're part of something special; that you're part of a united, winning team with a sense of purpose grounded in growth. Fierce, externally focused competitiveness helps give a greater sense of mission, while shared laughs and having fun creates a greater sense of camaraderie and belongingness. This combination helps athletes better connect with the caches, the rest of the team, and each other.

Coach Lloyd finished his interview talking about how the concept of having fun has always come first. He clarified that within the program, fun might have a different meaning than what people might think. “Fun is watching your teammates have success. Fun is accomplishing a goal as a team. Fun is watching each other grow and get after it each and every day,” he added. Let’s go have some fun this weekend.

Go SMAC! (And Bear Down, Arizona!)

Julian