it took constant communication

Alison: Talk about navigating the Covid-19 crisis and racial reckoning. How did you work with the players, the teams, and NBA management on that?

Chris: That could be a book in itself. Once again, it took constant communication. During the shutdown, I was on Zooms every day with Adam Silver and others trying to figure out how to get the season going again from scratch: where to play, what the locker rooms would look like, even the messaging on the court. The NBA has 450 players, including some of the most recognizable people in the world. They’re not always going to have the same beliefs or be on the same page. But everyone just wants to be able to have an opinion and be heard and taken seriously. That’s what we did through it all, and everything was voted upon. My leadership style was always to overcommunicate, let everybody share their insights, and then talk about where we wanted to go. After George Floyd, we went to the [biosecure] bubble to keep playing and tried to raise awareness. Then the Jacob Blake shooting [by police] happened. So we got all the players in a room and decided to stop games for a day. Usually in the NBA, after you play a game against someone, you say, “Hey man, everything good with you?” “Yeah, all good.” “All right, y’all have a good rest of the season.” But in the bubble we got a chance to really spend time together, look each other in the eyes, and figure out how we all could be better.

Alison Beard

Life's Work: An Interview with Chris Paul. Harvard Business Review. September-October 2023.