From the Court to the Campaign: Michael Jordan’s Guide to PR Success

I have been at LCA for a long time. But I knew this was the job for me, when, on my first day I was sent out on the road to help manage a campaign to encourage hard to reach Londoners to vote. The next month I was trusted on one of our biggest clients at the time, King’s Cross, still a treasured client of LCA to this day.

Writing hasn’t always been my strong suit.

I feel my strength is more in perseverance and resilience – skills which, as a Scottish, dyslexic, type one diabetic, served me well in my personal life, as well as my professional. Whilst over the last 14 years at LCA my role has changed and the challenges and highlights have too, my motivation and drive to keep challenging myself, deliver for clients, and improve the way we do comms in the built environment, hasn’t.

And there is one thing I have found most steadfast in keeping me motivated, and that, readers, is not a PR guru, but the voice of one of the world’s greatest sporting heroes… Micheal Jordon.

Now bear with me as I explain my thinking, I promise it works.

Micheal Jordan encompasses everything a good team player should be. He works hard, he expects a lot from his other teammates, and importantly for me he’s the master of what I like to call Fail Fast, Learn Fast, Move Forward.

Which is why before any pitch, or in challenging moments, I have always reached for my headphones and blasted some motivational Michael Jordan speeches. Imagine the state of my YouTube algorithm.

Let me condense 300+ hours of listening into five lessons I reckon I have learnt, on how to apply a Michael Jordan mindset in PR. So here we go…

1. Working as hard as everybody else won’t cut it. If you want to be the best, you must be better.

In PR, just showing up and matching the industry standard isn’t enough—especially if you want to be the agency clients call first. Jordan’s mindset was simple, don’t just keep pace, set the pace.

That means digging deeper into insights, pushing the creative concept further, preparing your big idea with one more round of refinement.

In one of the few clips where I have seen Michel Jordon be vulnerable, he says “If you don’t want to play that way, don’t play that way”, and that’s something I think about most days.

The best campaigns don’t happen because a team does “enough.” They happen because someone sets the bar higher and inspires the rest of the industry to meet it, and I want LCA and the team to play that way.

2. Fail Fast. Learn Fast. Move Forward.

In comms, not every pitch lands, not every journalist bites, and not every campaign delivers the impact you hoped for.

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots… I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Jordan’s legacy wasn’t built on avoiding mistakes, he was known for using them to his advantage, to improve himself and the team.

The same applies to great communications work. Resilience in the face of setbacks is what sharpens strategy and leads to those breakthrough wins for clients.

3. What matters is how you show up, now, today.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you have done it before, all that matters is you do it now.”

It doesn’t matter how many times I have met with the client, spoken to the journalist, presented a pitch. Every single time I do it, and the team does it, I want that one to matter.

Creativity, passion, innovation, being resilient and taking risks are needed for every single idea we come up with, and every campaign we run for clients. If we don’t show up now, today, nothing happens.

4. Teamwork and Intelligence win championships

In 1994, Jordan was quoted as saying “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

When I became MD, this quote took on a whole new meaning for me. Talent will get you a win in the short term, but sustained success, and creating campaigns that truly resonate, comes from how well a team works together and thinks strategically.

Teamwork, beyond individual performance from Jordan, is for me one of the biggest factors of the Chicago Bulls’ success. The magic happens when individual strengths align towards a single, shared goal.

In PR, that means blending creativity with insight, pairing bold ideas with the right execution plan, and ensuring every team member understands their role in the bigger picture.

5. There is no passion to be found playing small

As a final point, I have also managed to sneak in Nelson Mandela here, as I believe Jordan lived by one of Mandela most famous quotes. “There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”

In communications, ‘playing it safe’ is the quickest route to becoming irrelevant. The best campaigns are born from curiosity and a willingness to experiment. Whether that’s exploring an emerging social trend, testing a bold creative angle, or partnering with an unexpected voice in the industry.

Not every idea will stick, in fact, quite a few in my career absolutely haven’t. But isn’t that the point doing of things differently and taking chances? The faster you test and learn, the stronger the work becomes. Jordan’s mindset was “I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”  and I think about this every time we go for a pitch, or a new campaign.

So those are my lessons, and so far in my career I feel MJ’s leave-everything-on-the-court mindset has held up. Whether you take the meaning to be about basketball or team culture and the toughness required to win in a crowded market.

Call me crazy, but there is still something electric about Michael Jordan personally reminding me that failure isn’t fatal. It’s fuel.