I love sports. But what I don’t love is the use of sports as an analogy – or worse, as a metaphor – for business.
The reason is simple: in sports – and in most competition – the winner is determined by what essentially is an objective standard. Score more points, goals, or runs, and you win. In business, what constitutes “winning” is subjective. It’s possible that even thinking of what we do as having a winner in business dilutes our focus because winning suggests finality. Perhaps the closest we should get to analogizing sports and business is to compare the training necessary to prepare to play and to get better with the ongoing effort needed to establish, progress, and sustain a business. Milestones should be set, met, and celebrated … but we’re never done.
The ultimate sports cliché is our endeavor is not about whether we win or lose, it’s about how we play the game. The opportunity we have in business, which is not true in sports, is we get to define what success looks like. We create our own goals for how we “win” the game of business.
By smartly creating phases of development and aspiration, we are much better able to build a culture of effort leading to desired outcomes and then build on that foundation of progress and confidence. By retiring the idea that all of us are trying to be Number 1 – which, by definition, only can be one of us – and focusing instead on being better; we debunk the notion popularized by Will Ferrell’s Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights that finishing second makes you “first loser.” Instead, in the best possible way, we all can be Number Great!
The benefit of moving away from a numerical focus to one that shares responsibility for success is consistent with a couple of recent studies (one by Professor Iwan Barankay at the Wharton School; the other by Steven Blader and Claudine Gartenberg of New York University and Andrea Prat of Columbia University) that suggests individual competition in a collaborative environment can be counterproductive. If we expand their findings to include the loss of motivation by a business if it compares unfavorably to others in public rankings, the pitfalls of trying to be "Number 1" versus "Number Great" become clearer.
Esteem needs to be based on achievement in order to be impactful and lasting. When we take advantage of being able to determine what achievement consists of in our business, we establish much greater control over our ability to motivate and sustain high levels of effort. The reality is, in sports and in life, a lot of people give up or limit their effort when “winning” no longer seems to be possible. This is not an argument for being passive. It is a realistic presentation of how to attain and maintain high performance by motivating people in a way that is much more resistant to being punctured by the likely ebb and flow of progress and success.
To more effectively pursue being competitive as a business by placing yourself principally into competition with your ambition rather than with others over whom you have no control, do this, not that:
• DO – Define what good looks like for your business; DON’T – Measure yourself using someone else’s yardstick.
• DO – Offer incentives to your people based on the contribution to the success of your company that they can control; DON’T – Have your people compete against one another outside of gamifying your culture to promote certain behaviors important to success as you define it.
• DO – Celebrate the effort made by each of you and all of you that lead to accomplishing your measures of progress and success; DON’T – Focus on industry averages and coverage of what others deem successful beyond informing your own measures.
• DO – Select your people and hold them accountable to living your values; DON’T – Tolerate people who are unable or unwilling to live your values (reject the “one ass$%*e” rule that – tongue in cheek – suggests you should keep one bad apple around to remind everyone why there shouldn’t be more than one).
Our popular culture makes everything a competition – cooking, dating, travel. It’s not only unhealthy (thinking ill of others can actually make us ill), but it’s not productive in promoting our highest levels of effort and contribution. Trade in the sports analogy – us against them, and try on something more like karma. Karma is defined as action, not fate, as it’s often understood. In Buddhism, karma is an energy created by willful action, through thoughts, words, and deeds. The idea of action, not result, puts us in greater control of our present and our future. Feeling in control encourages us to continue.
Being fixated on external rankings quickly and most often takes us out of that place of influence over what happens next and thus dissuades us from continued effort and action. That’s a passive state, and it’s bad for business. Word to the wise: compete better by competing differently. Stop trying to be Number 1; being Number Great is the true path to winning (in business).
