I enjoy soccer, a game I have played for many years, and especially love its strategies and tactics. There is a good comparison to be made between a winning soccer team and winning business team. Being aware of these ingredients and putting them into action can fast-track your career.
In all the major soccer leagues – the Premier League in the U.K., Seria A in Italy, La LIGA in Spain, other pro leagues in Europe – a win is always three points, a draw one point, and a loss zero. While it’s true that much of team success is attributable to having the best players and coaches, I also believe winning teams have a mentality of “playing to win.” They are not satisfied with a draw and look at it as losing two points, which is why these teams are consistently at the top. For them, earning one point – a draw – is like taking a sedative or tranquilizer. It’s soporific and makes the team feel they did not lose when, in fact, they did lose two points!
What does this have to do with business and your career? A lot. It’s about the importance of playing to win, not settling for just doing OK and achieving the objective. Indeed, aim for the top by exceeding your objective and doing your best. It does not matter whether you are high up in the organisation or starting out. Always give it your best. Here are some examples of what I am talking about.
If you start work at 8:30 a.m. and leave at 5 p.m., and the objective is to produce ten widgets a day, playing to win means doing a little extra, getting to work 15 minutes earlier and maybe producing 11 widgets and not ten. This also means that if your objective is selling $100,000 a month, you should instead aim for $110,000. That little extra will set you apart and assist with your career. The 10% extra will make you shine at your annual review and put you on top when it is time for a promotion.
Some people may say they never leave at 5 p.m., but 7 p.m. Well, if you consistently stay late to finish work, something must be wrong with the amount of work expected of you or you are just wasting valuable time and need to find out why.
A second key ingredient for a successful soccer team or business team is the attitude of team members. We own our attitude and our attitude should be independent from our circumstances. Let me explain. Every day we have a choice between having a positive or negative attitude, between being flexible or rigid, or between being forgiving or stubborn. Chuck Swindoll put it this way: “I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so, it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.”
We can and should learn from our past, and the experience and knowledge learned can help us better prepare for the future. But no matter what we know, our attitude should be a positive one because we have a choice.
Playing to win and a positive attitude may sound like a simple strategy, but for me strategy is our direction and is usually a simple choice between North and South. It is a solid foundation for a tactical plan in building a successful and fulfilling career.