Winning

“Winning has nothing to do with racing. Winning is about struggle and effort and optimism, and never, ever, ever giving up.” ― Amby Burfoot

Winning is our society’s gold standard for success. A “winner” is automatically considered “successful” and losing a contest implies failure by the same standard. Our society is very competitive. ‘Winners’ are exalted and ‘losers’ are vanquished. Lightning quick social media and fast paced deadlines drive our modern culture. Society at large values victory and clear winners over other valuable characteristics. The “runner up” receives little to no time or consideration for having value to a team, a business or an important effort. A deeper examination of this facet of social conduct reveals a very shallow shared understanding of what exactly constitutes “winning” and imposes a false standard on individual or collective achievement. Much shared value is lost in these shallow assessments and the “tossing away of life’s losers”. In an unexpected way, this rapid assessment of winners and losers actually creates the opportunity for individuals and organizations to construct real success in the shadows away the narrow assessments of “success”.

Those familiar with history will know of individuals and organizations that journeyed from apparent failure to undeniable success. In America, Abe Lincoln is a prime example of someone who failed many more times than he ever succeeded. Despite his many failures and continued debate over the wisdom of the course of history that he set, he is remembered for his biggest success of reuniting a mortally divided country split by the poison of slavery. This indisputable success came as a product of painful defeats, serious self-questioning, and a lack of much apparent encouragement. Other examples abound. Jim Collins’ seminal business book “Good to Great” details a large number of companies that emerge out of obscurity to return extraordinary shareholder value and transform the world in which we live: Nucor Steel, Apple Computers, Walgreens and many more. The common thread between these success stories is as interesting as it is instructive. Nearly all of the great companies detailed by Collins struggled for many years in obscurity facing failure after failure. The key here is that they faced their failures, took stock of the situation as they saw it, and were ultimately undeterred in view of their ultimate goals. It is precisely this struggle that develops the underpinnings of success.

Good to Great concludes that the companies that were best at confronting the harsh realities of their situation and developing the best plan forward in light of the reality became ultimately the most successful. Those companies that did not take an honest self-assessment continued to propagate elements of their business strategy that became larger and larger liabilities over time. It’s quite remarkable to look at business performance over periods of decades and see trends such as these. I have read this classic piece of business literature at several points in my career and continue to find new lessons for success that apply both to my business and personal life. As we draw the lessons of winning and losing from a larger scale view, our perspective changes and along with it our daily actions. Our lives and businesses are made of much bigger and longer term goals and actions and success in life and business rewards those who are able to honestly assess themselves, remain optimistic, persevere and never ever give up.