How top athletes do everything backwards. We can learn from that.

I was never an Olympian. Or even close being one except by association. In my late teens I had the privilege to train 4 days a week with members of our National Fencing and Modern Pentathlon teams. I learned immensely valuable lessons from them and, most importantly for this blog, I learned that most people who work in business are doing things wrong. If you want to be successful, you need to think and work like a competitive athlete. That means that waking up every day, working crazy hard, striving to achieve against impossible odds, working with a great team to accomplish your goals in unison is absolutely inadequate. Champions don’t think that way. Sadly, corporate America does. Champions define a goal and work backwards to determine what is needed to achieve it. It's not about trying your best. It is about working backwards to better understand exactly what's needed to succeed.

The run-up

The backstory is simple enough — I was a kid from the projects, living in the west end of Ottawa, the nation’s capital, a sleepy government town, where the tone and tenor of the city reflects the culture of the federal bureaucracy that employs a disproportionate fraction of the local populace. A lovely place to raise a family, unless of course you live in a housing project or find winter days at -33F objectionable. When I was 14, I had an opportunity to join a fencing club in town. The ad boasted that the club had produced more members of the national team than any other club in the country. It featured a photo of a fencer dressed head to toe in white, a combat mask, a sword, extended in a dramatic attack. I thought, “Sounds cool. I want to try that.”

Dueling with Olympians

Over the next several years, I trained with the club, made some good friends, and met several inspiring athletes. There are 3 weapons in fencing which means 6 Olympic teams with 4 members on each, i.e. a team for each weapon and gender composed of 3 fencers and an alternate. A national squad of 24. This one club had at least 6 members of the national fencing team, and several members of the Modern Pentathlon team trained with us too.

Fencing is, well, different. Like all sports, there are elements of athleticism, technique and tactics — but the proportions are all different. In sports like track and field, raw physical ability frequently dominates, followed by technique. These sport are often comparatively light (in terms of the time spent) on tactics. The martial arts, sports of combat, such as wrestling, boxing, judo, fencing, and others, place a much heavier emphasis on tactics. In fact, fencing is almost equal parts fitness, technique and tactics. Even at the highest levels of the sport, on the World Cup circuit, athletes can compensate with one where they lack a bit of another, relative to their opponents. If your opponent is faster and stronger than you, there’s no point trying to overpower him. Instead, try to out-finesse him with superior technique or undo him with wile and misdirection. Conversely, if his tactics and technique are clearly superior then try to overpower him with athleticism. As one of my coaches used to say, “Fight the fencers and fence the fighters.”

There’s a famous saying in boxing that “styles make fights”. It’s a truism in every martial art; boxing doesn’t actually own this one. Fortunately every style comes with advantages and disadvantages. For example, an athlete with a strong attack may become predictable because you know they will attack. A competitor who is tall may have the benefit of reach but perform poorly in close quarters. A huge aspect of these high-tactics sports is how quickly you can decipher your opponent’s tendencies and weaknesses and create defenses against their areas of excellence.

We trained hard with a heavy focus on tactics, speed, and technique. Through the training I saw how my teammates on the national team prepared, competed and improved. Most importantly, I learned from the Olympians how champions approach problems when competing in a game of tactics, speed, and technique. Businesses are competitions of tactics, speed and technique too and the lessons I learned from my Olympic teammates taught me a lot about how companies win well.

Trying hard is not the definition of a win

In corporate America, and worldwide, people come to work and passionately dedicate themselves to competitive success. They work hard, strategize, and do their very best as individuals and as teams. A necessary but insufficient strategy. How do Olympians approach this problem? Champions approach victory in a completely backwards manner that leads to dramatically different yet proven behaviors.

Let’s take a look at a sport that everyone knows and that’s easier to understand than fencing — the Olympic 100m sprint. Of course, approximately all of us have the problem that, irrespective of coaching training and funding, we will never run fast enough to medal at the Olympics in the 100m sprint. It’s a problem of genetics more than training for nearly all of us. But for a short moment while reading this blog, suspend disbelief and fantasize for a moment that you are in the category of making that gold medal a reality. You are an athlete who wants to go for it and win the Olympic 100m sprint, and a voice inside is telling you it may be possible. What should you do?

Champions approach victory in a completely backwards manner that leads to dramatically different yet proven behaviors.

How would you train if you didn’t know the course time needed to win? Perhaps it's the first Olympic games ever, and nobody has any idea what the times will be like at this international scale. You are training every day, 3 hours a day, eating and sleeping well and you are running your best ever times. Are you ready? Since you don’t know the time to beat it is impossible to say. In fact, if you are running the fastest times of your career you may feel pretty good. You are trying your best and performing your best. You feel good, you’re proud of your work ethic and accomplishment and unknown to you, you are almost certainly going to lose. You are going to lose because you don’t know what the measurable goal is. In other words, by the time of the Olympics, how fast do you actually need to be able to run 100m? Without knowing the specific quantifiable qualities you need to achieve and working explicitly to achieve them, you are unlikely to win just by trying your best.

The situation of competing without knowing the quantifiable qualities required for a win essentially never happens at the high end of competitive sports. Top competitors always know who their competition is and what they need to achieve in order to win. As a regular competitor, you will likely face them several times in competition throughout the year. The same is true in team sports, where the top teams are known. Every sprinter knows the time they need to beat to win the heat or qualify for the next round. Every marathon runner knows who the likely leaders are and the time it takes them to run the 42.2km. Pick your sport — and you’ll find that the top competitors are already known before the competition begins, and serious competitors have been planning for a long time what it will take to beat them. Swimming, gymnastics, soccer, track and field, skiing, wrestling, boxing, weight lifting — all of them. It’s true that everyone has good days and bad days that add some interesting variability. But these are variations on a well understood mean.

For martial arts, like fencing, winning is more complex than beating a time, because each competitor has his or her own mix of unique talents and tactics. You won’t know in advance the exact sequence of people you’ll need to face during direct elimination. Tactics influence the outcome dramatically. Still, you will know the top athletes. You’ll have faced them all before and already know their strengths and weaknesses. You will know their abilities in speed, strategy, technique and you will have spent months even years contemplating what you will do to defeat them. Remember that in most sports to be a champion likely required at least 10 years of training and competition. The same is true for your competitors, which means for 10 years you’ve been seeing each other and competing against each other at local and international meets. These are very long standing rivalries — well know, and well strategized even though they may not look that way to the television audiences watching the Olympics.

Have a look at the results of the Olympic finals for the men’s 100m for the past 4 Olympics.

Some things are pretty clear from these results that span a 12 year period of international sport at the highest level. First, if you want an Olympic gold, or at least a medal, you need to know that on a really good day you can run the 100m close to 9.85s. Second, to achieve that you’ll need a reaction time to the gun that is better than 0.19s, and ideally closer to 0.15s.

Think about it: When 8 men line up at the starting line of the finals for the men’s 100m sprint, they all know that they’ll finish close to last if they fail to run a sub 10s. In order to medal in the Olympic finals for the 100m sprint, you know your time will need to be faster than 9.87s. And you probably know the fastest times in the past 8 months for at least the top 5 competitors who are lining up against you. Plus or minus 0.02s, you know the time you need to achieve. In fact, you’ve known it for years.

Back to our training problem for the 100m sprint. Unfortunately if you are running the 100m in 10.1s, it’s clear you are not going to get an Olympic medal. Having a clear understanding of what is needed for victory changes everything. No serious athlete simply tries their best with the resources available. The difference in their behavior is absolutely a consequence of the fact that they already know what’s needed to win. Because they know who their most formidable competitors are, they study the metrics, the stats and styles of their competitors, to define exactly what level of speed and skill they will need to have on the day. If you find yourself running at your best ever times of 10.1s one thing is for sure — you’re going to lose. Your best ever isn’t going to cut it because you are nowhere near the time required. You’ll need to do something different to close the gap. Trying your best is not the definition of winning.

Fast forward, and you are now training 6 hours a day and neither your body nor your coach will permit more. You are running your fastest ever, and it’s pretty close to 10.0s flat. Definitely Olympic class. One thing is still for sure: you’re going to lose. You’ll lose because nobody has won the men’s 100m sprint with a time slower than 10.0s in 38 years. (Allan Wells, UK, 1980 won with a time of 10.25s.) Your best ever still isn’t going to cut it. What would you do?

Plus or minus 0.02s, you know the time you need to achieve. In fact, you’ve known it for years.

You would study the techniques of your competitors — what are they doing that makes them so fast that you can learn from? You would analyze your own fitness and form for possible areas of improvement. You would likely record yourself and study it in slow motion to analyze every tenth of a second of your run. Can you shave 0.01 seconds off your reaction time? Perhaps your competitors are keeping their heads down for a stride longer, or opening their strides earlier in the run. Will a different shoe (perhaps a stiffer sole) offer you a tiny improvement? Will a small adjustment to your diet, electrolytes and vitamins offer some tiny benefit? You would focus maniacally on everything you could to shave the final 0.13s off your time. You will do this because you have a clear understanding of what’s needed to win. You need to run the race in 9.87s plus or minus a tiny variation. More importantly, if you didn’t know what it would take, you wouldn’t be doing these things. You would be satisfied simply trying your best and therefore achieve far less.

Zaire 1974

Let’s take a look at another famous sporting event in a very different competition: October 30, 1974 at 4:00 am in Kinshasa, Zaire undefeated heavyweight champion 25-year-old George Foreman faced off against challenger 32-year-old Muhammad Ali. This was the epic boxing match that became known as the Rumble in the Jungle. The men could have trained hard, perfected their punching power, body speed, reaction time, footwork, endurance, and shown up knowing they had tried their best. No serious athlete would do that against a formidable opponent. Foreman’s punching power far outclassed Ali, and Ali was well known for his hand speed and movement in the ring. Before the fight Ali told everyone how he was going to win: “I’m gonna dance”. That was his eloquent way of saying he would use his athleticism and movement in the ring making it difficult for Foreman to land clean shots. His counter to Foreman’s punching power was to be fleet of foot and hard to hit. He prepared with extensive endurance training, long runs through the dry Zairian countryside in oppressive heat. It was going to take tremendous endurance to dance for 15 rounds while taking some brutal hits and throwing some along the way.

They deliberately asked themselves, “What will it take to win?” against that specific opponent at that specific time and place.

At the same time Foreman knew that Ali had a speed and mobility advantage and to counter that he spent all of his time practicing techniques to corner Ali in the ring. His counter to Ali’s movement was to box him in; there would be no way to escape his pondering power. Ali knew that to win he would need to avoid Foreman and Foreman knew that to win he would need to keep Ali from moving. Each man defined what was needed for success and trained extensively with that specific objective.

The event itself was a sensational moment in sports history. Because they had each prepared to defend against the other’s strengths the first rounds were indeed a clash of styles. Foreman had a hard time reaching Ali, but he was still effective. By limiting Ali’s movement he was able to land some brutal shots. For Ali, dancing was effective to a point but not enough. At the end of the second round Ali had taken too much punishment. It was clear that if things continued like this he would lose. After months of preparation Ali changed tactics and decided allow Foreman to pummel him to the body (but not the head — which he protected both with his gloves and by leaning way back on the ropes — a move called the “rope-a-dope”). He decided to use his fitness to endure not dodge. He taunted Foreman in the ring, “Is that all you got, George? My mother hits harder than that!”, goading him to throw more and harder punches. Since 1971, Foreman’s dominance in the ring had been total. He hadn’t gone more than 4 rounds in years. By the 4th round Foreman was visibly tired, his punches slowing and his accuracy degrading. By the 5th round he was staggering. By the 8th round Foreman was barely standing. Not because he was beaten up but because he had exhausted himself throwing power shots for 8 straight rounds. Sensing the moment Ali came off the ropes to finish Foreman with a flurry that toppled the already barely standing mountain. Things didn’t go as either athlete had planned but the key point is this: They each planned, very specifically, to win based on the known strengths and weaknesses of their opponent. They defined what it would take to win and organized around it. Because Foreman planned to limit Ali’s ability to elude him he nearly won. Ali’s victory depended heavily on his ability to dance but even more so on his sensational ability to endure punishment while Foreman punched himself out. You can see the entire fight along with a slew of commentary here. 

Opposite behaviors

You may find a lot of this obvious but it’s not. Many people would read this and conclude that “What it takes to win” is just part of “Trying your best”. But what I learned from Olympians is that defining what it takes to win is as different from trying your best as night from day. When people define what it takes to win, they work backwards from that goal, define the quantifiable qualities needed, and take steps to success they otherwise never would. When people simply try their best, they work forward from where they are — trying their very best with the people and time remaining. These are actually opposite behaviors masquerading as common effort. Trying your very best with the people and time remaining is the antipattern of corporate America today. Who says that trying your best with the people and time remaining is even remotely sufficient to win? Usually it’s not, and that is why people and teams who work this way frequently fail.

These are actually opposite behaviors masquerading as common effort. 

Instead of thinking how to optimize the resources they have, winners define what winning requires and work backwards to see what action they need to take to get there. Every day, I see teams across companies working hard, hoping and never knowing whether a supreme effort by the team will lead to success. Hope is not a strategy.

~

In the banner photo of this blog, a rare photo of me on the left fencing in the semi-finals of a provincial level competition in 1987 at Queen’s University. I went on to win gold 10–7 in a challenging bout against a strong fencer from the Royal Military College. I never became an elite fencer but the lessons of those competitive years and my Olympic teammates were invaluable.