Winning in Sports and Business

As the world continues to enjoy watching the Olympics, I wanted to share a recent opportunity I had to sit courtside at a world premier Table Tennis tournament. Observing top athletes prepare and compete, I couldn't help but draw parallels between their strategies and business practices. My aim is to write about my experience and opinions and, as always, open it for discussion/sharing of thoughts. Here we go.

One way to discuss this topic is to address the common and differing aspects. Let us start with common aspects:

• Long-term planning is based on strength: This might sound obvious, but when a sporting team or an individual starts with the purpose of how to compete, they start with strength. If the strength is a passing game (football), then the playbook is derived from this. If the strength is a forehand cross-court (tennis), then this shot should have a high percentage of success. Businesses are similar - the competitive advantage (core business and purpose) drives the WHY; this could be a product, retail approach, delivery mechanism, etc. These days it is imperative that companies state their "must-win" battles based on their competitive advantage and everything else that revolves around it.
• Preparation is key: It is best that I quote one of the all-time Tennis greats, Nadal, here: "I also know, from long experience, that if you make an effort in training when you don’t especially feel like making it, the payoff is that you will win games when you are not feeling your best. That is how you win championships." I believe this is also reflective of good businesses which invest in human capital, prepare them for various situations, and provide them with key tools & systems. Recently, the Volvo Group organized a fantastic initiative with IMD on Unleashing the Human Potential for this precise reason.

Now, let's shift our focus to the key differences that set sports and business strategies apart:

1. Time between strategic action and feedback

In sports, each player/team comes with a "game plan." But the loop of observe-analyze-act is almost instantaneous. In this table tennis tournament, I could see that some players were finding it difficult to match the opponent because they were "not able to observe themselves non-judgmentally from the outside." Instead, they were questioning their game plan or their ability. This made me reflect on one of my favorite books, The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey, wherein he talks about the Self 1 and Self 2. Self 1 "the Teller" describes the analytical, judgmental part that tends to overthink and criticize. Self 2 "the Doer" describes the instinctual, intuitive part that performs tasks without conscious interference.

I am reading the book titled "Happiness Hypothesis" by Jonathan Haidt and he uses the Elephant and Rider metaphor for self-development as well as team development, which is like Self 1 and Self 2. The Rider represents the rational mind, which plans and decides. The Elephant represents the emotional mind, which is driven by desires and emotions. In chapter 4, Haidt summarizes, "we see the faults of others clearly, but are blind to our own … and it sets us all up for lives of conflict. Learn how to take off the moral glasses and see the world as it really is." Inexperienced players were struggling with judgment rather than facts – ‘a serve into the net’ became 'serves are not working today' to a 'bad server.' Top-performing athletes can remove judgments, observe facts, and play to win.

In businesses, this loop is much longer, especially in heavy asset industries. Imagine a car manufacturer or an industrial tool developer - the time it takes to design, engineer, prototype, and industrialize and then to observe and make changes, takes years. It is common to hear the term "think on your feet" in sports but then how does it translate to business? Agile development tries to bridge this gap and speed up the development cycle. However, the customer experience-feedback loop cannot be shortened. In fact, one could say that businesses have the luxury of time unlike sports, to a certain extent. Too short of a loop and the product isn't fully fleshed out but too long of a loop, there is lesser clarity about the reasoning of choices made earlier. I believe this is an area that businesses can learn from sports by making decisions quickly and being non-judgmental. This allows for an efficient approach to capital allocation as well as projects that need to be shut down.

2. Constructing the point

This is an observation from which I learned a lot during this tournament. Some players had "hole-in-one syndrome." I remember when I started to play golf and after I hit a few good balls (of many), I had the feeling that I could hit a hole each time I stepped on the tee box. I could see the same with some table tennis players who were ready to finish the point with their first shot. But then this reminded me of one of Tiger Woods' principles: constructing the hole. I remember an interview with Tiger in the early 2000s when he said that he could almost hit 150 yards blindfolded with his 9-iron. So, his strategy was to construct the hole backward in such a way that his last shot in regulation would be 150 yards to the pin. Similarly, Federer would almost make sure that the opponent would return to his forehand and leave the cross-court open. I don’t have to say the rest!

Businesses find it difficult to 'construct a point' due to its continuous nature (there are no start-stop events). This is akin to a soccer game which is continuously flowing for the most part. There are few chances to seize the opportunity to construct the point through set pieces like free kicks and corners. Businesses need to be able to find set pieces to execute. Instead, constraints arise which lead to heroics (human hole-in-one syndrome) that disrupt the construction of the point. For example, in a supply chain crisis, such as the ones we faced during COVID, it is better to cultivate the relationship than squeeze the last product out of the system. Cultivating the relationship is the set pieces that we must practice and play to win.

I am becoming more of a proponent of a 'compass' rather than a roadmap as we always find roadblocks and knowing where to go at that impasse is key. Business should combine 'set pieces' with a dynamic environment (albeit sometimes incomplete information) and 'make a call.'

Finally, to address my curiosity about the athletes and their personalities, I posed a prompt to Google Gemini. Here is a short list of tennis players (I am sure this will vary with other sports, especially team sports) and their inferred Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) traits based on public statements:

It is no coincidence that Introvert-Thinking shows up among these players (albeit this is derived from public statements that they have made). This tells me that sports players, who reach the pinnacle, clearly are fact-focused, non-judgmental, have a lot of trust in the process, and make choices accordingly. Imagine if we had MBTI indicators for businesses! What do you think your business' MBTI indicator would be, and why? I look forward to reading your responses!

Editor's Note: I want to thank Mark Curri and Achyuta K. for reviewing this article and suggesting some valuable feedback.