Playing To Win
Thursday, April 16, 2009
I feel very blessed in our current economic environment, don’t you? No, seriously, I feel blessed because, like many of you, I have lived long enough to know that although we are living through what I term, “business unusual”, it does not necessarily follow that these are end times.
I feel blessed to have lived through the 1970’s with our blocks-long lines to fuel our cars, fuel oil shortages, and department stores with lighting so reduced I could not tell a green pair of socks from a black pair.
I feel blessed to have lived through the early 1980’s with a national economy that many perceived was “teetering on the brink” with double digit interest rates and both unemployment and inflation that was measured in the high teens.
Through the late 80’s I was blessed to live in a region of the country where bank failures became as common place as sunrise. Where entire fortunes were wiped out weekly, not by Ponzi schemes or other frauds, but by business owners like you and I having to justify loans to the FDIC and bank examiners rather than the local bank officer with whom we had dealt for years.
Then, those of us who had the tenacity, or maybe it was the temerity, to make it through the 1990’s arrived at the new millennium only to find that economics was becoming geopolitical in ways that most of us had not foreseen. The events of 9-11-2001 and those that have ensued have changed our world in ways few people would have predicted.
So here we are as a nation in 2009, still trying to hit stride in dealing with our global political, ideological, and military challenges and we have a global economic meltdown to add to the equation.
Someone once said that the only thing that never changes is that things will always change. Has our collective experience of the past forty or so years equipped us to deal with these changes? I would posit that they have and that it is incumbent on those of us who are perceived as leaders by our employees, clients, and neighbors to keep some perspective about what many see as the collapse of our world.
In 1997, I was blessed to have a senior level banking executive as a client. The gentleman had inherited a portfolio loaded to overflowing with challenges. To compound matters, he had taken the helm at a time when his bank’s brand had begun to be perceived as an “also ran”.
When I first started working with my banker client, I did not know whether he had been exceptionally courageous or extraordinarily stupid in signing on to lead this particular bank at this moment in time. Both of us had a professional reputation at stake in the correct answer to that question.
Our first meeting did nothing to clear up my doubts. Based on that meeting, it was my perception that the gentleman lacked the polish and skills necessary to steer the helm of a larger, regional bank; much less, one that was already headed for the rocks. My immediate instinct was to cut-and-run in order to not be connected with what appeared to be an inevitable train wreck.
Something different about this individual’s approach to problems made me have a change of heart and eventually taught me a great deal about handling adversity: He had the ability to see things about situations that others had missed entirely because they were so overwhelmed by the negatives. Instead of acknowledging the complexity of the several problems he had inherited, he would elevate the periscope of his mind’s eye and look beyond the immediate problems to the future potential that lay on the other side of the immediate adversity.
Leaders can benefit from this approach to adversity. And, if we benefit, we can help those around us and who depend upon us to benefit also.
To do this we have to know our purpose, stay focused on our vision, and continuously adjust, adapt, and fine tune our goals. Like a winning race car driver, we must begin with the end we want firmly fixed in our mind. Nothing that happens as we lap the track can be allowed to change our vision, our purpose for being in the race, or the end that we are in the race to achieve.
If we are not careful to keep our perspective, and by doing so to keep ourselves on track, we will find ourselves being sucked into the downward spiral of sound bites that some call news. We can allow ourselves to forget our seasoning and to begin to think that human nature has somehow changed and that things really are worse by spades than ever before.
Since 9-11-2001, I have observed a phenomenon among my own clients, a separation of sheep and goats so to speak. One group seems to have a clear “play to win” mentality while their counterparts appears to view decision making from a “play not to lose” perspective.
The first group tends to respond to adversity by fighting harder to win; the second group has to have help to see the necessity of fighting their natural inclination to tread water and in so doing to lose market share and viability in their marketplace. As a professional business coach and sales trainer, it has been my observation that through all of our past periods of economic challenge it is the leaders typified by the first group’s attributes that emerges on the other side of the adversity stronger and ready to prosper. The leaders with the “play not to lose” approach to challenging economies and business conditions tend to take years to recover from a setback if they emerge on the other side at all.
Let’s help each other keep some perspective. Let’s remember that it is OK to allow ourselves to be honest about our insecurities – we all have them. Even leaders are human. As leaders we have an absolute duty though to rise above those self-doubts and to see the opportunities that hold out the promise of tomorrow. We can be a critical part of the solution for ourselves, our companies, and our personnel, but only if we live up to our responsibility as leaders.
So, as we formulate our response to “business unusual”, let’s remember that we are not only leaders, but American leaders. As such, it should be part of our DNA to overcome adversity and to emerge stronger for the experience. This is our watch. We alone will be judged by our response to the challenges. Approach each day with the clarity of purpose that comes from having a well defined vision and a flexible game plan to reach our goals.
Paul Lushin
President, Lushin & Associates, Inc.
www.lushin.com
at 1:55 PM Link to this Article 0 Comments
Comments:
I feel blessed to have lived through the 1970’s with our blocks-long lines to fuel our cars, fuel oil shortages, and department stores with lighting so reduced I could not tell a green pair of socks from a black pair.
I feel blessed to have lived through the early 1980’s with a national economy that many perceived was “teetering on the brink” with double digit interest rates and both unemployment and inflation that was measured in the high teens.
Through the late 80’s I was blessed to live in a region of the country where bank failures became as common place as sunrise. Where entire fortunes were wiped out weekly, not by Ponzi schemes or other frauds, but by business owners like you and I having to justify loans to the FDIC and bank examiners rather than the local bank officer with whom we had dealt for years.
Then, those of us who had the tenacity, or maybe it was the temerity, to make it through the 1990’s arrived at the new millennium only to find that economics was becoming geopolitical in ways that most of us had not foreseen. The events of 9-11-2001 and those that have ensued have changed our world in ways few people would have predicted.
So here we are as a nation in 2009, still trying to hit stride in dealing with our global political, ideological, and military challenges and we have a global economic meltdown to add to the equation.
Someone once said that the only thing that never changes is that things will always change. Has our collective experience of the past forty or so years equipped us to deal with these changes? I would posit that they have and that it is incumbent on those of us who are perceived as leaders by our employees, clients, and neighbors to keep some perspective about what many see as the collapse of our world.
In 1997, I was blessed to have a senior level banking executive as a client. The gentleman had inherited a portfolio loaded to overflowing with challenges. To compound matters, he had taken the helm at a time when his bank’s brand had begun to be perceived as an “also ran”.
When I first started working with my banker client, I did not know whether he had been exceptionally courageous or extraordinarily stupid in signing on to lead this particular bank at this moment in time. Both of us had a professional reputation at stake in the correct answer to that question.
Our first meeting did nothing to clear up my doubts. Based on that meeting, it was my perception that the gentleman lacked the polish and skills necessary to steer the helm of a larger, regional bank; much less, one that was already headed for the rocks. My immediate instinct was to cut-and-run in order to not be connected with what appeared to be an inevitable train wreck.
Something different about this individual’s approach to problems made me have a change of heart and eventually taught me a great deal about handling adversity: He had the ability to see things about situations that others had missed entirely because they were so overwhelmed by the negatives. Instead of acknowledging the complexity of the several problems he had inherited, he would elevate the periscope of his mind’s eye and look beyond the immediate problems to the future potential that lay on the other side of the immediate adversity.
Leaders can benefit from this approach to adversity. And, if we benefit, we can help those around us and who depend upon us to benefit also.
To do this we have to know our purpose, stay focused on our vision, and continuously adjust, adapt, and fine tune our goals. Like a winning race car driver, we must begin with the end we want firmly fixed in our mind. Nothing that happens as we lap the track can be allowed to change our vision, our purpose for being in the race, or the end that we are in the race to achieve.
If we are not careful to keep our perspective, and by doing so to keep ourselves on track, we will find ourselves being sucked into the downward spiral of sound bites that some call news. We can allow ourselves to forget our seasoning and to begin to think that human nature has somehow changed and that things really are worse by spades than ever before.
Since 9-11-2001, I have observed a phenomenon among my own clients, a separation of sheep and goats so to speak. One group seems to have a clear “play to win” mentality while their counterparts appears to view decision making from a “play not to lose” perspective.
The first group tends to respond to adversity by fighting harder to win; the second group has to have help to see the necessity of fighting their natural inclination to tread water and in so doing to lose market share and viability in their marketplace. As a professional business coach and sales trainer, it has been my observation that through all of our past periods of economic challenge it is the leaders typified by the first group’s attributes that emerges on the other side of the adversity stronger and ready to prosper. The leaders with the “play not to lose” approach to challenging economies and business conditions tend to take years to recover from a setback if they emerge on the other side at all.
Let’s help each other keep some perspective. Let’s remember that it is OK to allow ourselves to be honest about our insecurities – we all have them. Even leaders are human. As leaders we have an absolute duty though to rise above those self-doubts and to see the opportunities that hold out the promise of tomorrow. We can be a critical part of the solution for ourselves, our companies, and our personnel, but only if we live up to our responsibility as leaders.
So, as we formulate our response to “business unusual”, let’s remember that we are not only leaders, but American leaders. As such, it should be part of our DNA to overcome adversity and to emerge stronger for the experience. This is our watch. We alone will be judged by our response to the challenges. Approach each day with the clarity of purpose that comes from having a well defined vision and a flexible game plan to reach our goals.
Paul Lushin
President, Lushin & Associates, Inc.
www.lushin.com
at 1:55 PM Link to this Article
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