In football the goal is to cross the goal line more often than the other team. In basketball it is to get the ball in the basket more than your opponents. In track, ski, and auto racing it is to cross the finish line before the others. These are easy concepts to understand. To win, one must design strategy that takes advantage of your strengths, to eliminate or reduce your weaknesses, inspire yourself and teammates, build physical endurance and speed, then hone your skills and practice until you are unbeatable. At least the theory is simple and if Abner Doubleday were to come back and watch a baseball game he would recognize it as basically the same as the game he invented over one hundred years ago. On the other hand, in business, the goals are often like attempting to manage fog – hazy or often not well defined. The opposing teams are not equal in size and assets; your competition may be so large they act like a steamroller crushing anything that gets in its way or so small that they are virtually invisible until they blindside you. The strategies you employ to motivate and train all the players are fraught with difficulties because of language difficulties, educational differences, conflicting agendas, gender issues, and more. The rules keep changing as the marketplace, interest rates, style preferences, and the geography changes. If Alexander Bell were to reappear he would be amazed and dumbfounded by the global communications network we use in the course of our everyday existence. To succeed in business it takes the skills, motivation and focus of a championship athlete, and a flexible mindset in order to overcome the perils that appear from far outside the normal playing field. Today we are all dealing with rapid changes in our global economy over which we have little or no control. Cartoons published in a European newspaper affect the price of gasoline used to power a teenager’s small lawn mowing business. Yet with all this to deal with there are countless opportunities if we bring both athletic and business skills to work every morning. |
