Doing what it takes to Play to Win vs. Playing Not to Lose.
I wanted to touch on this and had written a wonderful post and somehow I erased it. Such as life. So we will start over and see where we will go.
As I recall I was talking about playing to win when it comes to anything you do. I was using my favorite pass time Water Polo as my example.
About two weeks ago. I was watching my daughter at the state water polo tournament. I was observing the coaches as many of them are dear friends and former opponents from when I played and coached. I was in particular watching the coaching style of her coach. The opening round game went as I figured it would. They won by a healthy margin. Took the necessary risks and made sure all of the starters got adequate rest during the game. This gave me great hope that they may actually bring home a championship.
Then game two started. This was a team we had faced and badly beaten twice earlier this season. As the game progressed I noticed something peculiar happening. The coach quit substituting players. This he had not done all year long. As the game wore on we were up four goal with a few minutes left and still no subs. Four goals is like a twenty point lead in basketball. Knowing that we had another game in under twelve hours. I was stunned that he was not going to rotate these girls out.
Game three Saturday morning. The first quarter goes well. But by the second quarter I began to see the signs of playing not to lose instead of playing to win. Our starters were wearing out. easy outside shots now fell short or right into the goalies hands. Yet the strategy never changed. Beat them down with the starters. As you may of guessed it we lost. We lost ugly. After I calmed down from the initial shock and pain for the team. I realized that the reason they had lost was a simple change of philosophy. Instead of following his usual rotation and doing what worked to gain their number one seed in the tourney. The coach instead decided to play not to lose.
In business you must do the same. Here are three good suggestions.
1. Putting off following up on a prospect. This is a simple mind trick of procrastination that almost always leads to disaster. Your prospect is HOT the first 24-48 hours. After that your odds plum it. Soon instead of following up on a sales call you are chasing them down. Or worse yet someone else got to them while you were thinking about calling them.
2. Game planing. Have a plan everyday for what is going to transpire. Don’t leave your days schedule to chance. This can be disastrous.
3. Know your goals and make sure your game plan matches them. If you are not moving forward you are moving backward. Your game plan and schedule must match what your goals are and move you toward them.
As business people we do this all of the time when we let things slide until tomorrow.
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