Article#32: The Winning Way

Do you think that there’s a way to win? Are you aware that the formula for winning remains the same whether you are a sportsman, a musician, a financial planner, a pharmaceutical salesman or a housewife? Well, this article is all about the book, “The Winning Way” written by Anita Bhogle and Harsha Bhogle which says how to win in the dynamic corporate environment. It correlates sports and business considering the common factors like Competitiveness, uncertainty, strategy, execution, leadership and team work. It draws business lessons from sports. The book has expressively and compellingly laid out the 'ground rules' of winning.  

Many teams around the world create a winning cycle for them and keep going along with it. So, how to create a winning cycle? The authors explain that initially we need to create a winning team in which we select the best talent and form a team. Once the team starts winning, it will attract other talented members who are willing to join the team. As there is already an expectation set for the team to the outside world, people try hard to give their best, bring out their talent and join this winning team. Since the talented resources are bigger now, the chances of winning also grows wider. The winning team remains as the winning team now and then. 

It is not only an individual’s effort to be a part of the winning team, even the organizations should also put an effort to ensure that they create the right environment for the talent to flourish. One shouldn’t need to ask a talented, driven member to perform. More often, they just need to make them feel good. When an organization starts being completely goal-centric and forget that it is people who produce results, they struggle.

However, there’s also a chance for the winning cycles to break. There can be members in the team who are given a greater priority due to experience and their earlier performance. But if there is no room for fresh talent, teams can stagnate in performance and in thought. Players need to be challenged all the time, it is what keeps them hungry and excited. When teams dither, hanging on to players because of sentiment or as a reward, they run the risk of getting stuck with a lot of players on the declining side of a product life cycle curve and end up losing a lot of players simultaneously. That is where Australia has been good over the years; nurturing players and backing them to the hilt while, at the same time, recognizing the need to create hungry teams.

On the other hand, teams that win and win consistently, begin acquiring an aura around them. People write about them, opponents read that and watch in awe and when the time comes to compete, their rivals lack the self-belief so vital to a good contest. Losing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is one of the great truths in sport and that is why a lot of matches are won and lost before the match begins.

The book can be divided into two parts, individual skills and people skills.  

 3 things that come under Individual skills are: 

Setting up goals 
3 things for winning 
learning from winning and losing 

People things are: 

Team building 
Leadership 
Importance of changing constantly 

Goals are dreams with deadlines. We need to keep our goals big. Goals should be performance based, not the result based. Saina Nehwal is the perfect example for performance-based goals.  She gives her 100% on improving game and fitness with which everything else follows.  

Without right attitude, talent is a waste. To keep continuously winning, we need to use our talent with right attitude in the area where your passion lies. Talent, attitude and passion are the three important things required for winning.  

Many people get depressed or upset with losing, but never realize that it’s just a part of the game. In fact, we need to learn from the failure and take action steps from it. Remember, it’s not important how badly you fell down, what counts is how fast you can get up and be back with a bang. At the same time, you should also learn from the victories.  

For team building, we require team work. The authors feel that Indian cricketers are selfish because they play for personal milestones. A person playing for his personal goals is not a team player. One has to put ‘We’ in place of ‘me’ in order to be a good team player. To whatever extent a person is talented, if he doesn’t have the capability of doing a team work, it’s better that he is not in the team because team’s goals come first, not the individual goals.  

A leader’s job is not only to create team work, but also to understand each member of the team and bring out the best in them. We all know that Ganguly empowers young players like Harbhajan singh, yuvraj singh and Irfan pathan. When Pathan was very nervous in his first match, Ganguly convinced him that he has strong belief in Pathan. That’s what differentiates a leader from a team member, the vision and ability to look beyond what others can see. 

During 1928-1956, Indian hockey team remained unbeatable in Olympics with 6 continuous gold medals in a row. But in 2008, India failed to even qualify for Olympics. Many reasons were responsible for the downfall. However, the main reason remains the refusal for change. The game that was played 50 years ago is not the same today. Earlier, it was played on grass, but then came a startled surface. Techniques required to play on both the surfaces are different. Hence, the primary reason here is the refusal to change. Change is constant and never ending. It is important for a team member or a leader to change as per the circumstances. Alwin Toffler was great in saying “The illiterate of 21^st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.  

On the whole, the book inspires anyone to win in any area of their interest. I would suggest go through it and you’ll get an amazing experience. Happy reading, happy learning.