The Winning Trap

“How many people in this room have a passion for winning?”

She guessed the members of this small group of mid-level managers were supposed to feel honored to be given the opportunity to sit at a conference table with two of the company’s top executives. And this is how one of those execs started the meeting.

“Winning?” she thought, “With all the exciting things we’re trying to do in this company and all the challenges we’re facing, he starts by demanding a loyalty oath to — winning? A passion for customers maybe, or for the challenges they face, products we sell, or even for the sales process itself. But a passion for winning?

The other people at the table put their hands up meekly, like they knew that was the right answer and were eager to curry favor with the big boys. She too felt the pull of that persistent desire to go along but, for some reason, she kept her hand down. And when they called her on it, she said: “I care about customers and have a passion for bringing our products and services to help solve their problems. If we can do that well enough, we’ll be successful, no matter what competitors are doing.”

It was clear they didn’t like her answer. And so, the rest of that particular day was a rough one for her.

It’s an unfortunate fact of modern business that much of what is regarded as a “positive mental attitude” can better be described as an obsession with winning. And an obsession — any obsession — is a bad thing to have in business because it takes your eye off what’s really important — serving customers, growing your company and taking care of the people who work there.

Most people would agree you can’t do your best work if you’re under the influence of drugs or alcohol. But it’s equally true if you show up “obsessed.”

Getting things done in an organization requires you to spend most of your time being very aware of the changing reality in front of you and adjusting your actions accordingly. You can’t afford to be so focused on any one thing — especially winning — that you miss noticing that the game you thought you were playing — and trying so hard to beat someone else at — may be long over, and you may already be in the middle of another one with different goals and rules!

How did we get started being hung-up on this business of winning in the first place? There are some aspects to the pursuit of winning that are attractive and compelling on their face:

• To triumph over an obstacle. It’s always a boost to the ego to overcome an obstacle, a challenge.
• To defeat an adversary. Even more euphoric can be the feeling you get when that obstacle you’re overcoming is another living, breathing human being you see as an adversary.
• To belong to a group known as “winners.” It may have started with what Maslow describes as a basic need for affiliation. Apparently each of us yearns to be part of a group and accepted by that group. If that theory holds, it’s easy to see how we can move from that desire to saying “my group is better than your group.” Then another step gets us to “and we can prove it by beating you and making you guys the losers.”

What are the consequences of an obsession with winning?

• Distracts you from focusing on the customer.
• Makes it more about you than about the company and its customers.
• Dampens the collaborative process by isolating you from co-workers and pitting them against you and each other.
• Forces you to waste valuable company time worrying about winding up a “loser.”
• Shuts down the true creative spirit in favor of short-cuts, work-arounds and “hacks.”
• Causes you to perceive the environment as a dichotomy of winning and losing, dulling your sensitivity to the subtleties of the real world with its complex forces, effects and results.

Tom was pretty depressed when his boss told him he was not among those chosen for the “management track,” who would be given very important assignments and observed carefully for promotion and even more important roles. He felt branded as a loser and sadly admitted he was almost relieved that he wouldn’t be worried anymore about being considered for any promotions. Now he could “just go in and put in his eight hours” without feeling the pressure to perform.

Wrong answer! I told him this could be his Golden Moment if he wanted it to be — the time for him to really get in gear and do something good. He should use his new-found “anonymity” and “outsider” status to his advantage, connect with some other smart people similarly sidelined from the main stage, and work the back-channel resources of the company to do something really exciting!

As long as any one of us puts winning — to vindicate himself, defeat an adversary or gain admission to a group of winners — as top priority, it will always get in the way of doing what really needs to be done for the good of the whole company and, even more importantly, your customers and employees.

We’ve got to try hard every day to resist letting primitive temptations of winning — of overcoming something or someone, or of proving we belong — distract us from thinking and doing new productive things.