Fearing the Results

The primary obstacle we must overcome in competitive situations that may drive us to make incorrect decisions is emotion, the feelings that we predict will be felt as a result of the decision and the lack of certainty associated when making these types of decisions. The emotions I’m referring to are not those associated with ethics or the value of possible results, those should be central in the decision making process. These possible defective decisions are based in fear, fear of the unknown, of failing, and even of success. A problem that many individuals and organizations encounter is becoming complacent; failing to evolve and improve their competitive strategies once they reach a goal, whether it is as small as earning a degree or as large as becoming the leader of an industry. This complacency is based in these fears.

Being afraid of the unknown is nothing that can’t be overcame by a simple logical anecdote, “If something is unknown then how can you be afraid it?” There is no need for the fear of something you have no control over, market variances no one has control over, such as fuel prices. But this fear can be nullified by doing your due diligence and budgeting for possible fluctuations. The unknown can also include the unpredictable actions of your competitors, strategic moves that operate out of your planning and attack your competitive advantages. Responding to actions such as these requires fundamental planning actions on your part, doing your homework and budgeting for the unknown. While, of the fears I am describing this is the one we have the least control over, that does not mean there is nothing we can do about it. Once again, stressing the primary aspects of my competitive philosophy, preparation is the primary key to setting goals and objectives and developing competitive advantages, along with eliminating variance.

“I would have failed anyway,” is the anthem of unconfident inaction and is born in what I find to be the most common of these fears, the fear of failure. Many people are so scared trying and failing they do not even try to begin a course of action. Failure is frustrating, disheartening, and often seen as a sign and result of weakness. The problem with this is they do not realize the value of failure, the knowledge gained from putting yourself on the line and not reaching the goals you set out to achieve. Learning from mistakes, so that you both do not repeat them and then use that situation as an analog that can be applied to future situations is a trait that should be valued much higher than that of a flawless record. In other words this is evolution verses complacency. A large difference exists between failing incorrectly, not learning from that failure, and giving up and learning from your failure and using that new knowledge to create value. The fundamental involved here is confidence, the belief in your own ability to make the correct decisions and deal with their consequences. By having confidence you put yourself in a greater position to succeed and begin to eliminate the fear of not reaching your goals.

The final fear associated with the outcome of potential decisions is the fear of actually succeeding; reaching your goals and not knowing what to do once you get there. This is a common problem for even those who have confidence in their decision making abilities and, once again, leads to complacency and lack of evolution. By being afraid of what lies beyond your goals you can sabotage your ability to not only reach your current goals but also respond to the strategic actions of your competitors. The unknown plays a large role in the foundation of this fear, but by performing the proper due diligence you can examine what is on the other side of your goals and begin to plan your next strategic actions long before you reach them, reducing the stress involved as your success increases. Primarily, the objective of this action is eliminating the question of what to do next.

A current example I see of fear and complacency tearing an organization to near failure is Blockbuster Video, an organization that has spent more than the last year downsizing to minimize losses and trying to stay afloat. Granted the economy over the last few years hasn’t helped any entertainment based organizations, but their current woes began over a decade ago after they became the largest movie rental outfit in the industry. Once Blockbuster had reached its goal of being the industry leader they became complacent with their position and began to stop evolving, an action normally based in both the fear of failure and arrogance. A company that large, employing and owning a large number of assets, will stick to their competitive advantages. However, by holding onto what they do well so tightly they lose sight of what may be on the horizon. On Blockbuster’s horizon was a startup that was the first mover into the national web-based mail order section of the movie rental industry.

Not only can we be held back by what we don’t know, but potentially also by that which we know the best. By doing the proper preparation and having confidence in our own decision making abilities we take the first step to eliminating the fears that threaten to distract from and defeat the goals we set out to complete. Defeating these fears is the foundation to not only creating value but also evolving our resources up the competitive chain into the advantages that result in true success.

Friendship and Opportunity

The basic idea behind everything written here is the goal of each action we take in our lives is moving ourselves toward an objective. In order to do this we must manage our resources in an effective manner to ensure both efficiency and acceptable results. Because of this each person we meet should be considered as an opportunity to create potential future value. This shouldn’t be new to anyone who doesn’t live their entire life in a basement; we collect and manage friendships throughout our lives, whether consciously or subconsciously, for the stability, entertainment, and ability to help us succeed. All of these represent their value to us.

This can be seen as an over thinking of those we choose to keep close, but for the basis of this principle and through the evolution of my competitive philosophy I have found the best way to view everything in our lives as strategic resources, people included. Each new person we meet requires a snap judgment to determine their potential expected value. When we are growing up in school we do this to everyone in the classroom and on the playground; who can help me understand what the teacher is saying better and who presents the best value to my dodge ball team? With this in mind, the engineer we know through a mutual friend or the entrepreneur we meet at a dinner party are no different, the value they present can directly influence how we cultivate our relationship with that person.

Looking at people this way can be seen as negative or even controlling, but I would argue this is no different than how anyone views the people in their life. Friends and spouses help us make tough decisions in our lives, possibly even influencing how we make those decisions and their desired outcomes. They help us get through our failures and celebrate our successes. We keep these people close to us because this is what these relationships offer, value.

When I discuss snap judgments I refer to more than just the first impression we get from meeting someone, evaluating someone on not just their potential value and the quality of that value, but where they can offer value in our lives. This is where I choose to make an important distinction between how I feel we should value different groups of friends in our lives. Those kept closest, the ones we share our secrets and values with should generally be eliminated from viewing their value to furthering your career, mixing these resources with money and competitive gain will likely end in a negative way. The strength of these relationships can directly influence our ability to create and cultivate strategic relationships and should be seen as a base on which other resources can be developed.

Just like any other resource in business the friendships we create can be developed into core competencies and even competitive advantages. If you look at University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari’s relationship with NBA player Lebron James, you see a professional relationship that has become a competitive advantage for the coach. Their relationship began when Calipari tried to recruit James to play for him at Memphis, even though it was widely believed James would forego his collegiate career and turn pro right out of high school (which he did). However, this seemingly trivial beginning has turned into a competitive advantage for each of them over the past year since Calipari took the Kentucky job. James’ appearance at a recent home game helped elevate the national visibility of a UK program that had fallen out of the annual NCAA picture over the last few years and put a face other than the coach’s on the program. This appearance also served as a marketing event for the launch of James’ logo to appear on the shoes and uniforms for the Wildcats. For Calipari this appearance also gained more visibility on the national scale by aligning himself with a genuine global celebrity, giving him a greater ability to market himself and his products in the future.

While the example of a relationship between two highly visible sports figures being used to further the careers of the parties involved may be a corner case, by analyzing what seemed like a trivial recruiting attempt we see what turned into a marketing competitive advantage to ensure their relevance for years to come. When we encounter an opportunity such as this in lives, what will usually be on a much lower scale, we use that snap judgment to try to foresee the value it can offer us to reach our objectives and achieve our goals.

The final resource I will discuss is the relationship we cultivate for its career value that develops into a close friendship. These are the mentors we learn the most from and the associates we come to count on the most when making the decisions that greatest affect our ability to reach our goals. These are the resources that become competitive advantages as we develop our professional relationships and offer the highest expected value. By developing these kinds of resources, and consciously looking at those around us as potential ways to advance the value of each party involved, you can forge competitive strategies that give you a serious edge over your competition. That is why we compete, and having people around us to share our achievements make that competition more satisfying and even fun.

The Herm Edwards Principle

When I decided to re-launch this site through a different host using a real web address, one topic stood out above others to use as the first true article. The ideas behind all competitive theory and doing well at even mundane everyday tasks is based on one thing, winning. Former New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards summarized the idea of quality performance and “playing the game” best in a post-game press conference that has become one of ESPN’s top sound bites and consequently repeated ad nauseam. “We play to win the game” is a phrase that forms the primary principle of my competitive philosophy. It is the reason to perform at your highest ability at all times, making the most correct decision with the information presented to you. It forms the base on which I build concepts of preparation, confidence, quality, and decision opportunities.

I have encountered many people who have seen this as very cut-throat when I explain my competitive philosophy, especially when they either don’t see the significance of making a minor decision that can have a negative immediate effect or a decision opportunity occurs in a situation with a negligible competitive level. The ethics involved with these kinds of situations, as well as dealing with decisions regarding partnerships and the general public will be covered in a future article because of the amount of material I would need to explain every aspect of the decision processes used there. This article will instead focus on the offensive attributes of “playing to win the game.”

Preparation

In order to perform at a level high enough to expect to win a game you must first do your homework regarding potential competitors. This process involves looking at the strengths and weaknesses of your competition and how you can exploit them using your own strengths. Take knowledge you have gained from past experiences and apply it to possible scenarios involving competition. If you prepare a mental plan for the actions of competitors you will not face nearly as much anxiety and your decision process time will be much shorter than if you were just reacting directly to their actions. Doing this also allows you to react in a manner that is more than just survival, it creates the opportunity to counter their action with one targeted at their weaknesses.

Just as important as being prepared mentally is physical preparation. Having a mind that is capable of making sound decisions requires ensuring you’re not physically fatigued. These measures include getting quality amounts of sleep, food, and exercise leading into the time when you must perform. Quality sleep is by far the most important of these, waking up tired will wear on the mind the entire day and increase the time your mind takes to make decisions or reach a peak of possible activity. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” is a cliché that actually rings true when competing at a level that will require you make stressful decisions over a period of time. Sufficient rest and a nutritious breakfast allow you to begin the day with the energy to perform from the start as well as reach and maintain a mental peak for several hours. Preparing your body also includes a daily amount of exercise that builds your mental stamina. This can be as simple as walking for 30 minutes a day or developing a workout plan that fits into your schedule. Time committed to this should not interfere with any other activities as you should clear your mind and use it to relieve stress.

Confidence

Everything discussed here will push importance of believing in your ability to make decisions, perform tasks, and achieve goals. If you do not think that you can do what is needed reach your final objective, “winning the game,” you not only lower your chances of completing your current task, but you reduce your ability to perform others. Introducing doubt into your decision making process makes you hesitate when making decisions that can result in higher rewards, making such a result unattainable. The stress involved in closing a deal worth millions of dollars is much greater than what you will experience in one with a much lower amount, but if you don’t believe you can close on the smaller amount then you will never attain the larger.

Believing in your own abilities and having the confidence to defeat your competition should never be confused as being cocky. There is nothing wrong with thinking the decisions you are capable of making are better than those of your competitors, but you must be aware they too possess the ability to make decisions just as focused and prepared as your own. However, thinking there is nothing you can learn from competitors or that your resources and capabilities are unable to be imitated is a level of overconfidence that is the definition of incompetence.

Quality

As is applies to this principle quality refers to the effects of decisions you make to achieve your goals. Gaining the desired effect of a decision builds on your ability to do the proper preparation and make the best possible decision regarding current and future decisions. Experience plays an important role here; seeing first hand what good decision making can do and experiencing first hand the results of top quality decision making allows you to develop better standards for your own decisions, objectives, and goals. Being able to push quality into your work will dissolve many issues that result in bad decision making and unacceptable results. Of course each person’s quality standards are different, they reflect the capabilities and experiences of an individual, but if the game you are playing affects a number of people or deals regarding large amounts of resources then you have the responsibility to hold yourself to a higher standard than the mediocrity of “just good enough.”

A mistake often made at this point is leaving well enough alone and being satisfied with your results once you have implemented quality standards to your decision making process. Once a standard is set it becomes obsolete due to the constant evolution of the environment you conduct your business in. Because of this your quality standards must also be constantly adapted to your current situation, taking into account your everyday experiences, from the complexities of a strenuous business meeting to a simple item such as what you read in the newspaper everyday. By keeping the guidelines you use to measure your decisions consistently up to date your standards for quality never become outdated or obsolete. This also covers your everyday mental exercises, allowing your mind to work at a high level while slowly building your capacity and endurance, adding very little stress to your mental process.

Decision Opportunities

Every time you encounter a situation with more than one possible outcome you are faced with a decision opportunity where you can apply your experience and attain the best outcome for you and your company. Each opportunity should be analyzed in earnest to determine the sequence of decisions that will result in the greatest gains. The best way I have discovered to achieve this is through statistical thinking. Statistical thinking is a philosophy of learning and action based on the principles that all work occurs in a system of interconnected processes, variation exists in all processes, and understanding and reducing variation are the keys to success. More than just applying statistical methods, statistical thinking focuses on understanding and reducing variation, not simply quantifying it.

Humans, however, are beings of emotions, things that are often completely opposite of reasoned thought, and therefore must be taken into account when you encounter a decision opportunity. That is not to say that statistical thinking cannot be employed when dealing with humans, quite the opposite. This approach is centered on reducing risk, or the probability a decision made will result in failing to achieve an objective or goal. Variance can never be completely eliminated, but by looking at and planning for each probable possibility surrounding a decision opportunity you can reduce it to an amount that should not affect the outcome of your decision.

When Herm Edwards spoke those words in 2002 after a loss to the Cleveland Browns, their purpose was to ignite a fire in his team who had achieved victory only twice in seven games. After he explained what some would say is the obvious the Jets went on win nine of their remaining games and the AFC East division crown. This article and website is intended to have the same purpose, to give you, my readers, the inspiration to not only better yourself in your ability to compete in an environment that becomes more hostile everyday, but to also ignite that fire. By this I mean your wanting to be challenged and shake up the establishment with your ideas, to achieve your greatest potential through competition in what ever industry you chose, and pass that fire on to someone else so they too can gain a competitive advantage.

Concentration: Words From Coach Bobby Knight

This is a repost from the old blog that was written in May 2008.

During a recent stay at ESPN, former Indiana and Texas A&M coach Bobby Knight repeatedly emphasized what he feels is perhaps the most important trait of a successful team. Talent of coarse plays a factor, as does coaching, but the primary factor he talked about for nearly the entire NCAA tournament was concentration. You can attribute many of the results during the tournament to one team just being more focused on what they had to do than their opponent; whether it was the upsets that resulted in the two 12-13 matches in the second round, Davidson’s upset of Georgetown, or even Memphis’ collapse at the end of regulation that allowed Kansas to walk away with the title. If you watched any of these games you could see the lack of concentration in the teams that lost, and while each of them were upsets when you look at the betting odds, the teams that won were certainly mentally tougher.

Now, the point of all this is not to break down college basketball games that happened nearly two months ago. What I am here to do is take the theory behind Coach Knight’s “concentration” and translate it to real world applications. There are several aspects to this one topic, each beginning independent of the other but translating into a concept that interweaves each of them, including focus, sight and sound, losing, and execution.

Focus

The first concept is focus, which is what begins the process of concentration. Focus allows you to turn your attention to a singular part of a task or goal and incorporate it into your overall thought process. If proper attention is not given to the important details of what you are doing then you can find yourself in a bad situation where you have to do a lot more work than if you had given it the proper respect. When translated to the business world, focus means you are not looking ahead to the next task assuming the outcome of the current one no matter how trivial it seems. If you are trying to piece together a deal involving large sums of money, there are certain steps you have to take to get it done. Not paying the proper amount of attention to one of them, or even skipping one, can result in the loss of funds to penalties, government sanctions, or even the complete loss of the deal.

Focus can also be applied to the entire process that allows you to achieve your set goal. More than just giving each task the attention it needs, you also have be focused on the broader goal that you are working toward, and without doing this you can lose sight of what exactly you are trying to do. This aspect seems like common sense to anyone who has ever done this type of work, but you still often find those who lose focus and become sidetracked by something, whether it is money, fame, or other rewards. In my experience the primary focus killer is the ability to reach something through means that are less than conscionable, also called shortcuts. These shortcuts can be intentionally overlooking someone’s mistake, not giving a task the attention and time needed to do it properly, or doing something outright illegal.

Sight and Sound

The ability to see and listen to what you and others around you are doing is imperative when applying concentration to a goal. Coach Knight talks about the difference between looking and seeing and hearing and listening, stating that anyone can look and hear anything, but those with concentration have the ability to see and listen. Seeing what you are looking at is very different than simply looking at what is in front of you, the biggest difference being that you understand what is there. You can look at a math problem for hours on end and not see what it is telling you to do, what method you should use to solve it. It is through the ability to understand what you are seeing that a person can choose the best course of action to achieve a goal. This is a very broad concept that can be applied to everything a person does, whether it is something as simple as driving to work or solving a complex, multivariable equation.

Very similar, hearing and listening are also two very different concepts. Everyone has the ability to hear, but it is through listening that we gain the ability to understand what we are being told. It is impossible to learn anything without good listening skills, and by that I don’t just mean making sense of the sounds your ears pick up. Even when you are reading a book you are hearing what the words on the page are telling you, but it is only if you listen to those words will you understand what is being said.

While the example I used with sight is based in mathematics, everything a person does during the day can be seen as a glorified algebraic problem, from putting on clothes to writing a paper. There are many different actions involved each decision we make, each with their own, independent outcomes. It is the desired outcome that tells us which direction to go and the only way to detect is by seeing the correct route and listening to what is telling us to take it. Back the math example, when you are solving an equation the elements of that equation tell you the correct way to solve it. By just looking at the problem and hearing what it is telling you there is no way to understand what is going on because you are not applying the proper focus to what is being said. However, if you see what is written and listen to what is being said then you will understand what to do.

It is through the focus that I discussed earlier that a person is able to properly understand how to carry out a task or achieve a goal, but without the proper senses it is impossible to reasonably expect to achieve what you are working toward.

Losing

There are many clichés involving the building of character, through losing or not knowing how sweet victory is without having tasted defeat, but beyond those there is a true trait of concentration revealed when you fail to reach a goal. This trait involves understanding of what kept you from reaching your goal and how to keep from repeating your mistake. This trait is the polar opposite of losing, winning. Winning is what the completion of each goal we set can be translated to, and the only way that we can insure winning is by understanding what it is that makes us lose. Coach Knight talks about everyone wanting to win, but he is also a great believer in understanding losing, “because if we know how we can lose, if we know those factors or reasons that cause us to lose, and we eliminate those things, we stand a much better chance of winning.” These words ring true to anyone who has achieved a goal they have set for themselves.

It should go without saying that in the short term it is possible to make incorrect moves and still be able to achieve a goal. Winning this way does not allow you learn anything except the wrong way to win and over the long term will cause you to lose in much greater frequency than winning. It is possible to learn while winning but you have to pay close attention to everything you do and correct your incorrect decisions while making others, but doing this correctly and in a way that keeps you from losing is very difficult to do. The time when you can learn the most is when you lose. I’m not saying that losing is a good thing, it never is, but learning from losses is sometimes much more important that winning. As Coach Knight stated it is through losing that we are able to understand what made us lose and by doing so we can eliminate that factor from the process that allows us to achieve our goals. More over, understanding why a particular decision is wrong allows us to have a base for making similar decisions in the future, creating a shorter response time and decisions that we can be more confidant about.

Combining this with the other concepts of concentration allows us understand what our losses have to do with our wins.

Execution

Concentration is perhaps the most important aspect of a successful person, allowing them to know what it is they have to do, apply the focus and understanding needed to achieve their goals, and have the foresight to make the correct decisions that make up the process of being a winner. The hardest part of implementing true concentration is understanding that it is more than focusing on what you need to do in order to achieve your goals, concentration is a method of achieving a competitive advantage on your opponents. Concentration involves reacting to what they do and taking action to counter them, whether it is making a better offer on a deal than a competing firm or getting enough sleep and eating a proper breakfast before you go into your arena. Concentration is not losing sight on what actually matters in the big picture, working towards goals that stand up over the long term, understanding what is being presented to you, and how to learn from you mistakes.