Vince Lombardi, the legendary and very successful coach of
the Green Bay Packers football (American) team was almost as legendary for his
long list of pithy quotes. One of them
that I like very much is:
“Winning can become a
habit. Unfortunately so can losing”
He could easily have replaced “winning” and “losing”
with “positivity” and “negativity”. Both of them can be catching.
One of the drivers in transactional analysis is the “Be Perfect” drive which can be very
painful simply because perfection as such is unattainable. This driver can make an individual both
frustrated and dissatisfied both of which are pretty unhealthy.
I recall a colleague telling me that when asked how her day
had gone, would reply:
“If I had done
something different, which I thought about after the event, it would have been
much better”.
Her husband, cleverly, would say:
“Before you decide
what didn’t go well, tell me what did go well”
Again, on one occasion I was waiting for one of the members of
my Vistage CEO peer group in a hotel where we were meeting for his monthly
mentoring session. As he came through the door still on his
mobile phone, I could see that he was in some turmoil. He sat down and started to bang on about how
difficult people could be and what a problem he had and etc, etc, etc.
I stopped him, said that what I wanted to hear was what had
gone really well since we had last met and when he had finished telling me
that, then he could tell me about his problems.
After some thought and telling me the good news, I asked
about his difficulties that had seemed almost overwhelming when he came in.
“Oh, nothing of any
significance really” he said.
We had a Vistage speaker from the USA who started the
session by saying that the word “but”
would be banned from the day and if anyone used it then he/she would be stopped
short.
It was quite extraordinary how this seemingly minor
adjustment had such a remarkable effect in keeping the level of positivity
high.
Someone once said to me that if we use “but” then everything said up to then was nullified. Listen to any
conversation and check that one out.
Vistage speaker John Cremer demonstrates it by consciously using “Yes, and…” rather than “Yes, but…” and just watch the change in
body language as a consequence.
One of the primary functions of the leader is to help the
team to make winning a habit, not necessarily in the sporting sense but more in
terms of an attitude of mind – the “can
do” culture.
When a leader (or a customer for that matter) asks for
something unusual the answer should always be “Yes” and then find out how to achieve it afterwards.
Too often we experience that metaphorical intake of breath,
the shaking of the head and the negative response that is always a turn
off. The winning mentality is an
attitude of mind and needs to become a habit in everyone on the team.
It is yet another primary function of the leader to make
sure that the winning habit is ingrained into the team. Vince Lombardi certainly knew how to do just
that.
As a footnote he also said:
“I want you guys to be
fired with enthusiasm and if you aren’t then you will be fired with
enthusiasm”.
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