3 Rules to Create Your Own Discipline of Winning:
How to Spark a New Culture of Commitment in Your Organization

"Everyone loves to win."  That's what one business owner recently told me when referring to the investment she was making in her business.  Results were being produced, her vision was being realized and her team was energized. They were winning!

If you are a regular to our site, you may already know that winning is one of our core values. Transforming winning from a core value into a living discipline, however, requires us to cultivate the attitudes and habits of market leaders and top performers who are above all:

1. SELF-DEFINED
2. SELF-MOTIVATED
3. SELF-ACTIVATED

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Rule 1: Market Leaders and Top Performers are SELF-DEFINED

We believe that winning both confirms and expands our potential as human beings and as business leaders. The key to unlocking this potential is the competition we face every day in our personal and professional lives. The greater the competition the greater the 'struggle' and the more energy we must expend as we pursue the goal. But, what is the ultimate competitive source? And, where do we find it?

Many believe that sports exemplify competition at its best. Yet, despite popular belief, competitive environments where individuals and teams stand opposed to each other actually limit the potential of those involved.

When success is defined by our ability to defeat an external competitive source, like an opposing team, it is the opposing team that is ultimately defining us. This is why in sports the quality of our champions from season to season is so often dependent upon the quality of their competition.

Of course, our competitors may help to make us great as we are working our way to the top, but once we are there if we have always been defined by those we were chasing there will be no one left to show us what it will take to stay. This is one of the most
common reasons why the vast majority of market leaders and top
performers simply don’t last. 

Without someone to chase - to define their next step - business leaders will convince themselves that they have finally “made it.”  The curiosity that once drove their success is replaced by a culture of complacency and arrogance that can only lead the business into crisis. Even if this fate can be delayed by focusing on those who are now doing the chasing, the business will never learn how to lead its market and perform to its potential.

On the other hand, companies that line up to compete against themselves never peak. They are 'self-defined' by their ability to improve upon their last, best performance.  These companies operate from a position of control. They breed cultures grounded in curiosity, independence, and self-reliance and never become complacent or arrogant. Their leaders turn achievement into a belief and winning into a perpetual habit that is relentlessly tested and proven over time.

By being ready, willing, and able to look inward for the definition of where we are going, we take control of our ability to define what we will become.

• USE CASE: If your goal is to take greater control of your segment or market position, you would certainly look outward for intelligence to better understand the challenge ahead. But, you would not DEFINE the goal based on the definition written by your competition. Your definition would be bigger, defined based on your vision and the systems, skills, and talent you can bring to bear. Do you have the building blocks required? Do you have a culture that promotes innovation, risk taking, and rapid decision-making? If there is work yet to do why not create an incremental goal relative to your last best performance and define the adjustments necessary to get you there?
  

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Rule 2: Market Leaders and Top Performers are SELF-MOTIVATED

We often talk about the importance of systems, skills and talent when building sales teams.  All three are critical, but without the confidence that comes from proper preparation individuals and teams can't sustain the motivation necessary to compete and win over time. 

There is a direct relationship between how prepared we are to achieve a goal and how motivated we feel to undertake the challenge. Top performers and market leaders are constantly assessing and investing in themselves; taking it upon themselves to ensure that they are effectively prepared and motivated to address the challenge ahead.

Motivation, however, is not one-size-fits-all. Winning approaches motivate when they are tailored to what the individual or team knows it needs to operate at the next level. Self-motivated individuals and teams know themselves and take it upon themselves to proactively fill the gaps that will prepare them to compete and win.

If the goal is to make winning a cultural imperative in your business, you must find ways to empower individuals and teams to understand and invest in their own unique needs so they too can be better prepared and motivated to compete and win.

• USE CASE: The debate over the value of motivational speaking is timeless. In sales environments especially, motivational speakers must deliver more than just entertainment to win the approval of top performers and market leaders. They must deliver the confidence required to turn that motivation into action. One of my favorite motivational quotes, spoken by George C. Scott in the movie Patton as he addressed his men before battle, goes something like this: "Men! You don't win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making the other guy die for his!" A powerful line delivered by a powerful actor. But, what if his men were going to war with pocketknives and slingshots while the enemy wielded bayonets and automatic weapons? Unfortunately, this is the same disconnect many sales people are left with following a 'motivational' sales meeting or annual kick-off event - the actor's words simply don't translate! Only effective preparation can deliver the confidence required to turn a motivational speech into action.
  

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Rule 3: Market Leaders and Top Performers are SELF-ACTIVATED

Market leaders and top performers create environments for themselves that reinforce the unique characteristics of what defines and motivates them to win. Yet, it is ultimately the quality and consistency of their execution that determines the quality and consistency of their success.

Beyond simply taking action, those who are self-activated understand that it is in the struggle to compete where the knowledge to succeed is acquired. There is a passion and drive that accompanies and optimizes their efforts. There is a relentless consistency in the attitudes and habits they cultivate. And, there is an acute focus that accelerates decision-making and minimizes distractions.

Those who are self-activated acquire the knowledge and experience to be more confident and self-defined, to be more prepared and self-motivated, and to be more focused and self-activated.

• USE CASE: How often have you left a meeting having discussed relevant and important topics, only to revisit the same issues over again in subsequent meetings? When this happens internally, resources are wasted, growth is delayed and time is lost. When this happens in the middle of a sales cycle the costs may be unrecoverable. What happens? Where does the breakdown occur? Its about leadership. Patton said it best, "Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim to what I call the 'ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome.' You must be willing to fire." Collecting information and identifying needs is critical to initiating change, but without the leadership required to turn that information into decisions and actions, we lose the ability to lead the change that is coming.
  

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Today we hear a lot about the new economy, the new economic reality that is facing business leaders who survived the recent downturn.  How many of us are leading our own way out of this mess?  How many of us are waiting for a market leader to show us the way?

More than any time in the last 25 years, market leaders are gaining a far greater proportionate share of the markets they serve.  They are ‘growing into the recovery’ and leaving fewer opportunities behind for those who choose to follow.

We see market followers growing far more slowly. They are having a much tougher time competing for what is left over because broad economic growth is coming so slowly. Market leaders are leaving less behind and there is no rising economic tide to help followers keep pace. 

For many of us, this is an old story.  Every day we are seeing more businesses fold and more of our neighbors looking for work.  What never gets old, however, is the experience of winning and the disciplines that allow perennial top-performers and market leaders to dominate in any economy or business environment. 

Where are you? Where do you want to be?  What resources are required to get you there? Why not start with your own discipline of winning? After all, everyone loves to win! 

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James Rores is the founder and managing partner of Pipeline Coach; a company that helps professional services firms and small to mid-market companies establish predictable, repeatable paths to growth.  Learn more about James or reach out to him directly.