Friday, April 26, 2019

Finding the True Winner's Mentality

At the Masters, the world witnessed arguably one of the greatest personal and professional comebacks in sports history.  When Tiger Woods sank the putt on 18 to seal his first victory at the Masters after an 11 year major victory drought, he didn't tell his caddy, "I won".  He jumped for joy as he screamed, "We Won!!!".  In this individual sport, one of the greatest golfers in history didn't take all the credit or even a majority of the credit.  He shared it with his caddy, who in reality was his teammate, friend, and coach.






Do you have the 'I Win' or 'We Win' mentality?  
As the leader, are you the only one winning?  We must remind ourselves that our success is rarely accomplished in isolation because we never really win anything for ourselves.  No matter how big or small the role, people in every facet of our organization are contributing to our collective win, either with their encouragement, their advice, their talent, or even by sharing their expertise with us.

So the next time you win, answer this question.  Who will share your victory with?  How much of the credit will you take?  Will you predominantly use the pronoun, I, or will you make darn sure that the word, We, comes out of your mouth more than any other?  In the game of organizational improvement, there is no I in the team.  The leader must bring forward the strengths of everyone and that only happens when we intentionally recognize everyone's contribution to the team's success and take little to no credit for ourselves.  After all, the leader is the coach and not the players who do the real work that ensures that the team wins the game as a collective unit.

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