WINNING ISN'T THE MOST IMPORTANT THING - IT'S THE ONLY THING

This was said by Vince Lombardi coach of the Green Bay Packers, the American Football team.

Since then it’s been used in virtually every management conference, sales meeting or leadership group I’ve ever attended. Jack Welch legendary ex-CEO of GE – then the biggest company in the world, actually wrote a book called “Winning”.  I want you to think locker room; the smell of sweat and tired feet, male banter, nick names like Turd, Ball-boy and Snot-Gobbler and a vocabulary stripped to the minimum – more grunts than words. Underneath a kind of rhythmic chant of “winners, winners, winners…back of the net….” This is a world where a red mist rises, rationality flees and the team bonds in a messy heap of self-belief.

This isn’t going to be another analysis of the already over-analysed ball tampering issue traumatising Australian cricket. Interestingly many Australians and others are already beginning to justify the sandpapering of balls (my wife read this and said “Australians really do that – are they crazy?”) by saying everyone does it. In a post Weinstein world that seems a pretty limp excuse. The idolised Indian cricketer Dravid did it, we do it and even educated fleas do it…but it’s cheating and it’s wrong. Umpires have been lax and cricketers over-paid prima donnas. The Australians made it all worse by lying and being generally very stupid.

I recently read a piece in the paper describing a You Tube video on “How to shoplift in H&M” and on the self service check-outs in supermarkets about which some idiot arrogantly said: “Anyone who pays more than half what they should when doing this is a moron”.

This and the Lombardi quote are the two most moronic things in this blog. Because cheating is catching and if it becomes epidemic we are going to be in deep trouble. I even heard a 9 year old recently saying a certain footballer hadn’t dived “properly” by which he meant theatrically and convincingly enough to be awarded a penalty. Don’t blame the boy, blame the men who have allowed cheating to be OK …”because everybody does it”. Remember Maradonna palming the ball into the net and calling it “the hand of God"?

It happens in business as much as in sport. Auditors like KPMG with Carillion are insufficiently scrupulous to notice or feel it appropriate to notice what is sitting there in plain sight. The sorry story of BHS is one of failure to call out the cheats. Everyone is cheating it seems.

But cheating like graffiti is something that grows exponentially the more the culprits think they can get away with it.

As the daffodils thrust their way up cockily throwing two fingers at the beast from the east we can see how courage, determination and energy work to help nature win.  Winning comes as a consequence of all these characteristics.

But it isn’t the most important thing. Winning well and being a classy role-model is.

AGE SHALL NOT WITHER....

On Sunday summer kicked off and we had one of those balmy bumble-bee-buzzing days. As I sat on our balcony catching the whiff of burning BBQ meat I began to drift off in that I’m- floating-away-like-a-balloon way. My last cogent thought was it would be poor form if our world leaders were caught doing this. We expect them to be at it thinking and strategizing 24/7/365. As I slept I imagined George Osborne (45) was in the Treasury surrounded by economists plotting our future.

But in America come November the candidates for the world’s top job will be two months shy of 70, 70 ½ and (if you include Bernie Sanders) 75. So chances are they’ll be snoozing quite a lot. As will Putin (64) - he sleeps in late apparently. Age derided by some - a client of mine described Jack Welch as an “old fossil” (81) doesn’t seem to have damaged Warren Buffett (86) too much.

Anyway maybe snoozing lightly and thinking about stuff is a good way of sorting out complex thoughts. Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman (82) whose award was for his studies of the human-mind, believes our just sub-conscious is operating at its best when left alone to do its work. (My best work is often done when I’m asleep.)

But something strange is happening in America. Not only are the candidates rather odd as well as old in a country where glamour is one of the most highly rated qualities - hence the adulation of JFK. They have Trump intent on “winning bigly” and Hillary snatching defeat from victory’s jaws and Bernie - think intellectual Corbyn (67) -  who has grabbed the imagination of youth by things like:
“If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist”

But given that age isn’t an obstacle or not the obstacle that it once seemed why, oh why didn’t Josiah Bartlett stand (aka Martin Sheen (75) of “West Wing”)?

Maybe we’ve just got the age thing wrong - wisdom is one of the greatest under-used assets. And wisdom increases with the perspective of age for some whilst the ability to create is undimmed.  Roger Daltrey, (72) co-founder of the Who still has “magic in his eyes” and still performs so long as he thinks he’s “got it”. So do the Stones (Jagger will be 73 in November) and so does Bob Dylan (75) and Leonard Cohen (82).

Maybe, just maybe all these old fossils have something to offer that would prevent the hyper-active get things moving at all costs.

We need our Vardy’s (29) up front and doing battle but we also need Claudio Ranieri (65) - the Leicester City Manager - managing the affairs of state, guiding and inspiring their young talent.

 As he says:

 "I am happy when our fans are happy, when our players are happy and our chairman is on the moon."

(All ages shown are as of November 2016 - US Election month)