SLOWING THE SPIN

I was moving as fast as I could and not getting anywhere, a feeling might be familiar with. This time, it was deliberate; I was on a stationary bike at gym. When my towel over my handlebars fell to the ground, I tried to stop pedaling and got off. But it could not stopped. There was too much forward momentum. The pedals seemed to be moving by a force of their own. It took me several moments of slowly backing of my speed. 

Momentum is hard to resist!

Once I was into a business argument with a friend, I realized I wasn't sure I agreed with my own position. But he was arguing so harshly that I found myself taking the opposite side, intensely supporting ideas I didn't know enough about. And I admit it was hard to stop. 

It is especially hard to stop when you're invested in being right, when you've spent time, energy, emotion and sometimes money on your point of view. Sometimes it might be an argument about which actions to take at which project. Or a decission about whether ot not to continue to pursee a particular opportunity. When you have the sense you have made a mistake but you have already pushed so hard it would be embrassing to back out so how do you backpedal?

I have two strategies that help me pull back my own momentum both in business and sports life: Slow Down and Start Over.

1- Slow Down: As I found on my stationary bike, it is almost impossible to backpedal hard enough to reverse direction on the spot. It helps to see it as a process. First, just stop pedaling so hard. Then, as the momentum starts to lose its force, gently begin to change direction. In a discussion in which you have been pushing hard and suspect you might be wrong, begin to argue your points less and listen to the other side more. I experienced that reducing your forward momentum is the first step to freeing yourself from the beliefs, habits, feelings and business that may be limiting you.

2- Start Over: Start over is a mental game. It is obvious that our history and experiences impact our current decissions. If I hired someone and invested energy, time and money supporting his success, it would be hard for me to admit he was not working out. But knowing what I know now, would I hire him? If not, I should let him go. And start over. Same thing with a sales project I have supported or a decission I have promoted.

There are numerous ways that may help. I hope my experiences would be a bonus to learn about.

REINVENT THE GAME

 

How can a few pirates in small boats capture and hold huge tanker ships hostage? How can a few scattered people in caves halfway across the world instill fear in the hearts of millions of citizens in the largest, most powerful countries in the world?

In "A Seperate Peace" John Knowles's novel, Phineas invents the game Blitzball in which everyone chases a single ball carrier, who must outrun every other competitor. Phineas always wins because the rules of the game (a game he invented) favor his particular skills.

I believe that is the secret of success. Play the game you know you can win, even it means inventing it yourself.

Enterpreneurs understand this; some start their own companies for exactly this reason. I know many number of successful people who could never get a job in a corporation because they never went to either College nor University. So they started their own companies; companies they designed to play to their unique strengths. They invented a game they could win, and then they played it.

Large firms spend tens of thousands of dollars to experienced sales account managers and on proposals to clients as well. But is that wins the game? I believe what really wins is client ownership over the project. If you sit with the client and design the project with him/her, your one page proposal (that him/her in effect, co-wrote with you) will beat their hundred pages every time at a fraction of the cost. That is a game an independent contractor can win.

At one of my favourite novels "How David Beats Goliath," Malcolm Gladwell well summarized about the moment that David shed his armor. He knew he could not win a game of strength against strength. But he also knew he was faster, more agile and had better aim. So he picked up five stones, dashed out of the pack and won the battle. He broke the rules and reinvented the game.

Malcolm Gladwell refers to  a research done by a scientist Ivan Toft, who looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years in which one side was at least ten times stronger than the other. He found that the weaker side won almost 30 percent of the time, a remarkable feat. The reason? They fought a different war than their opponents.

The 70 percent that lost? They fought the conventional way; they engaged in battle using the same rules as their strong opponents.

What game are you playing? Is this the right game for your particular skills and talents? Is it a perfect setup for you or your company to win? If not, then perhaps it is time to play a different game or invent one of your own: one you can win.