For the Long Jump

A friend of mine recently went for an interview. Because I am nice, kind and thoughtful, as I am sure you already know, I sent a message to say good luck and hoping interview went well. According to my friend ‘it is now all down to the competition’.

This is nonsense and I want to explain to you why today. But first let me tell you a story which I think is true.

Once upon a time, in 1968 to be precise, at the Olympic Games in Mexico, there were two great high jumpers-Lyn Davies from Britain and Bob Beamon from America. At the time Lyn Davis was the favourite for the gold medal but with his very first leap, in the rarefied atmosphere of Mexico, Beamon almost jumped out of the sand pit setting a world record that was not beaten for decades. Davies was shattered, failed to win a medal of any colour and never scaled the same heights, or jumped the same lengths, again.

In interviews afterwards the difference in mindsets was stark. Davies’s personal goal was to win the gold medal. Beamon’s was to jump 29 feet. He reckoned that would win the gold medal. Davies’s goal was not in his gift, that was out of his control. He could only control his own performance, not that of the competition. Beamon, on the other hand, could deliver his goal through his performance and his alone. Beamon only had one thing to worry about. Davies had the rest of the field to think about. Beamon had focus. Davies did not. Beamon minimised his interferences. Davies maximised his.

For me at an individual or even at business level, potential equals performance minus interferences. For us and our businesses to be successful and to be as great as they can be, we must work to reduce the interferences and by focusing on controlling those factors which are within our control and within our gift. Worrying about issues outwith and beyond our control is a waste of physical and emotional energy, energy that is better harnessed on helping us be the best we can be.

Let us take the example of my friend. By thinking about the competition for the role, energy was being dissipated, energy which would have been better deployed. Focus was being lost. Performance might suffer.

Similarly fears and negative doubts would start to creep in; what if conversations would be running through the head; interferences in the mind would grow and potential not realised. Fear of and intimidation by the competition was now the focus rather than a concentration on ensuring the key points were made in the interview or that the body language was correct in the meeting. We only have so many brain cells we can devote to a given subject at any one time so why not use these brain cells in a positive way on factors we can control.

And what is true of the individual is also true of the businesses and the brands we manage.

I have no problem with businesses who want to beat the competition or which want to grow at the expense of the competition or who carefully watch and monitor what their competitors do. Indeed I think these are perfectly healthy things for any ambitious and growing business to want to do. But I do not believe that businesses should be built around chasing market share, for example. Market share is a by product of doing a lot of other things very well. Market share is the business equivalent of trying to win the gold medal in the long jump-if someone comes along with a killer strategy which results in your market share being eroded, what do you do now? What interferences to great performance are now in your business, in the minds of your people?

Focus instead on having a great strategy which maximises the assets and capabilities within your business and keep your organisational focus on these factors. You control these. Let market share or similar outcome metrics follow.

It is also worth remembering that great brands and businesses do not even acknowledge there is a competition. Doing this confers legitimacy. Doing this distracts.

Sure some brand and businesses revel in their challenger status, see virgin and Avis for examples. But this is a carefully considered positioning strategy to differentiate. Do you think Apple acknowledges the existence of Microsoft? Or Coke acknowledges the presence of Pepsi? Or Tesco even knows Sainsbury’s exists? You might call it arrogance. They would call it being No 1.

In other words be Bob Beamon, not Lyn Davies.

Is it me?

Is it just me who gets up tight about the creeping absurdity of our approach to health and safety? I think not? On a train to Manchester the other day I was forced, and I mean that, forced, to carry my cup of coffee in a brown bag to my seat as if it was illegal contraband. And yet when I get to London I am almost and repeatedly bowled over by those stupid trolley dolly briefcase on wheels that now seem to be the briefcase of choice by those too lazy to carry their work like people once did in ye olden days.

Has it never occurred to our health and safety gualeiters just how dangerous these contraptions are compared to a cup of hot coffee and just how much space someone using one of these instruments of injury occupies? I bet that there is someone out there reading these words planning a campaign to outlaw these monsters or maybe even introduce a tax. Anyone else think coffee should be freed from the health and safety vice and a campaign launched to better regulate and control the use of trolley dolly briefcases.

Have a great week.

Sit felix. Et sit fortunatus.