Attitude Will Carry the Day

My daughter’s volleyball team played in a tournament recently. They had fun on the court. They celebrated their victories and laughed at their silly mistakes. When one of them would accidentally kick the ball or bounce it into a teammates head, they all burst out laughing. The error didn't change their mood. It didn't alter their perspective or goals. They shrugged it off and moved on. Their parents laughed with them and encouraged them.

The other team was a different story. This team was ranked higher than my daughter's team. They were probably better players. But they lost the match to my daughter’s team and were eliminated from the tournament. As the other team began to make mistakes, you could see them getting frustrated. When there was a lousy shot or misplaced bump, the other members glared at each other. Blame was beginning to be passed around the court. They took their mistakes seriously. Even their parents were getting angry. One mistake leads to another and another. You could see them getting frustrated - almost perseverating on the past. There was no joy or cheering when they did score a point. They took it seriously, maybe too seriously.

There's a fine line between winning and enjoying the competition. But your attitude will determine your success. You might argue that life is serious and must be won. You might think there is no room for fun and games in a serious situation. You might be right too. But what you focus on will ultimately be what you achieve.

Your Attitude Shapes Your Success

Years ago when I began doing workshops, my first topic was on the impact of mindset on the outcome of your negotiation. Mindset is defined as your attitude about something. Attitude may be defined as the way you think and feel about something. This is critical. The way you think and feel impacts your experience, performance, and ultimately the outcome. Your attitude shapes your perception of the situation too.

Your attitude also directs your focus. If you have a fixed mindset, a poor attitude, then you’ll focus on things that confirm your feelings. However, if you have a growth mindset, you’ll be open to new information and changing your mind. Staying focused on what you set out to do will be easier, and you won’t feel bogged with the errors and mistakes you might make.

Set valid goals and objectives

I asked Addie what her team's goals were while they were on the court. She said they wanted to play well together as a team and have fun. Of course, they wanted to win, but their primary objective was to have coordinated plays and function as a team. The rest is history.

It’s essential for a leader to define valid goals and objectives. Objectives are those things that want to accomplish. Let’s say you want to lose 10 pounds. Your objective is to lose 10 pounds. Next, you would establish daily, weekly, monthly goals that support that objective. A daily goal might be to exercise every day. Or stop drinking soda. Watching what you eat and how much you exercise are valid supportive goals. Drinking a beer every day, although tempting, might not be a supportive goal.

As a leader who wants to win, I think we can get focused on the wrong things sometimes. We focus on winning, or what we believe winning is. We view life with a fixed mindset - winner-take-all mindset. Instead, we might do better if we focus on making our team function better together. Perhaps if we viewed life, our career, our businesses, as one long tournament or season, we might have better outcomes.

It’s Fun and Games Until

Sometimes we become too focused on winning. If all we care about is a checkmark in the win column, we could be missing some crucial things. If all we care about is winning, we unwittingly put blinders in place as we tread towards the finish line. We don’t see how our other team members and followers are hurt or injured by our desire to win. This is why we need a mission and purpose. If we have correctly identified our mission and purpose, it will serve as our guiding light and assist us in setting priorities, goals, and objectives.

Focus on What Makes You a Winning Team

Addie’s team focused on playing well together as a cohesive team. They were more concerned with returning the ball than scoring the point. They wanted to play and interact together as a supportive team. That was their goal. Their objective was to win the game and tournament. Their goal was valid and supported their objective. They kept encouraging each other and saying “That’s ok” when a mistake was made. They remembered their wins and didn’t blame each other when a mistake was made. No member of the team said, “I am better than you because you made a mistake.” Contrast that with the other team, and I think it’s quite clear why they lost. Their attitude, their focus, was on the wrong thing. Work on keeping your attitude and focus on the proper objectives, and you will have success.