August2008

It can be humbling for the experienced and mature executive or entrepreneur to take lessons from those much younger, especially from those who may know nothing about business or building an enterprise. Yet Olympic champions demonstrate a great deal about remarkable achievements and what it takes to accomplish them. Here are a few lessons for your consideration, before the 2008 Beijing games slip from memory:

The difference between a spectacular win and second place is sometimes almost immeasurable. U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps won his seventh gold medal of the games by 1/100th of a second over Milorad Savic of Serbia. Think of the extraordinary effort, training, discipline that went into gaining that tiny fraction of advantage that determined the difference between gold and silver. The same point is made forcefully in the book 212º, The Extra Degree by Sam Parker and Mac Anderson. One extra degree determines the difference between merely very hot water and steam that will drive a locomotive or between first place and being a runner-up. Are you willing to make the daily, extra exertion and sacrifice that will distinguish you from your competitors and which is behind all great success?

Sometimes life is not fair, but so what? It appeared to many observers that U.S. women’s gymnasts Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin were repeatedly judged much more severely than their Chinese competitors, thus failing to win gold medals they deserved. It would have been tempting for them to give up, on the basis of evidence that the judges were either partial or incompetent, or both. Instead, they disciplined themselves to focus on the next event and went on to each win a gold and a couple of silvers. The lesson—when you are cheated or treated unfairly by employees, competitors, or regulators, fight it when appropriate. But do not do yourself more damage than others could ever do you by allowing the injustice to distract you from giving your very best to the next challenge.

Don’t let others set your standards or define for you what is possible. Who would have thought that the winner of the women’s marathon would be a 38 year-old? Constantina Tomescu of Romania was so far ahead of the rest of the pack in the last few miles of the race that she turned her head in disbelief a couple of times before entering the Bird’s Nest Stadium. Dara Torres, the 41 year-old member of the U.S women’s swimming team, also set new standards of possibility with her silver medal in the 50 meter freestyle. If you are behind schedule in achieving your business or life’s goals, avoid the temptation to say, “I guess it can never happen now.” Maybe it can, if you just will. Harland Sanders was over 60 when he sold his first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise.

No one does it alone. There was a great deal of media coverage of the family support enjoyed by Michael Phelps, Shawn Johnson, and Nastia Liukin. The same story could likely be told about most of the participants, particularly the medal winners. The extraordinary effort of the Chinese government—some of if controversial—to produce winners also received much scrutiny. Fellow American team members from other sports showed up to cheer on the men’s and women’s beach volleyball teams to gold medal victories. Have you set your goals in such a way that your closest family members actively support you, and do you have a peer group who are your cheerleaders? And, of course, there were the extraordinary coaches, who had mentored their athletes in some cases for a decade or more. Do you have someone in your life to continually challenge you to grow, improve, and to always strive to outdistance yourself? There are many parallels here with Executive Coaching. The coach may be able to help the client achieve heights that he or she never attained. And retaining a coach, rather than being a sign of weakness or deficiency, is one thing that distinguishes the serious athletes from the amateurs.

Don’t let your group memberships or identifications set your limits. Some tiny nations which offer very little in the way of athletic facilities or material support nonetheless produced medalists. Moldovo and Togo garnered a bronze medal each, and Panama gained a gold, a first for that nation. Their athletes could have easily said, “It is victory enough to simply show up and represent my country. Why put out the extra effort against such great odds?” Instead, they gave their all. Do you allow yourself to be limited by your affinity groups, whether they be gender, race, family background, educational level, industry, company size, geographical location? If so, is this merely an excuse for avoiding the pain and exertion that success requires?

Success is a long-term strategy. Phelps’ mother was told by his coach that they needed to prepare her son for the Olympics when he was 11 years old. Shawn Johnson started working with her coach when she was six. The Chinese gymnasts were taken from their families to training facilities when they were three years old! When we look at successful enterprises, we sometimes forget the decades of toil in obscurity that led up to their fame. Walmart suddenly gained worldwide recognition over the past 15 years, but was founded 46 years ago. Cocoa-Cola is synonymous with the vast global enterprise, but it has taken the company over 120 years to get there. The comparatively rapid growth rates of high tech firms such as Microsoft, Apple, Dell, and Google, are the exceptions rather than the routine. To build a great firm is to build a legacy, and sometimes it takes several generations. Have you set your long term goals and decided what you would like your legacy to be?

Discipline and practice, not natural talent, distinguish winners from losers. The Olympics also corroborate recent studies which conclude that in endeavors from chess to golf or soccer it is not necessarioy the most “naturally gifted” who come out on top. Rather, it is those who practice relentlessly and have high confidence in their personal effectiveness (not the same as high self-esteem). Phelps’ coach also trains horses, and he said that the painful, rigorous training he puts the swimmer through everyday would kill a horse. Many world chess champions have been observed not to be of particularly high intelligence. But they drill to memorize thousands of combinations and patterns. (For a more extended discussion of these studies on winners, go to http://www.mulkernassociates.com/October2006.htm.) How would you rate your efforts to increase your team’s sense of personal effectiveness, and are you setting the example of continual self-improvement?

Final thought: Market research indicates that 50% of the people in the U.S that play video games, which constitute an $11 billion industry, are over 40 years old. Upon reading this, my first reaction was to ask myself, “Who are these people?” Everyone I know in that age group seems too busy with businesses, careers, family, education, church, temple, challenging hobbies, and volunteer activities—plus keeping themselves in decent health—to be playing video games. Then I recalled a recent Gallup poll of U.S workers that shows that 26% are “actively engaged” at work, 55% are “disengaged,” and 19% are “actively disengaged.” And so it occurred to me that perhaps many of these video gamers are working for you and me, and sometimes they are playing at work! While people should certainly be free to pick their own recreation and relaxation activities, and no doubt some video games build mental acuity and physical dexterity, I wonder how much human potential is being wasted. I wonder how many such folks over 40 need a new challenge, perhaps from a coach or mentor who sees their potential and who will engage them in pursuing something more fulfilling. Sometimes, even if we are not champions ourselves, we can be that inspiration for others. This role is not just for Olympic coaches, but for leaders and managers as well at all levels. How well are you and the other leaders in your firm playing this role?

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	Mulkern Associates is a privately held consulting firm of Anthony J. Mulkern