How Do You Play the Game?

Originally shared in A Daily Dose Of Leadership on August 11, 2020.

In the LinkedIn article I published yesterday, I referenced the origins of a quote I had already attributed to Vince Lombardi. We’ve likely all heard some type of reference to the idea of “it’s not whether we win or lose, but how we play the game” but I was clearly confused about where it originated. (I did find an entire web page dedicated to actual quotes by Lombardi so we’ll probably be circling back to that in this series sometime soon…) 

The actual quote I was thinking about was from Grantland Rice in 1927 but even he was paraphrasing something from a Greek historian that was written nearly 2,500 years earlier. Rice’s words were “For when the great scorer comes to write against your name, He marks not that you won or lost but how you played the game.” And that 5th century B.C. Greek historian wrote this in reference to Olympians of the time “Tis not for Money they contend, but for Glory”.

Enough with the history lesson, let’s get on with it…

On a daily basis, nearly every person I know in a leadership role faces significant pressure to win on behalf of their organization. For those in publicly traded companies, satisfying the investors on a quarterly basis can drive almost every decision. And while the privately held companies march to a different drum, there’s certainly no shortage of pressure for continuous improvement in both productivity and profitability – otherwise, those sometimes soulless publicly traded companies in the same market may just gobble you up!

Regardless of the scenario you’re in, how do you play the game?

Let’s be honest, winning and losing really does matter since we’re still waiting for someone in gubermint to play those trees that all the free stuff grows on. But choosing to win at any cost rarely results in truly long term victories!

I recently saw a situation unfold where a fairly talented person applied for a job with a really good company. The candidate had all the qualifications the company was looking for but there was a bit more to this story. Three of the key people in the decision making process had been with other companies just a few years prior to this, each having had individual interaction with the candidate. While each of their experiences were very different, none were positive experiences. Needless to say, I doubt that relationship will ever go any further…

I’m certainly not suggesting that doing the best we can in anything we put our hand to isn’t absolutely critical; it is! Lombardi really did say that “If you’ll not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives.” When we take that approach to achieving the results we need to achieve, I can’t imagine we’d ever find ourselves in a situation like I just described.

With the importance of winning being so very real, have you ever stopped to question whether or not you’re even playing in the right game? I’m guessing many of us have not, and we’ll take a look at what that really means in the next blog!