Business Owners & Leaders can learn from professional athletes

For one, professional athletes understand that to win, they need to play the game better than other players – whether individual sports like high-jumping and running the 100m, or team sports like cricket and beach volleyball. Very little of their performance has to do with their fellow participants, competition.

Business Owners & Leaders talk about the competition as if it requires winning, beating their competitors. The challenge with that is YOU CAN’T. You are not playing the same game…

A high-jumper’s only competition is themselves. They want to jump as high as they can, not only higher than their fellow high-jumpers.
Jumping higher than the next person does not mean they have reached their own potential…
Similarly, a beach volleyball team does not only want to win every game. They want to perform at a level where all team members are performing at their individual and collective best, consistently.
Winning every game does not mean they have reached their potential…

Athletes compete in exactly the same disciplines of sport, under/in the same circumstances – courts, tracks, fields, and weather, and under the same rules.

Businesses don’t compete in the same disciplines, under/in the same circumstances, and under the same rules.

Banks protect and move money, but they do it in different ways.
Shoemakers don’t all make the same shoes.
Software companies don’t write the same applications.
In the business of stand-up comedy, all comedians don’t tell the same stories and jokes.
There are no defined boundaries and rules that all businesses and industries must adhere to.

Athletes know that they can’t do it alone.
Business Owners & Leaders almost always believe they can do it alone.
Athletes all have support teams around them, holding them accountable where accountability = “How can I/we help?”.
When athletes don’t improve, they change their support team – completely, or individual members.
Their support teams consist of people from various industries – coaches, dieticians, biokinetics, physiotherapy, psychology, medical doctors, sponsors, brand managers, etc.

Business Owners & Leaders often believe when they have management meetings or board meetings, consisting of individuals inside their own organization, they have a support team. And they are partially right.
Partially because only looking internally for accountability leaves very little if any room for meaningful accountability.
In some areas like finance and marketing, auditors and marketing agents are used, but hardly ever for accountability.

Who is your support team, around your table, in your head, helping you achieve your best?

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