The other day, I was watching a Red Sox
game on TV. As a batter stepped to the plate, the announcer, Don Orsillo, noted
that he was in the middle of a long hitting slump, having gone hitless for some
15 games.
Orsillo asked Steve Lyons, the color commentator that night, whether players in that situation get demoralized and spiral even further into a funk. Lyons had played nearly 20 years in the Major Leagues for the Red Sox and three other teams. So his answer was insightful.
“If you’re in a hitting slump like that,” he said, “you go to the ballpark the next day fully confident that you’re going to go four-for-four. Nobody in that situation goes to the game expecting to extend the hitless streak.”
And here was Lyon’s most telling comment: “You are not in the Major League if that’s your attitude. And you will not make it in the big leagues if you don’t have tons of confidence.”
My first reaction was his insight’s application to my own attitude. In fact, that kind of thinking is applicable in how people operate as business managers and leaders.
Clearly the more successful people in business – the ones playing in the “majors” – are those that can walk away from defeats and see them as learning experiences, who start each new day fully confident that that day they will go four-for-four.
Leaders’ Winning Attitude
By extension, people that become leaders will guide their companies to success if they are able to imbue their people and their organizations with the same attitude, sustaining confidence after defeat, always moving forward with self-assurance.
Orsillo asked Steve Lyons, the color commentator that night, whether players in that situation get demoralized and spiral even further into a funk. Lyons had played nearly 20 years in the Major Leagues for the Red Sox and three other teams. So his answer was insightful.
“If you’re in a hitting slump like that,” he said, “you go to the ballpark the next day fully confident that you’re going to go four-for-four. Nobody in that situation goes to the game expecting to extend the hitless streak.”
And here was Lyon’s most telling comment: “You are not in the Major League if that’s your attitude. And you will not make it in the big leagues if you don’t have tons of confidence.”
My first reaction was his insight’s application to my own attitude. In fact, that kind of thinking is applicable in how people operate as business managers and leaders.
Clearly the more successful people in business – the ones playing in the “majors” – are those that can walk away from defeats and see them as learning experiences, who start each new day fully confident that that day they will go four-for-four.
Leaders’ Winning Attitude
By extension, people that become leaders will guide their companies to success if they are able to imbue their people and their organizations with the same attitude, sustaining confidence after defeat, always moving forward with self-assurance.
Yes, it’s
tough to do that. And the leader who is able to consistently buck up his/her
team’s confidence through trials and after stinging defeats is respected and,
more importantly, heeded whenever times get tough. Communicating confidence like
that is not so much words and speeches as it is leading by example.
For instance, it is instructive to watch how General Motors’ new CEO, Mary Barra, addrresses her company’s current challenges around massive vehicle recalls. Clearly those recalls represent failures and mistakes at several levels of the organization, failures and mistakes that got repeated.
The task before Ms. Barra is to right the ship and get GM back into a winning formula of developing, manufacturing and marketing high quality vehicles that people want to own.
To do that, she needs to encourage her people to learn from their mistakes. She must remind them that what once made GM great were its people. She needs to convince them that that excellence still resides within them, and to move forward with confidence as a unified whole.
Her employees must see Ms. Barra herself consistently operating with confidence, demonstrating through her own actions the central role of excellence and quality. All the while that central tenet must be echoed in her spoken and written words.
In the end, she will be judged on how quickly and how completely she turns around the ocean liner known as General Motors. It is no small task, to be sure. So if she is successful in the end, if GM resumes its role as the world’s leading auto company under her guidance, she will go down as one of GM’s greatest leaders. And it will be because she led her organization with confidence.
Sustaining a Winning Attitude
Leadership excellence, in that regard, is not just for those who must right a foundering ship like GM. It is also seen in leaders able to sustain excellence and innovation. In that respect, the jury is still out – and getting impatient – with Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO who inherited the venerable cloak of excellence and innovation from the late Steve Jobs.
At the annual Worldwide Developers’ Conference in San Francisco every June, Jobs would habitually thrill Apple fans with groundbreaking new products: iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc.
Since Jobs’ death in October 2011, when Cook took over as CEO, there have been no new such groundbreaking products. Rather, Cook and his team have merely improved existing products and expanded established lines.
Analysts were getting restless, sensing the vacuum, so Cook told them in late 2013 that 2014 would see Apple introduce a plethora of new products. Earlier this week at the 2014 WWDC, Cook and his team introduced exactly zero new products, only system software upgrades. So we are halfway through 2014 and Cook has failed to make any progress toward his promise.
As outsiders, we cannot know how well Cook has filled Jobs’ leadership shoes in his nearly three years in the role. Nor do we know how well he has established himself as an inspirational leader. But that tenure should be long enough for anyone to do so, and from outward appearances, it isn’t clear that Cook has succeeded.
Oh yes, Apple is still thriving and is still highly valued. It still makes great products. And yes, that’s likely because Cook is one of the best operational leaders in the business – the reason Jobs hired him in the first place and the reason he was promoted. But the competition has caught up with and, in some cases, surpassed Apple’s innovation.
Has Cook instilled the kind of confidence in his people that Jobs once did? The genius of Steve Jobs lay not only in his innovative vision, but also his ability to convince people they were better than they thought they were. Jobs was the kind of guy who would go to the plate in the midst of a hitting slump and know – just know – that his next swing of the bat produce a hit. Jobs was supremely and contagiously confident. Is Tim Cook?
“The greatest manager has a knack for making players think they are better than they think they are.” – Reggie Jackson
For instance, it is instructive to watch how General Motors’ new CEO, Mary Barra, addrresses her company’s current challenges around massive vehicle recalls. Clearly those recalls represent failures and mistakes at several levels of the organization, failures and mistakes that got repeated.
The task before Ms. Barra is to right the ship and get GM back into a winning formula of developing, manufacturing and marketing high quality vehicles that people want to own.
To do that, she needs to encourage her people to learn from their mistakes. She must remind them that what once made GM great were its people. She needs to convince them that that excellence still resides within them, and to move forward with confidence as a unified whole.
Her employees must see Ms. Barra herself consistently operating with confidence, demonstrating through her own actions the central role of excellence and quality. All the while that central tenet must be echoed in her spoken and written words.
In the end, she will be judged on how quickly and how completely she turns around the ocean liner known as General Motors. It is no small task, to be sure. So if she is successful in the end, if GM resumes its role as the world’s leading auto company under her guidance, she will go down as one of GM’s greatest leaders. And it will be because she led her organization with confidence.
Sustaining a Winning Attitude
Leadership excellence, in that regard, is not just for those who must right a foundering ship like GM. It is also seen in leaders able to sustain excellence and innovation. In that respect, the jury is still out – and getting impatient – with Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO who inherited the venerable cloak of excellence and innovation from the late Steve Jobs.
At the annual Worldwide Developers’ Conference in San Francisco every June, Jobs would habitually thrill Apple fans with groundbreaking new products: iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc.
Since Jobs’ death in October 2011, when Cook took over as CEO, there have been no new such groundbreaking products. Rather, Cook and his team have merely improved existing products and expanded established lines.
Analysts were getting restless, sensing the vacuum, so Cook told them in late 2013 that 2014 would see Apple introduce a plethora of new products. Earlier this week at the 2014 WWDC, Cook and his team introduced exactly zero new products, only system software upgrades. So we are halfway through 2014 and Cook has failed to make any progress toward his promise.
As outsiders, we cannot know how well Cook has filled Jobs’ leadership shoes in his nearly three years in the role. Nor do we know how well he has established himself as an inspirational leader. But that tenure should be long enough for anyone to do so, and from outward appearances, it isn’t clear that Cook has succeeded.
Oh yes, Apple is still thriving and is still highly valued. It still makes great products. And yes, that’s likely because Cook is one of the best operational leaders in the business – the reason Jobs hired him in the first place and the reason he was promoted. But the competition has caught up with and, in some cases, surpassed Apple’s innovation.
Has Cook instilled the kind of confidence in his people that Jobs once did? The genius of Steve Jobs lay not only in his innovative vision, but also his ability to convince people they were better than they thought they were. Jobs was the kind of guy who would go to the plate in the midst of a hitting slump and know – just know – that his next swing of the bat produce a hit. Jobs was supremely and contagiously confident. Is Tim Cook?
“The greatest manager has a knack for making players think they are better than they think they are.” – Reggie Jackson
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