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Making the Connection
Here are some of the lessons, derived from Peter's experience in
the sport of
sailing, that he often shares in his presentations.
Peter's clients sometimes select one or more messages that resonate with their
business to help provide real focus to Peter's customized presentation.
 | Make a total commitment. The worlds of sailboat racing and
business are filled with stories of committed underdogs beating out far bigger, but less
committed competitors. Winning requires making the kind of commitment that your employees,
co-workers, and other business partners can rely on fully and without question. |
| Build a true
team effort. When you’re going for the gold in a
major sailing campaign, the skipper, the crew, and
the entire organization have
to work together as a team. Any group, whether it’s a grand-prix sailboat racing team
or a small, medium, or large business, can build effective teams. All it takes is
commitment from the top to give employees the authority and the autonomy to manage
themselves and make the kinds of decisions that have the greatest impact on the team, as
well as the support of the organization to encourage and reward true team behavior. |
| Stack the deck in your favor. In business, and in sailing,
you’ve got to leverage every possible advantage you can in your effort to beat the
competition. In fact, if you aren’t leveraging every possible advantage in your
favor, you can bet your competitors are. Whether it’s staying on the edge of
the very latest technological innovations, working harder (or smarter) than the
competition, or creating new efficiencies by improving productivity and cutting costs, any
advantage you can squeeze out of the organization can mean the difference between success
and failure. |
| Be prepared to change course quickly. Sailing and business are
both multidimensional activities where change is a constant. Whether faced with the
rapidly shifting ocean currents and winds aboard a boat or the constant developments in
today’s dynamic global business environment, one must be flexible enough to adapt to
change in an instant. Today, the best companies can be measured by their ability to change
course quickly and decisively in response to changes in their environment. |
| Expect the unexpected. There’s no such thing as being too
prepared when it comes to anticipating any event—employees quitting, networks
crashing, customers who stop calling—that could slow down or cripple an organization.
By taking the time up front to create goals and plans, and to be fully prepared for any
possible outcome, it’s guaranteed that your expectations will be met much more
frequently than if you don’t. Successful sailing
teams consider every
possible thing that could ever go wrong in a race—from snapped lines to blown sails
to unfavorable wind shifts—and develop contingency plans to work around the problems
in real time before their boat falls too far behind the competition. |
| Push the limits. It’s often said that the perfect racing
sailboat is one that has pushed the limits to what is humanly and technologically possible
so far that it falls apart and sinks just after it wins the regatta. While you certainly
don’t want your business to fall apart as soon as you achieve your goals, you
do want employees to stretch themselves and to continually push their own personal limits
to reach the organization’s goals. When employees push their limits, they are working
at their full potential—even expanding that potential. Anything less, and the results
are average performance. |
| Master the inner game. In mounting a competitive sailing campaign,
the state of mind of the participants is as important as having the right equipment,
resources, and training. Attitude, focus, patience, consistency, and the ability to learn
from one’s mistakes all play a role in a person’s state of mind. So too, in
business, the ability to master these elements—the inner game—is crucial
to long-term success. The creation of a learning organization is a critical step in
profiting from one’s mistakes and building a database of experience that can benefit
everyone on the team. |
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