12.
What Winning Looks Like ​

The Vision ​

Let's get a little bit meta — possibly a bit uncomfortable — for a moment. Winning in business is simple but not easy. It's also a verb, not a noun — there is no winning moment, but a discipline for hard work, making smart bets, and no shortage of good fortune. Once we stop chasing a destination and start behaving in ways that will land us in a better place, we begin being excellent.

The only comparison worth making is to yourself. Forget comparing yourself, your company, and your people to competitors, it's a pointless waste of time that gets you nowhere and distracts from the real goal worth achieving; driving towards your own Vision, your own definition of success. There's no single image of winning except for having spent your time helping others while building an asset for yourself. You will need to remind yourself daily that your only useful comparison is 'am I in a better place today compared to yesterday?' It's far better to be the tortoise than the hare.

In a fair race the hare beats the tortoise, wins the race. But the tortoise always finishes the race; the hare gets distracted, forgets they're in a race, runs in the wrong direction, or simply falls asleep. And when the tortoise does win the race they do so by sheer determination, earning each mile. We need to face the reality that we are always going to face competition from hares — faster, with better engines, who are expected to win 99% of the time — but that our being tortoises, needing to be excellent to win, is a huge advantage that gives Aesop's fable its potency. The other animals in your ecosystem spend their time imagining themselves the hare, which is why your being the tortoise — consistent, assured — is your winning advantage.

Winning is a behavior, not a measurement, but we measure that behavior in the following ways:

  • Separation of do/own/risk
  • Having operating values that govern daily decisions
  • Trusting the Talent Siphon (celebrating when Level Fours move onto bigger and better things, excited to welcome the new incoming Level One hire)
  • Using Bookends to replace surveillance
  • Empowering through Command by Intent
  • Measuring LER to help make hard decisions
  • Operating a learning company

Winning in business looks like a business that:

  • Generates wealth without consuming the owner
  • Survives when a big client leaves
  • Adapts when AI shifts what Level One looks like
  • Builds succession plans through the Talent Siphon

Winning in business looks like a team of people who:

  • Become excellent through development, not grinding through decades of joylessly doing the bare minimum
You Make a Choice Daily ​

You see reality. You can keep the trap or rebuild. The path is clear but not easy. "Change is inevitable; progress is optional," as John Maxwell said. Your people and your future depend on your answer: Is today the day you decide to change for the better?