On Losing — how can we learn from the likes of Kane and the Black Caps and Roger
I learnt an important lesson this summer watching two important sporting events almost simultaneously. I must admit it was a challenging task even for an avid sport fan like me, to keep switching between the two events — The World Cup Cricket final between England and New Zealand being played at Lord’s in London ( a team sport ) and the Wimbledon Men’s tennis final between two of the all time greats Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic being played at Wimbledon, a few miles away.
As a sports fan I couldn’t have asked for more. We watch sports for entertainment and for the thrill of seeing our favorites win, against all odds. But there is a lot to learn from these sportsmen and women. There is enough that has been said about grit, determination, perseverance, physical fitness and talent and strategy. These are not going to be the focus of my exploration today.
I would like to focus on leadership not the kind that helps one win the trophy but the one that wins your heart and mind and etches itself permanently in your thoughts for years to come. It’s the magnanimity of the loser(s). Losing is hard for all of us. We have to blame someone or something or worst of all Dame luck for our loss.
Many of us are poor losers. We struggle to accept our loss. We lose our self control and our frustration at the turn of events makes us react in ways we might regret later. But some of these sports men / women who play their hearts out every day show us how to accept a loss and move on.
On the cricket field this past summer Kane Williamson and the NewZealand Black Caps showed the world how to accept a gut wrenching defeat at Lords, due to a bizarre set of circumstances and rules. I can only imagine how they felt after the amazing game of cricket that day. They won the hearts of everyone watching the game that day. Although England lifted the trophy, Kane and his Black Caps were the true champions in my mind. I will never forget that moment in my life. Kane and the NZ team showed true leadership by accepting the results with magnanimity. You could see they were forlorn and dejected, but they held their heads high and accepted what had just happened without questioning the circumstances, rules or the referees.
A few miles away (or should I say kilometers) in Wimbledon two of the all time greats battled it out tirelessly for almost five hours. Djokovic won the match in a fifth set tie break after they were tied 12–12. The fifth set tie break being used for the first time in a final. No matter who lost it would have been tough for them to swallow. But that day they both deserved to win and being true champions they both showed immense mutual respect. The loser in this case Roger was not blaming the referee, the new rules, the crowd or anything else. He accepted his loss gracefully and I salute him for that.
If you are a sports fan you have probably witnessed all possible versions of this in your lifetime. Handling a defeat and being a good loser are both very important lessons in leadership. In fact it’s our failures that offer us great opportunities to learn. No matter what our line of work is, failures are real. Not everything we do is successful. It is disappointing to fail, but if we don’t treat our failures as learning opportunities we miss out an important opportunity to grow. (Matthew addresses this in great detail in his book — ”Blackbox Thinking “, and I would suggest you read his work to learn more.). But to learn from failures we have to accept our failures which would need us to look internally not externally.
Let’s just dwell on our behaviors around our failures and how they mold us as leaders. We all have different personalities and react differently to failures. Our K-12 and/or our university education doesn’t teach us how to behave or prepare us for handling defeat. Our behaviors are molded at home, by our religion, our peer group and our social interactions. Our role models shape how we behave. If our role model influences bad behavior like the opposing coach (played by John Kreese) in the movie — ”The Karate Kid”, then we fail to learn.
When things don’t go as planned or when despite our best efforts our opponent prevails, it is human to be flustered and frustrated. But true leadership is to control that emotion in the moment and not let that overwhelm us and influence how we lose our self control. What Kane and the Black Caps and Roger did that day was demonstrate restraint, when victory was snatched away from them providentially despite their best efforts. What drove their behavior? How do we learn to be like them? Why should we?
A good leader always plans ahead for multiple scenarios. They certainly must have imagined the possibility that losing was one possible outcome. They must have imagined how they would handle a loss and how to behave and more so how not to behave. Our instincts may want us to emote, to cry in despair. I am not saying don’t do that. That however is more internal. All I say is don’t take it out on the fans, the referee(s), your opponents or the furniture. In short don’t throw a tantrum, hopefully you left that behind when you grew out of your toddler years. Both in sports and in your personal and professional life we need to learn to take the loss and get ready for the next round. No victory is permanent and there is nothing to stop one from winning tomorrow if you lost today.
Accepting a loss is hard work too. If you only focus on winning you will probably unprepared to handle a loss. It would be foolish to assume that you will win under all circumstances so you always need to have a plan B. A good leader would think of that always. Whilst there is no harm for preparing for the celebrations it is critical to plan for a loss.
I recently witnessed the failure of India’s billion dollar moon rover landing mission — Chandrayaan 2. The scientists were all gung ho with everything working to perfection until the last few minutes when they lost communications and the mission was lost. Clearly there was a lot of disappointment in the room and it took them a few days to recover. With the probability of failure being relatively high, they would have done better to educate the community on the underlying risks. It’s easy to get carried away by what success can bring that we often don’t focus enough time on failure. A good leader should focus a portion of their time on how to handle a failure in all their endeavors. What these sports men and women showed us was their preparedness to handle failure. Their frequent encounters with failure had perhaps conditioned them to handle failure maturely.
So why do we need to be cognizant of how to handle failures. Is it just the perception of others or is there more? Clearly it impacts how others will perceive us. But I think there is more to it than just the perception of others. How we handle failures impacts our own self image, shortens our recovery from our loss and help us understand the situation better. There is less of a self doubt or dwelling in self pity. More often it helps us accept the reality sooner and understand what options we have to deal with the situation and make appropriate choices. It prepares us to recover quickly understand what happened and focus our energy on the next battle. Channeling our energy forward so we can better impact the next outcome should be the preferred approach. Something for us all to ponder as we muddle through the outcomes that life throws our way !
