Winning Isn't Everything??

Have you ever poured your heart and soul into a task or goal that you wanted desperately to achieve only to fall short? Obviously, everyone has not been successful at achieving every goal and we have all experienced disappointment. Certainly, we have all had the friend or business associate utter that famous adage, “winning isn’t everything”. This seemingly empathetic phrase is used frequently on such occasions. Some people believe that they may be helping the disappointed person by offering these stale words.

Communication Theorist, Leon Festinger developed a theory called cognitive dissonance outlining a distressing mental state caused by inconsistency between a person’s two beliefs or a belief and an action. ‘Winning’ is a belief system embedded in every person and ‘losing in something’ alters the attitude to accept the situation and subconsciously agree to be a victim in order to avoid bad feelings of oneself.

When someone is weeping and experiencing an emotional reaction to a hurt of some sort, the comfort and counseling by another person actually elevates the emotion to a higher degree of intensity. The action of misguided consoling reinforces and feeds the emotion and the action is now the new belief system. A more beneficial approach, after the emotional release has subsided, is to recognize the brief window of opportunity for restoration and objective analysis as to the reasons one failed. The friend or associate can actually help the disappointed person assume more control over their ability to succeed by helping him or her deal with the possible shortcomings that led to the failure. This allows for an adjustment in one’s emotional state because the powerful emotion of failure has given way to a sense of control of one’s destiny. The mental states of ‘Winning’ and ‘Losing’ are incompatible. Winning is indeed an attitude.

In a business setting, Festinger’s theory can prove to be an objective approach for winning if it is applied with purposeful intention. A winning perspective is not found in a company’s policies and operational procedures or in the strategic planning for growth and expansion. Winning is a culture that emanates from the senior management of the company and permeates down through the ranks. Often management undermines its intention of establishing a winning culture by the separation of employees from involvement in the creation of new ideas and the failure to communicate how the business is progressing which impacts he corporation’s cognitive dissonance. Lack of clearly stated objectives for the company and communication on how each employee contributes to the objectives often creates confusion, anxiety, and distressing mental states and thereby fueling a sense of personal failure.

It is imperative that companies that want to win and survive in today’s economic conditions be pro-active in communicating with their employees to avoid the dissonance and disconnect with the organization’s overall mission and vision. Effective communication will ensure that the winning attitude stays in the forefront of each employee’s mind and is reflected in their work and loyalty. Every step towards improving morale can build on a winning attitude.

Empowerment always comes from a winning attitude lived by senior management. Team and individual confidence is restored when honest communication takes precedence over policies and dogmatic nonsense that produce unhealthy attitudes. When good changes are implemented and the future looks bright, a fresh new sense of well-being grows through the organization and the power of winning takes on a new meaning.

To take winning to a whole new level today and reap the benefits for years to come, everyone in the organization should be empowered so that the expectation of winning all the time is the norm. With a positive attitude and expectation of winning, the occasional setbacks are viewed as opportunities for growth both personally and corporately. With the expectation of winning firmly entrenched throughout the organization, recovery from setbacks is hastened and the adage of “winning isn’t everything” can be replaced with “winning is better”.