MYTH: Always Play As if You Are Ahead

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MYTH: ALWAYS PLAY AS IF YOU ARE AHEAD

The games I lost were always the ones I thought I had won. Thinking you are ahead, in business or in football, is a sure way to fall behind. It has been my lucky experience that whenever I think I've mastered something, I proceed to get my ass kicked. That's why it is important always to play the games of business and sports as if you are behind.

I learned this lesson in embarrassing and no uncertain terms during my second year in professional football. Our fledgling Vikings expansion team had trounced the mighty Chicago Bears in the previous season opener at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota. Then our hot young team went out and promptly lost its next six games with Mr. Perfect at quarterback. We went into too many games thinking we already had them won - and so we lost.

One game the following season taught me the importance of never playing as if you are ahead, even when you are. We were playing the Bears at Soldiers Field in Chicago. Going into the final minutes of the game, we were leading by two points and had possession of the ball deep in our own territory. All I had to do was run down the clock and go home with a victory over the mighty Monsters of the Midway. I could have called a quarterback sneak and fallen on the ground, but instead I called an off-tackle run for fullback Doug Mayberry.

No sooner had Mayberry plunged into the line than I saw black Chicago shirts diving into a pile of bodies on the ground. Then the umpire began signaling that the Bears had recovered a fumble! We had lost possession of the ball in our own territory, and now Chicago's place-kicking team was coming onto the field! I stood on the sidelines with my mouth open about 10 feet while Papa Bear Halas's boys calmly won the game with a field goal as the clock ran down. I had played as if I was ahead and lost the game! I had gotten sloppy and called a hand-off when I should have eaten the ball and fallen on the ground. By giving the ball to my fullback, I was setting him up for the remote chance of failure. I had not taken the ultimate precaution to ensure victory.

I was acting like the businessman who thinks a deal is done before it's signed, sealed and the check is delivered (and has cleared the bank). Any "done" deal that comes undone wasn't really a done deal, it was an almost-done deal, just as my game against the Bears was "almost" won.

There is, of course, no such thing as almost winning - except in the Olympics, where you can come in second, or - as some wag has said - in medical school, where they call even the last-place finisher "Doctor." But in football and in business deals, old Yogi Berra taught us all a great lesson when he said: "The game ain't over until it's over."

The closer you are to victory - we were only thirty seconds away that day in Chicago - the more imperative it becomes to attend to every detail of winning. I have seen big business deals fall apart when someone got careless and sloppy at the contract-signing stage because he was so elated over the success of the basic negotiations. We had basically already won that game in Chicago - until the quarterback got elated and sloppy in the final seconds. We assume victory. Most of my mistakes are ones of assumption rather than knowledge or logic.

If you play not to lose, you'll lose. The company that just tries to hold its position in the market will soon be passed. Playing to win means always playing as if you are behind - and struggling for perfection. Perfection means covering every detail of victory - even if it means falling on the ground with the football. There is nothing like the prospect of being hanged to concentrate the mind - as Dr. Samuel Johnson pointed out. You'll cover every detail more carefully if you play as though you're running third in a marathon with 3 miles to go.

Some managers believe that if they concentrate on the big picture, the details will take care of themselves. But most errors in business, I have found, are mistakes of assumption rather than logic. In business and in sports, it's the little things that beat you.

FACT: There's nothing like a hanging to concentrate the mind - always play as if you were losing.

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