The world of sports offers a wealth of wisdom that can be readily converted into corporate application. The most successful business coach of all time, Bill Campbell, who is often referred to as the ‘trillion-dollar coach’ due to the volume of shareholder wealth he helped create, started as a college football coach.
Last week, the England men’s cricket team secured an unlikely victory against India in a 5-day test match. Cricket is one of those sports where people either ‘get it’ or they don’t. If you are in the latter group, fear not as I don’t intend to bore you with the rules of cricket. What I will do, is introduce the principles of ‘Bazball’, a new and controversial approach to playing the 5-day version of the game which England have adopted.
The 7 principles of Bazball are as follow:
1. A less reflective environment
2. No negative chat
3. A win-at-all-costs mentality
4. No fear of failure
5. Praise, even for the little things
6. Simplicity of message
7. Embracing mental freedom and fun
Bazball does not always result in victory and has its critics however, in my opinion, the 7 principles are well worth considering and mapping back to our own modus operandi as business executives.
The underlying values of Bazball are positive language and forward thinking. If you read the list of 7 principles again, you will note that these values are present in each of them. In the interests of keeping the blog to a 4 minute read, I will give my thoughts on the first three here, and the other four we shall save for a future release.
1. A Less Reflective Environment: In his best-selling book ‘Blink’, Malcolm Gladwell researches the accuracy of gut instinct, snap judgements and instinct. Gladwell concludes that great decision makers are not those who process the most information, but those who perfect the art of “thin-slicing”; filtering the few factors that matter. In the split-second environment of sport this is intuitively obvious however, what the research shows, is that over time, this approach also pays dividends in business.
2. No Negative Chat: The average person has 60,000 thoughts per day which is approximately one thought every two seconds. Most of these thoughts are unconscious and never presented to our conscious mind, however of these that are many are negative and focus on matters that cause stress and reduce productivity. We may not have a choice which thoughts our unconscious mind presents to our conscious mind, but we do have a choice which thoughts we hold on to, focus on, and allow to influence our actions!
3. A Win-at-all-Costs Mentality: There is a strong correlation between aiming high and achieving great results. Many of the most valuable companies in the world (Google, Intel, Microsoft to name a few) have used stretch goals to drive results. By their nature, stretch goals are extremely aggressive. There is a line to navigate between an aggressive target inspiring action and being so extreme as to be considered unachievable and demoralizing. In Google, it is accepted that on average only 70% of stretch goals are achieved however, no one sets out with that mindset, the target is always 100%. Whether in sport or in business, being ready to go the extra mile and do what is necessary to win will increase the likelihood of success.
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