In the beginning of every new relationship is the "honeymoon" phase. Whether it's a new romantic partner, a new business, a new job, a new service offering, a new employee, a new friendship, the beginning of anything is all positive. All I see is the best attributes and I don't tend to see any negatives.
Once the initial shine is off the relationship, we enter the "power struggle" phase. It's during this phase that the fantasy evaporates and I come face to face with the dark side of the other person. In phase 1 I tended to see only the positives; in phase 2, I tend to see only the negatives.
The third phase is the "integration" phase. I appreciate the positives and have learned to embrace the negatives as they each support me to grow.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
indirect contribution
Entrepreneurs who have managed to successfully start a business that generates consistent cashflow and convert it into a business that has value outside of their own effort understand the true nature of power.
During the start-up phase, entrepreneurs tend to focus on control and end up being crucial in every detail of the operation of the business. During the growth phase this no longer works as the amount of detail is overwhelming. At this point an entrepreneur either stays small or learns to how to use power constructively.
In this sense, the definition of power is to created intended results through others. During the growth phase, the entrepreneur learns to become redundant in the operations of the business as they invest more energy in the design and leadership of the business system.
During start-up the business becomes successful because of the direct contributions of the entrepreneur. During growth if the entrepreneur learns to enjoy the process of indirect contribution, the business moves from a cashflow generating enterprise to a wealth generating enterprise. The business is worth something without the effort of the owners.
During the start-up phase, entrepreneurs tend to focus on control and end up being crucial in every detail of the operation of the business. During the growth phase this no longer works as the amount of detail is overwhelming. At this point an entrepreneur either stays small or learns to how to use power constructively.
In this sense, the definition of power is to created intended results through others. During the growth phase, the entrepreneur learns to become redundant in the operations of the business as they invest more energy in the design and leadership of the business system.
During start-up the business becomes successful because of the direct contributions of the entrepreneur. During growth if the entrepreneur learns to enjoy the process of indirect contribution, the business moves from a cashflow generating enterprise to a wealth generating enterprise. The business is worth something without the effort of the owners.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
the four functions of a great product
Late this March, my wife and I made a late season attempt to climb a frozen waterfall on Mt. Murchison. The avalanche hazard was a touch treacherous, as was the risk from ice falling from overhead. We found a safe way through the snow slabs at the base of the route and onto the ice but two pitches up a large chunk of ice came crashing down within about twenty feet of Tania. I pulled the plug and we left. Ever since my best friend was killed by rockfall while guiding in the Valley of the Ten Peaks, I've been understandable testy about hangfire overhead.
While making the long and sunny decent from Murchison, I started thinking about other activities Tania and I could do other than climbing. I've been climbing for 28 years and have successfully made the transition from "bold" climber to "old" climber. This day felt particularly intense given the hazards and so I stumbled on the unlikely activity of golf as an alternative. Welcome to middle age my son.
As middle age encroaches, it seems so does golf. It's a pedestrian activity, done in mild climates and the only risk for me is getting hit by a flying club from my hot-tempered wife. It's a challenging sport for sure and since we are already used to swinging ice axes, golf clubs would be a short jump.
We played a few times last year, but prior to that it was in our early twenties that each of us last played. I had given up golf back then because I lacked the maturity to simply enjoy the sport for what it is. I was very competitive back then and put a lot of pressure on my self to do well. Last year was genuinely fun and we enjoyed each other's company immensely.
One of the great things about heading back into the sport in our forties is we have dumped the delusion that we don't need lessons. So we are committing ourselves to going to golf camps and learning the game from the ground up. We are both naturally athletic and so it should be a great new game to play together.
Neither of us owns any equipment either, so we are heading to the golf store to remedy that problem. This is always an interesting part of the experience for me as a professionally trained product designer. I want the best tools to go with any endeavour I embark on.
The first function of golf clubs obviously is to hit the ball well. At this basic level, the product is a tool. It has a very specific mechanical function. The great thing about being a baby boomer is that manaufacturers have redesigned every category of sporting equipment to make our lives easier as we age. First it was shape skis and then it was the Big Bertha. Golf equipment today has become very advanced and has taken out much of the really hard learning required in the 70s when I started the game at age 7.
The second function of the product is aesthetic: the product as a piece of art. Maybe I'm weird here for a man, but given my design background, I want to use and experience things that are beautiful. How they look and feel is a very important part of the experience. The aesthetic dimension of any product or service is the spiritual component of its consumption. it can be architecture or industrial design of any scale. It's not just the clubs but the course and the clubhouse that form a part of the whole experience.
The third part of the product is symbolic. It matters to me what the company that makes the product stands for, what core values have informed the design and manufacturing process and the philosophies that have wound their way into the creation. I like Callaway because they have a tradition of innovation, just like most of the other companies I buy from (Apple, Patagonia, Black Diamond, Armani, Etro, Mercedes-Benz, BMW.) It's not about buying brands for the sake of buying brands; these particular brands have come to stand for something I like. I have an emotional connection to them.
The final part of the product is the artifact itself, as an object of physical construction: new advanced materials and manufacturing processes coming together to create something durable and well-made. At this level the object is an expression of the care and love of the people who make it.
This is what makes something the best of its category when the technical, emotional, spiritual and physical dimesnions come together into a well-integrated package.
While making the long and sunny decent from Murchison, I started thinking about other activities Tania and I could do other than climbing. I've been climbing for 28 years and have successfully made the transition from "bold" climber to "old" climber. This day felt particularly intense given the hazards and so I stumbled on the unlikely activity of golf as an alternative. Welcome to middle age my son.
As middle age encroaches, it seems so does golf. It's a pedestrian activity, done in mild climates and the only risk for me is getting hit by a flying club from my hot-tempered wife. It's a challenging sport for sure and since we are already used to swinging ice axes, golf clubs would be a short jump.
We played a few times last year, but prior to that it was in our early twenties that each of us last played. I had given up golf back then because I lacked the maturity to simply enjoy the sport for what it is. I was very competitive back then and put a lot of pressure on my self to do well. Last year was genuinely fun and we enjoyed each other's company immensely.
One of the great things about heading back into the sport in our forties is we have dumped the delusion that we don't need lessons. So we are committing ourselves to going to golf camps and learning the game from the ground up. We are both naturally athletic and so it should be a great new game to play together.
Neither of us owns any equipment either, so we are heading to the golf store to remedy that problem. This is always an interesting part of the experience for me as a professionally trained product designer. I want the best tools to go with any endeavour I embark on.
The first function of golf clubs obviously is to hit the ball well. At this basic level, the product is a tool. It has a very specific mechanical function. The great thing about being a baby boomer is that manaufacturers have redesigned every category of sporting equipment to make our lives easier as we age. First it was shape skis and then it was the Big Bertha. Golf equipment today has become very advanced and has taken out much of the really hard learning required in the 70s when I started the game at age 7.
The second function of the product is aesthetic: the product as a piece of art. Maybe I'm weird here for a man, but given my design background, I want to use and experience things that are beautiful. How they look and feel is a very important part of the experience. The aesthetic dimension of any product or service is the spiritual component of its consumption. it can be architecture or industrial design of any scale. It's not just the clubs but the course and the clubhouse that form a part of the whole experience.
The third part of the product is symbolic. It matters to me what the company that makes the product stands for, what core values have informed the design and manufacturing process and the philosophies that have wound their way into the creation. I like Callaway because they have a tradition of innovation, just like most of the other companies I buy from (Apple, Patagonia, Black Diamond, Armani, Etro, Mercedes-Benz, BMW.) It's not about buying brands for the sake of buying brands; these particular brands have come to stand for something I like. I have an emotional connection to them.
The final part of the product is the artifact itself, as an object of physical construction: new advanced materials and manufacturing processes coming together to create something durable and well-made. At this level the object is an expression of the care and love of the people who make it.
This is what makes something the best of its category when the technical, emotional, spiritual and physical dimesnions come together into a well-integrated package.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
purity of heart is to will one thing
The job of entrepreneurs is to lead change. We build high-performing companies that bring valuable innovations into the world. This job starts the moment an entrepreneur decides that the way something is, is not the way that he or she would like it to be. Innovation starts with the faint sense of opportunity and ends when the vision has reached full fruition and has created wealth for everyone involved.
How do we know when we've won this game or are even in the process of winning it? How do we measure success? Certainly there are many intangible definitions of success (which are really definitions of happiness) but these are internal and not that useful to marshall a team around a vision for something new. Business is a commercial enterprise and so the tangible measure of success will ultimately be economic.
The philosopher Sören Kierkegaard said: "purity of heart is to will one thing". To me this statement underscores the need to focus on a single external, tangible, measurable definition of success. Innovation is a challenging and risky enterprise. A single number focuses an entire team on applying its creative resources on cracking the problem.
From the entrepreneur's perspective, and this includes all owners of the business, the ultimate financial number is personal networth: a portfolio of financial assets that generate residual income outside of the efforts of the entrepreneur. This definition of financial independence is the ultimate entrepreneurial success. It does not mean the entrepreneur is happy by any means–that is a different issue altogether–it only means that the entrepreneur is successful in classic terms.
Networth is the ultimate lagging indicator of the financial success of an entrepreneur. It's the number leftover after every other business and personal deduction. It means that the entrepreneur has created a business that generates net earnings and that the entrepreneur has learned to live below this means, paying off personal debt and saving the leftover money to invest in income-generating assets outside the main business. A high, diversified networth is less useful as a team performance metric because it is personal to the entrepreneur and less relevant to the rest of the team who may not care if the owner gets rich off their efforts.
The bottom line in business is either net income (earnings after business taxes and all other expenses) or ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). The first is essentially the personal income of the owners which they either take as personal income or retain in the company to fuel growth. The second is essentially the net cashflow from business operations. Personal income and cashflow are also somewhat lagging indicators as they occur somewhat after the successful operation of the business.
Gross profit occurs after the effective and efficient production of the products and services (revenue minus the cost of good sold) but before the effective and efficient administration of the business (general and adminstrative costs). Thus a focus on net income/net profit forces good management of the entire business, while gross profit places more emphasis on the creation of the service itself. If the team has some influence on total operations, an earnings target may be effective; if they don't, then a gross profit or gross margin (gross profit expressed as a percentage of sales) target may form a better metric.
Further up the income statement is the top line (revenue/receipts and sales, depending on whether they've been collected or merely billed.) Focus on a top line team goal can result in cash in the door, but may not place any attention on the cash going out of the door and therefore whether there is any left at the end. There are several interesting ways to present a top-line metric. One is in absolute terms: total revenue for the company; or it can be revenue per store or revenue per employee or revenue per customer.
Participation volume is a number that appears off sheet but is more leading than revenue. Revenue is made up of two main numbers: the number of customers (participation) times the price each is paying. Revenue increase as either of those numbers increase but there is not necessarily a linear correlation between price and volume. Sometimes as price goes down, volume goes up and somewhere in there is an optimal amount of revenue relative to the cost of servicing the revenue.
Participation volume is a leading indicator but it is not at the front. Other metrics such as new sales leads, advertising impressions and outgoing cold-calls are further out but are also most relevant to the members of the team working on sales and marketing. The ultimate leading indicator is the number of new opportunities that the team identifies as possible future value propositions. Some of these opportunities trigger major research and development efforts to create new products, services and entirely new lines of business for new customers.
What separates the truly successful entrepreneurs from the less successful ones is leadership. Innovation is not a solo activity. It's teams of people who create the really magnificent contributions to humanity. Teams win together when they work together and what brings a team together is a common focal point: a shared goal.
Somewhere in the value creating chain from opportunity identification to networth building is the best way for a team to target its immediate (leading) and ultimate (lagging) definitions of success: The best metric for immediate individual success is the leading indicator that tends to focus a team member on making a great contribution and performing at his or her best. The best goal for the team is the lagging indicator that tends to focus each team member on working together. One number for the team and one number for the person creates focus. One leads into the other as the two numbers are separate only in timing.
How do we know when we've won this game or are even in the process of winning it? How do we measure success? Certainly there are many intangible definitions of success (which are really definitions of happiness) but these are internal and not that useful to marshall a team around a vision for something new. Business is a commercial enterprise and so the tangible measure of success will ultimately be economic.
The philosopher Sören Kierkegaard said: "purity of heart is to will one thing". To me this statement underscores the need to focus on a single external, tangible, measurable definition of success. Innovation is a challenging and risky enterprise. A single number focuses an entire team on applying its creative resources on cracking the problem.
From the entrepreneur's perspective, and this includes all owners of the business, the ultimate financial number is personal networth: a portfolio of financial assets that generate residual income outside of the efforts of the entrepreneur. This definition of financial independence is the ultimate entrepreneurial success. It does not mean the entrepreneur is happy by any means–that is a different issue altogether–it only means that the entrepreneur is successful in classic terms.
Networth is the ultimate lagging indicator of the financial success of an entrepreneur. It's the number leftover after every other business and personal deduction. It means that the entrepreneur has created a business that generates net earnings and that the entrepreneur has learned to live below this means, paying off personal debt and saving the leftover money to invest in income-generating assets outside the main business. A high, diversified networth is less useful as a team performance metric because it is personal to the entrepreneur and less relevant to the rest of the team who may not care if the owner gets rich off their efforts.
The bottom line in business is either net income (earnings after business taxes and all other expenses) or ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). The first is essentially the personal income of the owners which they either take as personal income or retain in the company to fuel growth. The second is essentially the net cashflow from business operations. Personal income and cashflow are also somewhat lagging indicators as they occur somewhat after the successful operation of the business.
Gross profit occurs after the effective and efficient production of the products and services (revenue minus the cost of good sold) but before the effective and efficient administration of the business (general and adminstrative costs). Thus a focus on net income/net profit forces good management of the entire business, while gross profit places more emphasis on the creation of the service itself. If the team has some influence on total operations, an earnings target may be effective; if they don't, then a gross profit or gross margin (gross profit expressed as a percentage of sales) target may form a better metric.
Further up the income statement is the top line (revenue/receipts and sales, depending on whether they've been collected or merely billed.) Focus on a top line team goal can result in cash in the door, but may not place any attention on the cash going out of the door and therefore whether there is any left at the end. There are several interesting ways to present a top-line metric. One is in absolute terms: total revenue for the company; or it can be revenue per store or revenue per employee or revenue per customer.
Participation volume is a number that appears off sheet but is more leading than revenue. Revenue is made up of two main numbers: the number of customers (participation) times the price each is paying. Revenue increase as either of those numbers increase but there is not necessarily a linear correlation between price and volume. Sometimes as price goes down, volume goes up and somewhere in there is an optimal amount of revenue relative to the cost of servicing the revenue.
Participation volume is a leading indicator but it is not at the front. Other metrics such as new sales leads, advertising impressions and outgoing cold-calls are further out but are also most relevant to the members of the team working on sales and marketing. The ultimate leading indicator is the number of new opportunities that the team identifies as possible future value propositions. Some of these opportunities trigger major research and development efforts to create new products, services and entirely new lines of business for new customers.
What separates the truly successful entrepreneurs from the less successful ones is leadership. Innovation is not a solo activity. It's teams of people who create the really magnificent contributions to humanity. Teams win together when they work together and what brings a team together is a common focal point: a shared goal.
Somewhere in the value creating chain from opportunity identification to networth building is the best way for a team to target its immediate (leading) and ultimate (lagging) definitions of success: The best metric for immediate individual success is the leading indicator that tends to focus a team member on making a great contribution and performing at his or her best. The best goal for the team is the lagging indicator that tends to focus each team member on working together. One number for the team and one number for the person creates focus. One leads into the other as the two numbers are separate only in timing.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
emotional choice
I saw Melissa Hollingsworth give her first public speech after finishing fifth in the ladies skeleton at the winter Olympics in Vancouver. She was the first seeded racer heading into the first of the four heats. After a slightly shaky start she was within striking distance of the gold medal when she pushed out of the starting blocks on the final run. After doing her best ever start on that course she missed her mark by just a few centimetres heading into one turn and that manoeuver landed her in fifth place. One decision. One result. Done.
In the excellent book he wrote with his wife Aly (http://marriageandmedals.com/), Jeff Pain made what I think is a crucial distinction about goal setting, saying that he does not believe in setting goals, he believes in making decisions. Jeff was the silver medal winner in skeleton in Torino in 2006 and has won several world championships as a slider. I respect his opinion on this.
The likely goal, or at least dream of most Olympians would of course be to win a gold medal. However, most don’t. Most don’t ever see the podium. In working with his sport psychologist, Jeff learned that whenever he focused on the goal of winning at the start of or during the race, he became much less present in the moment and then did not do as well. The Olympics places an added stress on athletes and it can be that much harder to stay focused and in the zone.
A Gold medal victory is not a single decision but the summary of countless well-aligned decisions. First there’s the decision to enter competition in the first place. Then there’s the decision to get up every morning and train and the decisions about how to train and to finish training everyday. There are many decisions related to finances, to coach selection and the way equipment gets set up and tuned. The decisions of all of the members of the support chain make it more or less possible to win. In the course of competition itself there are many minute and subtle decisions that affect the final result as Melissa clearly stated and demonstrated. Then there are the decisions by the other competitors all of whom are vying for the same title. And only one person wins Gold in the end.
Competitors have direct conscious control over some decisions and unconscious control over others as they use their instinct and intuition to navigate the competitive landscape. They have some influence on another set of decisions and very little influence on others. And finally, there are a great many decisions they have absolutely no control or influence over, which could greatly affect the final result. This element of chance plays a larger factor in the final analysis than maybe we’d all like to think. A gold medal in anything is really the alignment of a great many small forces acting in unison. This makes a gold medal all the more precious and special.
A choice in this context is not simply the declaration of a goal. The statement: “I’d like to be in an Olympics and win a gold medal” is fantastic and fanciful for most of the people who might utter it. A select few really mean it when they say: “I’m going to the Olympics to win a gold medal”. The latter phrase is an emotional choice and even then, there are no guarantees.
An emotional choice is like the declaration of goal, but with the full force of deep emotion behind it. That kind of emotion only comes from the connection of a goal with a core value. Metaphorically speaking we all have a gold medal to win in something. If my gold medal goal and my core values are in alignment, then all of the myriad minor and major decisions along the way–by both me and my support team–are more likely to be consistent with that thrust.
There is still a large element of chance in every game. That’s what makes a game a game and what makes competition such a great part of the human aspiration to achieve. If the gold medal in my area is truly within striking distance and I’m fully aligned, I have the best chance of winning. In the heat of each moment, I’ll either find a way to do what it takes or I won’t.
In the end, what may well matter the most is simply being present in the game itself–being conscious of and enjoying the process of making and acting on all those decisions. The purpose of any game is, after all, to play it.
In the excellent book he wrote with his wife Aly (http://marriageandmedals.com/), Jeff Pain made what I think is a crucial distinction about goal setting, saying that he does not believe in setting goals, he believes in making decisions. Jeff was the silver medal winner in skeleton in Torino in 2006 and has won several world championships as a slider. I respect his opinion on this.
The likely goal, or at least dream of most Olympians would of course be to win a gold medal. However, most don’t. Most don’t ever see the podium. In working with his sport psychologist, Jeff learned that whenever he focused on the goal of winning at the start of or during the race, he became much less present in the moment and then did not do as well. The Olympics places an added stress on athletes and it can be that much harder to stay focused and in the zone.
A Gold medal victory is not a single decision but the summary of countless well-aligned decisions. First there’s the decision to enter competition in the first place. Then there’s the decision to get up every morning and train and the decisions about how to train and to finish training everyday. There are many decisions related to finances, to coach selection and the way equipment gets set up and tuned. The decisions of all of the members of the support chain make it more or less possible to win. In the course of competition itself there are many minute and subtle decisions that affect the final result as Melissa clearly stated and demonstrated. Then there are the decisions by the other competitors all of whom are vying for the same title. And only one person wins Gold in the end.
Competitors have direct conscious control over some decisions and unconscious control over others as they use their instinct and intuition to navigate the competitive landscape. They have some influence on another set of decisions and very little influence on others. And finally, there are a great many decisions they have absolutely no control or influence over, which could greatly affect the final result. This element of chance plays a larger factor in the final analysis than maybe we’d all like to think. A gold medal in anything is really the alignment of a great many small forces acting in unison. This makes a gold medal all the more precious and special.
A choice in this context is not simply the declaration of a goal. The statement: “I’d like to be in an Olympics and win a gold medal” is fantastic and fanciful for most of the people who might utter it. A select few really mean it when they say: “I’m going to the Olympics to win a gold medal”. The latter phrase is an emotional choice and even then, there are no guarantees.
An emotional choice is like the declaration of goal, but with the full force of deep emotion behind it. That kind of emotion only comes from the connection of a goal with a core value. Metaphorically speaking we all have a gold medal to win in something. If my gold medal goal and my core values are in alignment, then all of the myriad minor and major decisions along the way–by both me and my support team–are more likely to be consistent with that thrust.
There is still a large element of chance in every game. That’s what makes a game a game and what makes competition such a great part of the human aspiration to achieve. If the gold medal in my area is truly within striking distance and I’m fully aligned, I have the best chance of winning. In the heat of each moment, I’ll either find a way to do what it takes or I won’t.
In the end, what may well matter the most is simply being present in the game itself–being conscious of and enjoying the process of making and acting on all those decisions. The purpose of any game is, after all, to play it.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
In the right
One of the things that deep down most of like is the experience of being right, in the right and in full contrast to being in the wrong.
But the classification of behaviour and thinking and decisions and statements as either being right or wrong is very limiting. As the saying goes: "do I want to be right or do I want to be happy?" It's a choice.
I'm not saying that classifying things as either right or wrong is wrong. That would be a disastrous irony. What I am saying is that it can be more useful to judge the merit of something by how well it's aligned with what I say I want.
This right/wrong duality seems most destructive in human relationships. For example: one person does something in a relationship and the other feels wronged in someway. So, naturally that person reacts by doing something to retaliate and the other person feels wronged, for which the most satisfying short-term response seems to be to lash back in return. This starts a vicious and potentially hugely destructive downward cycle.
Either person can end the destructive cycle. A way out of this is to ask the questions: "what serves my higher purpose here?" or "what is it that I have in common with the party with whom I'm in conflict?" or "Is what I'm about to do aligned with the vision I have for the relationship or am I just lashing out in defense of a perceived attack?"
Many of the stands we take reflect a fight for some principle. To "admit I'm wrong" is untenable. This is potentially a perversion of integrity–a weaker stance. True integrity means acting in accordance with my values, in a way that creates the most value for everyone involved. It does not take admitting that I'm wrong; it takes admitting what's most important to me and then acting accordingly.
But the classification of behaviour and thinking and decisions and statements as either being right or wrong is very limiting. As the saying goes: "do I want to be right or do I want to be happy?" It's a choice.
I'm not saying that classifying things as either right or wrong is wrong. That would be a disastrous irony. What I am saying is that it can be more useful to judge the merit of something by how well it's aligned with what I say I want.
This right/wrong duality seems most destructive in human relationships. For example: one person does something in a relationship and the other feels wronged in someway. So, naturally that person reacts by doing something to retaliate and the other person feels wronged, for which the most satisfying short-term response seems to be to lash back in return. This starts a vicious and potentially hugely destructive downward cycle.
Either person can end the destructive cycle. A way out of this is to ask the questions: "what serves my higher purpose here?" or "what is it that I have in common with the party with whom I'm in conflict?" or "Is what I'm about to do aligned with the vision I have for the relationship or am I just lashing out in defense of a perceived attack?"
Many of the stands we take reflect a fight for some principle. To "admit I'm wrong" is untenable. This is potentially a perversion of integrity–a weaker stance. True integrity means acting in accordance with my values, in a way that creates the most value for everyone involved. It does not take admitting that I'm wrong; it takes admitting what's most important to me and then acting accordingly.
Monday, March 1, 2010
playing to win and not to not lose
The third period of the Gold Medal hockey game was excruciating to watch. Canada got up by two goals by midway in the game and then seemed to change their strategy. In the first part of the game they took the game to their opponents and this resulted in the two goals. Then, as the weight of national pride and the whiff of victory began to waft through the arena, they began to protect the lead. This is of course human nature. The US got one goal and we all got more anxious. The last five minutes of the game consisted of the increasingly desperate American throwing wave upon wave of attacks at the Canadians who were getting increasingly desperate to knock the puck back out of their end. I saw it coming, as many people did, and with less than a minute to go the US tied the game. It seemed inevitable. It was only a matter of time and based on results they had the time to wear down the Canadians.
In the fourth period the defensive strategy of "trying not to lose" was done because there was no longer a lead to protect. The Canadians were forced back into "trying to win" and returned to taking their game to their opponents. With the strongest offense of Canada against the strongest defense of the US, a 4 on 4 was bound to come up in Canada's favour. It was just a matter of time.
"Playing not to lose" is much different than "playing to win" because it focuses attention on we don't want, which is bound to then happen. The two phrases seem semantically equivalent but they are not: one brings fear to the mind (losing) and the other brings the goal to mind (winning). One brings about panic and the other a conscious competence. It's the latter than is the winning approach.
In the fourth period the defensive strategy of "trying not to lose" was done because there was no longer a lead to protect. The Canadians were forced back into "trying to win" and returned to taking their game to their opponents. With the strongest offense of Canada against the strongest defense of the US, a 4 on 4 was bound to come up in Canada's favour. It was just a matter of time.
"Playing not to lose" is much different than "playing to win" because it focuses attention on we don't want, which is bound to then happen. The two phrases seem semantically equivalent but they are not: one brings fear to the mind (losing) and the other brings the goal to mind (winning). One brings about panic and the other a conscious competence. It's the latter than is the winning approach.
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