One Loss Cannot Lead to Another

Watching the Los Angeles Dodgers without suspended superstar Manny Ramirez is intriguing right now. Despite holding the best record in baseball, the young team is extremely fragile at the moment.

Immediately following news of Manny’s positive drug test – which will sideline him for 50 games – the Dodgers lost four of their next five games and it was evident the team’s confidence had been shaken. However, with two victories over the World Series champion Phillies in Philadelphia this week, the Dodgers captured a key series victory on the road.

The team will struggle at times without Manny – there is no doubt about that. But the series victory over the Phillies may have kept the Dodgers from falling into a deep tailspin caused by the difficult and embarrassing loss of their best player.

As Lesson #29 from The Xs & Os of Success addresses, “One Loss Cannot Lead to Another.” Many of our organizations have suffered losses recently. We have to make sure we are not allowing those losses to have bigger impacts than they should. Here are a few words from this lesson:

We have all had our bad days at work.

Lost a client. Failed to close a deal. Did not meet expectations on a project. Missed sales numbers.

Business is like sports. You will not win every game. The key to being successful, however, is how you react to failure.

As a leader, your responsibility is to help your team and team members recover from failure as quickly as possible and grow from the experience. Many of us tend to spend a great portion of our time after a failure rationalizing why we failed and harping upon variables that were out of our control. While there are times external variables do play major roles in our failure, it does not benefit us to focus on them and it definitely does not help us “play the next play.”

The first step in moving forward from failure is admitting fault and taking ownership of the unsuccessful results. Only from this point will you be able to identify which variables — those you do have control of — led to the negative situation. Once these have been identified, you can then create a plan that will allow you to positively address those areas and make improvement…

The biggest winners in sports and business all lose at times. What separates them from the rest is how quickly and proactively they move on from their losses. They never allow one loss to be the cause of another loss.

Not Always Right

The New Economy has forced many of us to make decisions we never thought we would have to make. And, unfortunately, most of those are decisions we never wanted to make.

There has been a lot of positive feedback from Lesson #23 in the book, The Xs & Os of Success. It’s called “Not Always Right.” The philosophy of “Not always right, but always motivated by the right reasons” is helping many decision-makers during this time. (I know. I am one of them.)

Here's a little taste of the lesson. Hope there is a message in it you can use.

Decisions made by leaders impact numerous people. Many times one decision will impact certain team members positively while that same decision will impact another group of team members negatively.

These are the moments that make or break leaders.

Often times “being right” is subjective. Because of this, making such crucial decisions can be hazardous for leaders. Thus, the decision-making process then becomes the most important factor in this entire situation.

As a leader, you must ask yourself, “What is motivating me to make this decision?” Ultimately, your decision-making process should be consistent and should always come back to what is best for the overall good of the team and its objectives.

If your decision-making process is grounded in this philosophy, you will maintain the trust of your team members, even when a decision may negatively impact them.

Like parents who want the best for their children, successful leaders want what is best for the people they are leading. However, with their team members’ best interests at heart, there is a time to say “no” and there are times to hold team members accountable.

Leaders will always have their decisions questioned. That is part of the job. Effective leaders, however, never give people a reason to question their motives for making such decisions.

Just the New Economy being the New Economy

With the pains of our New Economy come opportunities. Just ask the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Last season's trade that sent Manny Ramirez from Boston to Los Angeles changed the entire landscape of the National League. Overnight, the Dodgers went from being just another average member of the average National League West to being one of the best teams in the Majors over the final two months of the season.

In fact, the Dodgers captured the division title and went on to sweep the Cubs in the playoffs – the Dodgers' first playoff series win since 1988. Mannywood had changed baseball in Hollywood. But not for long. At the end of the season, Ramirez became a free agent. With super-agent Scott Boras calling the shots, Ramirez was reportedly looking for a five-year deal worth $125 million.

And he was still looking four months later. Why? Despite being arguably the best hitter in baseball, a long-term deal would have come with two major concerns - 1) he'll be 37 this May; and 2) there are concerns about Manny's long-term impact in the clubhouse. Throw in the variable of a collapsing market and Manny was still looking for a job come March. Advantage: Dodgers. Their original two-year, $45-million proposal - which Boras and Ramirez initially scoffed at - was agreed to. Mannywood II went into production in Los Angeles.

Had the market not tanked, odds are someone would have thrown the $125 million or so at Manny, despite all the risk involved. The Dodgers decided early on that would not be them and stuck to the plan. (A plan that would have included them sinking back into the world of also-rans this season without Manny's bat in the lineup.) But ultimately, the Dodgers took advantage of the opportunity the New Economy presented to them. They resigned Manny for a minimal-risk deal and are now one of the favorites in the National League. If the Manny experiment does not work the second time around, they can get out quick. However, if it does work out anything like last season, their ROI will be incredible.

So what advantages are being presented to you by the New Economy? Most of us are so focused on the challenges being presented to us that we are not taking time to recognize the advantages.

A couple of months ago I had breakfast with one of the brightest financial minds in the Southwest. His message of hope was simple - those who will thrive in the New Economy will be leaner than ever before. Those organizations may not look or feel the same as they did pre-New Economy, but that will be a good thing. Both our private and public sectors will be more efficient. We - as a nation - will evolve into a finely-tuned machine for survival's sake.

Since that conversation, our team has embraced this way of thinking as we have searched for our opportunities brought on by the New Economy? Surprisingly, we have found many of them. The opportunities do not take the current challenges away from us, but they have given us a new focus and certainty for a better tomorrow.

Simply trying to survive the economic downturn is no longer an option. Find the opportunities the New Economy is presenting to you and embrace them. They are out there – in fact, there are “manny” more than you might think.