A little nugget from Andrew Garda's article in Sports on Earth on the New England Patriots - Denver Broncos matchup on Sunday night. The Patriots, led by quarterback Tom Brady, beat Denver 43-21.
"It's back to work tomorrow to see what we can improve," Brady said after the game as his team headed into a bye week. "We can always improve."
It was a sentiment shared by left tackle Nate Solder.
"We have to continue to improve because we didn't do everything the way we wanted to," he said post-victory.
Never being satisfied is the mark of a good team. It's one thing to be unhappy when you lose, as Manning was. It's entirely different when you win, and win handily. It's a special sort of madness which makes great players great and carries teams to championships.
What's true in football is also true in sales, and in management. If you won a deal, or beat your numbers for the year, you didn't do everything "the way you wanted to." There's room for improvement, and the best leaders and teams will think this way.
Deepak Malhotra (co-author of "Negotiation Genius," one of 2007's top 5 books) and colleagues have once again dived into the psychology of negotiators and dealmakers in May's Harvard Business Review ("When Winning is Everything").
They find that certain factors present in many deals can drive irrational thinking and, ultimately, overpaying for acquisitions. The factors are:
Rivalry - animosity toward a competitive rival for an acquisition, say, can create a "win at all costs" mentality.
Time Pressure - racing to meet a stated or internal deadline can lead to accepting a poor deal
The Spotlight - if people are watching--coworkers or the public--a dealmaker may act less rationally than if the spotlight were off.
Malhotra et al write: "Rivalry, time pressure and a bright spotlight can each fuel competitive arousal. Collectively, they can lead to decision disasters." They point to the Boston Scientific acquisition of Guidant and Viacom's purchase of Paramount as two costly examples of this type.
What to do? As in "Negotiation Genius," Malhotra urges dealmakers, first of all, to be aware that these factors exist. Mere awareness of a feeling of time pressure is a tool to prompt reflection: "Is there a reason this has to be done this week?" Almost always, the answer is no. The world won't end if the deal is delayed.
As for rivalry and the spotlight, companies can put approaches in place to manage them. Often, it means spreading the responsibility among teams of dealmakers rather than allowing individuals to shoulder the entire burden. [Microsoft might have managed 2008's Yahoo engagement better if it had not allowed it to become Steve Ballmer's deal. The jury will be out for a while, of course, on the Skype acquisition.]
Malhotra and his colleagues are probing into new and important territory in business research. By bringing behavioral economics and psychology into the forefront of dealmaking and negotiation, they are providing a valuable service to businesspeople everywhere.
Most refreshingly, their focus on the costs of dealmakers' irrationality and aggression is a welcome antidote to the lionizing of ultracompetitive CEOs and moguls elsewhere in the business press.
(Photo: a still from the infamous Steve Ballmer monkey dance)
We watched "Megamind" last night and I was delightfully surprised by an exchange between Megamind, the villain-turned-hero, and Titan, the hero-turned-villain (you'll have to see the movie to make sense of that, I think):
[Titan has just thrown Megamind into a wall and is about to finish him off.]
TITAN: No matter what side you're on, you're always the loser.
MEGAMIND: There's a benefit to losing. You get to learn from your mistakes.
[MM proceeds to wriggle out of the tight spot and turn the tables on Titan, save the city, and get the girl.]
Makers of animated films seem to have this learning from mistakes thing down pat - see the quote from "Meet the Robinsons" at the margin to the right.
And here's the Megamind trailer if you're curious:
Brown is discussing a quote from his wife imagining what the world would be like without people like Walker, when Teri Gross interrupts:
Brown:
What sort of a world would it be without Walkers? A world where there are only sort of Masters of the Universe...would be like Sparta.
Teri Gross:
Could we just stop here? I'm not a Master of the Universe. You know, I'm not broken, physiologically broken, like your boy. But I'm hardly a Master of the Universe. I think most of us are not Masters of the Universe. We're all broken in our own special ways. So it's not like we're perfected people and we need constant reminders of imperfection. I'm not arguing for abortion here, I'm just saying...we're not a population of perfection.
Brown:
No, no, absolutely not... although, you know, the imperative to know what to do, to have the answer, to...have the solution. I think that's a very strong imperative. And Walker is...he's more than a reminder of imperfection. Gradually, I've begun to realize, he is a way of...not the only way of being, but he's an alternate way of being. Because you can't be successful with Walker. You can't "get it done." You can't "just do it," as the ad says. You have to actually just be with him
I remember precisely where I was when I heard this: on Forster St., heading over the Harvey Taylor Bridge taking my son home from school. As I listened, I was reminded of something very current and yet age-old. An obsession with "winning." What Brown is saying means this to me: Walker is important and his life is meaningful because he presents us a situation that is not winnable. It just is. The work involved with raising and caring for Walker will not end in triumph. It will persist, day by day, for as long as it lasts. That is its limitation and, in the end, its beauty.
This story is from AG Lafley, the former CEO of Procter & Gamble, from Harvard Business Review's "Failure Issue."
In the 1980s P&G tried to get into the bleach business. We had a differentiated and superior product—a color-safe low-temperature bleach. We created a brand called Vibrant. We went to test-market in Portland, Maine.
We thought the test market was so far from Oakland, California, where Clorox was headquartered, that maybe we could fly under the radar there. So we went in with what we thought was a winning launch plan: full retail distribution, heavy sampling and couponing, and major TV advertising. All designed to drive high consumer awareness and trial of a new bleach brand and a better bleach product.
Do you know what Clorox did? They gave every household in Portland, Maine, a free gallon of Clorox bleach—delivered to the front door. Game, set, match to Clorox. We’d already bought all the advertising. We’d spent most of the launch money on sampling and couponing. And nobody in Portland, Maine, was going to need bleach for several months. I think they even gave consumers a $1 off coupon for the next gallon. They basically sent us a message that said, “Don’t ever think about entering the bleach category.”
We certainly learned how to defend leading brand franchises. When Clorox tried to enter the laundry detergent business a few years later, we sent them a similarly clear and direct message—and they ultimately withdrew their entry.
