Gaining a Winning Mindset in Business

Many people view paving a path to victory in life sometimes as a battlefield whether its War, Sports, or Business. However, there are a lot of ways to approach developing a winning mindset.

In my 25+ years of professional experience, there are even important business lessons I learned back at the age of 12 delivering newspapers door to door, trudging through the snow each morning during the winter, collecting subscription revenue each month, and going door to door to gain new subscribers.

For me, having a winning mindset all rolls-up to leading with a mindset of victory vs. destruction. I think this leadership doctrine can be easily understood when reviewing its application in war, sports, and business.

A Winning Mindset in Battle: US Marines vs. Japanese Doctrine During World War II in the Pacific

US Marines vs Japanese Doctrine [Life and Death]

During World War II the Japanese soldier doctrine was shaped in large part by “Bushido” or “Way of the Warrior”. Aspects of this doctrine embodied the Samurai spirit, loyalty to the emperor, and the idea that dying in battle was the greatest honor.

Surrender was considered shameful. Thus, the Japanese strategy centered around rapid, aggressive attacks. Soldiers were indoctrinated to fight to the death, rather than consider a retreat and live to fight another day.

This strategy would prove to have devastating effects on morale, the Japanese attrition rate, ability to develop more experienced soldiers, and this put more pressure on the industrial production base to replace equipment lost (Planes, Tanks, Rifles, etc.).

The US Marine doctrine focused on a survival-driven mindset, and regularly rotated Marine units to maintain strong morale, rest, and mission readiness. The Marines also focused on professionalism and empowering small units to improvise and make quick battle decisions on their own.

This was in contrast to the Japanese command that was very centralized and rigid focused on obeying orders. While the Japanese doctrine focused on sacrifice and glorifying dying in battle, US Marines were indoctrinated to adapt, survive, and win - focusing on mission success - not self sacrifice.

These key elements of the US Marine doctrine would ultimately contribute in a big way to the defeat the Japanese army in the Pacific.

A Winning Mindset in American Sports

[Wins and Losses]

Aside from coaching playbooks, high level strategy in sports can be quite simple but different. Almost like a doctrine for battle. If you pay attention to the coaching of sports today, and even the behavior of the fans of different teams in large sports stadiums for football, basketball, hockey, soccer, among others - you will notice the shaping of a doctrine.

Simply put, I often equate these shaping doctrines similarly to a mindset of victory vs. destruction, or light vs. dark, or even Sith vs. Jedi (For Star Wars fans), and yes - even good vs. evil (at some level).

If you observe for awhile you’ll start to notice the leading doctrine for that team. A mindset of victory or destruction can be simply explained by these two questions - “How are we going to win?” vs. “How are we going to make the other team lose?”

A mindset of “how are we going to win?” is usually accompanied with a charismatic and inspiring coach, promotion of being a “team player”, building positive momentum towards each victory, encouraging other teammates, installing the belief that there is always a way to win.

A mindset of “how are we going to make the other team lose?” is usually accompanied with a coach who is extremely demanding of his players, yells at them rather then motivates, regularly promotes discipline over recognizing achievement, there may even be a culture of playing rough with opposing players in order to win the game, an overall negative mindset driven by probability rather than momentum building.

And you can sometimes even see this in how the home team fans behave. The victory mindset fans are cheering and believing their team can win up until the final minutes, encouraging their favorite players. The destruction minded fans are taunting and distracting players, getting unruly, and more focused on “I hope we don’t lose” rather than “we can win still win this”.

A Winning Mindset in Business

[All about the coins]

The business landscape is all about financial victory. In business you will find all kinds of company cultures, and there will be many similarities to war and sports. The US Marines “survive and win” is a bit similar to a startup balancing cash flow with growth.

Where some startups may become too aggressive and go on a hiring spree, burn through their cash runway and miss the mark on their next fundraising round - ending up in bankruptcy.

Business doctrine or mindset will have deep impact on brand, culture, and success. In terms of a victory vs. destruction mindset, I’ve seen some toxic cultures from both startups and Fortune 500 companies.

For instance, as the US Marines doctrine for victory focused on keeping morale high and empowering small units to make decisions on their own and improvise - many large companies use rigid structures, don’t empower employees, poorly communicate cross-functionally, have low morale, and view people as just “head count” often “changing the tires” with layoffs when there is an engine problem that desperately needs repair.

Thus, like the Japanese, over time they will lose much of their staff that has vital company, brand, and industry legacy knowledge. Over time, this legacy knowledge is key to a business operating efficiently & effectively, running programs and campaigns that are the financial bread and butter of the business, training new hires, and avoiding a repeat of past mistakes. All things that often aren’t on leaderships radar.

I’ve also seen some toxic startup cultures that view employees as short-term resources to reach the next milestone, and aren’t thinking about long-term victory with the team they are building.

It’s important to view employees as an investment in the companies future, developing culture and driving doctrine as a means to win financial victory, the strategy & execution as thought leadership, and making waves of momentum towards victory as the fruits of your teams labor.

Much like sports, paving a path to financial success with a victory mindset involves being a positive brand ambassadors, a focus on recognizing individual contribution while supporting a team player culture, making waves, and riding positive momentum towards your key KPI’s for the business.

As an executive level leader, I’ve never seen a situation where victory just meant hiring the best people and then demanding success until it happens. If I had a dollar for every time I heard “we don’t have the right people to reach our vision”. Anyway, a story for another time.

I won’t get into destructive doctrine that much, but you find it a lot on sales teams. Rather than micromanaging, riding sales managers, and constant criticism - a victory mindset will go much farther in achieving revenue goals.

This doesn’t mean a sales person shouldn’t get fired after missing their goals repeatedly. However, if 12 months have gone by and you’ve replaced your sales person 4 times - I think you’re probably either missing the mark on hiring, not training and developing them properly, or have a company culture issue to solve.

I hope that you’ve found this victory mindset interesting, and learned a few ways to implement a better approach to building momentum for your business.