Page 27 - How to Create a Winning Organization

Introduction

COMPETE ONLY AGAINST YOURSELF 9

Remember my father’s advice: Set your standards high; namely,
do the absolute best of which you are capable. Focus on running
the race rather than winning it. Do those things necessary to
bring forth your personal best and don’t lose sleep worrying
about the competition. Let the competition lose sleep worrying
about you. Teach your organization to do the same.

HOLD YOUR HEAD HIGH
Before our team left the locker room and entered the arena,
whether it was the first game of a high school season with boys
named Rzeszewski, Kozoroski, and Smith or the last game of an
NCAA championship season with young men named Walton,
Wilkes, and Meyers, my final words were always about the same:
“When it’s over, I want your heads up. And there’s only one way
your heads can be up—that’s to give it your best out there, every-
thing you have.”
This is all I ever asked of them because it was all they could ever
give. And I required the same in every single practice I ever con-
ducted, nothing less than their best effort. I gave the same.
Many cynics, then and now, dismiss what Dad taught me about
success as being naïve or impractical. But I have yet to hear the cyn-
ics and skeptics describe what more you can give beyond your best.
To my way of thinking, when you give your total effort—every-
thing you have—the score can never make you a loser. And when
you do less, it can’t somehow magically turn you into a winner.
When you truly accept this philosophy, it changes everything:
your preparation and performance and your ability to withstand
hard setbacks and defeats as well as the challenges imposed by