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Win When You Lose: A Lesson From Joe Torre

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Joe Torre (Photo credit: Keith Allison)

Joe Torre knows how to lose. The right way.

Tony LaRussa, a manager who like Torre was also elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame yesterday, said, “Joe taught a lot of us about how to win the right way and then lose the right way.” As LaRussa told the New York Times, “Tip your cap when you get beat, but when you win, you don’t show anybody up.”

Amen, Tony. Too often we glorify winning to such an extent that it becomes the object of such desire that it causes individuals and organizations to act well, crazy at times. In sports, we see players push themselves so hard they actually weaken their immune systems. In business, we see executives work long hours for months and months only to fray relationships with people close to them.

Winning is important, but to invert the phrase that Vince Lombardi did not invent, “It’s NOT the only thing.” In sports, winning matters. We like to say sport builds character, but we might also say it reveals it because sometimes we see cheating -- players who indulge in PEDs and coaches who break the rules. Sport then reveals their darker nature.

Same in business, the quest to win at all costs causes individuals and teams to go off the rails personally and organizationally. We have all seen organizations push so hard to achieve a goal only to achieve it and have things fall apart. This happens for one of a couple reasons. One, people are exhausted and they look for other places to work. Two, the goals proves unsustainable and in that regard only depletes resources and adds no value to the organization or its customers.

Winning is glorious but what’s more important is perspective. As Torre explained to the Times about winning, ““It carries over into what you’re doing, whether you’re working 9 to 5 or doing something in baseball… do the best you can…If you do the best you can, you never have to look back.”

Never having to look back sets you up to move forward. Why? Because when you exert your best you prove that you know how to marshal your resources appropriately. You may not win the first time or even the tenth time but you will demonstrate that you know what it means to pursue a goal not by wishing for it but by working hard for it.

Warren Bennis, the leadership educator and author, noted that he did not know any successful individual who had not been tested by adversity. Many were initially defeated by it, but they did not allow such defeat to define them. The experience for some was traumatic. For others it was invigorating. For most it was a stimulus to persevere.

Winning is good for the psyche, but so too, is giving your all even when you don’t win. What matters is how you prepare, compete and conduct yourself in victory… as well as defeat.