Winners: And How They Succeed

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Alastair Campbell knows all about winning. As Tony Blair's chief spokesman and strategist he helped guide the Labour Party to victory in three successive general elections, and he's fascinated by what it takes to win. And surely it is this that makes the British monarchy the “business school case study in the management technique of rebooting” (Tristram Hunt) and the most important learning point for all school leaders. Going beyond values and bringing people together, giving a sense of belonging and mutually supporting each other without judgement to contribute collectively and individually towards one long term vision and purpose. A common journey.

Innovate – By paying attention to the details you create the opportunities that allow you to take a product, service or process and make it better. He had no control over themedia or the reactions of the public when his affair was publicized, but he could keep doing his job, for example by keeping up conversations with Tony Blair about the Russian nuclear arm situation. Clinton still ended up getting impeached at the very end, buthe still managed the situation as best as he could. Cyclist Michael Rogers' won his first ever stage of the Tour de France. As he dismounted and fell into the waiting arms of his support team he was weeping and later explained that the reason he found it all so emotional was because he had made a conscious decision to change his mindset: he was no longer afraid of failure he said and it was that changed outlook that had made him go all out to win. As long as a tactic works for implementing your strategy in a way that gets you closer to your objective, keep doing it. But once it stops, drop it and try the next one, without changing the strategy. Lesson 2:Winners are so terrified of losing that they’re happy to get uncomfortable to avoid it.The main gist of Campbell’s work, as it says on the tin, is to identify the traits and qualities from the real life stories of winners across the worlds of sport and business. Including, as you would expect from Tony Blair’s communication guru, a fair number of ‘inside’ stories from his political experience. At one point Gary Neville made a conscious decision to tell his friends he wouldn't be able to go out with them in the way that most friends do because his focus was football. He established a routine: bed by 9:15 every Thursday and Friday night for a Saturday match. Girlfriendless between the age 16 to 20 and he went on to become united captain, a treble winner and England regular, a coach and respected TV commentator. His attitude reminds me of the great Mohammed Ali quote: I hated every minute of training but I said don't quit, suffer now and live the rest of your life like a champion. To become a winner, you have to reach and cross this threshold of pain. In the summer of 2000, Michael Phelps was ready to compete in the Olympics. He felt ready in every way. Physically, mentally, emotionally.He even got on the team, butonly started in the 200 m butterfly category, where he ended up fifth. Objectives are the definition of your success – for Dave Brailsford and Team Sky this was to be the first British team to win the Tour de France. Strategy is a succinct statement of how you will achieve your target. For Apple it was quite simply, simplification which Campbell argues as the ultimate in sophisticated strategy and responsible for putting design above engineering that revolutionised the way we look at computers forever. For Sir Clive Woodward and England’s rugby team it was ‘excellence in everything’ that was the driving force for world cup glory in 2003. If you still feel like you’re too comfortable, like life just feels too much like you’re winning already and that losing isn’t a threat, get yourself under pressure.

But it is essential to avoid confusing this with Tactics which are a series of related actions needed to deliver the Strategy. Here Campbell uses the three time electoral success of the Blair machine to highlight the differences. Who doesn't want to win? Well, perhaps some people don't want one, but I'm a mere human who lusts to win. That's why I want to read this book.Use the mirror test. To find a weakness about oneself imagine yourself being the interviewer of you for a job. Tony Blair did the same when preparing for PMQs. His team would act as the Tory Opposition Leader. Discipline is not the same as a regimentation. Discipline is not the same as measurement. Discipline is not the same as hierarchical obedience or adherence to bureaucratic rules. True discipline requires the independence of mind to reject pressures to conform in ways incompatible with values performance standards and long-term aspiration's. Winners make the correct calls. Often when the facts overwhelmingly point in one direction, people will take refuge in preconceptions, gut feeling, past experiences. Always ask for the evidence, and when the facts change update your opinion! Most people spend most of their lives in this preliminary stage of wanting. They say they want something, but they really just want to want it.What does this mean? The starting point, it seems was the key appointment of the business supremo, David Airlie as Lord Chamberlain to overhaul and rebrand the royal household in 1983 bringing a clear sense of purpose within a far more efficient business model. Critically though the strategy was underpinned by reference to long established core values: identity; continuity; recognition of achievement and service.

Some people are winners simply because they’re scared of losing, and this fear propels them into greatness. However, winning isn’t just about having a motivation to win, winners are also comfortable with being outside of their comfort zone. It’s easy to do things you find easy, but you only really improve when you do things you find difficult, so putting yourself under pressure to get better is crucial to winning. I suspect that Campbell has had to have a tough word with himself from time to time, has learned lessons from the success of others as means of personal survival, and that 'Winners' is in fact the fruit of that very extended, hard-won and probably rather painful harvest. It means they desire it enough to claim they want it, but they don’t want it bad enough that it hurts not to work for it. For them, the pain of doing it is still bigger than the pain of not doing it.

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Even into the later chapters, the book still proves to be a consistently well written and occasionally very touching read. The discussion of the early life of Australian surfing champion Layne Beachley and how a challenging upbringing can develop characteristics essential to success certainly resonates with my personal challenging childhood, and yet when you see Beachley’s reaction when she finally reaches the top, you can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed at her reaction. But winners are never satisfied. The book is split into sections, with each section starting off discussing different parts of the skills Alastair sees as essential to any sort of success, which then proceeds into a case study of an individual who Campbell feels shows the perfect example of the winning trait in action. For example, the first section of the book focuses on the holy grail of “Objective, Strategy, Tactics”, followed by chapters on how effective leadership and teamship is essential to carrying out a winning OST blueprint. After this, characters from the world of business, sport, and politics are given as examples to study, from Ana Wintour of Vogue fame to Jose Mourinho, possibly the most infamous non-player figure in the world of professional football right now. Alastair Campbell knows all about winning. As Tony Blair’s chief spokesman and strategist he helped guide the Labour Party to victory in three successive general elections, and he’s fascinated by what it takes to win. You can have the greatest strategy going, with a perfectly capable leader and team, but without the right mindset these are nothing”. This part of the book explores what mindset is needed to win, the power of visualisation and then discusses the mindset of boxer Floyd Mayweather (a boxer who never lost a match in his professional career). Sebastian coe’s experience with his father Peter coe Someone without fixed preconceptions. my father had one great advantage over most other coaches who practically without exception were all former runners in that he brooked no specious or imagined thresholds simply because it was commonly held belief or being personally experienced. And while he discounted nothing out of hand, set in stone dogma and old wives tales got very short shrift. If it made no scientific sense it was consigned to the bin.

This writing format is continued throughout the book, with the second section talking about a winning mind-set, using examples from the highly successful cycling team Team Sky and their marginal gains ideology, followed by another case study of THE most infamous figure in contemporary sport, Floyd Mayweather Jr. This format means the book and lessons being taught throughout are easy to understand and makes the book a highly structured, yet unique and enjoyable read, with Campbell constantly name dropping well known people he has met and what we can learn from them. If this reeks of Piers Morgan’s Mail on Sunday columns, then do not worry, unlike Mr Morgan, rather than simply saying something like “I met Maradona, he said hi Piers, you are so awesome”, Campbell instead tells us a tale of how Maradona uses crowd visualisation before any kind of footballing event and sees himself a few hours later scoring the winning goal, therefore making the task to be carried out much easier when the actual game is played as Maradona has visualised the moment that befalls him in the real world. Piers, he is not.

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Bill Endicott a former White House director of research and analysis, coach of 57 medal winning Olympic World Cup and world champion canoeists and servant of the US Marine Corps reserve believes success comes “through a fascination for the process”. Overall, this book didn’t live up to my expectations. I am a big believer in cross-discipline/industry learning and I was excited to see how Alistair would highlight the lessons of winners in business, politics and sport and then explore how they could be applied in other contexts. However, whilst there were glimpses, such as when the F1 team helped the toothpaste factory, overall the cross-learning opportunities were slim. Firstly, the power in the leader in finding the way to the right question at the right time to find the right solution for success. 2002 and Sir Clive Woodward was struggling to understand why the England rugby team started each game on fire but, despite intense conditioning programmes came out sluggishly for the second half. Each great leader is great in their own way, there is no recipe for great leadership – most great leaders embody a similar trait; Steadfastness in their beliefs and an unswerving & bold perseverance in the pursuit of their objectives. He would take small breaks during which he stood or sat in silence in between shots. When Haney asked him what he was doing Tiger Woods replied I'm just thinking about what we did. This would usually occur when they were working on something uncomfortable for woods and it represented his willingness to concentrate on weaknesses: he didn't just want to play better than everyone else he wanted to practice better too: it was like his “church”.