Winning At All Costs

On Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, the general election for president of the United States will commence, and we will elect a new president. This is a historical year in many respects. We could end up with the first black president, the first female vice president, or the oldest person to be elected president for a first term. If nothing else, we at least have that to look forward to.

However, once again, election time has brought out more of the ugliness of people than anything else. It's amazing that this is how we elect our leaders, especially the leader of the free world, as it's known. If you've been reading my newsletters for awhile, you'll easily understand that very little of what has transpired would fall within any of the parameters of leadership that I've talked about. I really hate the concept of winning at all costs.

Why do politicians regress into such tactics every year? Unfortunately, because they work. History seems to show that whenever a candidate tries to stay above the fray, people tend to view them as weak and indecisive. Just like sales, politicians do what they know will work, not what may be the right thing to do. As much as we all say that we hate political ads, deep inside many people want to see that kind of verve and nerve, that kind of fighting spirit. And the world watches us in amazement, wonder, and revulsion.

In an odd way, I can see how this pattern reflects certain business patterns in America. Donald Trump's The Apprentice brings together people with great business backgrounds already, puts them in teams, and then has them working and fighting each other for attention and adulation later on in the boardroom. It's obvious that Trump not only loves winners, but he loves the tension that comes about by putting diverse people together and seeing how they go at each other. I've heard many people say that this is done only for television, but the truth is that this same type of thing happens in every business in the country.

Think about it for a minute. Businesses are put together one piece at a time. New employees replace other employees, or are added to the mix, and each employee within an organization comes from a different educational background, different financial background, and have so many other differences. They're thrown into a mix and told that they have to work with each other. However, each person also has their own agenda. Some people really want to work as a team. Some people want to work hard so that they can earn promotions. And some people will do whatever it takes, whether it's stepping over another person, bad mouthing their co-workers, claiming other people's work as their own, or finding ways to make other employees look bad in comparison to them.

These patterns are endemic in business, it seems, and in almost every working environment where there's a significant number of employees. It's in times like these where learning some rules and having some mores as it pertains to leadership principles can come into play. Learning how to read people and then how to work with those different personalities is crucial. Learning how to manage people and get them to do their jobs, work with others, and basically show tolerance and cooperation with fellow employees, can be daunting. Yet, when done with skill and caring, the workplace can be a wonderful place to be.

As with anything else, there are still lessons that can be learned from bad or irritating things such as the election season. I'm going to point out eight lessons, good and bad, that we've learned from this one, and these lessons don't come from only the presidential candidates:

1. Loyalty has its place, but sometimes you have to decide whom to be loyal to. Both sides have had people supporting them that have attracted controversy, either current or from the past. Both sides have had to decide whom to stay loyal to, and have either had to choose to remain loyal to the cause, or have that person who was loyal to them step away on their own.
2. No matter how high up you are, family needs to come first. We've seen a couple of instances where both sides have had to deal with some type of family issue, and, for once, they've actually taken time away from campaigning to do exactly that.
3. Everybody is an expert at something, but even experts disagree. Both sides have had some pretty interesting differences on similar issues, and we all know that they didn't come to these points of view, along with the solutions, on their own. Both sides have very intelligent people, and both sides have reviewed a lot of statistics, and both sides aren't totally wrong on any of it; they just couldn't be.
4. You can't prepare for everything, but you can learn what you need to learn in order to keep pressing forward. With every election, there are faux pas' and misstatements that are made, and candidates will sometimes say something that's incorrect, yet they didn't know it at the time. However, they only make those mistakes once, and are always ready to get back into the fray.
5. Flexibility will help you sustain forward momentum. Both sides have had times when they haven't been on the right road, or at the top of their game, and have faltered for a brief moment. What they've been able to do is to be flexible enough to change while in motion so that they've been able to recover and improve before the next encounter.
6. If you distort the truth, even a little bit, you can get people to believe you and follow you anywhere. Both sides have engaged in this throughout the election season, and it's amazing what people will say they believe about the other person. What most people don't know is that sometimes politicians vote for something that's a part of something else, and it's not that they don't know what they're voting for, but they've decided that, in their minds, the greater good is better than the little add-on. But those little add-on's can be beaten to death when someone else learns that other don't like it.
7. Nobody is perfect. My friend David Goldsmith likes to say that every day, people win or lose something by a nose, not a mile. Some candidates are very glib, whereas others may stumble here and there, but in the end, it's more about perseverance than perfection.
8. Keep your eyes on the prize; the goal is the only thing that matters. There have been reports from across the nation where certain candidates were counted out early, only to find a way to come back and snatch a win in some fashion. People will do anything to win, to attain their ultimate goal. Some people will only go as far as their morals will let them; others will use their friends and families to win at all costs. Personally, I don't agree with this one, in that I couldn't do it, and it explains why I'm not in politics.

I hope most everyone who reads this is going to exercise their constitutional right and vote on Tuesday; history definitely will be made.