In Spite of What Corporate Says, It IS Still How You Play the Game That Counts – Brian’s Blogs

Watching the Olympics is so inspiring. There are so many amazing human interest stories that touch your heart. Seeing athletes overcome odds and circumstance to compete is very soul filling and motivating. There are so many competitors who will never win a medal yet their stories of what it took to just compete can drive you to overcome your own obstacles. You don't have to finish on top to be a 'winner'. Sometimes just making it to the race is a victory in itself. That is the type of victory that corporate America will never understand.

Remember the old saying, “it’s not whether you win or lose it’s how you play the game”? We have always been told that since we were kids. The problem with that phrase is that it doesn’t mean anything in today’s business world. The lesson from that saying has always been to play the game with class and integrity, which means more than what the scoreboard shows at the end of the game. I still believe this to be true but corporate America does not. We are judged solely on the number you produce nothing else matters. I find that very sad.

In sports, your team can have a bad season but that doesn’t mean everyone on the team performed poorly. You may have had a player, who in spite of all obstacles, overcame it all and had a stellar season. Should they be considered a failure because the team didn’t win? I think not. What about that runner who falls on the opening lap and gets injured, yet picks themselves up and limps to the finish line? That is a great story but all the big wig in the home office sees is that you didn’t come in first. They could care less about the courageous story of how you picked yourself up and showed amazing human will and effort.

This would be a much better world to live and work in if we would recognize effort and quality of work as opposed to who creates a number that looks good to someone sitting in a home office who has forgotten how the game is played on the field.

I say create your own guide for success. If you can get up each day and put a smile on your face and the faces of the people around you, you have won the game. That may not show up on the corporate scorecard but I am more interested in life’s final scorecard. It isn’t easy in today’s world but stay true to yourself and your values. You will be a champion in what really matters.