Thinking About The Competition
Photo by Pascal Müller on Unsplash
A couple of weeks ago, ahead of the Chelsea-Liverpool game in the English Premier League, a reporter asked the Chelsea Manager, Frank Lampard, how he felt about facing Liverpool considering where each team finished at the end of the prior season. (For those who don’t know, Liverpool won the league with 99 points, and Chelsea finished in fourth place, a whopping 33 points behind.)
Lampard responded, “Last year was last year...now we're on level points, we have a strategy and we're going after it. (How far behind we are,) that's for you in the press to consider…”
I thought that was a great response. Lampard knew that what’s happened, has happened. That he couldn’t do anything about where Chelsea ended the last season (not at this point). And that there was, therefore, no point thinking about the gap.
Instead, he understood that he could only manage what he could manage. He had a game plan, a strategy and he had geared his team to go after it.
That was it.
In other words, it came down to mindset, about how you think and how you react and how you recover. That every situation starts afresh - and you get to influence proceedings with the best of what you have now, not yesterday.
Of course, we still need to do the work to prepare. We need to plan and assess our resources. We need to consider our strengths and differentiating factors. There’s no substitute for preparation.
But to get caught up in the fear of what the competition could do? There’s no value in that, because it doesn’t help you. If you let that fear in, you might as well not come to play.
Instead, focus on your strengths and your values and offer it up as best as you can.
In a business context, this might mean picking where you want to play.
It might mean being selective about who you want to serve (only those that value what you have to offer which, by the way, does not mean everyone).
It might absolutely mean trading off where you’d like to play for where you should be playing.
The point is, set your parameters and goals in a way that sets you up for success. And then, when you enter the arena, enter it with confidence and focus. Go in there with a singular purpose.
And that is, to win.
(P.S. Chelsea still lost that game…Liverpool right now are just too good. But the points above still hold. Focus on your strengths, don’t get caught up in your fears, and do your best. What happens, happens…)
