I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Monday Musings, I write freely and wanderingly about some topic that’s on my mind.
In The Last Word on Power, executive coach defines a Winning Strategy as “a lifelong, unconscious formula for achieving success.” It “defines your reality, your way of being, and your way of thinking.” It “focuses your attention and shapes your actions, thereby determining what’s possible and not possible for you as a leader.”
I’m no longer a leader in a technology company, but I’m still a leader of my own life. And I have a Winning Strategy that I deploy in an attempt to bring about the outcomes I want, when I’m dealing with other people (service providers especially).
Because I’m analytical and smart, my Winning Strategy depends upon the sharp use of my intellect. When something goes wrong — a furnace repair, the Internet service in an AirBnB — I bring the power of thinking to the problem. I figure out what’s wrong and then I try to communicate what’s wrong to whoever is in charge (the furnace company, the AirBnB host) in great detail, hoping that the result will be a situation that’s better than the one I’m in (a refund for the failed furnace repair or better yet a functional furnace, working Internet where there was none before).
This seems like an okay strategy, doesn’t it? And yet it’s not, because my focus on determining what is wrong and communicating about it to whoever is apparently in charge keeps me from taking other actions that might result in my being happier and more calm, more pleasant to those around me also. It fails to acknowledge that there may not be a way to get what I want simply by communicating what is wrong. Just because something should be fixable and fixed doesn’t mean that will happen: life turns out the way it does, not how it should or shouldn’t.
What’s possible and what’s not
Goss wraps up her idea of the winning strategy into a theory of what people deem possible and not possible: “Every time you exercise your Winning Strategy and produce a ‘possible’ result to compensate for what’s ‘not possible,’ to an equal degree you expand the scope of what’s ‘not possible,’ thereby keeping the cycle going.”
And:
Every win, every result you produce with your Winning Strategy, is built on and reinforces the interpretation that the world is not the way it should be, you are flawed and broken, and only certain things are possible. The more powerful your Winning Strategy gets (every time you succeed and win), the more you reinforce that there is something wrong with you, everyone else, and the world.
This is the experience I’ve had of deploying my Winning Strategy twice in the last week: I end up feeling like (1) I am wrong for being so analytical and detail-oriented in my communications and (2) the people I am dealing with are wrong for not being so, for failing to see what is so obvious, and failing to then properly compensate me for what is wrong that is their responsibility.
What might be possible if I let go of my Winning Strategy? Well for one I might just let other people take responsibility for what they are responsible for: the furnace not working, the Internet service not working. Even that would be less of a burden on me, and it probably wouldn’t result in any worse outcomes. And I would be more peaceful and pleasant.
You can’t control outcomes
What do I have to lose? Goss says nothing, because despite my attempts to control outcomes with my Winning Strategy, in fact, I can’t control them.
She writes:
If you intend to play the game of Re-Invention seriously, then you must feel free to risk your reputation, your income, your position, and even your relationships, because all of these will be at stake. You will only take these risks when you recognize how, in the long run, you have nothing to lose.
She analogizes this to the idea of dying before going into battle, from the practice of Japanese Samurai warriors who enter combat without fear of death. They accept the possibility of death beforehand, and she recommends you do that too. Understand that you cannot control any outcomes, up to and including that you may die at any time.
Goss says “in the long run, your Winning Strategy will never completely ‘work.’” Your life will never be complete in the way you hope for; you will never “make it” once and for all. And you cannot control the outcome of your life: “One day, you will die. You will be ground up into ashes or lowered into the ground. Someone with a shovel will throw dirt on your face.”
What becomes possible
Once you accept hopelessness, that life turns out as it does, you’re no longer trapped by the notion you can control outcomes. You realize that there is nothing to lose. Goss says, “You are free to take any stand. To take any action. To fall on your face. To fail completely, regardless of the consequences.”
She suggests in this case you should “play the game as fully as possible,” playing “full-out in creating and implementing an extraordinary future for yourself and your organization.” (She is an executive coach, so she presents all this in the context of succeeding in business).
What it means for me? I’m not entirely sure. But it does feel like it suggests a new way to meet the world.