Church of the Customer Blog
« Being a gracious loser means... | Main | "Citizen Marketers" for educators »
February 07, 2008
Being a gracious loser means...
Congratulating your competitor(s).
Smiling through the pain, even if it's through tears.
Highlighting your strengths by talking about those of your competitor(s).
Permitting people to empathize with you in your moment of vulnerability by admitting obvious mistakes or miscalculations.
Preparing oneself to be the future underdog.
Embracing your underdog status.
Never criticizing others, or scapegoating, or demonizing future competitors. It's hard to root for character suicide.
Other blogs that reference Being a gracious loser means...:
Gee, this sounds like advice a guy named Mitt Romney could use.
Heh! What can I say. Politics brings out the best and worst in people.
a little too late for Bellichek though...
One of the great things about capitalism is the fact that you want you competitors to succeed. If they don't you are likely to become complacent and die yourself. Competition = Innovation.
In a business context, I think part of being a "gracious loser" means working hard to serve the market segment you've defined, and graciously offering the remainder to your worthy competitors. "Losing" 95% of the market can be a tremendous win.
character suicide...lol! gee thats a new term for me
@ Patricia: LOL. That's precisely why I loudly rooted for the Giants.
@ Ed: I'll bet you a box of doughnuts that Larry Ellison doesn't share the sentiment :)
@ Sonia: An interesting point, especially considering how driven people can be on "winning" an additional 1-2 points of market share.
@ JC: Or, you could call it the Hemlock Position, too :)
Couldn't agree with you more. Doing all the reviews of the online strategies of the candidates also has me putting together a post about how they bow out. Romney was very disappointing - compared to the graciousness of Fred Thompson, Romney just really came off as a sore loser.
Nice post Ben! :)
~Li
Watch for Mitt's announcement later this afternoon that he's throwing his support to McCain. In other words, Mitt sure would like McCain to consider him as his running mate. It will be interesting to see how long the graceless loser will pander to the frontrunner before his ego gets in the way again.
sounds like what boxers do in fights (they step into the pain).
@ Li: Romney was posturing, of course, for a specific audience at the time -- an audience that subsequently booed John McCain. Classy, eh?
@ Jennifer: Egos in politics? Say it ain't so! :)
@ Kate: And then they get punch-drunk.
It seems that we live in a thankless world and this void seems most pronounced in day-to-day business. The ever increasing pace of commerce in the new millennium seems to leave little time for a thank you or even common courtesy. Global competitiveness seems to have sapped us of empathy and compassion. Yes, this is a cynical view of business today but I fear it is true. It is my opinion that we are mired in a deep dark thankless funk that rivals the world of Ebenezer Scrooge from Dickens lore.
For example, advertising is overwhelmingly negative. Charles Schwab, a brokerage company without analysts, ran ads a few years ago showing other brokers to be commission-hungry con artists, pushing a bad stock; in the advertisement a full commission broker joked about “putting lipstick on that pig.” The pressure of controversy seems to have gotten the better of them (i.e. Schwab). Although Merrill Lynch was shown by New York City prosecutors to have very similar internal email conversations, CBS, thinking it too controversial, refused to run the ad. (The ClickZ Network).
One only has to turn to YouTube or most anywhere on the web to read the smear campaigns that tear down political candidates in our 2008 Presidential primaries. Barack Obama is a victim of a Republican smear campaign which spread false information about his family history, religion, and background using a false Wikipedia citation. This is an example of negative advertising at its best with lies included. Regretfully, this negative viral message spread like crazy, misinforming thousands of readers.
Presuming that you buy into my harsh view of current affairs in the world, what should you do? I suggest that you do the opposite. Greet the world by saying thank you to your customers, colleagues, suppliers, and competitors. Be different than the rest and look for the good in things and be grateful. At the very least, it will make you feel better. I can only imagine the shock on people’s faces when you greet them cheerfully and express good tidings.
William Arthur Ward said that “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” Give the gift of your gratitude. Give often.
