Can great salesmanship enable athletes to perform at a higher level?
Can it get businesspeople to do the same?
Readers of this column know well my great love of sports, and of the many powerful and usable business analogies I find from it.
My sports heroes are many, but as a born and bred New England boy they certainly include iconic Boston greats like Ted Williams, Larry Bird, Tom Brady, and Bill Bellichick.
My 9 and 11 year old sons now share my sports passion, and over the past few years I have been blessed with the very rich life experience of coaching their competitive level little league baseball teams, and thus have been tasked and challenged with teaching eager but unevenly talented young ballplayers on the nuances of a notoriously difficult but beautiful game.
Some of the business wisdoms and mindsets I have learned from my fandom and my coaching are obvious in theory, but sometimes require the inspiration of sports to apply in practice.
Like the importance of teamwork, of resiliency in the face of adversity, and the importance of leaders in embodying these attributes to their teams.
Then there is the sports wisdom of the "whole life" approach to success.
As I discussed in my recap article on the Rio Olympics, in our hyper-competitive modern world success in both business and sports requires a "24/7/365" commitment - where what we do away from the workplace and playing field is as critical to our success as is our time “in the arena.”
Yes, to be the best these days our “down time” must include lots and lots of clean living - sleep, exercise, nutrition, no or moderate consumption of alcohol and drugs, and an ongoing intellectual and spiritual immersion into quality literature and thought leadership as to peak performance, both in general and specific to our chosen fields and professions.
All of this is the ‘it is a marathon and not a sprint” view on high achievement, and sports teaches us the truth of it more viscerally than perhaps any other form of human endeavor.
But what about when we just don’t have time to train for and run a marathon?
What do we do when we just need to win today, this game, this deal?
Well, I had this exact circumstance arise when my coaching my son’s all star baseball team this past weekend.
As background, anyone who has watched or played baseball appreciates and respects the very high challenge of hitting a baseball.
I don't mean just getting the bat to make contact with the ball, but to do as they say in the baseball vernacular - to “rake” - to hit the ball hard and do so consistently against good pitching.
Ted Williams famously called it the most difficult thing to do in sports, so on a much smaller level trying to teach little leaguers to hit can be frustrating beyond belief.
Now, in Southern California by late June most little leaguers have been playing and practicing baseball for more than five months.
This means many dozens of practices, and literally thousands of fielding, throwing, running, and hitting drills and repetitions.
For my players, in every baseball skill other than hitting, their skill levels have increased dramatically...
But so frustratingly they are just not better hitters today than they were at the start of the season!
Baseball coaches the world over wrestle with this dilemma, with usually the default response being to just practice more and hope the additional reps will turn things around.
Alas and sadly, I have discovered for little leaguers hitting a baseball it just doesn't work that way.
The additional reps help sometimes, but when on the eve of a big game as was the case this past weekend there is neither time for more reps nor confidence that if the hundreds of hours of reps over dozens of practices haven't worked yet...
...then anymore practice before the big game would be unlikely to make a difference.
So I decided to...just go all “sunshine.”
I told our players over and over and with great enthusiasm what great hitters they were, how beautiful their swings were, how good they looked up at the plate, and at batting practice how hard and far they were hitting the ball.
Now, I always believe in positive coaching, but for this game I went over the top in my exhortations and my enthusiasm!
As I was doing it, my fellow coaches looked at me a bit funny, and at the start of it I could see the skepticism in our players eyes too, some of whom hadn't gotten a hit in over two months!
But as I stuck with it, I noticed a slow building change.
The more vocal and with more conviction I shouted my cries of encouragement, the more I could feel and see our players really start to believe they could do it.
The result: I am quite happy to report that this past Saturday was my team’s best hitting game of the season - with three of our players getting their best hits ever in the biggest game of their lives.
Nothing changed in their physical or technical abilities, only in their belief and confidence in themselves, surely boosted by their coach's over the top exhortations and praise.
Two key thoughts come to mind from this experience.
First of all, does it matter if I really believed it?
That my players were in actuality good hitters, or just some happy-go-lucky, marginally athletic kids out to enjoy running around on a warm summer day?
Now there are some people that are naturally believe in the potential of all those around them.
I am sadly not one of these people. I have to remind myself often to be enthusiastic and to praise.
But I don't think it matters all that much if you are or are not "natural" and "authentic" in your enthusiastic praise. Pretending is plenty good enough.
Then, can "Sales Jobs" like this actually work to overcome vexing business challenges?
Like making more sales?
Or launching a new product on time?
Or building and sustaining an awesome company culture?
Of course it can.
Our best evidence is the the personality types of so many of the greatest entrepreneurs of our age - the Steve Jobs, the Elon Musks, the Mark Zuckerbergs - who ooze and express vast confidence and belief in their intellectual, marketing, product, and business plans and visions.
And are not shy in the slightest in sharing that belief all day, every day.
In fact, it is incredibly easy to gain competitive advantage in business with just a little hype and mojo because so few of us do it!
Way too many businesspeople are "Eeyore” types - forever waiting for the other shoe to drop and just looking for an opening to share their tales of woe to all who cross their paths.
Instead, let’s lighten up and give sunshine a chance.
Yes, our colleagues may not recognize us at first, and some may mock us, but as we stick with it...
...almost in spite of themselves, they will start to believe more and perform better.
And you will too.
Because in business, the greatest sales job you can ever do is the one on yourself. :)