Vikram Banerjee
This year’s Australian Open Final is being heralded by many as the most amazing sporting display seen for many years. It was awe inspiring to watch Djokovic slug it out with Nadal for just shy of six hours, having only had 24 hours rest since his 5 hour battle with Murray in the semi-final. I can’t think of any other sport that requires the level of skill combined with supreme endurance.
This article is part of a series by Vikram Banerjee on “What can Sports and Business Leaders learn from each other?” – click to subscribe to his articles.
The Tennis final went through a series of ups and downs, with both competitors looking favourite to win at different times in the game. Yet Djokovic never seemed to be fazed. He remained calm under pressure, to keeping his decision making ability in terms of shot selection and all executed with precision.
Novak Djokovic - Photo via Guardian
As business leaders try to reach their visions, they are continually being pushed in different directions, and more is being asked of their time. How can they learn from Djokovic? How can they ensure that they perform at their best under extreme pressure; making the right decisions and executing with unerring accuracy?
Learn from the likes of Djokovic
When looking to learn from the likes of Djokovic and other elite athletes, I think it’s important to emphasise that they don’t live in a totally different universe to us. I am huge advocate that elite performers are made and not born. Obviously, star athletes such as Djokovic and Nadal must have some innate, natural ability and co-ordination, just as successful executives are able to think strategically and relate to people. But the key to excellence in both sports and business is not your natural height or your aptitude for mental arithmetic, but it is the development of self-awareness, mental toughness and resilience. Ironically self-awareness is a topic that has been discussed at length in the business world, and the sporting world is only recently beginning to catch up, while mental toughness are the reverse, with the business world striving to catch up with the top athletes.
Mental toughness, as defined by Graham Jones, is the ability to thrive under almost extreme pressure and it is perhaps the most defining characteristic of champions. They excel when the heat is turned up. They are able to stay focused on the things that really matter in the face of a multitude of potential distractions. They are able to bounce back from setbacks with a determination and, most crucially, they are able to maintain their belief in themselves in the most trying circumstances.
Mental Toughness in a Business World
In recent years, mental toughness has emerged as a desirable characteristic in the business world. Mental toughness in business is now considered to be so important, MBA students on some programmes are being tested and scored before they graduate to help maximise their mental toughness potential. A recent article on mental toughness highlighted the importance of mental toughness for success by demonstrating higher mental toughness scores for senior managers than middle and junior managers.
The business world is, in my opinion, still grappling with the true meaning of the term. A surprise to me when I made my career switch was that, for all the adjustments leaders make for the different characters in the office with things such as communication and motivation, many people still associate mental toughness with a tough, uncompromising attitude, the ability to burn the candle at both ends and being overly assertive.
The surprise for me was the lack of understanding of a topic in an industry where personal profiling is a huge business. Mental toughness, in my opinion, is someone who achieves consistently high performance regardless of situational factors and pressure, remains confident even in the face of adversity and has the resilience to bounce back from setbacks. Essentially, mental toughness is about staying strong in your self-belief, making your motivation work for you, keeping your head under stress and maintaining focus on the things that matter.
All this was shown in huge amounts by Djokovic during the Australian Open Final. He wasn’t flawless, he made mistakes, and when he did he obviously wasn’t happy with himself. However, when he made them he managed to get over it very quickly. He even smiled at times – a great way of letting go of tension – but then refocused immediately, never losing his intensity.
Mental toughness combines technical skill with self confidence in equal measure. I believe that working on ‘hard skills’ and ‘mental toughness and positivity’ is vital, as shown in sport. However, a common stumbling block in both the sporting and business world is destructive perfectionism, that undermines the vital but small gains that they are making. Realistic positivity is a key mental skill that goes a long way to achieving goals.
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This mental toughness is not something which the best learn overnight or are born with, rather they have worked hard on each of the key aspects (which are – or do we cover this later) to create the final product.
What many people do not realise when they see “charismatic” leaders coping with pressure and adapting to excel with seeming ease, are the 10,000 hours of effort and preparations that underpins their success. This effort and preparation is something that I will look to explore in my next article.
You are right about the destructive nature of perfectionism, you can spend 80% of the time trying to achieve that final 20% of the task to perfection but the challenge is knowing when that is no longer a good use of time.
Keep writing i find the articles make me think about what i am doing.
Enjoying reading the blogs Vik. Keep up the good work. Interesting getting your take on the cross over between the sporting and the commercial world.
One thing that struck me though in reading your mental toughness article is the absence of the notion and role of ‘stakeholders’ which more often than not in the corporate world is now the shareholders and public scrutiny.
When I look at Novak or Rafa, or Usain Bolt, I see a mentally tough sportsman, ruthless, competitive, driven and talented. Where they differ from the corporate world in my eyes (and i’ve chosen individuals specifically rather than team sports), is that they are personally the product and business. Their interests are personal and while they have fans, sponsors and even a team behind them with a stake in their success, their personal performance has the most dramatic impact on their fortunes, goals and ambitions, which i believe breeds the environment for mental toughness and self belief to flourish.They are and own the biggest stake of all.
Translating that to a corporate environment is an area in which i would like to understand more but i think is also fundamental in developing the next generation of business leaders. You could compare the sporting mental toughness to an entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg’s vision and drive comes to mind, but again Facebook is a unique business which draws as much on the brand of the individual and their goal as the ultimate product. The key stakeholder is Mark himself, his vision, his drive. I’m not sure this in true in large organisations for middle/senior management, who have less ‘skin in the game’.
I guess my question is: How do you align a recruited business leaders goals with shareholders interests to create the environment for mental toughness to come to the forefront? Does it require a love for the game/business from the outset, or can this love and ability to stamp ones one brand on a product of commercial enterprise be developed and honed.
I believe everyone has a level of mental toughness, that’s human nature and often might not be visible until the correct environment/variables are in place to push the individual. Creating this environment and getting the buy in of stakeholders is something business needs to create before we can draw on Novak’s example in my opinion.
Keep up the good work.