Do you know the difference? When you are playing to win, you look for and seize opportunities. While playing not to lose, you will miss the opportunities.
Reading time: 2 minutes; 54 seconds
Reading time: 2 minutes; 54 seconds
Are you playing to win or playing not to lose?
This article explains the importance of a winning mentality
Stephanie Moore
Are you playing to win or playing not to lose?
When you are playing to win, you look for and seize opportunities. But, unfortunately, while playing not to lose, you will miss the opportunities.
People who focus on playing to win see their goals as creating a path to success and concentrate on the rewards that will accrue when they achieve them. Therefore, they are eager, and they play to win.
People like this are comfortable taking chances, working quickly, dreaming big, and thinking creatively. But, unfortunately, all that chance-taking, speedy working, and positive thinking make these individuals more prone to error, less likely to think things through, and usually unprepared with a plan B if things go wrong. But, that's a price they are willing to pay as the worst thing is a chance not taken, a reward unearned, a failure to progress.
In contrast, people who play not to lose see their goals as responsibilities and concentrate on staying safe. They worry about what might go wrong if they don't work hard enough or aren't careful enough.
They are vigilant and play not to lose, hang on to what they have, and maintain the status quo. They are often risk-averse, but their output is also more thorough, accurate, and carefully considered. To succeed, they work slowly and meticulously. They aren't usually the most creative thinkers but may have excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
While those who play to win generate lots of good and bad ideas, it often takes someone who plays not to lose to tell the difference between the two.
Although everyone is concerned with success and an awareness of risk at various times, most of us have a dominant behaviour. It affects what we pay attention to, value, and feel when we succeed or fail. It determines our strengths and weaknesses, both personally and professionally. And it's why the decisions and preferences of our differently focused colleagues can seem so odd at times.
You have a determined and passionate mindset to fight for victory when playing to win. When you are playing not to lose, you are simply rolling with the punches, playing defence and not offence. Essentially, playing to win means you try your best and work the hardest. But playing not to lose is doing what is required, or what is below required-as long as you win, even if doing so by one per cent.
Our behaviours in these differing approaches change significantly too.
You focus on making the best of your strengths when playing to win. When you are playing not to lose, you focus on guarding your weaknesses. This can mean we spend time wrapped up in things outside our control instead of embracing and maximising the areas inside our control.
In a crisis, the one who plays to win will often handle it better than the one who is playing not to lose.
Those that play to win typically show some specific behaviours:
- work quickly
- consider lots of alternatives and are great idea creators
- are open to new opportunities
- are optimists
- plan only for best-case scenarios
- seek positive feedback and lose steam without it
- feel down or frustrated when things go wrong
While those who play not to lose:
- work slowly and deliberately
- tend to be accurate
- are prepared for the worst
- are stressed by short deadlines
- stick to tried-and-true ways of doing things
- are uncomfortable with praise or optimism
- feel worried or anxious when things go wrong
What can we learn?
It would be best to adopt a 'play to win style' as a business leader. While it is clear there is nothing wrong with a 'play not to lose' approach, and, in some instances, this approach does lend itself very well in growing business through ambition and clear goals, it may not. You could become the business's most significant barrier to growth and success.
take action; achieve more
- Identify your approach in life. Do you play to win or not to lose?
- What behaviours do you see in those around you that you rely on to help you deliver your business growth ambitions?
- What changes do you need to make in yourself and others to create the shift your business needs?
