Success becomes a habit as winners take all

A HARVARD BUSINESS professor has identified what she believes are the five habits of highly successful people. Among other things, winning - according to Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter - is better than losing; it requires hard work and the ability to think small as well as big; it is team-based; and it depends heavily on how one responds to failure. Her conclusions were the result of a study in which research teams conducted field observations of actual businesses and sports teams in action - sitting in on corporate meetings and attending sports matches. They were published last year in the book Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End. While her first conclusion - that winning was better than losing - would seem intuitive to most people, it carried a deeper meaning, the professor said. 'This is a serious message because winning produces more wins while losing produces more losses. Success and failure become self-fulfilling prophecies,' Professor Kanter said during a recent visit to Hong Kong. The study found that businesses, sports teams or organisations on a winning streak seemed to get all the advantages. Everyone wanted to be associated with a winner. Talent is attracted to winning teams and organisations. Winners attract sponsorship and the best coaches. Winners often have access to better and cheaper finance. Being on a winning streak also brings with it access to influence and information. 'Winning feels good, and good moods are contagious. Success produces energy and promotes morale. It is easier to find the energy to work hard because it looks like the hard work will pay off,' Professor Kanter said. While winning was normally associated with images of glamour, her second conclusion was that winning was boring. 'We think of winning as flamboyant, but quite often winning is very ordinary. Winners work harder than losers,' said Professor Kanter. It was not just talent alone but also the ability to be able to work hard when things were not going well that set a winner apart from the rest of the competition, she said. Winners also demonstrate discipline and accountability. Winners want to share information and take responsibility - they have nothing to hide. They seek feedback and self-improvement. They avoid excuses and try self-scrutiny before blaming others. And while talent was a strong factor in winning, it was just as important to be able to work as part of a team, she said. Professor Kanter's third conclusion was: 'It is not the talent, it is the team.' Trusting one another at all levels is an essential ingredient for all teams. No trust usually means that a team will not be successful. Basic competence is a prerequisite. However, how a team gels as a unit will also determine success or failure. 'You need a definition of winning in business. The financial thing is not necessarily a definition of winning. The financial thing is really good because that is what satisfies the shareholders, gets you capital and helps you grow,' said Professor Kanter. 'But the definition of winning that successful companies use is often one that unites the company, creates a sense of one team all together, creates a sense of collaboration, creates something to which everyone thinks they can contribute and everyone cares about as a collective good.' She cited the example of Continental Airlines switching from being what she called 'total losers' to winners by uniting its entire workforce around the common goal of on-time arrivals. 'Over a 10-year period, they had two bankruptcies and 10 CEOs. The culture was so bad that departments would not help each other and staff would rip off their name badges at the end of work because they were ashamed to be associated with the airline. 'Continental's turnaround was about finding a shared meaning of success that they could measure day in, day out,' she said. She said the emphasis on recruiting star performers was too strong. 'There is a lot of emphasis on stars and top talent, but think about it for a moment - losing teams also have stars. 'While there is no question that talent matters, successful CEOs want not just talent alone, but talent in a team. Stars alone do not guarantee winning and may even get in the way of winning if they hog the ball,' she said. While it was important to think big, she also found that, for winners, no task was too small. Winners focus on each point and take one shot at a time. As is the case with sport, in organisations the small things can make a big difference. 'People need to feel that what they do matters, and that they can make a difference. Leaders don't do it all themselves. Successful companies create an environment in which people can take small steps and feel that their small steps make a difference. People can't only be waiting for the big, bold move at the top,' she said. Professor Kanter said the real difference between winning and losing was in the different way people handled losing. Coining the phrase, 'Everything can look like a failure in the middle', she said obstacles occurred in every walk of life. However, she viewed losses as arriving at crossroads rather than a cliff. But what was important was whether we could turn defeat into a learning experience, and benefit. 'It is easy to win when things are going well. However, winners bounce back from a stumble, whereas losers get bogged down in depression or helplessness,' said Professor Kanter. She said it was usually not external factors that prevented people from winning, but their own failure to maintain the discipline and support systems that helped them turn winning into a habit in the first place. When things go wrong, winners continue to reinforce the three cornerstones of confidence; accountability, collaboration and initiative. Winners are willing to hear about mistakes and make any necessary changes because they have confidence in their ability to do something about the situation. Faced with troubles, people can make the situation better if they keep their heads. 'It is not mistakes that cause people to lose, it is panic. Panic causes people to lose their heads and make the wrong decision,' said Professor Kanter. When problems seem overwhelming and circumstances seem uncontrollable, winners focus on whatever they can control. Even if individuals cannot control their circumstances, they do have a measure of control over their responses to those circumstances and, as such, can avoid lapsing in loser's habits. When winners find themselves losing their way, they have the confidence to focus on what they must do to ensure that things will go right in the future. Professor Kanter said companies, teams and individuals all needed confidence to avoid the destructive pattern of losing streaks and get onto winning paths. Rosabeth Moss Kanter holds an endowed chair as the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. A former editor of Harvard Business Review, she has been ranked in lists of the '50 most powerful women in the world' and the ''50 most influential business thinkers in the world' Three cornerstones of confidence Accountability Make information transparent and accessible in order to foster straight talk and communication of all the facts to build up trust. Collaboration Define goals of success and signal how each person can contribute to achieving these goals. Initiative Encourage new ideas and treat people with respect as experts in their work. Encourage small wins that make a difference and build momentum. Make people feel that what they do matters so that they offer more ideas and suggestions