Business lessons from a field sprint
Topics: Company Culture, Leadership
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It was exciting when two parts of my life came together. This year The Worthwhile Company is helping sponsor the Piedmont Orthopaedic Association Cycling Team — POA Cycling for short. The team has gotten off to a solid start and I’m glad to be both sponsor and racer.

2010 POA Cycling Team

For me it has been a learning situation and I have been amazed at how often lessons learned on the bike translate to real life — especially a competitive business environment. One such instance stood out to me in a recent race. It exposed for me a weakness on the bike that I also realized is something I need to overcome in my business life.

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The Grass is Always Greener?
Topics: Leadership
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Think back to when you were a child. Your mother probably had rules about sweets before dinner time. She wanted you to eat your vegetables and the more nutritious food, so she put the kibosh on the cookie jar. For some reason though, when she told you that the cookies were off limits, you wanted them so much more. Why do we always want the things we can’t have?

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Obstacles? Opportunities.
Topics: Leadership
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Ben is the player/coach of a soccer team in a competitive intramural university league. His team has a long tradition of winning. This season the team was struggling. Their good individual skills didn’t contribute to great team play. On-field passing and communication wasn’t happening.  Ben, as coach, was faced with 2 obstacles:

  • turning good players into a great team
  • practicing during the rainiest fall in recent South Carolina history

Winning looked unlikely, and achieving playoff or even championship success impossible. Ben took these obstacles and turned them into opportunities.

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