The Will to Win

I was thinking how President Trump is delivering on a substantial amount of things establishment Republicans and conservatives used to say they wanted - just not in the way they would do it.

Against all evidence, they still believe that shaming people who have no shame works, that negotiations should always be prosecuted from weakness (even if you have the majority), you should always trust people who have proven, time and again, they cannot be trusted, and respect should be given to those who have never respected you - because that is the way things have always worked in the "Republican" world. We wanted to be seen as gentlemen no matter how many times being gentlemanly resulted in us getting run over.

And with all that, they are surprised that they never won an argument or negotiation.

Republicans had come to be comfortable with being the lovable losers. Trump represents a change in that thinking. A lot of things are said about the Republican Party under his leadership, but the most important change is less focus on process and more on winning.

Many years ago, I was charged with the responsibility to affect a turnaround at a business that had been beaten down by competition and ineffective management. The people in the business had grown so accustomed to losing and the subsequent metaphorical beatings from senior corporate leadership that they forgot how to compete and win – and most devastatingly of all, they had lost hope. There was a vicious downward spiral established and the more the business failed, the tighter the corporate leaders pulled the noose and the more freedom the remote location lost.

The more mistakes they made, the fewer and fewer decisions they were allowed to make and that lead to less and less control they had over their own destiny.

The planning, direction and governance of the business came to be centralized at the corporate headquarters. No manager was allowed to do anything without review and approval of someone at the home office. With this, the business became slow to change, risk averse and fearful – all things that increased the speed at which they were falling toward catastrophe.

I worked with the site leaders for several months to understand the issues with this process and found that even though they knew what to do and were fully capable of doing it, they had become beaten down and defeated. They had become the human equivalent of a dog that has been sadistically whipped on a regular basis – a dog like that will recoil from an outstretched human hand because the first thought the dog has is that the hand is going to strike, not to coddle and comfort.

People, when subjected to similar situations and consistent negative stimuli will exhibit the same behavior.

Below is the backbone of a meeting that I held with the local leadership teams – all the way down to the line supervisors and the team leads – it was also shared with all of the employees after I was sure the managers understood.

Here are the basics of what I told them:

• We must drive a stake in the ground to start the turnaround, every situation has a tipping point and every change has a starting point.

• I can unlock and open the cell door but I can’t force anyone to walk through – we need to accept the freedom to change.

• We have to stop pulling the unlocked cell door closed on ourselves because we have grown comfortable with our imprisonment and we fear what is outside.

• History can’t be changed – but the future can be.

• I’m asking for your commitment to help make the needed changes – change is hard and nothing changes without individuals who are committed to the fight.

The business turned around very quickly. They have persevered for years under some very difficult conditions and now are determining their own future – but it never would have happened if the team had not chosen to be brave and assertive enough to walk through that unlocked cell door toward opportunity.

That is the difference with Trump. He is instilled the courage and the will to win.