If You Ain't First, That's OK

As I reflect a little more on the now distant memories of the 2010 Olympics, I'm left with the feeling that it's all based on a pretty harsh, arbitrary and ridiculous way of defining success.

Consider Devin Kershaw, Canadian cross-country skier. He trained hard, did everything right, performed excellently but was two one-hundredths of a percent slower than the winner Petter Northug of Norway in the men's 50km mass start. After more than two hours of full-out racing, he had crossed the finish line 1.6 seconds after Northug. This was good enough for ... fifth place. No medal. No reward. Just suck it up, be a good sport, demonstrate the true spirit of the Olympics and go home. Better luck next time. Two one-hundredths of one percent between first and fifth - not a big difference!


Consider also "Neutron Jack" Welch, the notorious CEO of General Electric who famously declared that GE would only stay in markets where it ranked a number one or two. This thinking pervades businesses today, at every scale, with everyone thinking that if they're not first, they're last. Vision statements are filled with some variation of:

- "the number one Asian restaurant in the city"
- "the world's leading cleaning chemical supplier"
- "the best furnace cleaning company in the province"
- "the best health care provider in the country"
- "the largest insurance provider"

Basically, we all seem to be setting out to be the best, number one, top of the heap.

I understand that this is meant to be inspiring; a sort of stretch goal to keep everyone on their toes and focused on "winning". But it has the same harsh, arbitrary, and ridiculous way of defining success that is used in the Olympics. Unless you are the best, you have failed. And this just ain't so.

At last count, there were thirty-one pages of Pizza ads in the Saskatoon Yellow Pages. Obviously, they can't all become "the best", and it seems a little foolish for them all to declare that as their intent. You can run a successful, profitable, satisfying business without being number one in your industry.

Focus on improving the concrete particulars of the daily work, keep getting better at doing whatever it is you do, and don't pretend that you need to be number one. In most businesses, being number two, three, four or seven is still a great place to be. Whenever you rank businesses or people against each other, there can only be a single number one, a single gold medalist. But there can be many very successful businesses.

Strive to be excellent, to be better than you were yesterday. And even if you ain't first, that's OK.