TIGER WOODS: INCREMENTAL STRATEGY
A TIGER IN YOUR CORNER
Innovative thinkers recognize that winning is everything but also that you can’t win everything.
Sport and organizational leadership have much in common: strategy, the hunger to win, taking calculated risks, quick decision making – above all, being different, being innovative.
No one better exemplifies how a champion’s mind works than Tiger Woods. The man who is widely regarded as the greatest golfer in history earlier this year won two back-to-back golf tournaments by displaying the thinking process innovators often employ.
Playing the Buick Invitational, Woods was 9 under, one behind the leader, Spain’s Jose Maria Olazabal, going into the final hole. Tiger played a careful last hole to tie Olazabal and go into sudden death where he won the play-off in two holes. Had Tiger gone for broke in that last hole, he might have ruined his chances by being too aggressive. The lesson: don’t try to maximize all your gains in one move. That involves undue risk. Go forward incrementally.
Woods did the same a week later in the Dubai Desert Classic. He beat South Africa’s Ernie Els in sudden death. Once again, Tiger demonstrated the key to sustainable success: manage your risk by focusing on small incremental gains rather than making one big move.
Innovative thinkers, whether they work in the boardroom, in academia or on the golf greens, have a quality in common. They recognize that winning is everything but also that you can’t win everything. So they mitigate risk, plot strategy, roll with the punches and end up winning – most of the time. Like Tiger.
