Does the Final Score Define a Win?

My 6th grade girl's basketball team played a game this past Wednesday (31-Jan-2007) and the final score was 23 to 12 - my ladies had the 12 points. Even though the final score showed the other team as the winner of the game, I contend that my ladies had a winning day. They started the game like a lamb, but played like lionesses throughout. I will take their hard work and effort any day. When they do their best and improve from the previous game, I define that as a win.

In life, almost everything has a final score, bottom line or some kind of metrics to determine the ends. Sometimes the metrics used don't show the real score.

In basketball teams, if you are able to make a pass to a teammate that ends up in a score, not only does your team get points, but your teammate feels good that (s)he was able to score and becomes more confident and you get an assist and become more confident in your teammates so you don't have to do all the scoring. Making your teammates better makes the team better and that is the real win.

In work life, people call it delegating. The same principle applies, you don't have to do everything, a co-worker either learns a new skill or contributes to the project, you don't have to do everything yourself and you have a much better chance of meeting your deadline. It is a win-win situation for everyone - including the company. Helping or teaching a co-worker to do something that you know how to do on a project that you are not directly working on often pays higher dividends than jumping in and doing it yourself or saying you are too busy. Helping your co-worker makes them feel better in a couple of ways. Helping them can make them feel good in the fact that you are comfortable enough in their abilities to have them do the set task. Secondly, once they complete the task, they feel a sense of accomplishment.

I contend that if you can make people better, the team, whether at work or in sports, gets better and that is more important than the final score of this one game or project. Again, the final score should not be the only measure in life. I know that I feel better when I can make someone else feel better. Sometimes the only cost is a few minutes of your time.

Make someone's day today. Perform a random act of kindness. You'll feel better for it too.