By Daniel Nunoo
Uncategorized
“Drive means a combination of a willingness to work hard, emotional fortitude, enormous powers of concentration and a refusal to admit defeat.” —Sir Alex Ferguson.
When Sir Alex Ferguson wrote in his Leadership book, that for years he’s tried “to fathom out why some people possess greater drive than others” and him not being sure he’s closer to solving that riddle, he wasn’t understating.
He had many players under him who epitomized the drive required to become successful. For years, he had the likes of Bryan Robson, Roy Keane, Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes and Patrice Evra, all of whom were not as talented as Cantona, Giggs, Scholes, or Ronaldo.
Sir Alex Ferguson had many talented players, but singled out the few to talk about in his opinions on drive and willingness. In his assertions, drive supersedes talent, and the few he singled out had the drive. In today’s business world, when you have one or two people who have a deeply rooted will to win, that drive spreads like wildfire.
How you drive results in your organization significantly impacts your productivity and growth of business. A winning drive is like a virus that can spread from one person to the other pretty quickly. One team member’s drive can have an enormous effect on the rest.
Ronaldo Dos santos Aveiro, one of the characters aforementioned has the talent. From an impoverished background Ronaldo still knew that the only way to put his talent to greatness was to leave the Island of his birth to lisbon at a tender age. For him the drive to change the fortunes of the family was greater than the pain of separation from the family at that age.
That drive propelled him to become one of the greatest ever players the world has seen.
As talented as he is, he doesn’t rest on his laurels and always wants to improve. As a team mate, this catches on and instigates a winning mentality across the team.
Many talented footballers have fallen short of what is required to be a winner. It takes a big heart to succeed and mostly down to drive and a strong sense of urgency.
In the fast paced world we live in, when you can successfully manage multiple priorities by implementing well structured mechanisms to ensure rapid progress, and choosing the right leaders and drivers to champion the cause ensures your culture and that winning mentality is consistent and promotes continuity.
Drive is about being frustrated with the status quo, wanting to improve the way we do things and making it happen. It is the enthusiasm and desire to meet and exceed objectives, targets and improve one’s own performance even in the face of fierce competition or adversity.
With Ferguson’s willingness to work hard and emotional fortitude, he instilled into the team the desire to fight even until the end. He couldn’t have done this without the individual leaders in the team – who as leaders, acted as the agents of the drive. His greatest legacy by far was his ability to make the team agile enough and that helped them evolve as the times changed.