InspireME: “Show Me a Good Loser and I’ll Show You a Loser”

Peter Stone, FSO CFO

"To Lombardi, not being a “good loser” means not ever being satisfied with losing, and when you do lose, rededicating yourself to the winning process of planning, training and execution."

Good Morning Folks,

Normally on Friday's I select one of my favorite inspirational posts from internal communications to share with you. Be it a shorter week with no Friday post, and some people off tomorrow, I wanted to share this brilliant first employee communication from our new CFO, Peter Stone.

To say Peter hit the ground running would be an understatement. Peter who reports directly to me is responsible for providing the highest expert level of strategic financial advice and assistance for FSO and our clients – resulting in one of our company’s top goals for 2014 – Profitable revenue and hyper-growth. 

Since 2007, Mr. Stone has been the CFO of New York City based White Cliff Holdings and affiliated investment funds, where he oversaw $250 million in invested capital and fund operations.  Prior to White Cliff, Peter was the Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary of Guideline, Inc., a $50 million publicly-traded research and consulting firm which was successfully sold to InfoUSA.  

Peter's career here is only three weeks old, but from his words below, he truly "gets it" and is off to a fast start.

Here's Peter:

The famous hall of fame Green Bay Packer’s head coach Vince Lombardi once said “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.”  I think about that quote a lot, both because of what it means, and what I think it specifically doesn’t mean.  On the surface, the message is obvious – we want to try to win at all times, and we should never feel good about losing.   

Vince Lombardi took over a Packers team that went 1-10 in 1958, took them to 7-5 in 1959, and then proceeded to win three straight, and five total, NFL championships in seven years, including winning the first two Super Bowls following the 1966 and 1967 seasons. And the people of Green Bay never forgot it – after years of lackluster attendance at Packers’ football games, the Packers sold out every game in 1960, and have sold out every single home game (preseason, regular season and post-season) every single year to this very day!   

I think the culture of winning that Lombardi instilled is very similar to the culture of success that Mitch brings to FSO, and in doing so, Mitch has won the hearts and minds of all FSO employees and clients much the same as Lombardi won the support of Green Bay. But while I love the winning message of this Lombardi quote, I think that people sometimes don’t interpret it correctly. By implying that we should not be a “good loser”, Lombardi is not advising us to be unprofessional, or lose control or badmouth the competition when we lose.   

In fact, Lombardi was just the opposite.  100%  of his coaching philosophy was based on dedication to exhaustive planning, training and execution.   

To Lombardi, not being a “good loser” means not ever being satisfied with losing, and when you do lose, rededicating yourself to the winning process of planning, training and execution.   

In fact, any other response to losing, such as getting overly upset, blaming other people or trying to drown your sorrows, just wastes the precious time you could be using to invest in your next WIN!   

We are all human, and none of us wins 100% of the time. The true measure of our character and our professional success is how we are able to take a loss, learn from the experience and turn it into a win the next time. Remember, if we beat ourselves or each other up, we are just doing the competition’s job for them. It is also critical to point out that as important as winning was to Lombardi, he was able to achieve his enormous success without compromising his beliefs and ideals, just like we at FSO will not compromise our dedication to our employees and our clients.   

He was a deeply religious man, and attended services daily when he could.  He was also deeply dedicated to human rights at a time when that was often unpopular and not always good for business.   

In an age when the color barrier had not been completely broken by all teams in the NFL, Lombardi had a zero tolerance policy towards racism, and not only warned his team that if any player exhibited prejudice in any manner, then that player would be thrown off the team, but also told the entire Green Bay business community that any establishments that practiced discrimination would be off limits to the entire Green Bay Packers organization.   

Further (and unknown to me until I did research for this today) he was a pioneer in standing up for gay rights, openly supporting gay receiver Jerry Smith and protecting his position on the team.  Lombardi used to say “I view my players as neither black nor white, but Packer green.” What a great message, and how applicable to FSO – no matter what else we are, we are all FSO! So best to you all, Peter.

In another employee communication last week on the same theme, our National Director of Training and Hospitality Development, Missy Adriazola, shared "Winning. Isn’t that what it’s all about? I would say it’s a great end result, but what got you there? The training. 

The training is the best part of getting to score a win. 

Why?  

Because you’ve worked and practiced so hard, that there is no room for error in order to win. Look at Michelle Wie who’s 24 years old and won her first US Open in Golf. She tried to do a job playing against the men without proper training when she was 16 years old. She was not successful. 

It was not until she trained hard and surrounded herself with the right people where she was then able to dominate the women’s game of golf, and become a winner. You must master each skill level along the way to succeed."

Whether you are an associate, lead, manager or director, the more you train and work hard, the more you will succeed.

Missy is working on a great training program that will help all of the FSO team with the skills needed to ensure that everyone is a winner at FSO! More on that later.

I trust you are all looking forward to celebrating the 4th of July in style next week with a three day weekend.

In recognition of everyone’s efforts, we will be closing early on Thursday July 3rd at 3pm to kick off the July 4th Holiday.

From the entire Exceutive Leadership Team, thank you again for all you do and to making FSO USA the Greatest Onsite Outsourcing Company in the world.

Cheers and have a HAPPY, SAFE and JOYOUS holiday weekend.

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

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“Each of us has been put on this earth to do something well. 
 We cheat ourselves and the world if we don’t use that ability as best we can”
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