Earlier this week (while unpacking a few boxes) – I read about a Houston area high school basketball team who lost this week to a local rival; one that happened to be ranked among the nation’s best. While their loss was indeed expected by many, the manner in which they lost was not.
It appears that their coach, after discovering that his team was not going to be victorious, decided to set his attention on obtaining victory in another area: keeping his opponent from scoring 100 points.
To do so, the coach instructed his team to refrain from scoring, and instead, run time off the clock by passing the ball back and forth.
“We’ve never had a team score 100 on us,” said Kevin Pullum (coach of the Chavez Texas High School Lobos). “We knew that if we couldn’t beat Yates we could beat them a second way…not let them score 100 points.”
This is perhaps the finest case of a Lose-Lose strategy I have ever seen. Whenever a team (whether they are competing in athletics or in business) finds themselves outmatched by an opponent, the absolute worst thing they can do is to seek victory by simply keeping the other team from scoring.
There is nothing more unfortunate than a salesman who spends most of his or her time convincing potential patrons that their competition is not worthy of their support – while never taking the time to discuss why their product or business is. If you do not eventually focus on scoring yourself, you will never win – no matter how much time you think you’ve run off the clock.
To see this Lose-Lose strategy in play, click here.
