Winners: And How They Succeed

Product Information

While it is widely accepted that sports people need to study the behaviour of winners – and get psychological support – to become winners themselves, the worlds of politics and business haven’t really caught up. But things could be changing; since my book came out, I’ve been inundated with requests to speak at business colleges, including Regent’s University in London, where I’m holding an official launch event. In Winners: And How They Succeed, Alastair Campbells set out to get to the heart of success by analysing the best athletes, political leaders and global business empires. However, right at the beginning, Alastair states that “ there is no such thing as a single ‘recipe for success’ and nobody is likely to win anything simply by following the formula of another winner”. This seems to be contradicting the purpose of the book, but hey ho. Each great leader is great in their own way, there is no recipe for great leadership – most great leaders embody a similar trait; Steadfastness in their beliefs and an unswerving & bold perseverance in the pursuit of their objectives. Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps who has won twice as many Olympic gold medals as anyone else in history once told me that it was winning nothing in Sydney (he was just 15 at the time) that made him do everything to ensure he won four years later in Beijing.

You can have the greatest strategy going, with a perfectly capable leader and team, but without the right mindset these are nothing”. This part of the book explores what mindset is needed to win, the power of visualisation and then discusses the mindset of boxer Floyd Mayweather (a boxer who never lost a match in his professional career). Alastair Campbell's foray into motivational writing is good enough to leave all such self-limiting prejudices floundering in its wake. This is an excellent book. Overall, this book didn’t live up to my expectations. I am a big believer in cross-discipline/industry learning and I was excited to see how Alistair would highlight the lessons of winners in business, politics and sport and then explore how they could be applied in other contexts. However, whilst there were glimpses, such as when the F1 team helped the toothpaste factory, overall the cross-learning opportunities were slim. Alastair Campbell knows all about winning. As Tony Blair's chief spokesman and strategist he helped guide the Labour Party to victory in three successive general elections, and he's fascinated by what it takes to win. leadership becomes more about setting the conditions for excellence in all areas rather than providing the expertise yourself.Simple solution arrived at from consulting a top, external’ coach who knew nothing of the sport or the context and the rest, as they say is history with world cup glory a year later. The first comes from the opening section on the ‘Holy Trinity’ of Strategy, Leadership and Teamship with a useful clarity on the differences between Objectives, Strategy and Tactics. Winners' reaches places perhaps unanticipated by its author. I turned to it, almost by accident, in the midst of minor personal crisis totally unrelated to football, cycling or geopolitics: my problem was a contentious local planning dispute. The whole thing was getting me down. I felt increasingly powerless, victimised by circumstances beyond my control and unable to see a positive way forward. As long as a tactic works for implementing your strategy in a way that gets you closer to your objective, keep doing it. But once it stops, drop it and try the next one, without changing the strategy. Lesson 2:Winners are so terrified of losing that they’re happy to get uncomfortable to avoid it.

He had no control over themedia or the reactions of the public when his affair was publicized, but he could keep doing his job, for example by keeping up conversations with Tony Blair about the Russian nuclear arm situation. Clinton still ended up getting impeached at the very end, buthe still managed the situation as best as he could. Perhaps Muhammad Ali and Floyd Mayweather both the greatest of their generation in their chosen sport represent two different generations more broadly: Ali’s was more radical more politically engaged and more determined to right wrongs: Mayweather’s is more materialistic more focused on wealth and celebrity and pure entertainment. Act boldly – acting boldly puts you in a position to accept challenges that other more reserved people wouldn’t accept. You might not yet be experienced at something, but by being bold and ‘going for it anyway’ despite the difficulty you effectively throw yourself into the deep end and this behaviour gets you noticed. Do you love reading about successful people and finding out how they achieved their success? If so, then Winners: And How They Succeed by Alastair Campbell might be a book for you. Keep on reading to see my review of the book. As befits an extremely successful journalist, speech-writer and spin doctor, Campbell writes clearly and forcefully. His examples and case-studies, gathered from sport, politics and personal experience, are well-chosen, memorable and sometimes surprising, e.g. a life-long republican's encomium to HM the Queen. If some of his basic points are rather simple, isn't this generally true of helpful advice?

Select a format:

Discipline is not the same as a regimentation. Discipline is not the same as measurement. Discipline is not the same as hierarchical obedience or adherence to bureaucratic rules. True discipline requires the independence of mind to reject pressures to conform in ways incompatible with values performance standards and long-term aspiration's. The starting point, it seems was the key appointment of the business supremo, David Airlie as Lord Chamberlain to overhaul and rebrand the royal household in 1983 bringing a clear sense of purpose within a far more efficient business model. Critically though the strategy was underpinned by reference to long established core values: identity; continuity; recognition of achievement and service. The book is split into sections, with each section starting off discussing different parts of the skills Alastair sees as essential to any sort of success, which then proceeds into a case study of an individual who Campbell feels shows the perfect example of the winning trait in action. For example, the first section of the book focuses on the holy grail of “Objective, Strategy, Tactics”, followed by chapters on how effective leadership and teamship is essential to carrying out a winning OST blueprint. After this, characters from the world of business, sport, and politics are given as examples to study, from Ana Wintour of Vogue fame to Jose Mourinho, possibly the most infamous non-player figure in the world of professional football right now. The main gist of Campbell’s work, as it says on the tin, is to identify the traits and qualities from the real life stories of winners across the worlds of sport and business. Including, as you would expect from Tony Blair’s communication guru, a fair number of ‘inside’ stories from his political experience. I would say person who is a good leader is a person who has ideas and has a vision of the world. To have a vision of the world you have to have a philosophy of the world and values that are important for you so I must say that the first work a leader has to do is to analyze what he wants, what is important to him and the second stop is to make it real.