Think Golf is Tough? Try Running a Business

The greatest game played every day around the world is the game of business.  It’s exciting to see business owners put themselves out there every day.  The primary reason it’s the best game played is the number of different ways business owners play their game of business.  The required actions they take and those they don’t significantly impact their business yet, ultimately, every business owner is playing the same game of business involving sales, gross profit, operating income, and net profit. 

At its core, all business comes down to satisfying customer needs or wants at a profit.  Many business owners play this game at a high level, while a significant number of others are struggling because they fail to master the fundamental elements of the game of business reflected in the following business profitability model:

Business owners who succeed in playing the game of business well end up owning either a stable or substantial business.  Those that don’t will eventually be out of business.  Click here to read more on The Five Stages of Business Profit Progression. {P-1  Stages of business profitability}

Mastering the basics in the “game of business” has many similarities to mastering the “game of golf.”  Some golfers learn to shoot low rounds and come in like pros.  In comparison, most golfers never master the basics; they simply grow frustrated with the game and give up.

There’s an old saying that “business is like golf—you have to play it as it lays.”  Playing a golf ball well where it lays begins with mastering your swing over many years of practice and play, continuously refining how you approach each shot.

One of the big challenges in golf is how you have to pull everything together simultaneously—your ball’s lie, its target, club selection, posture, the strength of your swing, distance, wind, and so forth to produce the desired result outcome.

The only way to excel at golf is to hit a lot of golf balls with different clubs as you practice through a wide variety of shots.  You have to hit thousands of balls over and over until you build muscle memory through your hands, arms, back, and legs.  And then you have to do it over and over to maintain that muscle memory.  Most of us don’t commit at this level, and that is why, despite all of the technology and equipment advancements in golf, the average score for even the best-equipped golfer never drops below a 16 golf handicap.  According to the USGA, only one percent of golfers play the game of golf with a single-digit handicap.

The plus side of golf compared to the game of business lies in how golf is a linear game involving eighteen holes, played independently in sequence.  Each golf hole has some mix of the following elements yet is never played all together on a single shot:

The only thing that you do consistently from the first hole to the second and on through a round of golf is to carry your score for that hole forward.  As you move through the course, what you scored on the previous hole no longer matters; your only concern is how you will perform on the current hole.  The score you earned on the hole you have just completed is the score you will carry with you to the next hole.  You might get lucky and shoot a hole-in-one on hole eight, but that doesn’t matter on hole nine.

A round of golf is the cumulative score of the eighteen individual holes, each played consecutively.  If you think about the game of golf in business terms, it might resemble the following:

Mission	Play eighteen holes in the fewest number of strokes.
Vision	A mental picture of the mission successfully being accomplished.
Objectives	Eighteen of them, ranging from Par 3 through Par 5.
Strategy	Each hole requires its own strategic plan for attacking the hole.
Tactics	Execution is specific to the variables required to play the current shot.
Scorecard	Where the golfer records their score for each hole.
Golf Score	Represents the score shot in total from a round of golf.

What is the primary difference between playing the game of golf and the game of business?

In the game of business, you are required to play the equivalent of all eighteen holes at once!  Plus, your play of the game of business involves multiple forces in simultaneous play amid fluid dynamics, depending on your near, short, and long-term strategic priorities. This is why the game of business is the best game ever played.  Every day, it’s as if you are standing in the middle of the following golf course, having to play every hole at the same time:

In golf, you have the luxury of playing one hole at a time.  Unfortunately, in business, you are constantly bouncing from decision to decision and action to action, never getting the chance to play a true linear game.

And this is why BusinessCPR™ Step 5—Be Accountable for Your Results is so essential.  You rarely get to see an action through, from tee-shot to picking the ball up out of the cup to recording your score for that hole in a matter of minutes.  You constantly have to go backward to advance an action and then move on to another action before either action is fully seen to completion.  This is why business owners who want to master the game of business must become masters of follow-through.  And they must hold themselves accountable for completing necessary actions because, without a completed action, they can’t create their desired results.

Would you like to enjoy what you do more?

If you would like to enjoy what you do more, click here to speak with a BusinessCPR™ Certified  Busines Scientist to learn how you can build the muscle memory you need to play the game of business better than you are playing it today.