TAKING THE SPORT RULES TO THE BUSINESS FIELD

A Coach’s Rules For Business Life (Series) — Part 2

Coach Patrick Mouratoglou Rules Goes to the Business and Employment World.

7 min readDec 11, 2020

This series of articles follows the Netflix series “The playbook: a coach’s rules for life.” During this series, Netflix is interviewing six famous coaches. Each coach shares his “rules” for life and explains how it affects his coaching techniques.

In this series of articles, I took each coach’s rules and shared my perspective on implementing those rules in the business and employment world.

This second article is about the rules shared by Coach Patrick Mouratoglou.

Rule #1

Your Greatest Weakness Can Become Your Greatest Strength

Coach Patrick shares the story of his childhood. He grew up as a shy boy and therefore was less a talker than his environment. Because of his shyness, Patrick learned to examine nonverbal communication and read people through their body language and tone of voice.

In 1971 Albert Mehrabian published the book “Silent Messages,” on which he discussed his research on non-verbal communication. Mehrabian concluded that our communication's meaning is mainly non-verbal. As a matter of fact, Only 7 percent of our communication is through our words, 38 percent is through our tone of voice, and 55 percent through our body language.

Taking it to the business world, I see a remarkable resemblance to being the new guy in the room. Many people feel that the first months in a new position, or getting into the middle of the negotiation process as a point of contact is a vulnerable phase.

From my point of view, this phase is the learning and examination phase. Although we don’t know the background, we can examine the situation with a fresh look. We can spot the things that are working well and the things that must be changed. During this phase, we also learn about the people. We can spot the leaders (no matter what their rank), and we can spot the weakest links.

In one of the companies I used to work for, I was asked not to work during my first month of employment. They asked me to learn the market, examine process and communication methods, and write all of my notes in my notebook. I didn’t criticize people and learned a lot about the organization, politics, and how things work. By the end of my first month, I could write a plan for a year, only from observing.

Rule #2

Never Be Afraid to Get Fired

“I accept to make mistakes because I take risks, and because I am not scared.”
-Coach Patrick Mouratoglou

Coach Patrick had written this sentence on the first notebook he used to write all the game moves and coaching of Serena Williams.

When you work out of fear, you are not working towards results. You are playing away from failure. Releasing ourselves from the shackles of fear enables us to dare and fulfill our mission.

A few years ago, I worked on a significant deal and towards an important major contract. My boss back then became nervous each day that the contract is not signed. One day he asked me what is holding us from signing the deal, and I answered him that the terms and conditions of this contract are not acceptable.

My boss could only see his quarterly targets and show our CEO that this contract is a done deal. My point of view was different. I saw the company’s benefit and was not ready to compromise. I could not sign the contract with terms and conditions that could risk the company in the future.

Two months later, the contract’s terms and conditions were still in the negotiation process. My boss was not happy with the situation and could not understand what held me back from signing. I explained, “Maybe I will not hit the quarterly target, but I will sign a contract that the company will benefit from.” At the same time, I added, “if you consider firing me because the contract is not signed yet, it’s fine. It will not make me settle for the contract as it is today.” It was about my integrity, not my position.

Rule #3

Mistakes Are Inventable, But Don’t Let Them Define You

We make mistakes all the time. When mistakes happen during our careers, we feel the failure weight. Some people feel defined by the mistakes they made. Therefore, they are not giving themselves the chance to act or think differently. They get more and more depressed and unwilling to change their secure and safe ways, as they are afraid of the consequence of another failure.

What happens when we release the fear?

We are no longer working away from failure; we are working towards success. When we are working towards success and accept that we will make mistakes, we will become much stronger. We will ride the highway to success.

I felt the taste of mistakes many times. When I lost the fear of being fired, mistakes started to look different. I still made them. And yet, I learned from each mistake I made. It made me a better salesperson, a better people person, and a better business person.

Rule #4

Emotions Are The Worst Advisors

A close friend of mine is a director at a football club managed by fans and businessmen. Although the businessmen are writing the club’s vision and running it as a company with profits and losses, its fans also run it. And when the team is having a bad day on the field, the fan voices yelling to fire a player or the coach are loud.

Is dismissing a player is a right decision to take? Is replacing the coach is a good idea? The answer is unknown. To answer these questions, we need more parameters. Having a bad day is not a reason. Having a bad game is not a reason, and even destructive behavior sometimes is not a reason.

Emotions must be left behind. The management needs to look over all the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), ask environmental questions and personal questions, and examine all the objective data to make the right decision.

Emotions can not run a football club and can not run our decisions. How many times have you received an email or a phone call that annoyed you during your workday?

Every time I got an upsetting email, the first thing I did was to write an answer-back. I spilled all my emotions in my answer, so the other side will understand what I think and how I feel. These emotional emails, never sent as I initially wrote it.

Usually, I saved it as a draft, went to lunch, a meeting, or even to refilled my coffee cup. On my way to wherever I chose to go, I met people, talked with them, sometimes asked for advice. When I came back to my room, I would have opened the saved draft and rewrite it.

I always chose to stick with professional answers, be kind and firm. I Never blamed the other party and always invited them to work with me, as it will be much more comfortable than to work against each other.

Rule #5

Let Them Know They Are Not Alone

“There are no failures — Only feedback”
Richard Bandler

Even the most successful people you know had harsh times. We are not always at our best. Some of us tend to miss things, forget things, and all fail from time to time. Failing sometimes leads to a loss of self-confidence. When your self-esteem is hurt, you start questioning your ability to execute and prefer to play safe than take risks and play for a win.

I’ve seen it many times. These people need to feel that they are not alone. They need someone to see their real worth and help them climb out from their dark pit. You don’t have to be their manager or a leader. You can be a friend or colleague. Sometimes they will need you to remind them how great they are.

If you ever have the chance to support these successful people who lost their way, you will feel that you did something more significant than everything you did before. You helped someone to gain their worth back, and that is an incredible thing to do.

Rule #6

A Good Lie Can Become The Truth

Coach Patrick shared his lie to Serena Williams. When he noticed that her stats from the net is terrible, he told her the opposite. Serena was surprised, as she felt she is missing much more than the numbers shared by her coach. But she believed her coach is telling the truth. When the game renewed, she rocked from the net, and her stats improved dramatically.

Although he lied, coach Patrick believed in Serena’s abilities and knew that giving her the truth, will not help her win the game. She became more confident and shifted her focus on winning.

From a business perspective, sometimes lying opens new possibilities. I am not advising you to lie about your company’s abilities and try to win a project you can’t handle.

But as leaders, managers, and colleagues, we can help people be better if we tell them the story they need to hear.

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