THE IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WINNING AND SUCCESS

I came into teaching through coaching sport and this background still shapes the development of my philosophies around teaching and learning. There are many similarities between education and sport but for now I want to point out one important difference. This difference dawned on me in the following quote from Matthew Syed’s book, Bounce:

Sport is, to use the jargon of economics, a zero-sum game: if I win, you, by definition, lose.

To modify an example that Syed uses to explain what this means, suppose that I am a top sprinter and I adopt an innovative practice that reduces my time by 10 per cent. When I run my next race, I will beat most of my competitors. This is good for me but bad for them. My relative position has improved, but at their expense. The net ‘benefit’ across the group is zero.

Now suppose I am a sprinter and all of my competitors join me in adopting an innovative training practice that reduces all of our times by 10 percent. Our relative positions in the next race will be precisely the same as they ever were. The net benefit, once again, is zero.

Learning is not a zero-sum game. Learning is a game in which everyone can succeed without needing to declare a winner. According to legendary basketball coach (and teacher), John Wooden, there is an important difference between winning and succeeding. Wooden was regarded as one of the greatest coaches, of any sport, ever. His teams won a lot but he did not talk in terms of winning and losing. He spoke only of success. 

Wooden developed his own definition of success as a peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you are capable. He felt that he needed to develop his own definition to make him a better teacher and coach and to give his students something to aspire to other than a grade or a score.

Wooden developed his definition of success from beliefs that were grounded in the teachings of his parents and his own experience. I have reproduced these beliefs in Wooden’s own words from his excellent TED Talk, The Difference Between Winning and Succeeding with some suggestions as to how they can be explained to our children:

• Never try to be better than someone else. Always learn from others. Never cease trying to be the best you can be. That’s under your control. If you get too engrossed and involved and concerned in regard to the things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect the things over which you have control. 

Learn from others. And then do your best.

• If you make the effort to do the best of which you’re capable, trying to improve the situation that exists for you, I think that’s success, and I don’t think others can judge that.

Your best is always enough.

• I believe that we must believe, truly believe. Not just give it word service, believe that things will work out as they should, providing we do what we should. I think our tendency is to hope things will turn out the way we want them too much of the time, but we don’t do the things that are necessary to make those things become reality.

You must do your best to succeed.

• You never heard me mention winning. Never mention winning. My idea is that you can lose when you outscore somebody in a game, and you can win when you’re outscored. I’ve felt that way on certain occasions, at various times. And I just wanted them to be able to hold their head up after a game. I used to say that when a game is over, and you see somebody that didn’t know the outcome, I hope they couldn’t tell by your actions whether you outscored an opponent or the opponent outscored you.

Your success can only be measured by your best.

I believe that developing Wooden’s peace of mind in our children now is a key to them living fulfilled and meaningful lives in the future. This peace of mind will help them learn but, more importantly, it will allow them to act when others fixated on winning and losing might not. 

Syed, Matthew. Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success. Perennial, 2011.