I love golf, and this is Masters week. That makes this one of my favorite camp-in-front-of-the-TV weekends of the year. I wrote an article immediately preceding last year’s tournament which illustrates a lesson from golf applicable to the world of business. The article features two top golfers who are in the thick of this week’s tournament, and the lesson to business is still quite valid, so how can I resist posting the article here on the BCS? Enjoy.
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One of the favorites to win this year’s tournament is [2004] champion Phil Mickelson. Phil recently wrote a book about his triumphant final round in last year’s tournament, the influences that made him the person – and golfer – he is today, and his life as a touring golf pro. The book, One Magical Sunday (But Winning Isn’t Everything), is published by Warner Books. In the book, Mickelson writes that his caddy, Jim “Bones” Mackay, is “an important element to my success. He documents every shot I hit – how far the ball flew, what the temperature and wind conditions were, and so on.”

Obviously, Mackay – and most PGA Tour caddies, for that matter – do much more than carry the bag. Many are good golfers themselves, and bring a wealth of hands-on knowledge about the game. I view them as analysts who assess their client’s playing arena (e.g. golf course, environmental conditions), collect & analyze data on the performance of their client’s business (e.g. producing quality golf shots), and recommend solutions (e.g. club selection, type of shot).

I’m certainly not the only one who has noticed, but there is a common behavior exhibited by the world’s best golfers. Top players, their caddy, and their instructor tend to focus not on the outcomes (number of strokes per hole & round), but on the process of creating those outcomes. Like the average golfer, the pro seeks to attain a low score, and probably has a number in mind before each and every round. But continually monitoring & improving the execution of tasks (shots) which contribute to the outcome (score) is what separates the best from the rest.

Several top tour players have made reference to an orientation on process rather than outcome. Jack Nicklaus wrote in his book Jack Nicklaus: My Story that he realized early in his career that if he focused on playing quality golf, the tournament wins would come. Vijay Singh attributed a two-month slump during the 2004 season to over-emphasis on the ultimate outcome in his profession — the #1 world ranking. When he shifted his focus to playing his own game to the best of his ability, he began to play better golf. Perhaps the best example of focus on process in a golfer is Tiger Woods. Here’s a guy who has “re-engineered” his swing twice – once during the 1998-1999 timeframe, and again over the past couple of years. As Harvard psychologist Arthur Ciaramicoli notes in this article,

Tiger is what I call a proactive learner…He doesn’t equate greatness with winning majors, necessarily. He’s more interested in quality of performance.

Consider your business, department or team. Are you continuously studying and improving the processes that drive your performance? Or are you so focused on the outcomes – sales numbers, industry rankings – that you can’t distinguish between numbers and the performance that went into them? Remember: Masters focus on process, not outcome.

Update:
Phil Mickelson just won the 2006 Masters. And he did it one shot at a time.