Peer-driven performance

I'm a big fan of tennis and I love watching tennis matches, not only because I like the sport, but also because it teaches a lot about strategy and how to position yourself against your opponent. It's not about you, it's about a context, what works in one situation won't work in another so you have to be constantly assessing the environment.

Although I see almost all kind of matches, I don't like exhibition matches. I feel it lacks the objective and the motivation that make matches such a battle.

This weekend I was zapping to find something to watch and came across Laver Cup. It's a tennis tournament that teams together players from Europe against the rest of the world. The best tennis players were there, like Nadal, Federer and many others. I started watching without enthusiasm because it's not an official tournament and doesn't count points for the ranking. So I expected to see kind of an exhibition match, with laughs and tricks; but to my surprise the players were playing hard and doing their best. At first I found it strange, but then I saw theirs teammates besides the court, supporting and encouraging them and I realized what was happening.

Even if there wasn't too much of value for them in the tournament; because they were part of a team, with great players, they didn't want to perform below or to be the one who drags the team down. So they were really giving their best, even if it was just an exhibition, to be at the same level of their teammates and not disappointing them.

It happens also in personal and professional life. If your friends succeed in life (whatever you call success) you tend to raise your bar and try to be up to the challenge, you don't want to be too far. That's why high performance teams tend to perform better even without a close management, because they measure themselves by their peers and they don't want to on the tail or be responsible for a failure.

This explains the saying: tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are. Not only because they'll influence you (the same way that you will influence them), but also because they will be somehow your measure for self improvement.

So don't underestimate the power of friendship and teamship. and don't waste opportunities of learning from friends and colleagues.