A reflection on what winning really means — in sport and in business. Sometimes short-term gains and polished “efficiency” hide a deeper loss: the erosion of people, purpose, and heart.
Sometimes a Win Doesn’t Feel Like a Win.
It's match day! Within the first 105 seconds, Werder Bremen scored against St. Pauli, the fans went mad, a wave of hope and adrenaline!
But then… nothing. No plan. No rhythm. No strategy. Just 92 minutes of holding on and hoping that early goal would be enough…. Yes, we won. But it didn’t feel like a win, somehow it felt more like survival.
That’s what it looks like when you start strong but have no long-term vision. And lately, I can’t help seeing the same thing playing out in boardrooms all over the world. Retrenchments. Restructuring. Cost-cutting. Polished up as “strategic realignment. ”Efficiency," they call it; but it’s really the art of taking more by giving less.
You can cut people and make the numbers smile, for a while. What happens when the team that actually built the business is gone, and all that remains is an empty kind of victory, the kind that photographs well, another empty brand story for LinkedIn, polished for optics but empty of soul?Because profit without people isn’t progress, it’s erosion. Erosion of trust. Erosion of humanity. Erosion of the very heartbeat that keeps an organisation alive.
Yes, Werder Bremen won today.But if that’s what winning looks like, maybe it’s time we all rethink the game...
