The popular and prolific Malcolm Gladwell writes about underdogs in the New Yorker:

“What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.””

And while with many of Gladwell’s pieces I think it’s important to keep perspective, the spirit of the piece is certainly inspiring. But beyond the basic message, the more interesting lesson is how our image of how we should win affects our ability to continue winning. It reminds me of the team that comes from behind in a sports contest, plays with nothing to lose, is aggressive, only to get the lead and then start playing conservatively trying to maintain their lead only to lose it and lose the game. It’s like we’re willing to do whatever it takes to win until we’re actually winning and then our expectations of how we should be winning starts getting in the way.

“George Washington did the same in the American Revolution, abandoning the guerrilla tactics that had served the colonists so well in the conflict’s early stages. “As quickly as he could,” William Polk writes in “Violent Politics,” a history of unconventional warfare, Washington “devoted his energies to creating a British-type army, the Continental Line. As a result, he was defeated time after time and almost lost the war.””

Of course, I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Right now we’re firmly in the underdog position. Resting on our laurels after great success is a problem we’ll hope to have down the road. ;)