Ivan Lendl was a tennis player of the 1980s with his own techniques to win victory. All those techniques must be implemented to digital transformation.

Many professionals are seeing athletes like infinite sources of inspiration to overcome the fear they might have during the big steps of their career. Digital transformation, which affects many sectors, must be seen as a chance and an opportunity to reach new heights.

When Ivan Lendl declared that “managing just for profit, it’s like playing tennis looking at the scoreboard instead of the ball », he was able to summarize the state of mind that must be adopted in order to become an essential chain’s link of a digital transformation. Indeed, this amazing tennis player was able to transform each match into a real fight to push the limits further.

Even if amateurs liked his style more or less, all recognized that he had a strong personality. He didn’t let himself impressed by the score of a current game, he was just thinking about one thing: going ahead and push his limits further as possible to win the next point. Tireless, he was constantly heading towards the yellow ball that could lead him to a new victory and the conquest of his Grail.

Knowing how improve yourself

In the digital world, like in a tennis match, you need to consider the environment to achieve your goals. You must look in one direction to try to go further.

Exactly like in tennis, if you kick the ball from a same point, you might try a multitude of different shots. More or less effective, each one of them can make the game change or boost an idea. Like Ivan Lendl, you must constantly doubt yourself and think that « the important thing is to turn self-criticism into something positive ». That’s making mistakes and losing some points that we learn, progress and are able to bounce even further.

The surprise effect

In this ever-changing world, innovation often emerges from the unexpected. Ivan Lendl thought he had « spent his life disagreeing with others. »

Innovation is usually the result of an inspiration that comes from a peripheral element and will give you an important advantage to the game. Ivan Lendl had perfectly understood that he had two rivals when playing a match, on one side he had the other tennis player and on the other side he had the image he transmitted to others. The communication he was doing magnified the psychological impact he had on his opponents.
By pushing the boundaries even further, he knew that his rivals had to look closely at his previous scores to judge if he was in good condition and the difficulty they might have to face!

Being pragmatic

In this digital world, with ultra-connection and ultra-communication, the number of parameters to consider has multiplied. However, there is one rule that always return: we must be particularly pragmatic. Reach your goals and anticipate the next shot.

In this world of digital, you have to know how to use the elements available to both render a better service to its customers while trying to put out its competitors.

In any game, there are always many ways to see things, but the most important is always to leave the ball in the court.

Any exchange can turn into a marathon, but in the end it is often the most enduring who wins the match and who has managed to put away his opponents.

Translation with Sophie Perrin