Musings at Altitude

Yesterday, I heard cheers.  I saw jubilant tears.  I saw joy beyond belief.  I saw the exhaustion of waiting in eager anticipation for something to come turn into complete rejuvenation in the blink of an eye.

Yesterday, after a year of work and months of waiting, the highly anticipated email was sent announcing the winner of an incredibly important contract providing significantly meaningful services to our customer.

And that email came to us.  And then the congratulatory call followed.  And then the announcement to our team occurred.  And the party started!

The joy with victory is intense.  We didn’t pop champagne bottles, but we certainly shared the same level of emotional celebration that would come from winning a championship.  This was that kind of important victory!

In business, you win some, and you lose some.  You hope you win more than you lose, but that’s not the norm.  You hope the value you can provide comes across clearly and meaningfully in what you propose, but often times the price trumps the value and the value gets lost in the dollars.  And in almost every case, you don’t know where you really stand until that email and call come.  Thus the tension.  Thus the incredible anxiety and the roller coaster of emotion that leads up to that day of announcement. 

And we won!  It’s amazing to see the elation of those who worked so hard for so long to achieve such a dramatically important victory for the company.

WOW, it’s good to win!

PS.  The celebration will be short though,because delivering against contract expectations begins almost immediately!  We’ll smile some more today, but then we’ll have to get to work.  In sports, training camp is several months after a champion is crowned.  Quite often in business, however, capture moves to phase in and delivery in weeks not months.  That’s the case for us.  We certainly can feel good, but we have a new team to hire and inspire and a new customer to serve!