Back from the dust

When I was growing up in the early ‘90s, I was fascinated by the spirit of Germany as a nation. Devastated by both wars, they had shown remarkable resilience to get back to the top again, and all within a decade.

But the German comeback that I was closest to was the one in team sports post the ‘80s. In the football world cups, they had lost in 2 consecutive finals. 1st in ’82 to the Rossi-Italy miracle and in ’86 to Maradona claiming his zenith for Argentina. In hockey, the Germans were at the receiving end of the best-ever Pakistan forward line assembled, led by Hassan Sardar at the ’84 Los Angeles Olympics. In ’88 Seoul Olympics, for the 4th time in a row in global tournaments, they were beaten by the golden British run.

Many teams would give up. Not the Germans. Even though the country was going through the rapid reunification of West and East Germany, these 4 consecutive final defeats hurt.

They came back at the top in both sports immediately after. They went on win both the Barcelona Olympics in ’92 hockey and the Football world cup of Italia ’90. Two philosophies rang true both times.

One was reliance on youth. Of the 14 who won gold at Barcelona, all except 2 (Carsten Fischer and Fried Volker, both 31) were well below 30. Of the 22 who won the world cup in Italy, only 3 were above 31 – Defenders Steiner and Augenthaler and Frank Mill in the forward line). The youth had no fear, no baggage, no legacy. They went all out.

And the other was all-out aggression, right from the word go. In a largely defensive football world cup, the Germans were the only team to score more than 2 goals on an average. At hockey, too, the Germans also came out all guns blazing. After a goal average of 2 and 2.3 in the past 2 Olympics, they averaged 3 in their gold medal win at Barcelona. And these 2 themes kept defining Germany’s success at the global stage even thereafter.

To use youth and aggression is a valuable lesson for us in business, too, particularly when we are starting from a reversal. At OfBusiness, when we take on the big boys, we have always pushed on these 2 themes than rethinking strategy or drawing on experience: we go young, we go all-out.

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