During a press conference before their third fight for the heavyweight title between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder, Wilder’s new trainer was talking about some of the new changes that Wilder had made. Would these new changes work? They needed to if Wilder wanted to win. He had been severely beaten up in the last bout. Next to him sat Wilder with ear mufflers on, refusing to listen and engage in the conversation – almost a caricature of someone who doesn’t want to listen. He was described by his own trainer a few moments later as ‘stubborn’ for having ear mufflers on during the conference.
Fury picked up on Wilder’s refusal to listen.
Fury (turning to the crowd): “So no matter how much Malik (the new trainer) teaches Deontay Wilder, Deontay’s going to do want Deontay wants to do.”
Malik: “That’s wrong, that’s wrong. He’s been doing everything that I’ve asked him to do.”
Fury: “But like MIke Tyson said: everyone’s got a gameplan till they get punched in the face”
Malik: “In training, he’s doing everything …”
Fury: “That’s training. But in the real fight, he’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to revert straight back to type – 100%, as soon as I hit him with the first right.”
As it happened, in the fight, WIlder came out strong (for one round) got severly smacked in the face, then got knocked down, and then reverted back to his habit to swinging big right hands (which nonetheless worked for 40 other fights) but not this one.
Somehow Fury recognised Wilder’s inability to listen or change, and that this inability would be what ultimately would bring him down. It’s interesting firstly because Mike Tyson’s quote has become almost cliche in management and strategy articles, but it did indeed come to pass! But, secondly, I think it’s fascinating because this was human life pushed to it’s most extreme and projected to the highest stakes – two men fighting for the crown, with millions watching. There are dynamics we all experience (sometimes within organisations), but this was to the power of ten!
I was reading this morning an HBR article about change and how the vast majority of organisations are undergoing change, but 75% of transformations fail. Why?
“What most organizations typically overlook is the internal shift — what people think and feel — which has to occur in order to bring the strategy to life. This is where resistance tends to arise — cognitively in the form of fixed beliefs, deeply held assumptions and blind spots; and emotionally, in the form of the fear and insecurity that change engenders. All of this rolls up into our mindset, which reflects how we see the world, what we believe and how that makes us feel. The result is that transforming a business also depends on transforming individuals.”
Wilder, is an example of a refusal to change, despite getting punched in the head 150 times in this latest fight, he still couldn’t change or adapt. Partly because he was stubborn, but perhaps mainly because the stakes were high, it was an unpredicatable environment and emotion took over, meaning that he reverted back to what he knew best – wildly throwing big right hands in the hope that they connect and get the ‘one punch knock-out’. Why? Because that worked previously.
But if people Wilder can’t change – even after receiving about 450 punches to the head from Tyson Fury over the course of three fights – what’s the likelihood of those in leadership changing and not reverting to what worked for them previously? “All this explains why the most effective transformation begins with what’s going on inside people — and especially the most senior leaders, given their disproportionate authority and influence. Their challenge is to deliberately turn attention inward in order to begin noticing the fixed patterns in their thinking, how they’re feeing in any given moment, and how quickly the instinct for self-preservation can overwhelm rationality and a longer term perspective, especially when the stakes are high.”
A lot of this is tackled quite succinctly in the book “The Advice Trap” (summary here) which talked about ‘easy change’ and ‘hard change’. A hard change requires us to look at our triggers and fears and overcome them so that we don’t hold ourselves back or revert to previous behavioural patterns, before we can work towards that future vision of ourselves, and thereby undergo that change. This is an area where I believe, like many others, that individual and team coaching can help with the inner transformation, especially with a view to effective strategy deployment, which is – as Wilder found out – the difference between training and a real fight.