1. Hating to lose
“Most people don’t realize I’m very competitive…I can’t stand to lose” –John Brown, former CEO of Stryker Corp.
For a man who took a company from $17 million in annual sales to $4.5 billion over a 32 -year tenure in the corner office of Kalamazoo-Mich.–based Stryker Corp., John Brown is a remarkably humble billionaire. However, don’t let the quiet exterior fool you, he’s a cold-blooded competitor, who hates to lose.
“Hating to lose” rather than “loving to win” is a great predictor for success in business, according to Benson Smith, the former CEO of Teleflex and a DeviceTalks alumni. Smith – an accomplished author whose 2003 book “Discover Your Sales Strength” was published by the Gallup Organization – told me that he looks for this particular personality trait in all of his sales leaders, because, as he put it, “if (people who hate to lose) are in a close contest they’re going to pour on extra gas to get the job done.”