Sunday, December 14, 2008

The Manny Pacquiao Lesson

The last time I posted something here was Nov 24. What I was really into should be something that is worth my while. Well, it made the filipinos happy, and somehow proud.

I'm a pinoy, and just like every pinoy, I was swept into the Pacman frenzy. That was it.

To somehow justify my sidetrip to Pacland, which I do ever since I saw him fight as a thin 16 year old, I tried to extract some valuable lesson from it.

What made Pacman a success?

1. Preparation.

It is now an open ingredient to his success. His Preparation. JMM is the only boxer so far who has given Pacquiao the most difficult opposition. It is because JMM trains as hard, or even harder than Manny.
Against Dela Hoya, he prepared hard and long. There are three aspects of that preparation.
a. Physical training or conditioning.
b. Study of the opponent.
c. Strategizing

This is no different in a business setting. An entrepreneur would need all the mental and physical conditioning before going into the ardous task of doing business. I can not imagine a sickly person succeeding in business. The stress and the physical exhaustion would eventually take its toll to a weak and unprepared body.
And successful entrepreneurs are also living their physical and mental conditioning. Which means, the training does not end when the business begins, rather it became a continuous, life long conditioning process.

Study of the opponent. One of Pacquiao's trainor, Bubuy Fernandez revealed how he would break Dela Hoya's taped fights into segments-in seconds- to study the speed of his punches, his tendencies, his weaknesses, and his strengths. It is like hearing Sun Tzu giving advice to the Pacman to study your opponent. In modern day that would sound like SWOT analysis. Is this not something that is very close the discipline of business entrepreneurs?
If an aspiring entrepreneur would do similar preparation, he/she would be increasing his/her chances of success a hundred times.

And how the team was able to device a plan that would negate the advantages of Dela Hoya, and how they were able to incoporate into the plan the strengths of Manny-his speed- that Oscar would never have the chance to offset. Does it sound like devising a strategy along ones decisive advantage? Perhaps to counter Dundee's appearance in Dela Hoya's camp as a consultant, Roach could have secretely hired the services of Michael Porter in strategizing for the fight.

The most important ingredient of that masterful victory is the manner by which Manny was able to EXECUTE the plan near to perfection.

For budding entrepreneurs always remember that fight. They have a PLAN, and Manny exucuted it to the core. He stayed focus on it until vicotry was their's. Fight analyst would praise Pazquio's maturity on that aspect. He was in complete control of his inner instincts which to attack and attack fiercely specially when the enemy is hurt.

There are other intangible there like his determination, his confidence, his patience, but I think the above mentioned factors are the KEY INDICATORS, that entrepreneurs must always remember.