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Federer vs Nadal, the ultimate pitch.

We, that’s some thirteen million of us in the UK, have just seen the greatest ever tennis final. That is the almost universal view of commentators. The two best (ever?) players in the world, playing unbelievable tennis, in the longest final ever, with unbearable tension, where only a couple of points separated winner from loser.

By any measure, an amazing contest but the outstanding skill alone does not explain the way it captivated the imagination of sport and non-sport fans alike.

What made this so special, so compelling was the spirit, the body language and the demeanour of both Nadal and Federer. There was no playing to the audience, no exaggerated macho arm pumping, no screamings of “come on!” no lengthy disputes over line calls and yet the intensity never let up.

Here were two people so utterly focussed on themselves, and on each other, that nothing outside was allowed to distract or enter their zones of pure, unadulterated concentration. Watching them, apparently oblivious to us spectators and viewers, compounded the drama.

In the final scene, barely minutes after the final point, each talked to camera. Grace in defeat and grace in victory have never been better expressed. Two remarkable winners.

How Camelot left nothing to chance.

A PITCHES AND TROUGHES ‘100 BEST’ STORY

Until the Olympics bid the highest profile pitch in the UK was that run by the Government Department (OFLOT) for operating the National Lottery. Several mighty consortia entered the fray. Rank, the UK leader in games of chance; Rothshild, bringing financial credibility; Branson, the ‘people’s champion’ and Camelot which, then, included GTECH, world leading lottery experts.

The brief, three hundred pages of it, was formidable. The winner would, in effect, be setting up an entirely new form of gambling to the UK. This was expected to be (and was) played by the majority of the population. An excellent book by Ray Snoddy gives chapter and verse but I am focussing on just two winning aspects.

One. Camelot left nothing to chance.

Led by Tim Holly , an expert in winning defence contracts for Racal, Camelot’s attention to detail and over delivery on every single aspect was astounding. A few examples. Hundreds of recently retired Cadbury Scweppes ( consortium member) sales people personally vetted thousands of potential retailers; three ad campaigns were created and fully researched; a single copy of the submission stacked 3 feet high and, for their interview with OFLOT, Camelot directors held fifteen hours of reheasal.

Two. Camelot understood that “fear of failure” motivated the decision.

Imagine you are the civil servant who makes the award and the world’s biggest online lottery fails on first night, making your Prime Minister look foolish. Camelot, unlike their competitors who only promised success, played to this fear.

One example, that stands out, was the running of a recruitment campaign in newspapers after the tender had been submitted but before the decision! This was not an act of bravado. It was a calculated signal to the decision takers. ‘ We are doing this to have people in place, in time, to guarantee there is no chance of failure’.

Pitchcoach comment: Camelot’s insight into the decision making mindset was key to their winning strategy and was one reason why the popular Branson bid never troubled them.

Pit(ch)fall 2. Putting substance over style.

Most pitches are, by definition, competitive and most will call for a response to a brief. To compete we must, and do, rise to the challenge set focussing our efforts on developing substantial proposals- strategic, technical, creative- that we believe will be better than those of our competitors.

They may be ‘better’ but judging on ‘technical’ merit will be almost impossible unless you come up with an unbelievably better or cheaper solution. Given that your competition will have been chosen because they have similiar track records this is pretty unlikely. In practice, the people on the receiving end will attempt to evaluate on rational grounds but will usually end up with two or three candidates where their judgment, however later justified, is based on style.

Despite knowing this, and we do, learning from our first nervous interview, we still spend disproportionate amount of the available time, effort and resource, on the substance of our pitch, often at the expense of style. Typically grinding out a, hopefully improved, solution right up to the last minute, before thinking about what really matters, how the pitch will resonate. how it will be received.

The solution to this pit(ch)fall is simple. Recognise it.

Recent and current examples include Paris, whose 2012 bid was substantially the best but ‘le style’ , arrogant and lacking empathy, lost it for them. Gordon Brown, undeniably a man of substance but weakened by his style. Ken and Boris, both with individual flair but one the fresher and hungrier. and boiling up in USA, Obama the one with style but losing it and Clinton, the one with substance, but finishing with style.