From Greatest to Even Greater. Is That Even Possible?

From Greatest to Even Greater. Is That Even Possible?

In 2015, Vivo had one of its most profitable years in company history.

As recruiters, the success was particularly satisfying. When you break down the numbers, it’s all there. More fills. More starts. More consultants. More clients. More money. Record highs across the board.

Sure, all of that can and should be attributed to a myriad of different factors, but make no mistake – the recruiting department made its mark in a big way. We set lofty goals, and we met them.

Success can be a funny thing, though.

For those who achieve it, it can either push you to new heights, or be a trigger for unrelenting pressure. You can build on it, or let it eat away at you. You could even go so far as to say that success is as much a curse as it is a blessing. If anything, it’s an opportunity to either get better, or get worse.

So the question remains. As recruiters, how do we get better in 2016? Can we get better?

To gain some perspective, let’s take a look at our hometown heroes, the Golden State Warriors, and more notably, reigning NBA MVP and basketball demigod, Stephen Curry.  We’d be hard pressed to find any singular team in sports that had as successful a year as the Warriors in 2015, and no player attributed to, or benefited more from it than Steph.

Let’s take a look at some numbers. Sixty five regular season wins, with forty five by double digits. Thirty nine of those wins came at home, only losing twice, while twenty eight others came on the road. All franchise records. The Warriors amassed 28, 30+ assist games while putting up a 16-game winning streak from mid-November to mid-December. All of this with first-year head coach Steve Kerr amassing a .817 winning percentage (the highest marks ever by a first-year head coach in NBA history), Curry winning his first league MVP, and, of course, Golden State capturing its 4th franchise championship after a 40-year drought.

Speaking of Curry, he capped off the year by being named the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year for 2015, only the 4th NBA player in history to be given such an honor, winning an ESPY for Best Male Athlete, releasing his own signature shoe with rising giant Under Armour, and, to everyone’s delight, introducing us to the cutest and sassiest 3 year old in Hollywood, Riley Curry. You know. No big deal.

Let’s face it. That’s just a fraction of the accolades I could muster up in what is now etched in NBA lore, but I think you get the picture. No one would bat an eye if the Warriors regressed to the mean for 2016. As a matter of fact, it would be expected.

I mean, they’re practically rewriting history with each 3 pointer made… so how does one improve after making history? Surely there would be at least some drop off, right?

Well, no one told Golden State.

The team is currently on pace to break the record for wins in a regular season at 53 – 5 (73 – 9 being the goal, respectively), and as for Curry? He’s merely having the greatest single season of any player in NBA history up to this point, and if you didn’t see his buzzer beater to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, then I don’t know what to tell you.

The point is, the Warriors didn’t let success tie them down, but instead, used it as their foundation to work even harder. When something has never been done before, it doesn’t mean that it is impossible, and that’s the approach to success that we have decided to take here at Vivo.

Having a year like we did last year allows us to pick apart our triumphs and expand on them. What worked? What didn’t work? How can we break new ground?

These are all questions that should be asked no matter how well things are going, but it’s a lot easier when you have a platform of success to stand on. We are all inspired by greatness, just like the Golden State Warriors. The way they’ve gone about their business this year is an example that we should all try to emulate.

The players have fun with what they’re doing on the court, and there’s no doubt that we have our fun as recruiters in our office. We laugh, we dance, we celebrate, but most importantly, we get things done.

The Warriors and Stephen Curry are pushing the envelope in regard to what winning basketball looks like, and we want to create the same type of shift in our industry. Break conventional wisdom. So to answer the question “can we get better?” Absolutely. We even plan on turning some heads while we do it.

Inno Tolentino About the author