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Conversations in Management

Steffi Graf

I still take it seriously, but once I go out there I think I’ve gotten more relaxed and I think it shows.

Steffi Graf was born on June 14, 1969. Nineteen years later she won the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and capped if off by winning a gold medal during the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. The sports media called it the Golden Slam. Not bad for a teenager. Of course this kind of success doesn’t come without a lot of hard work—even for a tennis prodigy. In Graf’s case, the driving force behind the hard work was her father, Peter. A frustrated salesman, Peter began coaching his daughter in the family’s living room when she was just three years old. By four she was playing on a court and by five was entering tournaments. Graf was ranked at 124 when she started her first full professional season at thirteen. Two years later she ranked sixth. From there it was a steady climb to the Golden Slam.

Graf would play professionally for another eleven years and while never duplicating her spectacular success of 1988, she enjoyed an extraordinary career none-the-less. Along the way she endured the pitfalls that beset any modern athlete—injuries, changes in the game, tax evasion charges and increasingly younger challengers. She handled it all with grit, determination and dignity. When she finally retired in 1999, she was third ranked in the world and was still winning awards, accolades and honors. Yet it wasn’t until the last few years of her professional career that she began to develop any sort of social life. Up to that point everything had pretty much been business. Granted, it was a rewarding business, but in the end, it was work.

Nowadays, the Graf experience is commonplace. One doesn’t have to look very far to see legions of parents busily transforming their kid’s recreational activities into work. Grim-faced toddlers march off to ice skating rinks, gymnastics classes and soccer fields to be “coached” into stardom. A quick visit to a Little League diamond can rattle even the most stout-hearted as furious adults shamelessly berate children who strikeout or drop a fly ball. You begin to wonder when the national pastime stopped being fun. Heck, even beach volleyball has turned competitive—can professional kick-the-can be far behind? Our zeal to wring the pleasure out of almost any activity isn’t restricted to sports. Parents, desperate to get their kids into the “best schools,” push their children into accelerated academic programs and round it out with mandatory participation in joyless cultural events. Let’s not forget volunteer work. Helping the less fortunate is about rounding out a resume rather than experiencing the intrinsic satisfaction of selfless giving. How selfless can it be if the real goal is to break into the Ivy League? Work is no different. Nearly everything has become so serious and intense that folks have to exercise extreme caution in even routine conversations. You begin to assess if your smile can be misinterpreted or if your laugh could be considered malevolent?

Steffi Graf figured it out at the close of her career. You can take life seriously while still relaxing and having a good time. In fact, you can do a better job, be a better friend and be an infinitely better parent if you just relax. Look for small pleasures. Play a game for the fun of it and don’t keep score. Do something kind for the sake of being kind. Laugh a little.

—Ebert