Why Tiger Woods Will Save His Marriage

It's a competition.

And this is one contest he needs to win.  Tiger knows there is no way to easily regain his confidence on the golf course without rebuilding the foundation that supports it. 

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The Tiger Woods brand was formed when his primary relationship was with golf and himself.  That has changed.  Clearly, he will be making some dramatic changes in his life.  When he does emerge in the public domain, you can bet it will not involve golf, but his relationship with his family.

What defines Tiger Woods is his relentless ability to succeed in competitive situations, despite the odds, and maybe even because of the odds.  The odds are against him on this one, and that will only intensify the focus he needs to succeed.  If he can win this one, it helps him immensely in every other endeavor.  And  unlike it, those other challenges will always be waiting for him.

Despite pressure from sponsors and the PGA Tour, he will not relent until he has this part of his game under control.  The sponsors and the Tour understand this.  And so they will wait to the extent that they can.  Life is messy, but it is interesting.  And this scenario proves to be all of that.

What This Means for the Rest of Us

If there is anything this episode teaches us, it is that business is about relationships -  all of them.  Today social media is connecting communities with lighting speed and great accuracy.   Search engines now use real-time search to index everything we do.  With the social networks eavesdropping on more of our conversations than we know, like Tiger, we need to get comfortable with what the social networks do very well.

If Abraham Maslow is correct in his famous theory of the hierarchy of needs and desires, Tiger will do what every business or brand should be doing in this or any other economy.  He will focus on what matters most – those core relationships that we depend on every single day, and that we may sometimes take for granted.

I am frequently asked about the ROI of social media.  There are a number of ways to measure the value social media brings to your business.  Yet, while you can fairly easily measure the value a key customer brings to the table, it is exceedingly difficult to quantify this thing we call reputation. 

This much we now know:  Whether you are a celebrity or not, reputation may be immeasurable, but it is represents a drive down the middle of the fairway.  

That's something any of us can build on.

Photo Credit:  MarkLarson

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