The Long Win

The Search for a Better Way to Succeed

By: Cath Bishop

Narrated by: Cath Bishop

Redefining success in the 21st century.

In this fascinating examination of our widespread obsession with winning, Cath Bishop draws on her personal experience of high-performance environments to trace the idea of winning through history, language and thought to explore how it has come to be a defining concept in fields from sport to business, from politics to education. Faced with the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, Cath offers a new, broader approach - the long win.

Cath competed as a rower at three Olympic Games, becoming the first British woman to win the World Championships and an Olympic medal in the coxless pairs event. As a senior diplomat, Cath worked on policy and negotiations, specialising in stabilization policy for conflict-affected parts of the world. In business, Cath has acted as a coach and consultant, advising on team and leadership development and organisational culture, and teaches on the Executive Education Faculty at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University.

In this book she brings that extraordinary mix of experience to examine what winning has come to mean to society and to us as individuals, and offers a fresh perspective on how we might redefine success - personal and professional - for the longer term.

©2020 Cath Bishop (P)2021 W F Howes

Critic reviews

“Powerful and profound.” (Matthew Syed)

must-read for parents with youth in sports

Cath delves deep into the culture of winning as the primary motivation for the intense sports training, and follows with the similarities in business. Fueled by both the media and parents themselves, finishing anything short as the 'winner' is viewed as second rate, completely forgetting the ideas of sportsmanship, cooperation and measuring against personal performance goals.
I think this is a great read that will shift thinking to invidividual performance-based vs outcome-based. I definitely enjoyed the read. She makes the seldom-heard point that there is much to learn from 'losing' and we should try to celebrate those who compete whether they win or lose, provided they compete fairly.