This Documentary Shows Why It's So Hard to Sustain Success.

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Last week I finished watching The Dynasty, a multi-part documentary about the New England Patriots' extraordinary championship era from 2001 to 2020. Before half of you stop reading due to this sports focus, I implore you to read on, as team sports and coaching offer valuable lessons for leaders and organizations everywhere.?

While The Dynasty chronicles the unparalleled success of the partnership between one of the NFL’s greatest players, Tom Brady, and one of it’s greatest coaches, Bill Belichick, the documentary is hardly a celebration. It focuses extensively on the highly complex, often challenging 20-year relationship between Brady and Belichick that produced sustained excellence, an unprecedented six championships, and a surprising amount of conflict behind the scenes.?

I have found myself applying the lessons for The Dynasty to many different real-world situations in the weeks I’ve been watching.?

Winning Covers Most Problems?

The Patriots won at an unprecedented level for 20 years. However, The Dynasty shows that the Patriots weren’t a model organization the entire time—while they won multiple championships in the final few seasons of their run, there were clear cracks in the foundation by then. When the winning stopped, those cracks became ruptures that led to Brady’s departure in 2020, just one year after he and Belichick won their sixth Super Bowl together.??

Many organizations in all industries face this exact same dynamic today. It’s easy for everyone to get along and ignore problems when things are going well—such as when the team is winning championships, or a business is enjoying a decade of sustained growth or easy access to capital. Once the winning stops, however, all of those ignored issues rise to the surface, with major consequences. This is why many organizations are currently wrestling with significant people or product problems that didn’t seem problematic until recently.?

It Isn’t Always About The Destination?

Towards the end of the Patriots dynasty, many players admitted that the team’s culture deteriorated, and the team simply wasn’t having fun anymore, despite their success. In the documentary, Brady shared he left New England in large part because he felt he’d sacrificed too much personally for the Patriot Way and wanted a change.?

It seems Brady was just one of many players who grew weary of Belichick’s intensity and singular focus on winning, which often came at the expense of any personal considerations. At some point, the end doesn’t justify the means; whether it’s an aggressive growth plan or striving to win the last game of the season, the team must enjoy the journey, not just the destination. Having high standards, discipline and a forward-thinking vision shouldn’t prevent people from enjoying their work, valuing their teammates and feeling like the organization cares for them as a person.?

Success Can Set You Up For Failure?

It’s hard to sustain success. While on a hot streak, we become overconfident in our abilities, forgetting that luck always plays a role in success and tends to even out over time. I suspect this was true for Belichick, who frequently made organizational decisions that alienated Brady, the other players, and his coaching staff in the latter years of the dynasty. Belichick believed he had earned the right to absolute power over all decisions and became insulated from dissent.?

One particularly poor decision was banning Brady’s personal trainer from the team, even though the trainer had kept Brady healthy into his 40s and had helped other players as well. In hindsight, this seemed like an unnecessary power move, where Belichick simply wanted to have his way, and didn’t care about alienating Brady in the process.?

For what it’s worth, Belichick has an 83-104 record without Brady, but Brady won a Super Bowl the year after he left the Patriots.?

All Relationships Are Imperfect?

The Dynasty focused heavily on the deterioration of Brady and Belichick’s relationship, especially during their last few years together. But while there is still some clear frustration between the two men, both player and coach have a tremendous amount of mutual respect and have only publicly praised one another since parting ways. Near the end of the documentary, an emotional Brady was asked about his relationship with Belichick and said it was perfect, choking back tears.?

I don’t believe Brady was implying his relationship with Belichick never had issues; he was instead reflecting on their body of work together and what they accomplished. Great marriages and long-standing professional relationships have their bad days and months; there just usually isn’t a camera crew there to document them. Even the most successful relationships are imperfect, and we shouldn’t define partnerships by their worst moments.??

Brady and Belichick’s shared story offers a lot of clues about how to build a winning organization and the challenges of staying on top without adaptation in a world that is always changing.?

Quote of The Week

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” - Vince Lombardi

Learn more about my speaking, writing and work at www.robertglazer.com