Get out of your team's way

Great leaders put their team in place to succeed ... but then let their team execute without distractions. This post first appeared on the Duha One substack .

Leadership Moment: Lessons from Underdogs

The NFL season has resumed, in case you’d managed to miss that. This weekend, from both college and professional leagues, two underdogs lead the way. On Saturday, fifth-ranked Notre Dame took on Northern Illinois University. If you’re not familiar with college football, this is what’s often known as a “cupcake game”: a football powerhouse (Notre Dame) pays another college ($1.4 million) to send their team to play, and lose badly. Northern Illinois was expected to lose by at least four touchdowns; no MAC team had ever beaten a top-five team, and Northern Illinois had never beaten a top-5 team.

The New England Patriots similarly were underdogs going into Cincinnati to play the Bengals (but only by 8.5 points). Just about everyone outside their building believed they’d lose: a novice head coach, a new defensive coordinator, a retread quarterback who’d bounced around the league, an offensive line that already had no continuity, even going into the first game.

Both teams won. This wasn’t a fluke, although it looks that way statistically: if you believe you can’t succeed, you’re almost certainly not going to. But if you believe in your chance to succeed, and your adversary takes you for granted, the opportunity opens up for you to succeed. While it may take a combination of luck, execution, and strategy to deliver on that success, it’s the focus and inspiration that even makes that possible.

Appearances

Recent

Sep 3: CISO Series Podcast: Red Flag? My Vendor Just Asked for My Mother’s Maiden Name

Sep 5: Cloud Control (text interview): Pushing Innovation with Apology Budgets

Sep 5: Hou.Sec.Cast (video): Learn Something New Today

Sep 6: Techstrong TV: Bias in Humans Through Bad Representation

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Sep 12: ASPM Book Roadshow (Boston)

Sep 19: YLV Breakfast Club (NYC)

Sep 24: HOU.SEC.CON (Houston)

Oct 9: ASPM Nation (virtual)

One Minute Pro Tip: No Unnecessary Secrets

“We’re going to run the ball. All year.” Jerod Mayo revealed the Patriots’ secret strategy on talk radio this morning. He commented that sometimes there is too much secrecy about things that are obvious; teams (and organizations) get cagey about their strategy. When that secrecy is unnecessary, it can leave the members of the organization misaligned with the goals of the organization.

Examine what information you’re hiding – willfully or unwittingly – from your team. Is there really a risk to being more open in the organization with what’s important? If you’re failing at your goals, do you want to conceal that from the people who could make your succeed, if only they knew before failure was irrevocable?

This post first appeared on the Duha One substack .