Honoring the Standard: Business Lessons From The Boston Marathon

If your supremely fit colleague is a little crabby this month, this may help explain why:

The Boston Athletic Association (BAA) recently made it even more challenging to enter their premiere race, the Boston Marathon.

Here’s a simple decoding of what that symbolizes, both for endurance athletes, as well as for business leaders who may never have experienced the joy of losing a toenail.

Context:

The BAA is the organization which hosts the Boston Marathon, and has since the event’s inception in 1897.? The race is held on the third Monday in April, aka Patriot’s Day, aka Marathon Monday.? The Red Sox play an early game at Fenway that day, the undergrads at Boston College are well hydrated by noon, and the marketing folks at John Hancock and Adidas invest a small country’s GDP on blue & yellow swag.?

Why all the fuss over 26.2 miles of road racing?? Several reasons. First, Boston is the oldest annual marathon on the planet.? Second, it’s steeped in enough history, tradition, and even tragedy, to fill volumes.?

Finally, and the purpose of this piece: The Boston Marathon is so special because you’re forced to EARN your spot in the arena.? It’s the only marathon in the country – not named ‘the U.S. Olympic Trials’ – that requires an athlete to achieve a qualifying time just to race. ?

This includes the Pros, the Age-Groupers, and the Para Athletes alike.*? You want to ride a shuttle bus to the starting village in Hopkinton, MA? ?Experience the Scream Tunnel from the women at Wellesley College at Mile 13? ?Suffer up the Newton Hills at Mile 19?? You’ve got to put in the work and hit an incredibly difficult standard to punch your ticket…

I Was Told There’d Be No Math:

…and that incredibly difficult standard just got 5-minutes faster.? Here’s the quick accounting:

• 36,393 applications were received for the upcoming April 2025 race
• 24,069 qualified applicants have been accepted
• 12,324 applicants were unable to be accepted

The reason behind those 12K declines: to keep capacity at reasonable levels, the BAA had to establish Cut-Off times, and only accepted athletes who ran 6 minutes and 51 seconds faster than their already speedy qualifying standard.? Therefore, to reduce the quantity of “It’s Not You, It’s Me” letters next fall, the standards for 2026 are even faster.? Here’s a snippet of the new requirements to help you earn street cred with your distance running boss on your next Zoom Meeting:

As a reference point for the long-division currently occurring in your head: a 3-hour marathon is run at an average of 6:52/mile (180 minutes / 26.2 mi).? That’s 8.7 mph on the treadmill for the duration of ‘Avengers: Endgame.’? Not to be outdone, the standards for Wheelchair, Handcycle, and Para Athletes are equally as challenging.? Whatever your mode of travel, it’s quick.

Let’s Get Down to Business:

Studies show that employees with clarity about their role and expectations experience:

• 25% improvement in performance
• 53% increased efficiency
• 27% greater effectiveness vs. those with role ambiguity

Additionally, the companies with high role clarity across the organization see a 10% increase in customer satisfaction and 19% increase in profitability.

A Toast To Honor:

You’ve likely seen – and glossed over – stats like those before, and I don’t blame you.? I have too.? So here’s my take:

Crystal clear standards can be tricky to establish, but that’s the easy part of the journey.? The challenge isn’t in creating them in the boardroom amongst the Senior Leadership Team – it’s in honoring them amongst people that you care about.

Imagine any of the 12,324 hard-working, committed, supremely talented athletes who crossed the finish line at their local marathon with a Boston Qualifying (BQ) time.? There were likely tears of joy, sore joints, Facebook posts and celebratory desserts for days.? Now imagine that same working-parent finding out that their fastest time wasn’t quite fast enough. Ugh.

That’s a heck of an emotional roller coaster.? But individuals have to be prepared to ride it, and strong leaders understand the conviction required to honor those standards for the health of the entire system.

The word “honor” is used twice here, intentionally.? The mindset should not be enforcing or legislating the standard.? Those approaches tend to have a “gotcha” feel and a generally negative connotation of “Us Against Them.”

To honor, though, hits different.? We honor that which is special and must be protected.? ?Mothers. Veterans. Memories. And yes, standards.

Individuals can honor the standard by putting forth maximum effort and understanding what will be gained by achieving it, and more soberly, what’s at stake for missing it.? This is the opposite of a Participation Trophy environment.? This viewpoint requires an uncommon level of honesty and self-awareness.? Not everyone makes the team.? Not everyone qualifies for President’s Club.? Not everyone makes it to Boston.? But when it does happen?? The moment is so much more special!

Leaders, meanwhile, can honor the standard by first taking extreme care to:

1. Be thoughtful in making the standard fair.
2. Be intentional of making the standard crystal clear.

All too often discussions of desired business metrics pencil in best case scenarios. A common forecasting practice is to default to a generic YoY growth figure -usually involving arbitrarily round numbers, like 10% - without accounting for current conditions.

The best leaders stay close to clients, competitors and colleagues alike, in order to align standards that reflect both the trajectory of their industry, as well as the key behaviors required for success.

“Back when I was doing that job, I once…” is a wonderful phrase which may indicate that the leaders' perspective of performance standards has failed to evolve, up or down.

Then, once established and communicated, the leaders must honor the standard.? Not in a manner that is harshly punitive toward those who fall just short, but rather, to respect those who meet the mark.? This is so much easier said than done for most, but so critically important.

Establishing and honoring clear standards is the ultimate act of kindness.

Top performers want to be paid more than average performers. Fast runners want to be pushed by faster runners.? Punctual people want meetings to begin on time.? Studious children want homework to be collected when class begins.?

Honest competitors crave fair standards.? They don’t resent them.

The Finish Line:

I am three days away from running my 10th marathon.? In the previous nine, I’ve managed to qualify for Boston twice, running it once in 2012.?

In 2008, at the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach, I missed qualifying by 67 seconds.?? That’s less than 3 seconds per mile! That day, though, there were no appeals to a higher court, no letters written, no tweet storms.? Just a few beers to celebrate a darn strong effort, and then back to work – all of which made qualifying legitimately in 2011 even sweeter.

The BAA’s updated criteria makes things tougher – 5 minutes tougher to be exact – but the reasoning is completely justified.? In an era full of saddening statistics about the state of public health, it's worth celebrating the fact that there are so many athletes achieving such a challenging & meaningful goal for themselves. The rest of us being forced to step up our game to be included in the biggest events? A rising tide lifts all ships.

‘Tis far better to raise the bar and accept a greater percentage of fewer qualifiers, in my opinion, than it is to have to politely decline 30% of applicants and break hearts on the back end during an administrative process.

To everyone setting standards, chasing them, and honoring them – best wishes and keep at it!

-Matt

?

*Bank of America sponsors the official Boston Marathon Charity Program that provides invitational entries to select non-profit organizations who pledge to raise funds for their cause (ex: ALS Association, American Red Cross, World Central Kitchen).