As a life-long Cowboy fan, I have seen my NFL team win several super bowls and I have seen them over the last 3 decades repeatedly fail, even when they clearly had the better team. Ruminating over the disaster that was the recent loss to the Packers in the Wild Card Round yesterday, I was reminded that there are lots of lessons we can take into the business world from failures like this in the sports world. This list is by no means exhaustive, but I think it's a good start in understanding what causes great teams to under-perform.
- Hubris. Pride. Ego. Pride goes before the fall. I often say that "we've gotta stop reading our press clippings." In the sports world as well as in business this comes with thoughts like, "They'd be crazy not to go with our company," or, "this is a no-brainer," or "I could beat these guys in my sleep..." Whenever you think you're better than another foe, company, enemy, etc, you'd better go check your ego at the door. You can win some with this attitude, but you're also going to pay the price eventually.
- Thinking you're the smartest person in the room. Many a software company has faced an early exit because its founders have had this mentality. If you find that your always the smartest in the room, you need to hire better people around you, find better friends or team-mates or find some humility quickly. Columbo always managed this well -- being underestimated is always better than over promising and under-delivering. This goes for your results as well as your perception by others around you. The people buying from you don't want to buy from the smartest guy, the people on your team don't want to play with the smartest guy, the people in your company don't want to work with the guy who acts like he's the smartest in the room. So don't be that guy.
- Preparing your game plan only. It's often said that the best war plans go out the window the minute the first shot is fired. It is important to plan. But it's more important to exhaustively plan for as many contingencies as possible. Your competitors will not follow your game plan. They will likely plan to avoid your strengths and go after your weaknesses. The best game plans incorporate what your opponent is likely to do to counter your actions as much as what you are planning to do. I helped lead a CXO to CEO meeting several years ago. One of my founders attended from my company and I was actually amazed at how much effort he and the other leaders from my company put into what they were going to say and what they were going to say if the conversation derailed in 6-7 different directions. Which of course it did. But we were ready.
- Practice. This is obvious in sports, but often not done at game speed. Walking through a play is way different than executing it succesfully with a 300 lb lineman breathing down your neck. In business, we do very little practice before meetings. "We've done that 100 times." "I know what to say." Check yourself. Go into a recording of your last customer meeting. See how many times you stumble in your words, you say, uh, or hesitate too long. Those are all indications that you're not completely practiced in on your message. You're fumbling because it's new to you, and you're not convinced yourself, so you're trying to make it sound more convincing to all. Practice helps fix this, and practice with others around is more at game speed. Management asked all my team members to produce a 2 minute talk about a new capability we had recently. I thought I had it down really well, and jumped right into recording. 10 version later, I realized I did need some practice on it.
- Thinking You're There. Whether this is thinking you don't need additional training, or your team is "the dream team" and doesn't need to add resources or to do anything different, there are hundreds of sports analogies from an undefeated Patriots team going into a Super Bowl to a recent Basketball World Cup, to 30 years of Cowboys playoff losses to show that this is not always how you think it is. To state the obvious. You're never THERE. There's always a younger startup on the horizon, looking to undercut you, there's a younger player in college, getting ready to light the NFL on fire (yes, we see you, CJ Stroud, Jordan Love, etc.), there's always more to know, to learn, alternative approaches that can win more business and more games.
- Leveraging Excuses instead of Learning Experiences. It's very easy to pin the blame on a bad half from a Defense, on the poor demo that was given, on the fact that the product didn't have that one feature. But companies and teams win all the team with inferior products and players. Back in the 1990s, when Jimmy Johnson was a young coach with a team that hadn't won anything in a while, he turned around his 1-15 team and made the playoffs the next year, only to lose horribly in the first round. That young team took that loss to heart, learned from it and went on to win 3 out of the next 4 super bowls. That loss burned in their brains and hearts for a full year until that pain was eliminated by the first Super Bowl win. Other teams don't do that. That attribute the loss to an injury or a bad ref call (yes, I am referring to Dez Bryant's Catch/No-Catch against the Packers). The team that can take the losses and build them into learning experiences that lead to future victories are not common. But that is what we need to strive for.
- Wanting It More. Sometimes victory goes to the team that just wants it more. Is your team hungry and willing to do whatever it takes to win? Or are they fat and happy? Often it's fat and happy that ends up on the couch in the playoffs and in business, and the aggressive and hungry that gets the deal.
- Unity. Finally, is the whole team on board? In business, that means Marketing and Product and Exec team and Sales all just as hungry and willing to go the extra mile. Many business teams lose because a hungry sales team doesn't necessarily bring home the business if the product and Executive team isn't pulling in the same direction. Sometimes part of the team is desperate and part of the team is fat and happy. This is never a recipe for success.
I think much of these go back to #1 and #2, the Pride and Smartest Person in the Room syndrome.
Back to the Cowboys. Why did they get blown out by the "barely made the playoffs" Packers who are the youngest team in the NFL? I think the Cowboys came in with their game plan (#3), but didn't plan how to still win if their plan didn't work as advertised. And, yes, I think the Cowboys (America's Team) get so much press and publicity that it's very difficult not to read your own press clippings and think you're better than you really are. Finally, I do think #6 played a role. No other team lost their starting LB and thought, "we don't need to bring in someone else, we'll just move over a Safety." But that is what the Cowboys did early in the season. They weren't "THERE" but they also weren't willing to change things in a way that could get them THERE.
What else would you add to the list?
