Why sports metaphors are wrong for business

Sports metaphors are often used to illustrate some point or another about business.

I touched on that several years ago in an article about teams.

Recently — for whatever reason — I’ve heard many of these sports metaphors or analogies used in business contexts in an attempt to draw insights or conclusions applicable in business.

To me they seem not merely silly, but potentially dangerously wrong. Note, I don’t mean the throwaway metaphors like “We scored a home-run” when said about winning a sale. Those are fine. It’s times when people try to draw conclusions or theories from sport and apply them to business. No. Don’t do it.

There is perhaps one main exception. If you’re in a business or industry where the only remaining strategic option is to squeeze out the last efficiencies and optimizations, then some sports metaphors might be useful. Otherwise, really not.

(I confess that F1, the America’s Cup and some similar sports do have more applicability, but even then it’s limited.)

And why do I think sports analogies are inapplicable to business? Even though it seems that they are widely used and accepted?

For a bunch of reasons…some briefly listed here.

1. the rules in sports are tightly defined
2. you play one opponent at a time
3. the area of play is defined
4. the game is time-bound
5. the physical attributes of successful players fall within very tight margins
6. successful players are found early in life, with career changes essentially unknown

There are more, but those are a good start.

On the other hand, unless your business is in an industry like I mention above, business is fundamentally different. Again, to give a few examples.

1. While there are general rules in business (accounting, legal, etc), the rules of winning in each industy and business are many, varied, unknowable, and constantly changing
2. You are rarely if ever actually competing against another company in your industry…you are striving to actually win with the customer, not actually against the competition
3. The area within which you play is constantly varying
4. the game will never end and it will not look at all the same in even a few years
5. successful players can be any shape, size or color
6. there is value in players that have played in (multiple) other sports and bring other perspectives
7. the winning product is the result of way more creativity than applies in sport.

Most sports are, at their base, analogs of ancient warfare. Formalized ancient warfare…just (mostly) without actual killing.

Business is an endeavour to create something new, better, cheaper (or it should be).

They’re different at their cores. Don’t mix them up.

Oh, and like most things I write…this isn’t really new. Many serious people have written about this before.

• Imperial College Business School (here)
• The Journal of Management (here)

Perhaps unusually, my version is shorter.