Being A Champion Isn’t The End Of Your Work, It’s Just Kicking Things Off
By Ted Coiné & Lou Imbriano
Lou Imbriano is currently the CEO at TrinityOne Sports and a Professor of Sports Marketing at Boston College. He is the former CMO of the New England Patriots & COO of the NE Revolution. Lou speaks regularly to corporations, organizations and universities and he writes the blog Relationship Architecture.
In team sports, it’s often believed that with the right talent, right coaching and a solid plan, victory should come easy. The recent demise of the New England Patriots has shown us that this is not entirely true. The Patriots were a 14–2 team going into the playoffs as the number one seed with home field advantage throughout the post season (or until they lost). They received a bye week, for extra time to plan, and they were clearly peaking in December at the close of the regular season. The Patriots had a team that had performed at the highest level all season long, a leader with a proven track record, and a knack for winning (especially in crunch time). So what went wrong for the Patriots? If there are no guarantees for a championship team like Brady and Belichick, and they can’t win by just showing up, what does that tell us for proven businesses with exceptional leadership?
You can’t just show up. Regardless of how much success you have encountered over the course of time and in multiple endeavors, each situation is unique to the varying surrounding circumstances. What propelled you to the success you enjoy today is never good enough to provide the victories of tomorrow. So with each new campaign and challenge, you must not rely solely on the experience that you have obtained, but also have a clear understanding of all the support and pitfalls that come with new attempts in new times. Your experience is a great foundation, but success doesn’t stop there. Great organizations are always evolving to what makes business sense for today.
Think of the IBM of the 1970s and the IBM of today. In the interim period, that company (one of the most successful in history!) almost ceased to exist. Why? Because the business model that got IBM to number one earlier last century, and kept it there for decades, ceased functioning, and for a time, top leadership failed to see it or act on it. The business world had changed, and IBM had not. Apple, likewise, was sliding into irrelevancy before Steve Jobs' triumphant return to the helm, which infused the brand with the zeitgeist of innovation and disruption that makes it an icon today. HP stumbled and nearly fell to disaster in the ‘90’s and is still feeling its way out. GM, which two years ago was very close to dissolution, is stronger now than it has been in decades. Ford is doing even better than GM after a four-year complete renovation of its brand, culture, and engineering.
Right before our eyes, we can watch this struggle unfold at Google, which appeared to tack from impetuous upstart to staid bureaucrat. It is tacking again right now, its recent shake-up at the top is an indication that leadership recognizes and means to correct its move toward stasis, and is doing everything within its power to be brash and experimental again.
What gets a sports team, or a company, to the pinnacle of success is unquenchable thirst for victory coupled with a culture that breathes innovation-on-the-fly. Only with these two traits can organizations in any field harness what Schumpeter* termed the perennial gale of creative destruction. The alternative to sailing with that gale is to fight it and be destroyed. In business or in sports, there is no such thing as a lull, no "being there" or having "made it." The moment an organization stops struggling, stops reinventing, stops being scared, it starts losing.
The two of us have never written a collaborative blog post prior to this attempt. Our combined passion for the New England Patriots and constantly striving to become better business leaders led us to explore the concept of writing a joint post. Just because we never had done it before, doesn’t mean it’s wrong or a bad way to approach a post. The fact of the matter is that there are many ways to achieve your goals and to become a champion. When you stop searching for new ways to do great things, that is when you are doomed to failure.
No aspect of your business or life should ever be viewed as complete. Approaching it as an ever-evolving process to achieve excellence is not only smart, it’s how you, too, will become a champion. Success is not a destination; it is how you adapt to the circumstances around you to continually achieve great things. The Patriots, IBM and HP all know this to be true. What got you to where you are today is not good enough to get you to where you need to be tomorrow.
* Schumpeter was a well known economist and political scientist, who popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics.
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Team Ted - Lou
ReplyDeleteThis post is right on and one of the reasons I follow both of your work. Great Stories That Come To Life With Theory!
So much of what you have written has strong meaning, but nothing more important than how you end your post...
"No aspect of your business or life should ever be viewed as complete. Approaching it as an ever-evolving process to achieve excellence is not only smart, it’s how you, too, will become a champion. Success is not a destination; it is how you adapt to the circumstances around you to continually achieve great things."
The TRUE Great Ones, whether it be Sports or Business, are the individuals who constantly challenge themselves to be better - constantly looking for the next big thing...
The one thing I will say is that when you do achieve a goal or win the championship, you should take a moment to celebrate. Enjoy the moment because getting there can be extremely difficult. And then get back on your horse, and start challenging yourself to be better the next time around, because you know your competition will be right behind you!
Thanks for a good read - And congratulates on "The Team Effort" - it worked!
SPGonz
This post is write on and one of the reasons I WILL henceforth follow both of your posts :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the resonant POV,
Jaime
Hi Ted, It goes back to the fact "Whatever brought you where you are is not longer relevant to the present much less the future" so true as change is the only constant in life.
ReplyDeleteSpecially after the great economy crisis status quo, old ways of doing things are long gone, see Egypt as we speak, see Google, Apple, NetFlix they are reinventing themselves or else, that is the mantra, however most people (employees) don't get it, they think once they get the position that's it....then they wake up without a job with a mortgage payment living beyond their means...now blaming everybody but themselves, I still have to meet somebody that was threatened with her/his life to sign the mortgage docs, bottom line they did it, they made a choice. See the chinese now competing even in high tech industries, airplanes, multiprocessors, solar energies, etc. We cannot rest on our laurels...we have to be there, we have to show up every day, actually before everybody arrives, we have to be accountable, responsible of our choices.