Hitting Your Number and Other Folly

If you haven't read The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki, you owe yourself the treat. It's fascinating. The main premise is to show how our collective wisdom just plain crushes the expertise of even the highest-paid gurus, at least over the long-haul.

Surowiecki also explores a number of side-issues, and he does it in the engaging style of the journalist-author, reminiscent of another of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell, author of Tipping Point and Outliers.

It's down one of these thought-alleyways I'd like to take you now. Surowiecki touched on something that has been eating at me for a while now. Perhaps it bugs you as well - or if it didn't before, I hope it starts to now. He writes,

"Companies tend to pay people based on whether they do what they're expected to do. In a market, people get paid based simply on what they do. After all, your local deli owner doesn't make any more money if his sales at year end beat his own expectations. He just makes as much money as he makes. Ideally, the same would be true inside a company."

I founded my own company, and I owned all the stock: typical of many SMBs. That means when we made a sale, I got to keep every dime of the money left over after we'd paid all the bills - just like that hypothetical deli owner. Granted, I paid myself meagerly and invested heavily back into the business, but I was investing profits: some entrepreneurs buy boats and beach homes; I bought staff salaries and a cutting-edge website.

The experience has left an indelible mark on how I think about business, large and small. It kills me when companies play games with money, or with motivation, as if incenting people for desired behavior rather than results makes any kind of sense. As if paying people the same for disparate performance in the same role is anything but... um... dumb.

Many roles in business support the organization and thus are hard to measure in direct impact to the bottom line. I get that, and I respect it. But here's one that has never made a lick of sense to me: when two people perform the same role, but one outshines the other - in terms of measurable dollar-in-revenue amounts - and yet is paid the same, or close to it.

Take innovation. One of your research teams invents your company's version of the sticky pad (3M) or the iPad (Apple). That breakthrough becomes a major part of your firm's revenue for years to come. To my mind, as that deli owner, this team is one hell of a lot more valuable to the company than the other teams. Perhaps they deserve a pass on their annual reviews for the rest of their careers. Just sayin'.

Or the IT professional who guides his firm away from an unhealthy relationship with an under-performing vendor, and ends up saving her company not only millions of dollars a year with a new vendor, but also headache and "fit" issues that might be a lot harder to measure objectively. Has this pro earned some job security? A bonus? A promotion? It's remarkable to me how often that type of recognition doesn't happen. What would the deli owner say?

And here's my favorite: I saved it for last on purpose. Look at how you pay and manage your sales professionals. Every year, sales pros are given their "number," the target they need to hit in order to stay employed. They beat their number, they earn commissions, bonuses, gifts, vacations... They miss it, they're in trouble. Maybe even sacked.

Now, so far so good; fair's fair you say, and I agree. But anyone involved in sales knows, what most companies do is say, "Okay Bob, last year you sold $X, so we know you can do better next year. Jan, last year you sold half of $X, so you have to beat half of $X next year."

Over my career, I have known plenty of sales pros and team managers at a variety of companies that have been in a situation like this: Bob sells twice, three times, four times as much as Jan, but he misses his number and she exceeds hers. Jan is a heroine, and Bob is in trouble - yes, perhaps even fired for under-performance.

Really? Really. This may make sense in enterprises around the world, but I wonder... What would the deli owner think of that? One waitress handles four times the number of tables, brings in four times the sales, of her coworkers: isn't she worth more? Isn't she the very last to lose her job? My God, most sensible business owners would marry her in order to keep that money in the family!

In my humble opinion,* perhaps CEOs and boards of directors can learn a thing or two from the humble deli owner. Perhaps hitting one's number should be less important than, say, bringing a company actual money.

*Okay, I admit, my opinion is only occasionally humble. I'd say sorry, but I'm not.

Your Own Company of One

I want you to play a trick on yourself, a mind-game. It will make you a better employee, and it will make you a better boss. It will make you enjoy your present work situation more, and it will set you up well for your next gig, whether that's within your current company or outside it.

The game is simple: as an employee, act at all times as if you are an outside consultant brought in by your employer to work on a project. If you do well on this one, if you blow your client away with how useful you are, and with the phenomenal service you provide, you can expect them to ask you to help with another project, and another. There is no contract. They pay you, you do the work, they ask you do do more, pay you, you do that one. You get the picture.

You are a service provider. Your "employer" is really your "customer." Every employee at that customer's office is a customer - they're all on the inside, and you're a guest.

How will you behave in this situation? Remember, only Five-Star Customer Service will (more or less) guarantee they'll enjoy you enough to keep you. Only by doing what they need of you better than anyone can you make sure they don't hire your competition for the next project. Keep this in mind at all times:

Incredible Service + Superior Performance = "Job" Security.

I put the word Job in quotation marks because you don't have a job, remember? You have your own small business. Your own company of one.

Now let's tweak this mind-setting exercise for bosses. You are the "boss;" you're the customer. Your team is composed of specialists you have hired to complete a project. Yes, you should expect very high levels of professionalism from them, because they are each small business owners and they have a reputation to uphold and, they hope, enhance.

But here's the other side of that sword, taken from today's headlines: the economy is heating up again, and the best small business owners are once again able to pick and choose their clients. If you don't treat them right, they're out, and you'll have to find a replacement. Not only is that costly and time-consuming, but the folks you have right now are the best of the best (which is why you chose them, of course!), and you know that to lose one means settling for second-best, or maybe worse, to complete your projects.

You don't have "employees;" you have "vendors." And these vendors are expert at what they do. You pretty much can't survive without them.

I'm very comfortable with this mind-game because I owned my own small, highly specialized B2B business for a number of years, which had me wearing both hats at all times. As my company's representative when I worked with a client, I knew that every minute of every day I was basically on a job interview. And with my team, some of whom actually were small business owners and consultants themselves, I never forgot that they could leave and help my competitors at any time. So I demanded a very high level of performance, and I did my best to treat each like a rock star so they'd never dream of leaving.*

I hope you take two points away from this post. First, for everyone, employee and boss alike:

Act like you're on a job interview every day, all day long. (You are.)

And for bosses:

Treat your team like volunteers, not employees. Expect them to leave if you mistreat them. (They will).

*****

Another time, we'll talk about organizing cats - I mean volunteers, an area I have some experience with (and plenty of scars to show for it!) As many experts will agree, no aspect of leadership is harder, and if you can master this art, the world of work - with its pay and benefits and careers... - will seem a breeze. I promise.

*With varying results, of course - this was the real world, not pie-in-the-sky theory.

How's Your Focus?

Last year about this time I set my New Year's Resolutions.

I know, I'm like that.

This was nothing fancy or well-thought-out, I just did it. I took a piece of scrap paper and wrote down the five things I wanted to focus on improving. They're a little bit private, but I can tell you this: four concerned some aspect of my career, and one was an athletic goal. Family, friends, spiritually - thankfully, I feel very good about those aspects of my life. Your areas of focus might include those, but mine didn't.

Here's how I did:

#1 - Nailed it. Blew my goal so far out of the water, it's impossible to even compare.

#2-4 - Did somewhere between well and okay.

#5 - Oops. Didn't even touch it. Abject failure.

This list, written on a scrap paper, lives in a drawer in my bathroom. Every few days I come across it as I search for the toothpaste or a nail clipper. It's a handy reminder of what I decided to work on last February.

This worked pretty well for me, but around the start of this month I decided it was time to update my list. Not start a brand-new one, because most of those items are ongoing concerns, not "do it and done" type things. They involve getting better at something, and that's a journey.

So Saturday, I retired the first list and replaced it with another. Three items this time, all in some way related to the original five.

This year, as with last, I'm judging everything I do by this standard: Does it promote one of my three goals? Specifically,

1. Does it help me write my next book?

2. Does it help with the career move I'm making?*

3. Does it help me train for the Naples 1/2 Marathon next January?

This post isn't about me, though. It's about you. What are your goals - not for the year, but ongoing? Try to have only a few. Aim for only one. Write them down. Put them someplace where you have to actually read them - preferably, someplace where they're in the way and you need to move them (and thus read them) as you search for the toothpaste.

And judge every action you take, all year long, by how effectively that action supports your quest for those goals. Cut out fun stuff that doesn't clearly promote those goals. Do more of what does.

Let me know how it goes.

*Career move? I've been eluding to this for a couple of months now. I'm only 44. If my role models are any indication, I have at least 40 more years of active work ahead of me (thank God!). So I'm going to continue to evolve and reinvent myself again and again. I can't wait to share my next step!

Best Practices Suck

Like every good business heretic, I look at the world of commerce with the eyes of an outsider. That means that I question everything I see, every habit of the business world that most others take for granted. "The way we've always done it" is a phrase that makes me throw up in my mouth a little every time I hear it. Unfortunately, I hear it a lot.

Best practices are great and all - if your current practices are sub-par. After all, you have to start somewhere. But catching up with the Joneses is a fool's errand. The best you can ever hope for is to catch up, but that would assume that the Joneses, and all your other neighbors, don't improve. And I think we should all be quite comfortable by now with the notion that standing still is falling behind. After all, isn't that what the firing squad asks prisoners to do? Stand still against that wall, so they can have a clear shot?

When you go to work today, or next week, take the blinders off and really look around. What do we do that is merely "fine?" Why do we do it this way, or that way? Think less about how to squeeze one percent more efficiency out of your systems this year, and more about how you can double your revenue, this year, by blazing a brand new trail.

Want to know a little secret to innovation? What the heck, here are a couple:

* Hire people from outside the world of big business - teachers, actors, small business owners, bartenders, history majors just out of school - to work on your staff. Don't just teach them how you do things. Much more importantly, ask them to tell you what their fresh eyes think of your systems. Every time they ask Why (as in "Why do we do it like this?"), give them a sign of your thanks - a crisp $100 bill, an afternoon off, a long lunch with you someplace special.

* At that lunch, make sure you take plenty of notes. Bring a pad and pen along. Use them.

* Look at everything you do as if you were the owner of your business. Not a stockholder, which I hope you already are. The owner. And here's how owners think of every dime their business spends: "That's one more dime of my money going out the door." I can say this from experience. When you own 100% of a company, as I did, then every dollar that comes in is yours. Spending money hurts.

* ...But investing money is awesome! Savvy business owners may shudder at the thought of buying a ream of paper for $10, but if an additional $10,000 in salary is what it takes to woo a talented sales pro from her current employer, we're happy to pay it! We see the first as an expense and the second as an investment, a way to bring in even more money. Woo-hoo!

* Put some white space on your calendar, and honor it. White space means no appointments, no email, no phone calls. White space is your time to walk around and talk to people, sans agenda. Just talk. It means read a book, or a magazine. It means take a walk in the parking lot. Respect your white space above all else. This is where your truly great breakthroughs will come - when you aren't looking for them!

In all you do, try to clear the business-cobwebs from your eyes, and see your company from a fresh perspective. It isn't just a nice idea - it's essential to the prosperity of your company, and your career!

Metrics That Matter

Kicking off Guest-Post Tuesday is Tristan Bishop (@KnowledgeBishop), one of my favorite experts in the fields of leadership, corporate culture, and customer service. He is a true 21st-Century Business leader!

Tristan drives teams toward efficient delivery of effective content. From early days defining the Knowledge Management vision for the first online bank (Wells Fargo) to his current digital strategy role at the world's leading security company (Symantec), Tristan has consistently increased customer access to key content. By integrating technical publishing best practices with web delivery innovation, Tristan forges solutions that optimize customer experience, improving the corporate/customer relationship.

The paramedics burst through the ER door, wheeling a man on a collapsible gurney. The triage nurse quickly moved in front of them and asked, "How long are his fingernails?" "His FINGERNAILS?" gasped the medic, "We got his temperature, pulse, blood pressure and heart rate?" The triage worker shook his head, "We've GOT to measure the fingernails! Just LOOK at these babies: Longest we've had this year."

I offer this ludicrous fictional anecdote only to illustrate a point: Some organizations obsess over absurd metrics. In business, as in healthcare, some measurements matter MUCH more than others. Many of the things we study don't truly reveal the health of our organizations.

I've had a chance to contribute to a number of corporate functions over the years. Along the way, I've seen a variety of metrics claim more mind-share than they merit:

• Within Marketing, I've seen leaders more interested in "direct mail % response rates" than in the actual revenue created by the campaign.
• Within Customer Service, I've seen center managers more interested in lowering Average Handle Time (AHT) than in increasing customer satisfaction.
• Within in Documentation, I've seen managers attempt to determine team "productivity" by tracking "words written, per writer, per day."

For a number of reasons, each metric mattered to the manager in question. But I assert that the most valuable metrics are those that assess attitudes. With the big-picture in mind, I want to offer three metrics: One that matters, another that matters MORE and a third that matters MOST:

Matters: Earnings Per Share (EPS) is a crucial metric for any publicly traded company. In plain language, EPS answers "How much profit did we create for our stock holders in the past three months?" Obviously, this is important. That said, if EPS is the main goal, a brand will OVER-Focus on cost-containment. They will "control costs at ALL costs." Loyalty is built over MANY calendar quarters and, therefore, MUST be measured with a longer view.

Matters MORE: Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty measurement methodology that has gained traction in recent years. NPS is based on a single question a brand asks current customers: "On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?" While NPS is hotly debated, due to it's simplicity, there are compelling correlations between "recommendibility" and revenue growth. For example, in key industries (Insurance, Airline, Cellular)
the brand with the highest Net Promoter Score claimed recent profits, even as competitors lost profound amounts of money.

Matters MOST: Employee Net Promoter Score (ENPS) takes NPS methodology and uses it to assess employee engagement. ENPS adoption is growing among thought-leaders. In 2010, extensive surveys were conducted on how likely employees are to recommend their products to friends and family or to encourage others to take a job alongside them. According to Vovoci, there is a direct correlation between employee loyalty and customer loyalty. Consider this quote from Walker Information: "Loyal employees have a positive impact on customer loyalty and retention: 92% of loyal employees do tasks for customers "above and beyond the call of duty." Only 54% of trapped and high risk employees do so."

The corporate world seems to have gone "Penny Wise, Pound Foolish." Speak some sense back into your plans. Going forward, the most valuable commodity will likely be LOYALTY. And, when viewed through the lens of loyalty, metrics that once motivated now matter less than ever.

We have a new opportunity to focus on better metrics: Metrics that strongly correlate to renewal and retention. So I say this: Start with employee loyalty. Let this drive customer loyalty. Let customer loyalty drive revenue.

I suggest that you have to go from ENPS to NPS to EPS. I'm thinking it doesn't work the other way around.

My Follow-Back Policy

It's Social Media Monday again, and that means it's time for another short post on one aspect of - you guessed it! - Social Media.

This week I'm going to share the policy I've been following since my first Tweet in April 2009. It works well for me. You can adopt this policy for yourself or not, as you wish.

Ready? It's really straightforward.

I follow everyone back on Twitter. (Just about).

There, that's my policy. Here's why:

1. For whatever odd reason, Twitter limits how many people a person follows. If you follow a bunch of "celebrities" and news outlets that don't follow you back, you'll hit a wall at 2,000 where you find you can't follow anyone else. And even if your follow-followee ratio is close enough that Twitter lets you slip past this stupid, arbitrary wall of 2,000, you still have to stay within a close ratio to continue following more people. So any time you don't follow someone back, you're limiting who else they can follow. That's not nice. Be nice.

2. The friend who introduced me to Twitter explained that automatically following back is the ethic of the medium. It's what you do, he said. A lot of us still act that way, and so this rule has served me well in making some really cool friends and acquaintances along the way.

3. In this way, Twitter is pretty much the opposite of Facebook and LinkedIn, where everyone's always asking, "Do I know you?" This open, "We're all friends here" culture really works for me. I'm friendly in real life - I'm like a Labrador Retriever - and Twitter lets me be friendly online as well.

4. Much more importantly (to me), here's why I follow everyone back: I'm not more important than my followers. Indeed, I'm grateful every single time a person complements me by following me. It's their way of saying, "Hi Ted! I want to get to know you better." For me to snub their kindness would be ungracious - and if I were ungracious, I couldn't look my Mother in the eye. [I'm on a lifelong crusade against arrogance. We'll leave it at that.]

5. On that last point, following back is consistent with my status as a customer service author and leader. How on earth can I tell people to provide Five-Star Customer Service, which is based entirely on manners, when I am impolite myself? So for me, it's an easy decision.

I know some of you will find these to be strong words, especially that last part. Let me repeat: this is MY follow-back policy. These are my reasons. You may have perfectly legitimate reasons for not observing my practices, and I'm sure they work for you.

Now, it's time for the caveats:

6. When I follow a new person, I typically give them a week, maybe two, to follow me back. If they don't choose to, that perfectly fine. But at that point I unfollow them. I literally do not follow a single human who does not follow me as well - at least not for more than a week. No one is that important to me.

7. I use a client (Tweetdeck) to manage my Twitter stream. I basically ignore my "All Friends" feed. Instead I set up columns on Tweetdeck that search for key words, hashtags I enjoy, or for lists of special people - my core friends. I recommend you try something similar.

8. I regularly check in with Tweepi to manage my list, and to find new people to follow who share my interests, which are mostly business, leadership, social media, and customer service.

9. Tweepi is great. It lets me find and follow people with similar interests. You can see when they last tweeted, so you can only follow active Tweeters. You can unfollow accounts that are clearly spambots or that have become inactive. Poke around the site. There's a lot to learn.

10. One last thing: do I follow wack-jobs, which to me includes some members of fringe political and/or religious groups that offend me? Hmn. I'm always wrestling with this, but typically yes. I figure engagement is a great way to find common ground with those whose views are different from mine. Often, even if their beliefs in one area make me squirm, in many other respects we find all sorts of common ground. If they really, truly alienate me with their tweets, then yes, they're out. That's pretty rare, though.

Okay, that's this week's short (*ehem*) write-up of my follow-back policy for Twitter. I'm really interested in your comments. I know this one in particular is not universally agreed upon. Let me have it, if you feel so inclined. My favorite thing about Social Media in general is that I'm always learning.

Career Advice part 1: Risk

I'm often asked for career advice. I take this very seriously, because each time, this is someone's life we're talking about. Giving the wrong advice could mess someone up for years.

So, before we even get into it, let me share this disclaimer:

***Do what I say, not what I've done (or continue to do).***

Sounds a bit backwards, huh? Sure. But let me explain: I have taken more career missteps since college than most ten people will ever take. Oops! I'm like a career crash test dummy. Learn from my mistakes, please!

All right. With my disclaimer clearly in your head as you continue, here goes nothin':

1. Weigh your tolerance for risk.

I put this first on purpose, because everything else you do hinges on this one issue, and no one knows the answer but you. How much economic uncertainty can you stomach? Personally, I hate being broke. Hate it. But quite a few times I've literally been without money to pay the electric bill or even to gas up the car because I have this penchant for taking the main chance, for betting it all on one more roll of the dice.

To me, the risk of being financially middle class for life is much more distasteful than the risk of being dirt poor for a short time before I build a fortune. Key words: To me. This is one aspect of my personality that leads me toward entrepreneurialism. By far, most people are not cut out to run their own companies, and this is one big reason why.

Can you stomach losing it all? Only you can answer that one.

2. Weigh your situation's tolerance for risk.

Are you a kid just out of college, who can move back in with Mom and Dad for a while if things don't work out? If so, you can probably afford to make some mistakes and gamble on your future a bit. Are you a bread-winner with kids to care for, a mortgage, car payments, and all that other good stuff? Do you have employees to look out for, too? Only you can decide what's best for you and yours, but I urge you to think twice before betting the farm.

I'm a Dad now, and the sole breadwinner in our family. My situation is not the same as it was ten years ago. I'm in a different place in my life. How about you?

3. Weigh your spouse's tolerance for risk.

Two things lead to more divorce than anything else: (a) one or both people are selfish jerks, and the couple shouldn't be together anyway, or (b) financial stress. Never mind (a), but (b) is something you have to take sober-minded stock in before you proceed. In all seriousness, you may have to decide between your spouse and a risky career move. Don't kid yourself on this. I don't know which is more important for you. Only you know that.

Taking me as an example again, I decided one hell of a long time ago that Jane is more important to me than anything else in this world. The thing is, she is one of the most risk-averse people I've ever met. If we weren't so in love, we wouldn't be together still - I took risks with our business and my career than she just didn't deserve. So eventually we had it out, and I'm more careful now. No more betting the entire farm.

...Which doesn't mean no more adventure for me - far from it! I just have to be careful that we have a safety net. I'm more of a grown-up now, and it's a good thing. Jane isn't slowing me down at all, she's just inspired me to direct my energies differently than ten years ago, when we both worked and had no kids and lower bills.

These three considerations, all centered around risk (and of course opportunity), are not the full story, but I don't want to overwhelm you right now. In a future post we'll talk about career moves, including what you should do when you're hot to trot in a company that's not.

Tell me what you think so far? After all, this is just one man's advice.

Want to be a leader? Lead!

The neighborhood bully was picking on my girls not long ago. They told me, and the next time I saw him I called him over to my yard.

"Nobody hurts my family," I explained to this third-grade wretch. "Nobody." I was calm, but I was stern. He got the point, and he has been nothing but pleasant ever since.

My nephew was picking on his sister a few years ago. "You insult my family," I explained to him, "you're insulting me." I was calm but stern. He hasn't insulted her (in my presence) once since. I've even witnessed him use that same line to stick up for his sister to his friends.

Now, this is what a friend's boss told her today when she was making her case as to why she deserved the bonus she had worked for all year. She had to present her case to him before he took it to upper management for appeal.

"You're being too emotional."

Really? About a bonus worth 1/4 of her annual pay. A bonus that he knew she had earmarked for downpayment on a home.

This is my thought: manager, you need to be more emotional.

Sure, sometimes a leader has to reprimand his people; sometimes he even has to fire them. But that's another conversation entirely.

When a member of your team needs you to stick up for her, to defend her from the company, do it! Do it with zeal, with relish, with gusto; hopefully with finesse and persuasion as well.

But more than anything else, make certain you do it with feeling!

They're your team. They're your people. Go to bat for them. Put it on the line for them. Make sure upper management knows that if they mess with your people, they're messing with you.

Make sure it's perfectly clear that nobody messes with your people.

Nobody.

Any questions?

Introducing Social Media Monday!

Happy Monday! Starting today, I'm going to put the 21st-Century Business blog on a schedule. Every Monday, I'll share a short post about one aspect of Social Media. A how-to for folks who don't live and breathe it like I do because, well, they probably have a life (Me? Not so much, really.)

Today's topic: How to participate in a Twitter chat.

1. All week long, you can see folks including things in their tweets that look like this: #custserv, #tchat, #leadershipchat, and of course the ultra-popular #justinbeiberisadreamcake.

2. Okay, I may have made that last one up. But the first 3 are chats I actually recommend.

3. Like I said, they go on all week - these things, called hashtags, are ways for folks with like interests to find each other amid the 170 million tweets zipping around the twittosphere each minute.

4. So the hashtags are typically used all week long, but once a week, usually for an hour each chat, people converge on the hashtag to have an in-depth conversation.

5. If you want to participate, or even just observe, it's as easy as monitoring the hashtag at the time of the chat. These are open forums, so you're automatically invited. Congratulations!

6. Don't forget to tag your tweets with the hashtag if you want the group to pick up what you're saying.

Let's flesh this out with an example. We'll take my favorite chat, #custserv, which is held 9-10 Eastern Time every Tuesday night. The general topic is customer service, but each week we have a specific aspect of service we discuss.

The chat is a remarkable mixture of authors, business leaders, front-line practitioners, and even some people who just care about treating others right. For an hour each week, hundreds of us converge on the hashtag and share important ideas - it's more fun than a barrel of monkeys, and it's open to everyone.

Of course, for chatty-Kathys like me, followers can get a little overwhelmed with all our tweets that hour. that's why I highly recommend you at least send out a disclaimer about heavy activity to your followers before, and probably a few times during, the chat.

Well, clearly this wasn't short, as I'd intended. Was it useful at all? Please let me know - and tune in next Monday, when I share another Social Media Monday tip.

Why Winning Is Only The Beginning

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.