Winning Starts Before You Take the Field

Long ago, I visited the main offices of a major American sports franchise. I won’t say which.

The executive we met with said that things were as bad as they’d ever been in the long history of the organization. Attendance was rock bottom. The team was losing, and nobody was interested in anything they did.

If only they could turn it around on the field and win a few, he said.

A year later, the team got a new owner. The new owner turned the club around, not on the field first, but in the very offices I’d visited. They started doing the right things on selling, pricing, fan experience, marketing and more. Within 3 years, they were winning on the field. Big time. They won three major titles over the next five years and restored the club to its former glory.

Look at these two images. Everybody wants to have a strong organization and a winning team, but most people have an average (or worse) organization and an average team. To get to the upper right, most people think the path goes through “turning it around on the field.” Once we’re winning, let’s get good as an organization.

Maybe, but probably not. Sometimes mediocre, or even poor, organizations win, but they usually can’t sustain it.

The better path is the second one: get strong as an organization and the winning tends to follow.

Sun Tzu said (and I’m paraphrasing) victory is achieved before battle.

I say clubs win long before they take the field.

In other words, THIS

Not THIS: