Strategy and Sports: Metaphors for your strategic growth

Passion. Motivation. Rallying a diverse group of people around a common cause.  Obsession with a shared goal.

There are strong overlaps between growth strategies and sports.  Our organizational language is also filled with sports terms, from Monday morning quarterbacking to taking a punt.  Metaphors matter, and for growth strategy some sporting lessons help in building an understanding of the needed alignment, adaptation, and coordination necessary for a successful growth strategy through uncertainty.

Five sports metaphors to borrow 

Finish lines matter: One of the biggest reasons companies do not execute their strategies is they have no idea what it would look like if they did.  While this sounds silly, as many articulate strategy through a long list of goals and objectives, endless charts, and – often competing – dashboards, leaders have action steps but often lack an understanding of how they intersect and align. A ‘goal’ is not a finish line: a finish line is the aligned end state our critical priorities should take us towards.  We need a clear, compelling, ambitious and achievable end state where we all agree we’ve ‘won’ this cycle.

Setting finish lines can be challenging when facing uncertainty, which is why we must distinguish between destinations and directions.  When facing a shareholder event (IPO, exit, new ownership), we need destinations: a clear end state with objective metrics.  When facing extreme uncertainty, a business model shift, or disruptive innovation, we instead should embrace directions.  Directions provide alignment and pace towards where we are going but give us room to move.  Consider the difference between taking a trip and aiming for a specific exit on the highway (destination) versus going hiking and choosing a compass heading (direction).

If your team does not know the finish line, they cannot make day-to-day decisions that are aligned with others.  It is like attempting to run a marathon without telling your team where the finish line is: if you accidentally ran an extra 10k in a marathon, you are not happy.  This is what we do to our teams when we want action but fail to provide them with clarity of the finish line, they waste a lot of resources going to potentially the wrong place.

• Does your team have one aligned finish line for the end of this cycle (that is more than just one financial objective)?

Power of boundaries: Strategies with finish lines can still lack the more critical piece: boundary conditions.    Boundaries are the non-negotiables we must stay within while we are running towards the definition of success.  Margin, profit, risk, customer dependency, culture, or engagement could all be boundary conditions.   Returning to a marathon, this is staying within the course of the race.  Boundaries are not what you are trying to optimize, the main intent is, but they are critical as they cannot be broken.  The challenge is not just acknowledging the importance of boundaries but also articulating them clearly enough to be useful.

Too often we give our leadership teams strategies that contain contradictions which become obstacles to execution.  We give goals to our teams such as ‘make $100 million in revenue at 10% profit.’  When our direct reports ask what is more important, of course we reply with ‘both, both are important!’   Let us say, though, it is the last day of the quarter, and our top salesperson can sign a customer deal that allows us to reach the revenue goal but doing so will make profitability drop below 10%.  Come Monday, are they the hero, or in the penalty box?

This is strategy not doing its job of enabling good decisions. Instead of providing a framework, it gives a checklist that paralyzes action.

Instead, leaders should say: ‘make $100 million in revenue within the boundary of 8% profit; the goal is 10%, but the absolute boundary is 8%.’  Then I know while I am aiming for 10%, I can go to 8% if I must to reach the main intent.  I have just been empowered to make decisions.

This is the power of boundaries: when clearly articulated they provide leaders freedom.  If you want to win in uncertainty, this leadership empowerment so they can make good decisions quickly is critical.

• Have you articulated clear, unambiguous boundaries, or non-negotiables, the team must stay within as the execute?

Scoreboard metrics: When arriving at a sporting event late, we take one unifying action: we look at the scoreboard.  When we do, something powerful occurs. In one second, we have 90% of the information we need: the score and how much time is left.  While true fans want to know details, such as timeouts left and who is injured in the locker room, the scoreboard provided immediate helpful context.

The scoreboard metrics are not the strategy, but they provide information on how we’re progressing across our priorities that help us know how well we are executing towards our finish line.  Knowing what’s working and what’s not is a necessary ingredient when aligning goals and actions.

When we reset strategy and priorities, we must also reset metrics.  Metrics have two goals: they help us know if we are making needed progress and they enable us to make better, faster, more aligned decisions.  The test of a good metric is if the power it gives us for enhanced decision-making outweighs the resources (time, treasure, talent) it takes us to measure it.  We put a lot to the test in our organizations, but we do not often test whether we are measuring the right stuff.

• Do you have clear, communicated, and understood scoreboard metrics for your top priorities?

Play the long game versus getting some points on the board: Strategy is an articulation of value creation, where value creation is the priorities that drive the biggest gap between our customers’ or clients’ willingness to pay and our total cost of delivering that value.  In efforts towards value creation, we need to focus on the true ‘needle moving’ activities versus being distracted by thousands of competing objectives.

Strategy is midterm, so as leaders we must distinguish between distracting tactical activities versus ‘quick wins’ that maintain momentum and energy around the main goal. Strategy momentum demands bursts of energy and constant reminders that give continued clarity that we are working towards something great.  In sports, as in business, you often need to ‘get some points on the board’ to keep belief in the strategy.

Breakthrough growth, though, is playing the long game.  It demands relentless focus and patience on what will truly make the difference – from brand equity to talent development to growing new, emerging markets.  In sports we speak about the endurance needed for long matches, which can demand conserving energy or switching tactics to wait for the right opening.  The same is true for your team – highly engaged teams giving their all are most likely candidates for burnout if we do not direct, lead, and manage for the long game.

• Are you keeping your team focused on the ‘long game’ versus tactical exhaustion activities while also celebrating quick wins that show we have points on the board?

Need for adaptability: The differentiator in most championship winning teams is not relentless focus on the goal, it is the ability for the coaches and players to change plays, styles, and choices for the emerging situation.  Teams have strengths and playbooks that cater to them but clinging to these when facing changing circumstances usually leads to broken plays.  We know this when watching our favorite teams. You have probably shouted at the field a few times when despite the elements or an innovative strategy from the opponents, your team insists on operating the tried and true.  Many of us are relentless in our fandom in expecting change yet tolerate sameness in our organizations. Many teams start each year with the same templates, the same set of priorities, the same execution cadence, and the same talent – yet they expect to win in a changing environment!

The 2019 Super Bowl when the New England Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams is seen by non-fans as ‘boring,’ but from a strategy view it was one of the most thrilling.  Coach Belichick abandoned most of their season-winning playbook for a completely different strategy, moving to zone coverage, a different offensive strategy, and utilizing the players in different ways.  The team shifted everything more so at halftime, and ended up winning the game, cementing the legacy of the Brady era at the Patriots.  Despite your team allegiance, we can all learn from the willingness to adapt, move from tested strengths, and build new strategies in new environments.

Have you built adaptability into strategy from day one? Does your team know how and when to adapt to keep focus on the finish line?

Sporting breakdown:

The analogs between the passion in sports and strategy does not always hold. Here are the top three where comparisons break:

1. Strategy is not a financial projection: One of the biggest traps of ‘bad strategy’ rules is stating strategy as a financial objective, such as becoming a billion-dollar company by 2030.  Financial objectives are goals, but they are not the strategy.  Scoreboard metrics help us track our strategy, but they are not and cannot be the strategy itself.  Just as you cannot learn a sport by spending three hours watching the scoreboard, an employee cannot understand your strategy by a number. Strategy is the choices that are made on the field.  You make a set of value-creating choices, you hit the field (market) and execute those choices, and adapt those choices as opponents make surprising moves.  The goal is not the strategy.
2. Strategy is not cheerleading: When you attend as many annual offsites and conferences as I do, you see every iteration of the CEO pump-up speech.  From the adrenaline rush of musical intros and flashing lights to emotional conversations, leaders are always attempting new ways to rally the team.  Where this falls short is strategy as cheerleading, when leadership extols how we must ‘Beat the competition’ and ‘Disrupt the market’ or ‘Be the change.’  All inspiring but give the team absolutely no idea of what they should be doing when they leave the room. In growth strategy, it is better to be clear than to be motivating.  Countless hours are wasted in meeting rooms trying to craft the perfectly motivational messages, most of which miss the mark.  Team members in most companies just want clarity: what are we trying to achieve (the finish line and top priorities), why does it matter (linkage to value creation), and what’s my role in it.  Shift your motivation time to clarity time, and you will see the results.
3. Winners and losers: Strategy is absolutely a competitive game: we are hitting the playing field to win, not just to play.  Where a linkage to sports breaks is the relative vs absolute nature of the analogy.  In team sports, one team leaves the field as a winner, and the other a loser (unless of course there is a tie).  In strategy, we are not playing an absolute game: growth strategy is fundamentally about carving out new playing spaces and growing in new markets, not just stealing share from competitors.  Narrowly framing your strategy as beating one opponent can be temporarily motivating or successful (Airbus’s ‘Beat Boeing’ did the trick for a few years) but misses the mark of what we are trying to do in breakthrough growth.  More so, it removes the customer from focus.  Customer centricity vs competitor obsession is what wins the ultimate growth game.

Parallel pathing execution and preparation 

As we approach year end, like the final quarter of a game, it’s time to refocus on what matters and finish strong.  Teams can lose momentum as they begin preparing for next year and lose focus on the current strategy.  In sports, teams fall into the trap of ‘looking ahead’ to a tougher opponent next week and are under-prepared for the current game.  Shifting too much focus to strategic planning for next year means you miss this year’s results. Growth strategy is an exercise in constant parallel pathing: you can, and must, help your team manage the tension between preparing for the next cycle while executing the current strategy. Your job as a leader is guiding the team in how to do so, ensuring success in strategy cycle after cycle.

Written by Dr. Rebecca Homkes.