As a life long Minnesota Vikings fan every fall I vacillate between convincing myself my Vikes will finally win a Super Bowl and knowing they will likely break my heart once again. Seeing our up and coming star quarterback Teddy Bridgewater go down on a non-contact play on the last day of pre-season practice is a tough pill to swallow. In fact it’s so tough I figured I’d use a pic of Cowboy’s QB Tony Romo instead.
So what do sports injuries, retirements or trades have to do with business? I think everything. Just as you shouldn’t build your sports team around one single player you can’t do it in business either. Developing a culture and a plan around the Bill Belichick inspired “next man up” philosophy is critical to long term success. It’s as simple as the age old, “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket”. Building a deep team, building a process and building a culture is far more important than having a superstar or two.
We see many cases where the star rep, manager or executive who are “carrying the team” leave and things fall apart. We also see companies lose a single client and they implode.
So what do great sports teams and businesses do? Read More