Obviously, there is no single factor that determines which side of this equation a team ends up on. However, there is one that I think dwarfs all the others. The factor I am referring to is the culture of the organization. Most organizations talk about building a strong culture, but few take the necessary (and often difficult) steps to build a winning culture.
It takes time and commitment, as well as a lot of pain, to create a winning culture. Most people cringe at the tough decisions that need to be made to build a strong and lasting culture. Instead, they choose to make decisions that have the most immediate impact.
Winning cultures are built through strong and consistent leadership. I have seen exceptional cultures begin to unravel as soon as a decision deviates from the written and unspoken rules of that culture.
People who know how to build exceptional cultures are well aware that they will often have to accept short-term losses if they stick to the rules of that culture. They also know that those losses will pay off if they continue on their path. It is also imperative that they have buy-in from ALL levels of the organization.
Most preseason predictions focus on changes made to a roster or coaching staff during the offseason. While this is indeed an important consideration, I would argue that if you don’t get them into a living, breathing culture, more often than not they are doomed to fail.
People often become better than they imagine they could be when dropped into a winning culture. There’s a reason companies like In-N-Out Burger and Southwest Airlines are among the most successful in their field and have the most satisfied employees, while many of their less successful competitors have some of the most unhappy employees.
The reason is the difference in culture. It’s not like In-N-Out and Southwest hire the best and the brightest and their competitors hire bums. In fact, you’d be willing to bet that if you were to trade new hires from In-N-Out and Southwest with new hires from your competitors, nothing would change in either of those businesses.
In football terms, the New England Patriots are arguably the most dominant (and consistent) team in football for the last 20 years. How many times in the last decade have they acquired the best available players in the off-season?
Look at their MVP, Tom Brady, he wasn’t a highly sought after player when he got there. Chances are good that if he went to the Cleveland Browns instead of the Patriots, no one reading this (outside of the University of Michigan fans) would know who he is today.
That is the power of a winning culture. I always say ‘you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with, so choose carefully’. In a nutshell, this is how a winning culture works, you become the average of the people who are already in that culture. That’s why bringing a bunch of great new players to a team often disappoints the fans of that team.
You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc