Lessons in Context

I’m not usually a fan of sports analogies in business. And having worked in the international arena for most of my career, I almost never use American football to make a point. As it is a uniquely American sport, and the “real” football, as the rest of the world refers to it, is the world’s true sport of balls and feet, the lesson is often lost in the resulting confusion.

There are, however, few occasions on which American football has had more to say about business than the 2018 College Football National Championship between the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia. For those of you who aren’t used to the idea of carrying or throwing a football with your hands, Alabama won in stunning fashion.

It won, most importantly, after being largely dominated in the first half of the game, and coach Nick Saban’s decision to bench his starting quarterback, Jalen Hurts, for the second half. He was replaced by a young freshman, Tua Tagovailoa, who had seen little playing time during the rest of the season, and who would through an interception before winning the game in overtime.

To put Saban’s decision in a business context, Hurts, in his freshman year, was named to the Freshman All-American team by both USA Today and ESPN. He was also recognized as the SEC Offensive Player of the Year, and this year ranked 3rd in the SEC for total yards gained, while throwing only one interception the entire season.

But what about this particular game? During the first half, Alabama successfully ran 3.5 times more successfully than they passed the ball. And Hurts himself accounted for 64% of the yards gained by running and virtually half of all yards gained. For Coach Saban to bench Hurts, in other words, was akin to a CEO deciding to discontinue the company’s number one product line, effective immediately.

So what are the lessons for those of us in the business of scoring sales and profits? I think there are a few:

1.      Timing

Most business executives would have been tempted to keep a firm hand on the wheel and let the plan work in the second half. And it might have. But if you are going to make a major change to your game plan, you have to make it early enough to give it a chance to work. Most companies, when they get in trouble, do not.

2.      Risk

Most companies do not, moreover, because they have become obsessed with risk. Following the financial crisis of 2008, executives and boards became pre-occupied with risk, and, as is typical of such cycles, they’ve overshot the mark. Most corporations today spend far more time and money managing risk that it’s worth. And virtually no CEO would be willing to say that out loud to his or her board.

3.      Data

By the numbers, the running game was the only part of Alabama’s offense that was working and Hurts was the dominant runner. Data analytics, in other words, told Saban to leave him in. The answer was not in the data. Yes, it was, of course, indirectly, but that’s not how most companies use their data.

4.      Induction

And most companies don’t use data in that way because they are consumed with being scientific and objective, and the logic of science is deduction (i.e. observation). Saban, in this case, employed a very good example of inductive logic (i.e. speculation). Deduction takes data; induction takes creativity and experience.

5.      Context

Almost every C-suite executive today will tell you that we can learn from history. Sometimes it’s a negative lesson (e.g., we got blindsided) or a positive lesson (e.g. customers responded to this), but we can always learn from the past. That, however, is a myth. Reality exists in an infinite number of dimensions concurrently. Nothing happens in isolation. History is relatively meaningless unless that entire context has been recreated, and it almost never is.

The context that probably matters most in this case, however, is the context of the employer’s obligation to the employee. Although it was always informal, most employers of the past had a deep sense of obligation to their employees. Sure, people had to perform, and people were terminated when they didn’t. Few employees were penalized, however, for taking a chance and doing what they thought was right.

Nick Saban wasn’t going to lose his job if he was wrong. And while that may never have entered his mind, it does enter the minds of the mere mortals who work at your company. And that is likely why your company would never have made the decision to bench your star under similar circumstances.

As you look forward to 2018, think about what you’re going to do if you get to halftime and you’re behind plan and losing market share. There is a more than reasonable chance you will be.