It doesn’t matter if your organization is a non-profit, a public organization, a corporation, or even an athletic team. Every leader wants to know…
How do I make my organization successful?
Everybody wants to win for one particular season but the real question is, how do you sustain success over a longer period of time? If you examine sport franchises right now, in terms of how many of them have been successful over a sustained period of time, you probably couldn’t do any better as we close out another football season than the New England Patriots.
Robert Kraft bought the Patriots in 1994 and paid $172 million for the team. At that time, the Patriots had the worst record in the NFL, the poorest attendance, and the lowest revenue. Over the period of the next 25 years or so, that organization grew to now being worth roughly $1.3 billion or more, won 3 Super Bowls, and made the playoffs almost every year.
How was that organization able to sustain success over time?
Well clearly, it had a great number of players. Quarterback Tom Brady being perhaps the greatest illustration of sustained, high-performance by an athlete, by a player, by a performer.
But sustained success demands a succession plan.
A.T. Kearney is a very, very successful international consulting organization for corporations all around the world. In a study they conducted suggested one of the greatest weaknesses that many corporations have is the failure to have a succession plan— the development of the next generation of leaders for the organization.
Now once again, athletic teams will develop players on farm systems and taxi squads but the Patriots are a bit different in that they also groom coaches as well as players. Coach Belichick has been very adamant about doing that.
He has, what he likes to refer to as— ‘coaches in waiting’. Scouts as well get the same type of training and mentoring that ‘coaches in waiting’ do. The get invited to attend important meetings as they move up, because Belichick knows as the team is successful, the leadership and management talent that he has will oftentimes be enticed to go elsewhere to be promoted to higher positions in organizations and you could probably see coaches who’ve worked in the Patriot organization now in senior positions all across the NFL.
It’s that developing of a bench of coaches that perhaps has been one of the key ingredients allowing this particular organization, to not only succeed once, but to sustain that success over a longer period of time.
So for any leader for any organization, as you’re trying to think through “how do I sustain success for a longer period”, take a careful examination of…
Do I have a succession plan?
Am I identifying the best and the brightest across my leadership management team?
Am I developing them and providing them opportunities to be developed so I can turn to them as required and maintain the momentum that we have created.
We want to hear from YOU! Are you mindful of your bench? What efforts have you made to build your bench? Share your comments below.