Over the past few years, I have been seeing up close the intersection of athletics and business in my role as the CMO of LEARFIELD. I believe sports have many lessons to teach us about decision making that can be applied beyond the field of play. This blog series compares game day decisions and those faced by business leaders providing some insights from the greatest minds in sports that can improve your business.
My family became fans of University of Oregon football in the heady days when Chip Kelly wore the headset and Marcus Mariota led the team from the quarterback position. Their famed hurry-up offense delivered wins, a Rose Bowl victory, and a Heisman for Mariota, not to an impressive football center on campus named in his honor. In the first video example above, there are a scant 17 seconds between the end of the first down and the beginning of the second.
For those who might not be familiar, a hurry-up offense is a style of play in American football where the team with the ball avoids or shortens their huddle in an attempt to limit or disrupt defensive strategies or flexibility. It prevents the defense from substituting players and maintains a game momentum. I understand the no-huddle offense was pioneered by the Cincinnati Bengals and was used in the 1990’s by the Buffalo Bills. The point is to use the clock to wear your opponent down and maintain control of the game play.
Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors was asked was keeps her up at night and she said “speed.”1 In her case it isn’t about the acceleration of her vehicles, although that might be an issue that some of her team work on, but rather the speed to business. Leaders from Bill Gates to Elon Musk to Sam Altman from the Y Combinator for start-ups have all spoken about the differentiation that speed is to a business.
In my book, Well Made Decisions, I have a chapter entitled “A Case for Now” where I detail the benefits and strategies around making decisions faster. In other words, how can you do it now? Here are a few useful tips if you want to accelerate your business:
1. Evaluate the kind of decision you are making. It if is reversible (borrowing language from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos who called these “two way door” decisions), then decide now. You will find that most decisions are reversible, which should empower your teams. If you know what play to run, run it.
2. Don’t wait for external deadlines. Set your own forcing mechanisms to ensure that momentum is being maintained. In football speak, you could take a huddle without penalty, but you choose an up-tempo alternative in order to gain a competitive advantage.
3. Remember, slow is expensive. Oregon’s season would have been very different if they had chosen a conventional pace. Anything that takes time or introduces ambiguity into your organization has huge implications on your productivity and efficiency. Don’t ever wait for certainty to choose clarity.