March Madness: Avoiding the Corporate Upset

Stay on the Offense

At this time of year, madness sets in for basketball fans around the world as they watch the NCAA Tournament. The captivating, thrilling games, in most cases, involve the David vs. Goliath stories, the Cinderella runs, and the bracket busting upsets. In fact, this year ten wins by teams seeded in the double digits through just the first weekend set an all-time record.

You can imagine the euphoria and excitement for those teams that win, as well as the agony of defeat by those teams who lost and were upset. In applying this to the corporate world, how can you make sure that you and your organization avoid the “corporate upset”?

Coach Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, arguably the greatest coach in the modern era, has won 5 NCAA titles and 2 Gold Medals. He had this to say about avoiding upsets: “You can either change with your environment or you will eventually fail. A leader has to find a way to win.”

These are words of wisdom from a great leader and coach. This quote reflects that in order to be successful, you must recognize or see the environment changing and adapt to it. It’s easy to turn the ship around when you see the iceberg, but in many cases where upsets happen, the iceberg is never seen. The same thing happens in business.

I was working with one of the world’s most innovative manufacturing brands last week in the UK, and we were discussing this very point. They have fallen on some hard times and mentioned that they rested on their laurels and failed to see changes happening before they came about—resulting in a loss of footing in the marketplace. This form of complacency can cause more than just corporate upset but a complete loss of market position. Just think about brands that didn’t see change coming or didn’t adapt to emerging technologies or demands—Blockbuster, Kodak, Xerox—to name a few. These companies, or teams for the sake of the analogy, were some of the top seeded companies in their markets (their tournaments), and they lost out to an opponent they didn’t see coming—like a double digit seeded team (or company)!

The Fast Break

The great Andy S. Grove, former chairman of Intel who just passed away yesterday, said: “Every organization faces a critical point when it must change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance. If the company fails to see and seize that moment, it will start to decline. The key is courage.”

When it comes to seeing it, we actually feel it has more to do with your ears than it does with your eyes. In the New York Times bestselling book, The Oz Principle, by Roger Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman, the authors walk through a model that outlines a process for taking accountability to overcome circumstances that they refer to as the Steps To Accountability®. In the first step, See It®, which deals with seeing and hearing the situation, they introduce four accountability traits imperative for success, including:

• Obtaining the perspective of others.
• Being open and candid in your communication.
• Asking for and offering feedback.
• Hearing the hard things to openly see the reality of the situation.

The Rebound

Through our work with some of the most admired organizations in the world, we’ve found that leaders and teams that instill these traits as a foundation among their workforce are constantly successful, results-oriented, and fend off the corporate upsets that can so easily beset companies. In fact, one great example can be seen in this Domino’s YouTube video.

Domino’s didn’t want to be a victim of a buzzer beater. They saw and heard the hard things about their product before it was too late and dedicated their transformation to remain a top seed in the marketplace. That’s how you win in the corporate world. That’s how you avoid the upset.

Enjoy the rest of March Madness. May the best team win and may your team avoid the upset!

Learn more about how we help organizations transform culture and instill positive accountability throughout their workforce that leads to groundbreaking results.