A reflection on winning teams
or, a humble brag about the Stanford Supernovas
There's nothing like winning against the odds. Winning's always nice. Winning when nobody expects you to is even better.
I take a lot of my leadership lessons from sport - probably because I spend a disproportionate amount of my time playing and watching sport, but also because in my view, sport and parenting are the two of the greatest vehicles for gleaning, and understanding of, how to, and how not to, lead.
Winning is actually a very rare event, in any facet of life. Succeeding, depending on your context and definition, isn't, but truly winning and emerging at the top of a pile, is. Doing it when it's not a given, like Leicester City winning the Premier League under Claudio Ranieri - now that's something truly special.
This hasn't happened many times in my life. In the sporting arena, it's happened twice.
The first was in 1991, when Island School won the Ted Wilson Trophy, something that just didn't happen. On the surface, it was a freakishly fortuitous bowling change and an unlikely (sorry, mate) 6 wicket haul that brought it about. As they say though, there's a lot of work that goes into an overnight success or a lucky moment.
The second was in November 2023, when the Stanford Supernovas, largely a band of aging has-beens (or perhaps more accurately, never-weres), somehow clinched the Northern California Cricket Association 30-over championship.
There have been many other successes, even a couple of trophies here and there, but all of the others felt within the realms of possibility, if not probability. In the two above, the naysayers were out in full force, not least amongst the teams themselves. Can't be done. Won't be done. Obviously you're just playing for fun.
As I've reflected on the (oversized) trophy (and I intend to spend several years relishing it), it has occurred to me that what made it possible for us to achieve were a lot of the same things I should be thinking about in building successful teams in the workplace.
Many books have been written by very smart people on what it takes to construct and orchestrate a winning team, and I'm not about to attempt to compete with those. If only for my own clarity of thought, I tried to extract the patterns that I have seen, and will leverage, that have been intrinsic to success. Correlation, or causation? I can't prove anything as there's no controlled experiment possible, so take from this what you will.
It's taken 6 years to reach this point - like all good overnight successes, it wasn't quite out of nowhere. I have always preached that a great and well marshalled team will take a clunky and uncertain vision and find a path to success, whereas a mediocre team will fail to achieve even the most crisply articulated of outcomes. This was true for us - we started out with an objective of winning one game at some point in a T20 competition, and ended up 6 years later winning a T30 championship. Classic startup pivot and adjustment of mission and goals to line up with the market and the team.
So what went into constructing that winning machine (okay, I'm really stretching now for the sake of this post, humour me!)? Three simple steps, that I would venture to aver are going to be core to any organization.
Clarity on an authentic set of shared values and principles.
Note here that I talk about values and principles, not culture. I don't buy into homogeneity of culture. Multiple sub-cultures that are rooted in common ground is the right way to embrace diversity and unleash it.
Enrollment of everyone involved in the purpose and in those shared values.
Everyone has to buy in to what you're doing, and continue to do so as the objectives evolve. It is a given that along the way you'll lose some people and gain others. Be comfortable with that. It's not personal at all. If someone isn't bought in, don't compromise on your principles. In fact you'll find if you've built a great environment, people will self-select out in a surprisingly positive fashion. Mostly. Sometimes there'll be pain.
Adherence to those principles - don't compromise.
Don't compromise for one person. Most of the time, this will be easier to handle than you think. Sometimes, there'll be pain that goes with it.
Don't compromise when times are tough. If you're going to call a batter back when you know they received a rough decision, be committed to doing so when the game is done and dusted in your favour, and also when the game is on the line. This will make you stronger in the long run.
Our shared values at Stanford Supernovas are pretty clear, and each one of them translates.
Enjoy what we're doing
Immerse ourselves in what we're doing, have fun in the moment, and also before and after the moment, and enjoy doing it with each other. If it's a chore for you, then it's not worth it. Some of us are great friends, others just weekend colleagues, and we all have different approaches to fun.
Freedom to express yourself
You own your how. We don't tell each other how to bat or bowl (well, we do sometimes, but only because we know that nobody listens or is capable of executing on somebody else's advice anyway). Even less so how to field because, well, nobody has a leg to stand on there! We're aligned on the outcomes we're striving for, and each person has the space to figure out how to best get there. We trust each other to do that - it's amazing how by giving trust, the trusted receive a jolt of self-believe, and the trusting receive the space to focus on their own contributions.
Always support one another
Radical Candor allied with highly warped senses of humour are the key. There's no negativity and hostility (even from the chap who doesn't like it when the Umpire disagrees with him). We have no room for that. We expect the best from people - their best and beyond - and we support them in delivering that. When you see what an unfit 50-something can pull off in that scenario, you know that in all walks of life, people have plenty to give and if you can facilitate, they will show it.
Clear ethical principles
We try not to appeal stupidly, and we call each other out when we do, much to the surprise of some Umpires and opponents. There's a way we want to play the game, and we hold each other to that at any hint of transgression.
Focus on ourselves first
We're not trying to emulate or be anyone else. Not that we're capable of it anyway, but we wouldn't if we could. It's enough work to control what you can control, and optimize what you're looking to do. Defining yourself in reaction to someone else is one of the ultimate slippery slopes. I'll stop there before I venture into geo-political discourse.
Always field first
Possibly the second biggest running gag in our team after the one about the guy who can't catch. We do not compromise on this. There is a translation too - the point here is to set up the team so that everyone has a clear role to play and meaningful contribution to make. This isn't a fundamentally rational strategy that would be backed up by data. It's one that afforded us a construct wherein almost everybody in almost every game (nothing's perfect) is positioned to play a key role and hold some accountability for the outcome. 5 or 6 players will have to bowl, and 5 or 6 will have to bat (at least, in early years that number was consistently 11). As it turns out, old dogs can in fact learn new tricks on the cricket field, and evolve their game when faced with the challenge.
Enough said. Sustainable operations, and legacies, are built this way.
Also, had to write this now, because almost certainly we'll never win anything again and none of this will resonate!