Good to Great and Built to Last?

Do you think Paul Allen is a fan of business bestsellers? Larry Miller from his time at Nike? Kevin Pritchard?

Whoever it might be, I see quite a number of similarities between the approach of the Blazers organization to prepare for a rise to the top and a stay there, and what the author Jim Collins recommends in his two popular books "Built to Last - Successful Habits of Visionary Companies" (1994), written together with Stanford professor Jerry Porras and helped by a number of student researchers, and "Good to Great - Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't" (2001), written after a consultant told a stunned Collins his first book was pretty much useless for companies that were not always already leaders in their field.

Without recapping all details, here are some key findings from the books (some established in Built to Last, then expanded upon in Good To Great to the 7 principles below). Some similarities to the Blazers? I would say so.

1. "Level 5 Leadership": Leaders who are humble, but driven to do what's best for the company.

"A paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will."

Even people not appreciating all traits of KP & Co. would have to admit that is pretty accurate. And doesn't that sound exactly like BRoy?

2. "First Who, Then What": Get the right people on the bus first, get them in the right seats, then figure out where to go/what to do. 

Yup. That building strategy seems to be in effect both regarding the on-court product as well as the organization itself.

3. "Confront the Brutal Facts": Honestly assess the situation for what it is, yet at the same time never give up hope.

A business/leadership concept known as the "Stockdale Paradox" after a long-term prisoner of war in Vietnam. When asked who didn't make it out of prison camp, Stockdale replied:

"Oh, that’s easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart."

"This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

Maybe an area where the Blazers are currently still lacking a bit, although you could use examples like the Zach Randolph trade to argue they can "face the facts" of an unpleasant situation.

4. "The Hedgehog Concept"

Three overlapping circles: (1) What makes you money? (2) What could you be best in the world at? (3) What lights your fire?

Highly important from a business perspective, forcing a company to focus its resources on what it does best and not on everything it could do somewhat good. Very effectively e.g. employed by GE which gets out of markets it can't get a top position in, and by companies like the case study example Kimberly-Clark that completely changed the purpose/focus of their business over the years as a result of such an analysis. Same e.g. with Nokia, who started out as a very unfocused manufacturer of paper, tires, rubber boots and computer monitors. Yup, that cellphone company.

For the Blazers as a team maybe not that applicable. The mission is clear, and they can't completely change the "on court product" to make the team play table tennis or soccer because a player would also be good at this. From an organizational standpoint, a concept that could e.g. help them to define how to best improve the experience and value for their fans and sponsors, and focus their resources effectively.

5. "Culture of Discipline"

If you look at the coaches, the meticulous scouting, the kind of players the Blazers bring in, I would say from a distance it is accurate they do try to create such a culture.

6. "Technology Accelerators": Using technology to accelerate growth (within the hedgehog concept)

Another thing the Blazers definitely do. From advanced proprietary stats, to videotaping even practices, to the team plane, to employing a sleep consultant.

7. "The Flywheel": Keeping the process of 1-6 going, especially through the additive effect of many small initiatives.

Organization/Community: Events, effective PR, podcasts and radio and TV, acquiring likable players (see "right people on the bus"), being open to the media and the fans, etc.

Team: That remains a bit to be seen, if the Blazers are able to fill the roster with players who do all the little things well and fulfill their role however small it may be, and replenish it if they lose people.

Your thoughts? Are the Blazers on a "Good to Great" path of development to become a team that can reach the top and stay there? Does such a concept even apply to a fast-paced environment like sports with many unpredictable factors and success having to be regained every season at least regarding the team on the floor?

- - -

Short note on the research how these concepts were developed: The authors did a kind of backwards analysis, figuring out which companies fulfilled their definition of success over long timeframes as opposed to a comparable company that went on the wrong path at some inflection point, and then looked for what all those successful companies have in common. Thus the discovered principles are rather a correlation, not necessarily the causation. Also some of the identified companies must have diverged from their path of success recently (e.g. the authors picked Merck over Pfizer in their first book, and Good to Great features now all but bankrupt companies Fannie Mae and Circuit City as two examples). A common critique to the organizational principles outlined in Collins' research is that he overstates the importance of leadership in running a successful organization, although he explicitly states many companies he found to be successful are not run by charismatic wheeling and dealing leaders often depicted in the press and are rather "boring" businesses that just have very good day to day operations.