I’m not an expert on football; I’m just a fan. I like to watch a close game where the strategy of each coach is on full display as the score goes back and forth regarding who is winning. I especially enjoy a game when the outcome of the game doesn’t emerge until the very last moment. It’s thrilling to watch a team score the winning field goal or touchdown just as time is running out. Of course, I prefer it to be the team I am rooting for, but even in a game when I don’t really care who wins or loses, a winning final drive is fun and exciting to watch. I understand most of the basics of the game, but there is one style of defense I don’t understand at all. It’s called prevent defense. I think the plan is for a team who is ahead to go into a strictly defensive mode and “prevent” the other team from scoring the big play. Unfortunately, most of the time it seems that what they end up preventing is the other team overtaking them as they give up successive short plays that eventually end up in the end zone for points. I don’t think it’s a plan that is used very much anymore, but every once in a while you’ll hear the announcer say, “so and so is settling back into a prevent defense.” It sounds like a good idea, but it doesn’t seem to work very often. I think it’s a bad strategy.
I read in a textbook somewhere that sometimes what an organization or a leader desires to avoid is as powerful as what they want to achieve. Sounds right, right? However, if what you desire is merely not to lose, all too often we end up falling short. Prevent defense is as bad an idea in organizational leadership as it is in football because when you settle back and stop being aggressive and offensively defensive, momentum shifts, competitive advantage erodes, and the other team strikes a defeating blow. We all know of teams and firms that lost their edge because instead of continuing to attack, going after opportunities and trying to win, they slip into a protection mindset of trying not to lose. Unfortunately, when they do this it begins a long and painful decline that is very difficult to turn around as fear of loss overtakes the thrill of calculated risk. It’s sad when a company that had everything going for it becomes timid and defensive. You can spot this from a mile away as you hear leaders saying things like, “we need to get back to doing what got us here” or when they begin to be more concerned with keeping things the same instead of being innovative and agile. The fact is, there is no ability to gain, or even maintain, if the only goal is to not lose what you have. Status quo must be questioned, challenged, and discarded, because just as in nature, no living thing stays the same; it is either growing or dying.
I bring all of this up because leaders must be willing to re-evaluate every strategic practice they have, including the ones that brought them success, because everything around us is constantly changing and we must change with it. Whatever market we’re in, you can count on the fact that it is not the same as it was even a short while ago. Leaders must be willing to challenge and change everything about their organizations except their basic core beliefs and purposes. All methods have to be in a continual state of reinvention. If we slip into a prevent defense in order to hang onto what we have, the chances are that eventually the other team is going to win. We need to be courageous leaders who question the status quo, take strategic risks, and stay on the attack so that we can continue to lead the way in our field.
Lead well.