3 lessons learned (from football) for building successful teams

Guest written by Thomas Scott, Chief Financial Officer at Wrike. Scott has exceptional strategic finance experience with more than 20 years as a chief financial officer at start-ups and public companies, including Zebra Technologies, Fetch Robotics, Corning Optical Communications and Spidercloud. Scott is adept at building and leading distributed teams to help support high-growth businesses. He is also an avid reader and sports enthusiast.

Do more with less. Attract potential talent. Exceed expectations. Maximize efficiency. As a long-time chief financial officer in technology companies, these topics are never far from my mind. I recognize that most of us are constantly competing against larger, better-funded organizations in competitive markets, so we need to find an edge to deliver value.

The Michael Lewis book “Moneyball” best describes this phenomenon in the sports world. Major League Baseball’s Oakland A’s are featured in this story because they used data to identify undervalued players to level the playing field with bigger clubs like the New York Yankees. I’ve used this as a metaphor with my own teams to remind them of that WE are like the Oakland A’s and always have to find ways to keep an edge because we’re definitely not going to beat the industry leaders at their own game.

This year, the sports world has brought out another interesting lesson in market and talent inefficiencies from the San Francisco 49ers.

3 quarterbacks in 1 year and haven’t lost since October

You don’t have to be an avid football fan to realize that the quarterback position is an integral part of any football team. Teams are willing to mortgage their futures to trade higher-ranking draft picks in the hopes of drafting the next generation star that will deliver playoff success and multiple “big game” titles. Other teams have signed expensive multi-year deals with established quarterbacks to lead them to success with mixed results. The 49ers are no different, but their experience this year may point to an alternate path.

The 49ers are on their third quarterback of the season and play in the Conference Championship. Their season-opening starter, Trey Lance, a recent first-round draft pick, was injured in the second game of the season without establishing his long-term value to the team. Enter Jimmy Garoppolo. Garoppolo was the starter for the 49ers in recent seasons, returning to that role in September before suffering a broken foot in early December that ended his season. This pattern would likely have ended an otherwise successful season for most teams that had to move on to their third-row quarterback.

Most fans almost certainly took a deep breath as the ball went to Brock Purdy. Until now, Purdy was best known as Mr. Irrelevant 2022. This is the title given each year to the last pick in the NFL version, and it’s a dubious title since most of the late picks don’t even make it to the team. Rather than a disaster, Purdy has landed a starting role on a deep and talented team and has played a key role in racking up eight straight wins, including two playoff wins.

I’d like to see his success continue, but even if he can’t lead his team to the big game, he’s already shown immense value that has been almost completely overlooked by all 32 NFL teams (including the 49ers in previous rounds). The big question is, what came together to help achieve this result over the course of two months?

Several observations are worth highlighting:

• Absence of significant errors
• Balance under pressure
• Not asked to be a hero but to play his part
• Friendly game calling system with multiple talented players without undue dependence on just one

I kept looking at these observations and thought they directly applied to how I feel about finding high potential talent in competitive markets.

What lessons can leaders learn from this?

1. Challenge conventional wisdom and look for other leading indicators: Brock Purdy didn’t fit the central casting image of what an NFL quarterback should look like. He wasn’t tall enough. His arm wasn’t strong enough. He didn’t come from the right school. He gained as much as four years of experience as a starter against elite competition that enabled him to remain calm under pressure and avoid costly mistakes.

2. Surround important new “tenants” with a strong network: Even the greatest potential talents benefit from strong role players around them. The best way to drive a fast, efficient ramp is to quickly integrate with your strongest existing team members. This network makes fewer mistakes and builds effectiveness and trust faster within a new organization.

3. Design and then trust the system: It’s tempting to look for that strong unicorn talent that can do anything, but it’s often just unicorns. Build a repeatable work system that you can use to identify and quickly integrate talent that gives them and your team the best recipe to become productive as quickly as possible.

My own executive team has challenged the company to help our employees and customers deliver the best work of their lives in 2023. Win or lose, this example from the 49ers yields a few lessons worth remembering as we go through this trying to take on the challenge.