Elite Business Athletes are the Backbone of Great Businesses
We’ve all heard the analogy of “family” used in businesses, and it is true that the best workplaces foster deep and meaningful relationships between co-workers. However, the analogy breaks down when it comes to the need for co-workers to perform in their jobs — you can’t fire your little brother when he screws up.
The better analogy for building a business is team sports, and we’ll use baseball as our example. There are eleven different positions (the nine on the diamond, relief pitchers, and the designated hitter). A winning baseball team requires contributions from all eleven positions.
Each position has a mix of attributes that characterize the best players for that position. (Examples: an elite first baseman is left-handed, tall, and has a wide wingspan; an elite shortstop is exceedingly nimble and has a strong throwing arm.) Players who are average in all their characteristics rarely make the major leagues — they just can’t make a strong enough contribution in any one position to justify taking a roster spot.
Through a combination of budget and luck, no team ever ends up with elite players at every position. You never see the all-star team made up of one team’s roster! Each team’s GM spends a lot of time thinking about their strategy for winning games, deciding where they must have the best talent, evaluating the players in their farm system, and deciding when they need to go outside and make a trade, or sign a free agent.
Great companies think of themselves like that baseball team. They are in the business of winning, and they need the contributions of every person on the roster to win games. While they love franchise players who have made historic contributions to the team, they can’t be overly nostalgic, and must replace them when the match between the team’s needs and the player’s abilities and aspirations change. They think carefully about where they must invest for the best talent, where they can promote internally, and where they need to aggressively recruit externally.
In knowledge work, the characteristics of elite business athletes aren’t about physical attributes, but are instead around an individual’s talents, attitudes, skills, experiences, and intelligence. There are aspects of all these attributes that define the elite software engineer, or product manager, or marketing specialist.
The sports team analogy is equally powerful when it comes to the discipline and work ethic required for athletes to keep their spot on the team.
Elite athletes love to win. They make huge sacrifices, push themselves harder, and aggressively subtract anything that doesn’t matter. The hours they spend playing games pale in comparison to those spent in preparation, training, conditioning, practicing, and working with coaches to improve their performance.
There are a group of talented people who would be rated as “high performing / low potential” on a 9-box analysis. Their work is not a mission to them — it’s a means to a paycheck. They clock in at 8AM and clock out at 5PM. Despite the high quality of their work, they talk a lot about work / life balance. These are not elite business athletes.
There are three simple rules for this group of people: (a) there likely isn’t any roster space for them during the founding phase; (b) they shouldn’t be asked to lead or manage teams during any phase; and © they shouldn’t ever expect to earn the bonus and equity compensation of an elite business athlete.
To be clear, you cannot measure elite business athletes simply by number of hours worked. Low performers often brag about 90-hour workweeks, and they are either prone to exaggeration, very slow, or both. But on the other hand, high-performing business athletes don’t believe in “four-hour workweeks,” or regular 2pm tee times.
Elite business athletes are on a mission to do their life’s work. They aren’t interested in playing it safe. They want their work to be an integral part of the equation of building something meaningful and world changing. They are committed to and care about their teammates, because they can’t win without them.
They are self-aware, intentionally allocate time, and methodically structure their days around achieving great things. They believe in work / life integration. They take care of themselves in body, mind and spirit, because they know how positively that will impact their performance.
They pride themselves in working smart and working hard. They work more hours than average, but they know that at a certain point, the quality of their output will nosedive if they don’t recharge before continuing. They have rich and vibrant lives outside of work, where they enjoy time with family and friends. They are good husbands, wives, mothers and fathers, and their families understand the spectacular benefits that come from having an elite business athlete in the family.
Most importantly, elite business athletes attract other elite business athletes. People love to work alongside other people with the same work ethic, commitment, and desire to win that they have.
Elite business athletes set out to make their mark on the world. As in sports, there are no shortcuts, no magic bullets, no tricks — it’s all about putting in the work, being consistent, and striving for excellence. We shouldn’t expect everyone in the world to want to be an elite business athlete, but the gold medals are reserved for those who achieve it.
Many thanks to Ethan Pope, Micaela Barraza, Donna White, Andy Martin, Jeff Minch, and Tom Fields for reviewing drafts of this essay.
