If It Ain’t Broke, You Still Should Fix it. Improvement is an Unending Journey

In the early 2000’s in the middle of a freezing New England winter, the inhabitants all love their local team, The New England Patriots.

New England is known for being very friendly and in no way are they biased and one-eyed about their sports teams. The Patriots or Pats as they are known were starting a dynasty in the National Football League (NFL).

As a silly young Kiwi, I had no team in the NFL so I picked the one with the same colours as my high school in New Zealand, the Blue and White of the Indianapolis Colts.

The Colts happened to be a rival of the Pats so it made the games more fun for me, but more frustrating for the people around me at school because they couldn’t take a joke.

The Pats, were, however, amazing.

This was annoying for me because I went from High School in New Hampshire to University in Rhode Island, all New England fans.

The Pats won many championships and the spearhead of this dominance was Coach Bill Belichick and the quarterback Tom Brady.

Dominance

The Pats were excellent on both sides of the ball. In 2007 Randy Moss, a superstar wide receiver got the record for the most touchdowns in a single season with 23. Brady had the most touchdowns from passing with 50. The Pats scored the most points in a season with 589.

Defensively they were a nuisance as well. Keeping teams on edge with the creative and unique defensive looks they would present.

In the 2000’s they won three Super Bowls and made the finals 5 times.

Then Not So Much

Now, in 2023 the Pats are 1 win and 5 losses so far for the season. They are a far cry from their once-dominant past.

What has happened?

Everyone else moved on.

The Pats were innovative and cutting edge and then, as Hemingway wrote people go bankrupt in two ways, gradually, then suddenly. And now suddenly the Pats are terrible.

All of these new coaches are approaching the game in new and unique ways, just like Belichick did 20-plus years ago.

What Does It Mean?

To keep ahead of the competition it means that the rate of change/growth internally needs to be faster than the rate of change/growth externally.

What happened with the Pats is that everyone else got better much faster than they did.

This turned a once-dominant franchise into one of the bottom teams in the division.

What Can You Learn?

You can’t sit on your laurels.

It doesn’t matter your lead, everyone gets caught.

They get caught because they stop doing the creative and more risky things that got them in the lead.

They switch to the status quo.

They make choices to minimize failure rather than maximise success.

This doesn’t mean making terrible choices but calculated risks.

The philosophy should be to be clear on what you are after and then how can you do it better.

If you don’t keep improving, someone else will.