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I learned in business school about a company called Southwest Airlines and the strategy it used to become the most profitable airline. It’s a fascinating and inspiring story of ingenuity and fierce discipline – that led to wonderful winning.
The strategy was to only fly to mid-range airports, and use only one type of airplane to reduce maintenance costs and deliver the most friendly customer service.
This took focus and belief in the strategy. It may have become tempting to fly to larger airports to generate more revenue, but that wasn’t the strategy and that would have caused the House of Cards to fall apart. It may have been enticing to fly different types of airplanes but that wasn’t the strategy so it didn’t happen.
In learning about this case I found out one of the most intriguing insights about business: that an effective strategy is difficult to copy, is easy to understand, and is sustainable over the long term. Counter-intuitively, brilliant strategies depend more on deciding what not to do and not doing that and committing to only doing a small number of things but doing them extremely well.
I am thinking about this case study after watching Wake Forest lose a big game to Virginia in basketball that may knock them out of March Madness. Everybody knows Virginia has a strategy which they executed well yesterday. Keep the score low, make the other team slow down and play at your pace, and put a huge premium on defense.
It worked yesterday and it’s been working for Virginia for several years under their mastermind coach, Tony Bennett, who led his team to a national title in 2019 and has cemented his reputation as an elite coach nationally.
When he became the coach in 2009, Bennett made a strategic decision and hasn’t wavered: slow the game down, lower the scoring, and defend like hell.
All that spells victories.
The strategy has worked. It’s difficult to copy. You need players willing to play slower, not be concerned with scoring averages, and embrace playing defense. Plenty of college players won’t sacrifice their numbers for the team and aren’t into defending hard. Bennett finds the guys who will. That’s a powerful strategic differentiator that weeds out guys you don’t want on your team.
The defense is sustainable over the long term. Defense travels. Defense wins. Virginia’s strategy works year after year.
Which brings us to Wake’s basketball team. I think they need a more coherent strategy. They have good players, play hard, and win fairly consistently, but I don’t see a strategic plan that is difficult to copy, easy to understand, and sustainable over the long term.
Playing hard and recruiting well are key components to winning but they don’t add up to an organizational strategy and that’s what Wake needs to elevate to higher levels on the national basketball stage.
Maybe they should commit, like Virginia, to keeping the score low but do it in a different way that no other team can copy quickly or easily. Maybe they need to commit to a zone defense for every game; it worked well for Syracuse under Boeheim.
The important thing is to choose a strategy and commit to it rather than just continue playing basketball games, doing what hundreds of other teams do, running up and down, shooting, rebounding, and defending.
That’s not hard to replicate. Wake needs to create a tightly interwoven strategy and ditch all other plans, decide what to do, and stop doing everything else.
The Wake football team rose to a Top 10 ranking based on a brilliant offensive strategy called the delayed run-pass option mesh that no one had ever seen before. The unique strategy was hard to copy and sustainable when they had the right quarterback running it.
So what should this strategy be? The options are many, and the key is to make sure it’s hard to duplicate, simple conceptually, and a long-term solution.
Maybe it’s running the 4 corner offense for the last 4 minutes of every half, or the first 4 minutes, practicing it so much that it’s very hard to steal the ball which leads to easy layups instead of hard-to-make three-pointers. This would give Wake more control of the game. The team could dictate the pace, do things on their terms, flummox and frustrate and tire out opponents, make them spend extra time preparing how to defend against it, and make them think about Wake instead of their own team.
Or maybe Wake could commit to holding the ball for 30 seconds on every offensive possession no matter the score, making the other team defend them for longer than they want to or enjoy doing, making them uncomfortable.
Wake Forest has a good basketball team and still has a chance to make the NCAA Tournament, but the bigger picture is what strategy will they commit to for the next several years that no one else can figure out and copy with ease.
The strategy needs to be simple yet exquisite in which all elements fit together and be so interdependent that if one element gets pulled the whole strategy suffers. All the players need to understand it and be whole-heartedly aligned. And the strategy should take the long view. All in on whatever the strategy is, no backing out when things go sideways, for the next 10 years.
A full-on commitment to one strategy. Choose what not to do; go all in on what you will do and don’t be tempted or distracted by anything anyone says or what happens.
Maybe it’s making the decision to be the most positive and upbeat college basketball team, with a constant outpouring of compliments, motivational speakers, and upbeat talk day and night every day. It worked for Southwest.
It’s either this or Wake Forest basketball will continue this path of being a good team but not particularly difficult to figure out or scheme against, which will lead to more Last Four In/Last Four In situations like we have now that aren’t really what any of us ultimately want.
Southwest Airlines became great by choosing a strategy that was impenetrable by competitors. It was enlightened, focused, differentiating, and highly effective.
Wake should commit, in a similar way, to a strategy all its own, maybe something never done before, one that stymies and befuddles and frustrates opponents, and galvanizes all the players around a strategy they believe in because they know it will elevate the program to levels never achieved before.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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