From Sport to Business: Why Playbooks underpin Success (Seven Key Factors)

What can we learn from elite sport, with respect to the value a Playbook brings?

What is a Playbook (and from where did this term come)?

The term ‘Playbook’ has an interesting etymology and history – as has now spread to various domains of life. The term originates from sport and, specifically, American football where it refers to a team’s strategies and all the related play diagrams. Whilst there is no precise date for its first recorded use, it is believed to be late 19th/early 20th century. Walter Camp, often called the ‘Father of American Football’ was codifying strategies in the 1880s so whilst he may not have used the term explicitly, he was almost certainly instrumental in the concept of planned plays.

Since Walter’s time, the term has spread somewhat organically into politics (campaign playbooks), military (standard operating procedures), healthcare (treatment protocols), education (curriculum guides), marketing (communication strategies), law enforcement (procedural guidelines) and, of course, into the business and corporate world.

Here at Method Grid, we like to think we have been responsible for some of the growing proliferation of the term in this latter context. We started using the term – to capture the rich knowledge structures our clients were building – around 2018; indeed, we occasionally referred to the platform as an ‘enterprise playbook management’ solution – albeit judiciously so as, in the early days, this could easily be met with a blank stare.

So the term is both widespread and, certainly with respect to the business world, growing in familiarity.

Which leads to the question … just what exactly is a Playbook?

In the context of its usage across such diverse fields, the best answer is that it serves as a metaphor for an organised, strategic approach to tackling complex tasks or situations. In each such context, a Playbook represents a collection of tried-and-tested methods, as often compiled from experience and best practices, to achieve specific outcomes. Inherent within this description is that it enables, and force-multiplies, a team of people as it provides a common, shared resource as facilitative of common, coherent, integrated action.

 

What can we learn from elite sport, with respect to the value a Playbook brings?

Before we dive into this question and present our seven key aspects of value, we should first outline the historical evidence for Playbooks being successful in their original sports setting. Then we can explore aspects of this success that survive the transfer from elite sports to relevance in modern, corporate life.

Back to American Football.

In terms of historical success, the ‘West Coast Offence’ Playbook as developed by Bill Walsh for the San Francisco 49ers, led to multiple Super Bowl victories in the 1980s. The ‘Run and Shoot offence’ Playbook as credited to Mouse Davis, helped several college and NFL teams achieve offensive success in the 1980s and 1990s.

Successful coaches such as Bill Belichick, Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry are renowned for their detailed, innovative Playbooks and their successes across different teams suggests that such codified content was a key explanative factor.

Many NFL players speak of the importance of mastering such Playbooks to exceed at the professional level. Tom Brady, one of the all-time Quarterback greats, cites his extensive knowledge of Playbooks as key to his success.

There have also been multiple stories of major team turnaround – struggling teams transformed – as a function of new coaches very deliberately implementing a new Playbook; for example, Sean McVay with the LA Rams. Other teams, renowned for their performance consistency, such as the New England Patriots, attribute this track record to a consistent system (read Playbook).

Whilst much of this evidence is somewhat playful and anecdotal, or based on correlation rather than direct causation, the consistent emphasis on Playbooks across successful teams, and coaches, suggests a strong linkage to success in American Football.

This is not to say a good Playbook, in this sporting context, guarantees success; rather, it is a necessary but insufficient condition. Other factors such as player talent, execution and in-game adjustments are also crucial. In summary, a well-designed Playbook appears to be a fundamental building block of successful American football at all levels – on which greatness can then be built.

So what?

What is the corollary to be drawn from this in transference to a business setting?

In short, there are many compelling analogies to be drawn from here; below, we argue for seven key factors that underpin why Playbooks are pivotal to success in a commercial setting also.

Before doing so, let’s first expand on our definition of Playbook as provided above, as now rendered to a typical use case within a corporate organisation. In this context, a Playbook can be a structured capture of a core service, capability or delivery methodology as a powerful productivity and task assurance enabler for diverse teams. Such a Playbook will hold all the relevant knowledge, resources and tools within a single, integrated, easy-to-follow (digital) location; for example: guidance notes, role/responsibility clarity, relevant tools/templates, sub tasks, references, video explainers, relevant learning modules, colleague-experts etc.

Critically, such Playbooks can be cloned and adapted to each specific delivery instance (no one project or service engagement is ever exactly the same) such that it can be used as a live team collaboration aid; and, after each delivery iteration, new knowledge and enhancements can be fed back into ever-improving ‘master’ versions.

With that more specific render of a Playbook described (again, see example above for a read-only illustration of such), let’s explore why the value argument is as pertinent in this domain as it is for elite sports.

Value Factor 01 – Set Plays

In American Football, Playbooks outline very specific plays for a whole raft of on field situations. As analogous for a business setting, is the value in doing the same for core, repetitive situations you face in delivering your business strategy – especially so if such services/situations are core to your value differentiation offer.

For example, if design-building-delivering data centres is central to your firm’s positioning, and you deliver multiple such engagements each year, then you will want to ensure there is a common methodological framework that ensures your staff consistently delivere the required outcome to delighted clients. You will also want to continuously improve how you do so – learning from each new engagement – as feeding back into an ever-improving Playbook.

Value Factor 02 – Adaptive Decision Making

A Quarterback has the ability to change a play at the scrimmage line. In this context, Playbooks don’t hamper strategic flexibility they enhance it – as the fast call change is quickly understood by everyone on the pitch. In a similar vein, well-designed Playbooks don’t hamper real-time flexibility and innovation; rather they set a clear decision frame upon which teams can collaborate and quickly adjust.

As a simple example, on the Method Grid platform, many teams use the idea of mandatory-elements as a small subset of the overall method alongside a rich set of optional-elements; really importantly, teams can then configure their local, immediate Playbook as contingent on a whole array of specific circumstance. The fundamental point is they have an established, coherent frame in which to operate; they are not walking onto the pitch with no clear, commonly-shared operating model.

Value Factor 03 – Position-Specific but Integrative (Team Plays)

In American Football, Playbooks will outline the tasks and responsibilities for each position – explaining how these integrate for team-wide plays. Back to the business world and the challenge is synonymous.

Playbooks represent planned approaches for inter-departmental/functional integration and provide ‘golden thread’ clarity right down to individual responsibilities, with all the supporting guidance and best practice instruction.

Value Factor 04 – Two-Minute Drill

The ‘Two-Minute Drill’, as triggered by the two-minute warning, is an offensive strategy to move the ball down the field quickly to score – as relevant for a losing team in the final strait of a game. It serves as an analogy for corporate life when there is often an unexpected but critical tight deadline, or, genuine emergency.

A Playbook in such an instance allows for a swift, coordinated response; a disaster recovery Playbook would be an extreme example of this but even in more benign setting, a service delivery Playbook will ensure that time is not wasted with configuring what-to-do in such moments, rather teams can quickly drop onto established pattern and guidance.

Value Factor 05 – Practice Repetition

Repeatedly practicing plays, as the best teams do, builds muscle memory; eventually to a point of near ‘unconscious competence’. In a related vein, upper quartile service companies build a reputation for high-quality service consistency. Many firms get it right seven out of ten times but this is not where excellence lies; the firms that really scale and succeed get it right near every time. They do so, because they have a common methodological reference – a Playbook – that gets consistently applied as enshrining of all the learns and best practice they have developed over hundreds of previous delivery iterations.

Without such a clear, common framework it is impossible to continuously improve as there is no central reference point against which such constructive discussion can even take place. Playbooks in this context allow for practice repetition and practice repetition begets continuous improvement and capability embedment.

Value Factor 06 – Player Rotation

In sport, players rotate both in the context of an actual game and across the season. The New England Patriots have been successful across decades; indeed, they have sold out every home game since 1994! During this period, approximately 2,000-2,500 players will have rotated through the franchise; sport after all will have an even higher (physical attrition) churn than business life (player turnover is c. 20-25% each year). Playbooks are foundational in this regard – essentially facilitating performance consistency – as, ultimately totally agnostic of specific players (the squad of 2023 is completely different from the squad of 1994).

In business, Playbooks facilitate the same dynamic. They allow for staff members to quickly rotate into new teams – as highly relevant to projectised organisations. Critically also, they radically support the new joiner journey – aiding such new team members to become quickly conversant with established ‘ways of working’ and, therefore, to fast track their path to effective, productive contribution.

Value Factor 07 – Red Zone Strategies

In American Football, the Red Zone is the area of the field between the 20-yard line and the goal line – termed as such because it is where the offensive team is on the hunt to score. The Football Playbook will contain multiple specialised strategies and plays for this zone; that is for when they are close to scoring.

The parallel in business life is the Playbook for planned approaches when it comes to facing critical business opportunities. Indeed, on the Method Grid platform, one of the most common Playbook variants is that of the work-bidding or sales methodology flavour. Firms that invest in developing methodological consistency in this important area are, unsurprisingly, the firms we observe with the greatest sales, and related growth, success.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Very often, such metaphors of transference from one domain to another can be amusing but too strained for actual practical relevance. In this instance, we argue that the birth domain of the term ‘Playbook’ – the highly-competitive sporting arena of American Football – is not so distant. Indeed, the value of Playbooks in helping service companies thrive and succeed – for all these stated factors and more – is as fundamental to success on a business field of play as it is to the sporting pitch, perhaps even more so.

 

Connect with the writer of this article, Method Grid CEO Dom Moorhouse on LinkedIn.