What Incredibly Successful Sports Teams Can Remind Us About Leadership

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Why do established organizations fail to realize their potential? Or better yet, why do underdogs surprise us with sometimes even miraculous success?

There is no better representation of this feeling than Miracle 1980 Team USA. Legendary coach Herb Brooks was optimistic about a specific set of players (who weren't necessarily the most talented) who would defeat the defending four-time Soviet gold medalists and win gold in Lake Placid.

Long before 'Good to Great, 's Start with Why, Angela Duckworth's Grit and Jacko Willink's Extreme Ownership em>em>, we've had exceptional leaders who have shown us the road less traveled and what the DNA of success looks like. Moneyball and Miracle are two of my favorite films for this reason: the seemingly shocking, if not miraculous, success of these organizations.

These stories and the authors inform and remind us that talent, intelligence and experience are certainly important, but that ingredients such as culture and courage are paramount. We see this play out time and time again in our favorite underdog sports stories and if we step back, we'll see it in any .

Related: 5 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Professional Sports Teams

Talent and experience are nice to have

Herb Brooks showed us that you "win with people, not with talent", that the key ingredient is "people with a strong value system" and that you have to recruit "from a cross section of different personalities, talents and playing styles."

Oakland A general manager Billy Beane showed us something similar in 2002. His Moneyball team with a payroll of $41 million captured the record for the American League with 20 straight wins and had an identical regular season winning record (103 wins). like the Yankees' $125 million payroll. The much less talented A's put together a single team and rallied around a simple, team-oriented strategy to get to base (which included swapping players without the character or fit for the mission ).

Perhaps a lesser-known case study, the NHL expansion franchise of the Las Vegas Golden Knights entered the league with only the ability to sign unprotected players from current teams. Faced with the challenge of not having the most talented players available, they took the opportunity to select the right players who would fit their team's mission, culture and system.

In their freshman year, they went 51-24-7 and lost in the final. But from 2018 to 2021, they had winning seasons and trips to the playoffs every year, made two trips to the Conference Finals and one trip to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Related: 7 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Elite Athletes

Mission, culture and synergy are essential

I have personally tasted the success of implementing these must-haves by launching two successful organizations at two very separate times in my life: one in business not too long ago, and the another in the sport in his early twenties as a hockey coach (two wildly different scenarios, I know). In 2001, I was pursuing my bachelor's degree in biological engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago and officiating in youth hockey on the side. I had played hockey in junior, junior and collegiate clubs, although I had never coached before.

One fateful day, I saw an ad for an inaugural high school program looking for coaches. I interviewed for the position of varsity head coach of the new Lincoln-Way East hockey club, knowing full well how ambitious such a decision was. When I was offered the job, I was equally excited and terrified. To my knowledge, I was the youngest varsity head coach in the state - with no coaching experience - and had to select and coach a roster of players, none of whom were seniors, to compete against programs much more established.

I selected players on character first and passed on several players who had more size and experience. Our mission (and our battle cry before every match) was simple: respect. As the inaugural team, our opponents would naturally underestimate us. It was our fuel. We collectively decided that we would be the...