Play defensively.

Every football team wants possession of the ball, but this obviously isn’t going to happen 100% of the time. Exceptional defense usually wins football games. In fact, the most successful pro teams also have the best defensive records. It’s no accident!

We learn from experience that sometimes the best defense is to take the offense. Some situations can only be navigated with a strategy that is largely defensive. There will be times when your business competition is in possession of the ball, and is advancing toward you, trying to push you back. Perhaps they have just introduced a product or service that has you fighting to keep customers, or a new technology has suddenly become available and you decide to change your business plan. While you work on developing a new business strategy, you know you have to pull out all the stops to hold on to the customers you already have. In these situations, all you can do is play defensively, try to stop their progress, and recover the ball.

Just being in a defensive mode is not always enough, however. There are a number of different levels of defense a football team must use to prevent the other team’s offense from breaking through and scoring a touchdown, from their defensive line to their safety positions. Sometimes all these levels of defense work, stopping the other team’s offensive efforts. Other times, none of these systems work as designed, giving away valuable yards and points to the competition.

You need to have different levels of defense or backup systems to prevent problems from occurring that eventually could hand valuable business over to the competition. For example, there might be specific defensive measures you will have to take to keep your customers from moving over to the competition, regardless of their cost: honoring and even exceeding product guarantees, replacing products, re-negotiating contracts, lowering prices, or apologizing to customers and asking how you can make amends are all good defensive business strategies. They might not always help you achieve your profit goals this quarter, but might just keep you in the game until you implement your new strategy.

Leadership Questions

  How does your work team play “defense”? In what kinds of specific situations is this necessary?

  How can you get back possession of the ball and take the offense?

  What is your team’s best defense against the competition?