to win every time remains a defining characteristic.
The 1972 Miami Dolphins are much heralded for
their unmatched unbeaten (16-0) season. While the
NFL, its competitors, and its predecessors have seen
other undefeated seasons, they occurred in the game’s
golden era, when Monsters truly ruled the Midway and
Ohio was the football capital of the universe. No other
Super Bowl winner has experienced a season without
a loss.
The only heavyweight-boxing champion to retire
undefeated was the Pride of
Brockton, Rocky Marciano, in
the 1950s. Other legendary figures, including Mike Tyson, Jack
Dempsey, Muhammad Ali, and
Jack Johnson, all experienced loss-es. (Note: Marciano lost one fight,
to Muhammad Ali, 13 years after
his retirement and last previous
bout.)
The Atlanta Braves, in baseball,
managed by Bobby Cox and with
Ted Turner finally smart enough
to stay out of the team’s affairs,
strung together 14 consecutive
divisional championships in 1991–2005, unequaled
before or since. They only won the World Series once
during that remarkable run. Winners? Of course.
Champions? You bet.
WHAT MAKES CHAMPIONS DIFFERENT?
OK, so champions don’t win each and every time.
What’s the point? There are several. One is that champions try to win every time, especially following a loss.
Another is that champions look past this year, or this
year’s rankings, or next quarter’s financial performance. They are focused on repeated and repeatable
high performance levels for as far as they can see into
the future. Sometimes that means sacrificing the short
term in favor of the long term as a conscious management call.
A huge difference between champions and mere
winners in the moment is that champions take loss not
as a motivation to try harder, but as an experience to
learn from. They build new strategies and fine-tune
execution to overcome the factors that led to a loss,
then catch and pass whomever beat them out. Then,
they concentrate on widening the gap between themselves and the competition by continuing to restrate-gize and re-engineer and re-imagine what makes them
special in the marketplace. This, coupled with integrated planning among supply chain management, senior
management, sales and marketing, and information
technology, continues to reinforce the likelihood of
continued success—and more championships.
CHAMPIONS COME AND GO
We have noted that there is a lot of churning in the
“best supply chain” listings, which, despite attempts
at quantitative objectivity, are essentially subjective
assessments by seasoned professionals. Household
names appear, then disappear, for no apparent reason
(at least as seen by distant observers). But others, notably Apple, hover at or near the top year after year. Are
the placements and distinctions real? Is #8 really all that
much “better” than #17? Perhaps. Time will tell.
But we do have some parallels in
other measures. Xerox was an early
technology-breakthrough darling.
And now? 3M was a legendary
innovator, with a constant stream
of new products and new applications. Until? Kodak owned cameras, film, and motion picture media
markets, and even pioneered digital photo technology. And today?
Polaroid? Eastern Airlines? Long-distance passenger rail? TWA?
Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips?
And on and on.
From a supply chain perspective,
Does Walmart’s supply chain prominence help Sam’s
Club as it engages in mortal combat with Costco?
Can Aldi’s low prices continue to overcome the disadvantage of a widely dispersed, thin footprint? Do
megaplayers (not limited to Walmart) stumble when
they try to impose merchandising and supply chain
techniques in unfamiliar markets?
FOR THE FUTURE
Are there no champions forever? The economic battlefield is littered with the bodies of one-time winners
and sometime champions. Is the best we can hope for
a couple of generations of dominance?
We don’t honestly know. But we are pretty sure
that taking a breather and enjoying a cooling breeze
after winning one race is not the way to approach the
demands of a steady stream of new days.
We are also pretty sure that champions go down
fighting. And that champions get up and fight again.
Sometimes they win—and win big—after losing. Oops,
there’s that pesky Apple again.
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Art van Bodegraven may be reached at (614) 893-9414 or avan@columbus.
rr.com. You can read his blog at http://blogs.dcvelocity.com/the_art_of_art/.
Kenneth B. Ackerman, president of The Ackerman Company, can be reached at
(614) 488-3165 or ken@warehousing-forum.com.
