6

Great Teams Have a Real or Invented Enemy

The art of war teaches us not to rely on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.

—SUN TZU, Chinese Military General

Andy Grove always looks for the enemy.

Grove, an immigrant from Hungary, was one of the first employees of Intel, and he rose to become its top executive. He is credited with stewarding Intel to become one of the most successful high-tech companies in the world. Time Magazine named Grove its “Man of the Year” for 1997. In 2006, Grove gave $26 million to his alma mater, City College of New York.

Grove authored a business book titled Only the Paranoid Survive. Grove has written, “I believe that the prime responsibility of a manager is to guard constantly against other people's attacks and to inculcate this guardian attitude in the people under his or her management.”

I agree totally with Andy Grove. When I speak to groups, when I coach teamwork, I strongly emphasize the importance of having enemies—real or invented—and being on guard against their destructive potential. If you don't see an enemy out there, then you are in trouble.

I speak to financial planners and advisors from many different companies. I like to challenge them—put them on guard. As a guy in his early 50s, with a family, and someone who works hard and is fortunate to make a good living, I am a prime business target for financial advisors. I can make them money. I receive calls and emails frequently from people who want to advise and guide my savings and investments. I tell the groups to which I speak about the frequent contact I receive. I also tell them that it is impossible for any investor or advisor to be too good when handling the finances of my family.

“So, everyone out there, think of your clients—think of your top clients,” I say to the advisors. “Do you think you are the only advisor that they have? Oh, you don't think, you know you are. Well, good for you. You are sure of that, right?”

I get them thinking—and then I continue:

“Yeah, maybe you are correct—that client or this client only works with you. But is this the way it will continue? Who called them yesterday? Today? Or who will call them tomorrow? Will someone, a friend or business colleague, whom they trust greatly suggest another advisor?”

One thing for certain, most high-net-worth people work with more than one advisor. Of course, every client, whether she or he doesn't have much to invest, or whether there is a mountain of money there to be handled, should be treated with the same interest and care. But I need to be realistic here—and if I want to make the lesson urgent, I focus on the big-money people who could go away.

I'm putting the enemy on their radar screen. Being a bit paranoid helps in recognizing the enemy, or in conjuring one up.

Identify and Fixate on a Common Enemy

You have to hand it to Vladislav Tretiak for telling the truth. After the 1980 Winter Olympics, he admitted that, as the games approached, he and his teammates didn't consider the U.S. to be viable competition—not a true enemy. In fact, he said the U.S. “never really counted” as an opponent.

A few days prior to the start of the Lake Placid games, we played the Soviets at Madison Square Garden in an exhibition—a sort of final tune up. We got crushed, 10-3. And it wasn't as close as the score might suggest. We could do nothing. They could do everything.

That thrashing did us more good than it did the Soviets. I've always said that you learn more from defeat than victory.

You see, if the Soviets didn't take us very seriously prior to the game at Madison Square Garden, they didn't take us seriously at all after it. When they took to the ice against us in the Olympic medal round, they had their guard down, they were not focused, and did not appreciate what they were up against.

They did not think we were a very good team, which we were. The previous time we played them, we were intimidated and we had an off-night. But this wouldn't be the case in the game we played on Friday evening, February 22, 1980.

Think of our advantage. The whooping we received at Madison Square Garden was a downer for sure. But the experience also relieved us of some awe. We got pounded, yes, but we now figured things couldn't get any worse. In fact, we had collectively resolved that if we met up with the Red Army Team in Lake Placid, no matter the final score, we would not play it as a group of star-struck and intimidated schoolboys, or as merely a foil and stepping stone for the Soviets, but as a team of overachieving young men who were going to make them work across every inch of ice. We were not going to get—to use a modern term—“punked” at Lake Placid.

Several years after our historic upset of the Red Army Team, its coach Viktor Tikhonov told Boys of Winter author Wayne Coffey that the game at Madison Square Garden had set his team up for defeat.

“No matter what we tried we could not get that 10-3 game out of the players’ minds,” said Tikhonov. “The players told me it would be no problem. It turned out to be a very big problem.”

We left New York City with an enemy. The Soviets left with reaffirmation of them inevitably winning a fifth consecutive gold medal.

Tikhonov was right about the overconfidence factor. Then again, after the game, there was a lot of finger pointing among the Soviet players and coaches and across society back in their homeland. A big strategic question was whether Tikhonov should have yanked goaltender Vladislav Tretiak after the first period. Several years into his retirement, Tretiak, who won Olympic gold in 1972 and 1976, and would win a third in Sarajevo in 1984, reflected on the decision to bench him, saying, “I would have had four gold medals if not for Tikhonov's bad judgement.”

The Soviets had more talent than we did. They had better skills and were stronger and faster. But their talent advantage was not so strong that they could afford to look past us and treat us lightly. Yet, at Lake Placid they did just that—and in the preliminary round they took other teams lightly as well. They had played a bit lackluster against Finland and Canada, falling behind each team before firing up the jets and coming back to win.

The Soviets had become so accustomed and used to winning that they no longer had an enemy.

“They're not into it; for some reason the Russians are off their game,” said Herb. “They're ready to slit their own throats. All we have to do is give them the knife.”

We had the knife, and it had been kept sharp.

Of course, our big advantage is that this wasn't a “best of three” or “best of five” series. It was only one game. By the time the Soviets had figured out that they were playing against an enemy, it might be too late for them.

In the locker room before the game, Herb spoke those famous words—words that reflected on the need that we only needed to catch them sleeping and unaware on one night:

One game. If we played ’em 10 times, they might win nine. But not this game, not tonight. Tonight we skate with them. Tonight we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can! Tonight WE are the greatest hockey team in the world.

Were we the greatest hockey team in the world? For one night we were.

Our competition at Lake Placid was not our only enemy. We had an internal enemy—and not the type of internal enemy I will talk about later in this chapter. That internal enemy was our coach. That's right, the man without whom our gold medal victory would not have happened.

This is exactly as Herb Brooks wanted it. I'll explain.

After the tournament in Colorado Springs, the squad was down to 26 players from which the final 20 would be selected. And though we were only about six months out from our first Olympic game, we still did not have the enemy or enemies in sight that we needed in order to reach our potential.

When I played for Boston University our archenemy was down the street from us—literally. Even though BU and Boston College were located in different communities—BU in Boston and BC in Newton—Commonwealth Avenue connected both our campuses. BC helped BU and me operate at peak efficiency. But, as I looked toward Lake Placid, focusing on BC as an enemy was not going to do the team or me much good. Getting fired up to play Providence College or Northeastern University or Harvard University, all local rivals to BU, also was not what was needed now.

University of Minnesota guys may not have very much liked the University of Minnesota-Duluth guys—and Mark Johnson, who played for the University of Wisconsin, had no love lost for either of those schools, but these rivalries and competitive fires contained powerful emotion and energy that needed to be rechanneled and redirected.

Soon we had the focus on where we would rechannel and redirect that emotion and energy—and it was focused on Herb Brooks. We were all bought in. He rode us, ticked us off, challenged us, and rarely let up. We got angry and established together that he was our enemy, and, together, we were going to prove his criticism of us wrong.

Having Herb as the common enemy—again, his plan all along—required us to stop squabbling among ourselves and to ditch the regional rivalries.

The plan, of course, worked.

In the locker room after we beat Finland, I shouted at Herb—now with a smile—what all my teammates were feeling: “I showed you!” Herb said back to me, “You sure did, Jimmy.”

In truth, every single player on that team showed Herb.

Plan, Prepare, and Execute

Winning at Lake Placid was the result of a lot of hard and smart work—and a lot of hard and smart planning and preparation. It was also about game day execution.

In sports, if a team has talent that is considerably better talent than its opponent, and gives the same effort, or close to the same effort, of its opponent, then the team with more talent will almost always win—no matter how excellent its opponent is tactically and strategically.

The U.S. was a very talented hockey team. As talented as the Soviets or the Czechs? Probably not. But we were not far behind. And I believe we had better talent than all the other teams in the tournament. In fact, we were so close in talent to the Soviets that if we played an almost flawless tactical and strategic game—and we played that game on a night the Soviets recognized too late what they were up against—then it could be enough to achieve the upset.

For the most part, international hockey at the time had two camps of tactics and play—there was the U.S. and Canadian camp which emphasized a bruising, physical, dump the puck and chase it form, and there was the European and Soviet camp which, partially because the playing surface was larger overseas, emphasized speed, constant circling and weaving, and frequent and precise passing.

Olympic competition was played on the same size rink on which the Europeans and Soviets regularly competed, so those teams had an advantage in the big tournament every four years. But no matter whether the game was played over here on our ice or over there on their ice, the Soviet form of hockey was successful. Yet into the late 1970s, neither the United States nor Canada had showed much desire to change their style of play even though the Soviets had been dominant in international competition for 20 years, including winning four straight Olympic gold medals.

Then there was the conditioning factor. The Soviets were always the best conditioned, the strongest, and the players with the freshest legs as the clock wound down. They could enter the third period a goal or two behind and remain confident in winning. It was just a matter of releasing fuel reserves and igniting afterburners—energy not available to the competition—and the Russians could drop three or four goals on you in 10 minutes.

Superior conditioning enabled those come from behind victories against the Finns and Canadians that I mentioned earlier. In both those games, the Russians looked to be on the ropes. Each time, though, they got off those ropes and fought to a win. First it was the Finns, who were up 2-1, with five minutes left. It took the Russians a minute and 19 seconds to score three goals. Final score: 4-2. Two days later, Canada, up 3-1 on the Soviets with less than a minute to go in the second period, had a clean look at a chance to make it 4-1, but missed. Damn if the Russians didn't score with 13 seconds remaining to the break. About two minutes after the puck dropped to start the third period, the Soviets had the lead, 4-3. Canada tied the game—but the Red Army Team scored two more goals to win, 6-4.

How could anyone beat these guys? Could it be done?

What Herb Brooks knew we needed to do in order to be competitive in the Olympics was to change our style of play and shake things up. He wanted to coach a team that played a hybrid—a revolutionary marriage of physical, dump-and-chase, and the European-Soviet model. “Throw their game back at them,” said Herb. We would value possession of the puck and try to knock the Soviets off their game with our hard hitting and forechecking.

We would also upend history, in that we would be the fittest team on the ice; yes, fitter even than the Soviets. Getting there would require six months of Spartan training and practice, including types of training U.S. amateur squads had not traditionally done: weight training and plyometrics. Within that six-month period, over the five month stretch from early September through early February, we played 61 games at home and abroad.

We were prepared.

As a goalie, facing the Soviets was surely a different experience than playing against the Canadians, and different from playing against any other team as well. For example, the Canadians and West Germans would wind-up and shoot from anywhere, even if it wasn't a high-percentage shot. Canadian and West German teams shot the puck a lot. In all of international hockey, only the Czechs came close to the Russians in terms of discretion and being choosy in shooting the puck. Soviet teams would not take many shots—and you would rarely face a long slap shot delivered from anyone wearing one of those CCCP red sweaters—but, the shots that were taken were well planned, well set up, and were loaded with potential to turn on a red light. When the Soviets were on a rush it was a clinic in rapid-paced artistry: a pass … and then a pass … and then a pass … and then a shot on net from 20 or 15 or 10 feet.

In the book One Goal, John Powers and Arthur Kaminsky described a “textbook” Soviet goal as “three touch passes and a 15-foot wrist shot up high.”

If you look at and study the U.S.-Soviet game, you will see how strategy and conditioning played out. We played the game that we were trained to play, if not flawlessly, then very close to flawlessly. We were where we needed to be at the end of two periods—just a goal down and within striking distance. My teammates made smart decisions on both ends of the ice, and had checked the Soviets from end to end and side to side. In the final period, Mark Johnson scored, and then with 10 minutes remaining, Mike Eruzione delivered the “shot heard ’round the world.” We were up, 4-3.

ABC TV announcer Al Michaels said, “Now we have bedlam.” We were also a long way from the final buzzer against the most dangerous team on earth.

Think about how many teams have come close to a monumental upset, how many companies have been on the brink of doing something great, only to have the wheels come off the bus. The homestretch is gut-check time. A mistake that many organizations make, whether in sports or another sector, is to stop competing when ahead and there is a chance to close the door. They get defensive, go into a shell, and hope and pray that they will make it to 00:00 on the clock still ahead.

Were we going to do a Finland and Canada and shut down and let victory slip away?

Not a chance. If we lost, it would not be because we choked, held back, and stopped bringing it. We were going to keep thinking, playing our game, and making decisions that would help us win; we were not going to play just not to lose. There is an often-played and widely-seen video image of Herb, in the final minutes of the game. He is walking behind the players seated on the bench and saying calmly and assertively, over and over, “Play your game … play your game.”

Against the Russians, we would play four lines against their three. And each of our shifts was to be no longer than 40 seconds. Herb reasoned correctly that this would help limit our fatigue. Our team physician, Dr. Nagobads, was responsible for the stop watch and maintaining the 40-second limit. He later joked that he didn't see much of the Miracle on Ice game because he was watching a clock all night.

The frequent shift changes confused and unnerved the Soviets. As Wayne Coffey recounted in the Boys of Winter, “On one comparatively long Russian shift, center Vladimir Petrov had a face-off with Johnson, another with Broten, and a third with Pavelich. He knew Nagobads from various international competitions. He caught the doctor's eye and asked in Russian, “Shto to koy?” (What is going on?)

“Sprashike washe teneru” (Ask your coach), replied Nagobads.

I wasn't part of any line change, but I needed to do my job until the final second expired—and I needed to keep thinking how to best help my teammates win. Early in the game, I tied up the puck in order to interrupt the flow of the Red Army team and minimize its explosive power. But, as the game progressed, I sensed that our advantage in conditioning and our frequent shift changes had the Russians gasping more than we were. So I adjusted. Now when I stopped a shot and was able to get a hold of the puck, I put it right back into play, preventing our opponents from getting a breather—and also keeping the clock ticking.

About that clock. Man, oh man, I have never seen a clock tick more slowly in my life.

What was also vital to our success that evening was that the Soviet players and the Soviet team did things that Soviet players and Soviet teams didn't normally do. Vladislav Tretiak didn't usually allow for a dangerous rebound on a shot he could have covered; but he did just that, and allowed Mark Johnson to tuck the puck past him to tie the game at 2-2 with a second left in the first period. Soviet players didn't quarrel among themselves on the ice—but, as the game went on, that happened as well. And the Soviets did not dump the puck and chase it—yet against us they did.

Scary moment. Late in the second period, Jim is briefly knocked out after a collision with a Soviet forward. Within a couple of minutes, though, Jim shakes off the grogginess and is back frustrating the Russians.

Credit: Photographer: Focus/On Sport/Getty Images

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A combination of our strategy and fitness threw the Soviet Union off its customs and tendencies.

The way in which the final minute, final seconds, played out provided a bit of drama and commentary on the entire game—on the notion that things were a bit upside down that night. None of us could believe it when the clock got to 1:00 and then 00:59 and 00:58 … and as time continued to tick away … the Soviet goaltender Myshkin remained in net. It was Hockey 101: When you are down a goal in the final minute you pull your goalie and replace him with an extra scorer. But Myshkin went nowhere.

It was as if the Soviets had never been in this position, and when it happened, they did not know how to respond.

Be Ready for Anything—Respect Your Opponent

I grew up one town over from the city of Brockton, which I have noted is the hometown of undefeated heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano and the adopted hometown of the long-time middleweight boxing champion, Marvelous Marvin Hagler.

Boxers need to be as focused on the enemy as any athlete. I found something interesting and very insightful that Hagler said about a fight in which he had his opponent hurt and in trouble, and was in the process of finishing him off. Hagler said that, yes, he would show no mercy and end the fight, but, as he moved in for the KO, he could not abandon caution and discipline because, as Hagler reflected, “a wounded animal is a dangerous animal.”

There is a lesson here—one that transcends the boxing ring.

You can have the enemy in front of you and be totally zoned in on beating him or it. But in your quest you can never lose sight of, nor respect for, the potential and threat that the enemy poses to you.

Understand, as well, that there are enemies you don't see, but who are positioning themselves to enter your arena. Always be on guard for new entrants into the marketplace. In business there is the start-up, but there are also the established companies in another industry that might launch a division or another company that could compete against you.

As a competitive person, no matter the area of my life, I am intrigued and enjoy following the brutally competitive mobile and networked communications industries. They change so fast and attract so many of the gifted minds and driven souls that an enemy—a new company, a new technology, a new way of doing things—is about to run you over even if you never saw it on the long-off horizon.

You have to bring the “A game” every day, every time out, against every opponent. You'll recall the famous pre-Olympic game we played in Oslo against the Norwegian national team, a team not nearly as talented as us—a team of journeymen and guys who held day jobs outside of hockey—yet they managed to tie us. Herb was furious, as he should have been. We didn't respect the opponent. So after the game ended, he kept us on the ice and skated and skated and skated us.

We played the Norwegians the next day and beat them 9-0.

It was all a matter of respect and focus and effort.

The Enemies Within

When I was competing in hockey, I studied opponents exhaustively. I needed to know, inside and out, their strengths and weaknesses, their tendencies—and how the conditions of a game could affect those qualities and traits.

While I had some helpful genetics, what also enabled me to perform well in goal was that I worked hard to develop my physical and cognitive skills. In terms of the gray matter, did I have natural instincts that supported my ability to defend the net? Perhaps. But any smarts I used to my advantage on the ice were mostly acquired through study and observation.

In the business world, I continue to study and observe—and I think that I have cultivated a sensitivity and ability to quickly size up and evaluate personnel. It is said that the art of politics is to be able to figure out in a short time who is with you and who is against you—and who is undecided, and who can be persuaded. I have a bit of the politician in me.

Many times, while preparing for a speech, a manager will tell me that among the people I will be addressing are some that are not playing team and who are not onboard with the program. My job is to help recruit these people to play team and get on board—but oftentimes both the manager and I understand that it will be next to impossible to get cynics and doubters to buy in; more realistically, my job is to persuade them, through subtle and artful messaging, that the opportunity for them is elsewhere, with another company, on another team.

Now, I am not saying here that someone who isn't on board with your game plan is intentionally your enemy and is plotting to undermine and hurt your business—but the fact is that people who are not sharing in the dream support and nurture an internal mechanism that is not running right and efficiently. Lack of efficiency and lack of accountability are enemies of the organization. You need to be on guard for this and fix the problem.

Enemies within take on many forms.

Laziness is an enemy. Complacency is an enemy. Arrogance is an enemy. Overconfidence is an enemy. Jealousy is an enemy. Greed is an enemy (no matter what Gordon Gekko says). Ignorance is an enemy. Disorganization is an enemy. Lack of preparation is an enemy.

All of these negative traits are also negative energy. If you are a manager or coach or the head of a department, it is your job to recruit and train to prevent the enemy from within. Sometimes, of course, the enemy arises anyway—and then you need to manage and resolve the matter. If you don't do your job, then you are as much to blame for the problem as are the people within who are arrogant or not sufficiently up to date on a business practice, or a change in the market place, or who have become too comfortable and are not putting in the necessary time and effort to win, or who are so envious of the achievement of others that they are mouthing off and creating a problem.

You need to face the enemy—whether it is inside or outside of your group.

No matter if it is running my own company, or speaking for or coaching another company, or even if I am coaching a youth sports team, I prepare fully and give it my all—and that effort includes being on guard and heading off and eliminating the enemy from within.

A few years ago I was volunteering as a coach for a youth hockey team. I had a young man on the squad who was talented and had spirit, but he also didn't want to work and he copped a whole lot of attitude. I talked with him and I explained how he wasn't helping either his teammates or himself, and that he was actually hurting both. I related to him stories of athletes who had loads of potential, but who never reached their potential because they didn't care and weren't motivated and gave off negative energy. I told him that I didn't want to commit more time to working with him if he didn't change and become a team player. It wouldn't be fair to the other players.

I wouldn't have been doing my job as a coach if I didn't do this—for I would not have been dealing with and trying to remove an enemy from within our group. Now I am not saying the player was an enemy, but most certainly what was an enemy was his conduct that disrupted and undermined our team and prevented him from becoming the person and player I knew he could be. I also talked to the player's dad. I told him what was going on and the problems that had been created. I said that, unless his son started caring and working as a member of the team, I didn't want him playing and I didn't want to work with him. But if the athlete changed his tune and wanted to be a member of the team, then we would move forward. I suggested that father and son have a “Come to Jesus” meeting and talk this thing over.

The young man turned things around—thankfully. And it was partly my responsibility to try to make that happen.

You Take on the Enemy Together

Members of great teams come together to confront the enemy. Having that enemy helps you break down differences and overcome what divides you; it rallies the best in people, synthesizes it, and makes the total stronger than the sum of its parts.

If you focus together on the enemy, you are better prepared to win and achieve gold.

As essential as any component was to our team's success, was our extraordinary devotion to one another and the camaraderie we shared. Members of great teams care for one another. They are fervently committed to one another.

Ask anyone who is serving or who has served in the military about the importance of coordinated teamwork.

I was moved by a scene in the movie Gladiator, when the former military general, Maximus, and the other gladiators are in the arena; they are armed and will be forced to play a role in the re-creation of a great battle. Their adversaries will soon be coming through gates. It is a win-or-die situation.

“Anyone here been in the army?” Maximus asks the men around him.

A gladiator says yes and tells Maximus that he served under him in a particular battle.

Maximus says to the gladiator, “You can help me. Whatever comes out of these gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand? If we stay together we survive.”

If we stay together we survive.

You take on the enemy together.

Beyond the Ice—Other Mentors and Coaches

Harold Connolly knew his enemy—and he fixated on him.

Connolly, born in 1931, came into this world with severe nerve damage to his left arm, a condition that would prevent the arm from ever developing properly. He grew up in the Boston neighborhood of Brighton. As a teenager he lifted weights to try to strengthen the arm. At Brighton High School he played football and also competed in the weight events for the school's track and field team. As well, while lifting weights or playing sports, he managed to break his left arm several times, injuries that caused further withering of the limb.

Connolly went on to nearby Boston College, attending without an athletic scholarship. He did not let his infirmity prevent him from taking up the weight throws at BC. There he was introduced to the hammer throw his senior year. He showed immediate and high-level promise in the event. After graduating from BC in 1953, he continued to train and compete and was soon the best hammer thrower in the United States.

After throwing the hammer for only two years and with his left arm about two-thirds the size of his right, Connolly became a force internationally in the event. He set his sights on the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. To motivate and keep his focus, he pasted to the visor of his car a photo of Mikhail Krivonosov, the world record holder from the Soviet Union. Connolly would drive to and from practice, and to and from everywhere else, and would take a peek at the enemy, at Mikhail Krivonosov.

Fixating on the Soviets—the best in the world—as the Olympics approach. I've been there.

Connolly made the U.S. Olympic team, and about three weeks prior to the Melbourne games, at a meet in Los Angeles, he broke Krivonosov's world record. That didn't deter Krivonosov's teammates from preparing a victory cake that they would present to him after he won the gold medal. Into the fifth round of the hammer competition at Melbourne, it looked like Krivonosov would receive that cake. Connolly was actually in third place, trailing two Soviets—Anatoly Samotsvetov, who was in second place, and Krivonosov who was in first place with an Olympic record throw of 206′8″.

Connolly wasn't done, though. On his fifth throw, he set an Olympic record with a distance of 207′3″. The throw held up for the gold. Silver medal winner Krivonosov, gracious and a gentleman, presented “his” victory cake to Harold Connolly.

Harold Connolly knew his enemy. The very image of that enemy helped Connolly to the top of the victory podium at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne.

Great Teams Have a Real or Invented Enemy—Chapter Recap