Even as COVID vaccines begin early deployment, pressure on leaders continues to mount to engage in “Big C” change: rapid course corrections through job cuts, recruiting a fresh management team, and redesigning roles and responsibilities to score quick wins.
Clearing the decks is certainly an option to generate fresh momentum and bring in independent perspectives. It is easy to decipher the purpose. The team in action, after all, is the team portraying the downturn.
But how effective is Big C change in reality? The answer may lie in professional sports, where team shakeups are perceived, perhaps more so than in any other industry, as the right answer to improve performance. Owners look to their team managers (coaches) to be game changers and bring back success to the organization, especially when the manager is hired in a crisis.
Their success in doing so, or not, is plain for everyone to see. Due to the measurability of sporting performance, every manager of a professional team becomes a winner or a loser in the eyes of the public—week after week. So, it is not surprising that the shelf life for professional soccer managers,1.2 years, is only one-fifth of the median tenure for leaders of listed companies in Germany.1
Is Big Change always the right action to revitalize a dispirited organization? Could “Small C” retooling work better in some instances than an exhaustive, complete turnaround?
What we’ve learned in recent studies is that it makes sense in many cases to stick to the organization’s core activities, sharpen the performance of its leadership team, and rebalance where necessary. This finding came to light when we studied Big C and Small C change in professional sports—specifically, how coaches who were brought in as turnaround specialists performed in the German Soccer League over a season.
Our research results show that leaders can reinvigorate a failing business using team members already in charge, and without large-scale change of direction. We observed that Small C retooling can unlock the full energy of an organization and set the team on the road to success.
The recent Champions League victory of FC Bayern Munich under new head coach Hansi Flick illustrates this powerful lesson.
The dynamics of a comeback: A view from inside
By making the historic treble of winning the Champions League, the German League, and the German Cup all in one season, Flick reached the soccer Olympus in line with manager icons Sir Alex Ferguson, José Mourinho, and “Pep” Guardiola. Indeed, while the aforementioned legends led the superior soccer team at the time through a glory season, Flick took over a struggling soccer club during the season.
German record champion Bayern Munich started with a miserable performance in the 2019-2020 season and had lost sight of what it stood for—success and glory. Its season featured missing results, alarming defensive problems, and struggles to defeat even rather small German clubs like Augsburg, Bochum, and Paderborn.
A historic 5-1 defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt manifested the need for action; the club parted ways with manager Niko Kovač. The Bayern team appointed Flick as new team manager to lead the Bavarians back to success. Flick had worked as an assistant under Kovač and also served with the national team at Germany’s World Cup victory in 2014.
What followed was a terrific turnaround story. The team won 33 of 36 games under Flick’s leadership. In August 2020, only 295 days after Flick took the helm, the team won the world’s most prestigious soccer trophy and made the treble for the second time in club history.
What was Hansi Flick's secret recipe for success? Despite pressure to improve the team’s performance immediately after taking the leadership in Munich, Flick surprisingly made Small C changes instead of major rebuilding efforts. This approach was similar to what coach legend José Mourinho stated when he took the lead at Tottenham: "I don't want to make big changes. I want to respect the base […]. We hope […] it is a plus, an update, not a change. The base is what they did before. This is not about me coming here and saying everything is wrong."
Like Mourinho, Flick did not shuffle players or staff, nor did he reform the playing style or tactical formation. He did not rebuild the club’s facilities as some of his precursors did. For example, Jürgen Klinsmann, a former national team manager of the United States, installed four porcelain Buddha figures for inspiration at the club's training ground before starting in 2008. The Spanish superstar manager Pep Guardiola redesigned the playing philosophy to the successful “tiki-taka-style” as he started in 2013. Neither won the Champions League with the Bavarians.
Flick only added three substitutions to his roster, 40 percent fewer changes than his fellow turnaround coaches made that season. Only one of eight coaching positions changed when a new assistant coach replaced the departing brother of the former team manager.
Instead of restarting with a new strategy, as more than 70 percent of the coaches did, Flick kept the team’s existing game plan. Like his predecessor, Flick built a 4-5-1 formation with a lot of speed over both flanks to prepare goals for center-forward Robert Lewandowski.
But Flick did introduce a new style of leadership that pulled the team out of its downward spiral and rekindled its self-confidence.
The large impact of small change in leadership
Any business leader looking to emulate such a turnaround with an existing team can learn five essential lessons about the impact of leadership to bring new success with the same ingredients.
1. Empower your team
With Flick at the helm of Bayern Munich, one small lineup change made a big difference. Flick reduced the number of players rotated in and out of the game, trusting his smaller core to perform to their capabilities independent of individual game results. While Kovač changed on average the position of 5.8 players in the starting 11 compared to the previous game, Flick changed his starting 11 only on 3.5 positions. This strengthened the integration of all players and increased confidence in the young players from their own academy. That trust was repaid with important goals.
In the corporate world, all leadership transitions create uncertainty, so leaders need to empower team members to help them sense they can make a difference. In the end, the team will do the work (on the pitch), not the manager. Instead of questioning everyone and everything in a crisis, leadership should create an atmosphere of trust and confidence.
2. See leadership as teamwork and shared responsibility
Flick is not a loud speaker and does not place himself in the foreground. Instead he believes that “professional soccer is not a one-man show. We have lots of experts on the team who can all be involved. I am a team player, and I have a good connection with the players. I want to motivate them.” Flick relied on the input of his staff and always postulated joint decision-making, where he frequently sought new insights to improve the team. He was willing to learn from the field. In a very modest manner, Flick always shared the recognition of success with the team and his staff.
In challenging times, the team effort is all that counts. A close involvement of those affected in the decision-making process is crucial to achieve a joint turnaround. Business leaders should create opportunities for team members to make an individual contribution and take ownership.
3. Managing individuals and a team
Immediately after taking the lead in Munich, Flick restored the players’ confidence in themselves and in one another. “It’s my job to speak to everyone and point out to them what they’re capable of and what I expect from them,” he said. Flick sought many confidential conversations to restore self-confidence and harmony in the team. Especially in a diverse team of competing players, it was important to him to discuss each individual’s situation and their respective role on the way forward.
In challenging situations, blame and resentment can overtake support and solidarity in business. Teams, however, can only succeed through effective collaboration. New leaders need to replace blame and denial with dialogue and communicate extensively with the team to learn about personal situations. To turn lone fighters into a force, leaders need to convey to each team member the importance of their role and clarify their contribution to the overall objectives. At the end, leaders must master the complex task of putting aside egoisms for the common cause and creating a winning attitude in the team.
4. Trust in experience and institutional knowledge
One of the little changes Flick made in the team’s lineup was to rely on players with long club tenure. Unlike other turnaround coaches who decreased their team’s average tenure by around 10 percent, he increased it by 20 percent. Flick added experience, strong identification, and distinct understanding of the organization to the team to support the young players on the pitch. Two experienced homegrown players became the cornerstones of his team: Thomas Müller and David Alaba. Flick relied on his ability to act as a mediator for the team. Flick’s trust paid off: While Müller did not score any goals at the beginning of the season, he frequently supported his colleagues with 0.7 assists per game as the key player for Munich’s turnaround.
In the corporate world, it is often an obvious choice for incoming managers under pressure to deliver results to identify longstanding employees as representatives of blocked change. However, it is crucial to understand the specifics of an organization in order to act with rigor and precision. Besides their deep knowledge, long-tenured team members can become real gamechangers by mentoring younger colleagues in the demanding situation instead of being impeding roadblocks.
5. Lead by example: servant leadership style
From day one at the helm of Bayern Munich, Flick acted as a humble role model of a team player with “great empathy,” who always “stands for his convictions” as the German world cup coach Joachim Löw characterized. With Flick's servant leadership style, for example, he personally brought stationary bikes to all players at home during the pandemic shutdown. Flick showed himself to be an authentic servant leader, inspiring team members to always contribute the best to the team.
For leaders, it is essential to phase the postulated expectations with their own leadership behavior. Leaders should actively value the needs and contributions of team members and ask themselves: “What can I do for others?” By nature, developing a reputation takes time, but a servant mindset and consistent behavior helps to create trust. Becoming known for inclusiveness and honesty helps others accept change and encourages them to put team success first and personal fame second.
Getting in the game
Sports teams may be smaller in size and complexity than corporations. However, turnarounds in sport teams, organizations, communities, countries, and even in private lives require effective leadership.
Effective leaders who want to bring about a rebound should carefully consider the nature and scope of the changes they are initiating. It is often the Small C change that empowers the team and creates the conditions that lead to great success.
1See Schmidt/Schreyer (2011). In the Line of Fire: Dwell time of Bundesliga coaches and CEOs in Germany: A comparative analysis, ISBS Research Issue 1(2), EBS University, Oestrich Winkel.
About the Authors
Boris Groysberg is the Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Sascha L. Schmidt is Professor and Director of the Center for Sports and Management at WHU—Otto Beisheim School of Management. Sebastian Flegr is a research assistant at WHU—Otto Beisheim School of Management.
[Image: iStockphoto]
Related Reading
- The COVID Two-Step for Leaders: Protect and Pivot
- Good Leadership Is an Act of Kindness
- What the Stockdale Paradox Tells Us About Crisis Leadership
What do great leaders do differently in times of crisis?
Share your insights below.