What It Takes to Win. (What We Can Learn From the Stanley Cup)

We are in that time of the year again when hockey is on almost every night. Every game is played with incredible intensity; every loose puck is fought hard over, and every square foot of ice is battled for. The winning team must win 4 games from a near equally matched and equally determined rival, just for the opportunity of going on to the next round. Only one team can win the Stanley Cup, and to do it, they need to win four rounds, a total of 16 fiercely contested games. In my opinion, it’s the hardest prize to win in professional team sports.

Here's what we as manufacturers can learn from the playoffs: the team with the best offense and the best defense, and the best coaching, usually wins.

Put another way, to be the winning team, you need a good offense, a good defense, the right strategy, and great coaching.

Take any one of these away, and you are likely a runner up. Take two of them away, and you are an early round exit. Take away three of them, and you didn’t even make the playoffs.

Manufacturing is facing some grueling challenges of its own, and to ‘win’, requires the same ingredients: a strong offense, sound defense, a strategy that fits the situation and the team, and coaching to bring out the best in the players on the team.

Defense strategies include things like cash conservation, key customer retention and key personnel retention.

Offense strategies include sales and marketing efforts, identifying new products for existing customers, new potential customers for existing products, and increasing the company’s core capabilities.

Some strategies are both offense and defense, including improving productivity and efficiency, and upskilling yourself, your company, and your team members. Improving productivity and efficiency can give you a cost advantage, helping you win more business, or generate more profit on the business you do have. Upskilling yourself, your company and your team members, is a great way to invest in your own future and put the company in the best position to compete in the long term.

Each playoff round is like a small crisis, and a crisis is too important a thing to waste. Once the opportunity is lost, its lost forever. The 2024 cup was already awarded, as was the 2023 cup, and every cup before that. The only thing that can be won at this point, is the current round you’re playing, and to win that one, you need a good offense and defense.

Strategies should be designed to meet the specific challenges faced. In challenging times, (or when you are preparing for the next playoff round), every company would do well to identify three or four distinct strategies for their offense and defense. And after that, it’s a matter of execution and coaching.

Situational awareness is key. There’s no sense in coming up with strategies that don’t  match the team you have, or you don’t have the resources to do, or doesn’t get the right things done to win. You need to be aware of your team’s current capabilities, and the specifics details of the challenges you face, including the market, the competition, what most importantly, what your customers value the most.

Your team's coach needs a good sense of what the team may be capable of when encouraged, supported and stretched a bit, and where you want your team (company) to be in the future. All those things are part of situational awareness, and its key to successful coaching.

At this point in the season (the playoffs), its important to remember the difference between ‘coaching’ and ‘consulting’. Coaching connects directly with execution and players’ performance. Consultants are helpful defining strategies, (or retooling the team for the next year), but it’s the coaches’ job to help the players prepare now, train now, to be their best and play their best now, and play cohesively as a team for the entire series. The players ultimately win the games, but it’s usually the best coached teams that win the last game, and the winner of the last game gets the Stanley Cup.

When the 2025 Stanley Cup is awarded in late June, it’s my prediction that the winning team will be the one with the best offense, the best defense, a sound strategy, and the best coaching over the course of the playoffs.

The Stanley Cup is the toughest trophy in all of professional sport to win, and it takes all four things to win; offense, defense, strategy, and coaching.

For more insights on growing sales and thriving in challenging times, contact paul@tpi-3.ca  Be sure to check out other blogs by Paul on sales, marketing, business development and situational awareness.

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