We Run Best at the End

In his book Good To Great, Jim Collins illustrates the need for strategy by telling about a high school track team who made the transition from good to great. Over a five year period, the school went from a top twenty state team to one which contended for state championships on both the boys’ and girls’ teams. When asked how they were able to be so consistently great the coach replied, "I don't get it," said one of the coaches. "Why are we so successful? We don't work any harder than other teams. And what we do is just so simple. Why does it work?"

He was referring to their simple strategy. They have drilled into their teams’ heads this phrase: “We run best at the end.” They build that strategy into everything: They emphasize running best at the end of workouts, at the end of races, and even at the end of the season when it counts the most. Everything is geared to this simple idea. That idea is even genetic to their coaching.

For example, they place a coach at the 2-mile mark of a 3.1 mile race to collect data as the runners go by, then they calculate, not how fast the runners go, but how many competitors they pass at the end of the race, from mile two to the finish. The kids learn how to pace themselves and race with confidence. “We run best at the end,” they think at the end of a hard race, “so if I’m hurting bad, then my competitors must hurt a whole lot worse!”

They win consistently because they are so intentional about following a winning strategy