Prior to the Super Bowl last Sunday, you couldn’t pick up a sports section without reading about the duel between Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time, and Patrick Mahomes, the best quarterback in the game today. But it turns out that the battle between the two big name quarterbacks was much less important than the battle between the Chiefs’ offensive line and the Buccaneers’ defense.
The Chiefs’ offensive line lost its starting tackles (those are the two big guys on the right and left end of the offensive line), forcing them to not only use backup players, but to shift the players into different positions. Perhaps the Chiefs could have survived one of those changes, but together, they sounded the death knell for the Chiefs’ title hopes. Mahomes was pressured on 29 of 56 (52%) of his dropbacks, the most of any quarterback in Super Bowl history. By contrast, Brady was pressured on only 4 of his 30 (13%) dropbacks during the game.
Now, there were all kinds of other problems that doomed the Chiefs: dropped passes, penalties, poor punting, etc. And the Buccaneers played incredibly well. But given just how good Mahomes is, the fact that he seldom had time to throw the ball might have been the biggest factor in their loss.
The lesson for leaders is that the key to your success doesn’t lie (solely) with your stars — the rock star head of sales, the engineering wizard, or even (gasp!) the visionary CEO. Yes, they’re important. But you need to pay attention to the unsexy work done by unsung people in the trenches. Without the people doing the grunt work of cleaning hospital rooms, entering orders, doing preventative maintenance on machines, picking, packing, and shipping boxes, etc., the organization’s stars won’t shine. They’ll be buried, just like Mahomes, with no time to work their magic. And without well-designed processes, these workers can’t do their jobs effectively.
Patrick Mahomes had the best-selling licensed football jersey this year. I’m thinking that next year, Chiefs fans might want to start buying their offensive linemen’s jerseys.
Pay attention to the trenches. That’s where the game is won or lost.