The Three Pillars of Commercial Success: Unconventional Strategies that Redefine Winning in Agriculture

Harnessing Asymmetric Insights, Compound Gains, and Powerful Stories to Transform Your Business...

*I apologize for the delay on the release of this article, there were technical difficulties that kept me from releasing it. In the future, blogs will be sent at 8am CST every Thursday.

“If you can't be unconventional, be obtuse. Be deliberately obtuse, because there are 5 billion people out there thinking in train tracks, and thinking what they have been taught to think.” - James Dyson

Herb Brooks wasn’t anyone’s first choice to coach the U.S. Men’s Hockey team in the 1980 Olympic games. Though he had led the University of Minnesota to national championship victories in 1974, 1976, and 1979, Brooks was known for an abrasive coaching style, leading most of the U.S. hockey establishment to initially conclude that he was not the right fit for the job. But after the selection committee’s initial choices fell through, they decided to invite Brooks for an interview. It was his vision for the team that changed their minds.

He told the selection committee that if they were going to compete with the best teams in the world such as Finland, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, and Russia, they would have to completely change their approach to the game. At the time, U.S. Hockey was primarily concerned with avoiding international embarrassment. They weren’t really thinking about winning; they were strategizing about the best ways to mitigate what they saw as the team’s inevitable demise. The primary problem was the Soviet Union. The Russians had dominated international hockey for the last 20 years and were, without a doubt, the best team in the world. They took home Olympic gold medals in 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976. In 1979, the United States put their best professional players from the National Hockey League head to head with the Soviets and lost decisively. Everybody assumed that unrestrained dominance would inevitably continue into the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York. Everyone, that is, except Herb Brooks.

Brooks told the committee at U.S. Hockey that he intended to beat the Russian team by changing the way the team trained and prepared leading up to the Olympics. Everyone was skeptical, but they were willing to give Brooks a shot. He was selected as coach in June of 1979. By August, he had picked his team of players, and in September, they began an audacious 60-game tour across the United States and Europe, playing in exhibition games against professional and collegiate teams wherever they went.

The team basically performed on par with expectations in exhibition, but that wasn’t saying much. As the Olympics approached, very few people thought the team stood much of a chance. A position further justified by a resounding Soviet victory over the United States in a last-minute exhibition game at Madison Square Garden in New York City just before the olympic games began. The Russians demoralized the American team, winning 10-3. But then something incredible happened.

In the first game of Olympic play, the United States came from behind to tie Sweden, considered one of the top three teams in the world. In the second game, the Americans shocked top-ranked Czechoslovakia, winning 7-3. They similarly defeated Norway in game three and Romania in game four, 5-1 and 7-2, respectively. In their fifth game, the United States defeated West Germany 4-2 to advance to the medal round, where they would face off against the Soviet Union. This is the game that would become known to history as the “Miracle on Ice.” The U.S. team defeated the heavily favored Russian team 4-3 on a goal midway through the final period of play by team captain Mike Eruzione. In the Gold Medal game two days later, the United States again came from behind to defeat Finland, 4-2. The American team had exploded onto the world stage, like a quasar ripping across the night sky, and it all started with Herb Brooks and the changes he made to the way his team played the game of hockey.

But what were those changes? And how did they have such an incredible impact? How does a team of college athletes go from being average to the best in the world in the span of two weeks? And what can their experience teach us about the way we run and market our businesses in modern agriculture?