Systems thinking: The Legacy of Steve Belichick.

Steve Belichick, father of NFL super coach Bill, was considered a genius because of his obsession with outlining every single move a player made. In fact, the Patriots not only scout opponents this way, but their own team! This is the untold secret of New England’s amazing success. This was Steve Belichicks Legacy.

“Do not permit your interest to be aroused to the point that you become a spectator. This will hinder, and often prevent you from obtaining essential information.”

Steve Belichick

Think of systems as processes.

In manufacturing operations, it is standard procedure to count steps to create efficiency. Like football scouts, they will watch every move an employee makes in their part of the process trying to eliminate steps and save time. (Money)

Few if any small businesses do this systematically.

When Bob Kraft bought the New England Patriots, the city of Boston hardly cared. A baseball and basketball town, Boston would just have assumed that the Patriots moved. In fact, they were prepared to move to Hartford.

Today, the Patriots are the most profitable franchise in the NFL and one of the most successful in the world. Bob Kraft’s secret is his coach. Steve Belichick’s son, Bill.

In an interview with one of the Patriots wide receivers, the interviewer asked, “what’s the secret to the Patriots success.” The player did not blink. He said, “Here when they tell you to run a nine-yard route, you run nine yards. If you run eight or ten, they cut you.”

My first experience with this form of efficiency was before Bill Belichick started coaching.

In the 80’s, I worked in the oil industry. I worked in Abu Dhabi, the Empty Quarter and in Texas, but most of the work was in Saudi Arabia.

I worked with a German from Bremen named Helmuth. In the north there was an oilfield called Safaniyah Inland. It was a field that produced very heavy oil and our job was to perforate. Perforating is shooting a series of guns 4,000 feet underground that cut small one-inch holes in the well casing so the oil could seep in.

Helmuth and I worked on a bonus system. I got 2% of the ticket as the lead engineer and Helmuth got 1%. We could shoot as many holes in the casing as we wanted but the rule was, we could only set off charges during daylight.

And Helmuth LOVED money.

Dollars, Deutsche marks, drachma’s, yen, if he could spend it, he wanted it.

On a normal job, the ticket would be between $20,000 and $25,000. I would get $400 to $500 a day and he would get half that. That was serious chicken in 1986. (We also got a salary.)

But Helmuth was crazy.

As you can imagine, even in the states, with an army of safety engineers, it was dangerous. In 110-degree Saudi Arabia, with barely literate Pakistani operators, it was near suicidal.

Our challenge was not working faster, it was working faster without have the guns accidentally go off on the surface. They were armed with blasting caps. All it took was a spark to set them off.

Like Belichick, Helmuth drew out a diagram of the challenge.

He did not so much want to do it faster, as in doing twice as many shots per run. Even though I technically did not work on the rig, I did when we perforated. Hell, I would shovel manure with a teaspoon for $800 a day.

Helmuth oversaw arming the guns. I oversaw setting them in the rig. The Pakistani’s jobs were to run the guns back and forth to the rig.

We made the system safe by turning off any electrical device we had. That included the generator, the trucks, even the radios. Nothing was turned on until the gun was 1,000 feet into the hole and as safe as safe could be.

The last gun went off when the sunset and we stopped working and hour later. We immediately rigged down and went to the next hole.

To make a long story short, after one month’s work, I went on vacation in Monaco to see the Grand Prix and Helmuth bought his wife a car. And that was one month.

The point is though, every job we did we did more efficiently.

I was the manager. My job was to make sure nobody got killed, the Pakistani’s were not worked too hard, as they had the most physical jobs and to make sure we put the holes in the right depth.

But Helmuth’s obsession was in making every day a little more efficient than the last. I overpaid the Pakistani’s absurdly, but they were family men and became almost folk heroes in their families. The company never said anything about my paying 24-hour days because the tickets were absurd.,

But more importantly, it was fun.

We were exhausted, filthy, and beat up and… happy.

Your job as manager is the same. You do not need to create the efficiency. Your employees can do that. You just must find a way to incentivize it and manage it.

It is not easy, which is why no team has ever matched the success of the Patriots, but has any other team tried?

Bill Belichicks model is simple. Anybody can do it. Few do.

It involves COACHING. When I was younger, I used to coach pitchers. (Girls softball) Unlike boys who are limited in the number of pitches they can throw, girls (underhand) can throw all day. Because of that, pitching at the University level is incredibly technical and competitive. Each pitch, a curveball, rise ball, screw ball, involves choreography as precise as you would see in ballet. The pitcher had to jump a certain distance depending on the pitch. They must jump a certain number of inches to the left or right of an imaginary line and every pitch involves a different wrist snap.

Great pitchers practice nearly every day 11 months a year.

If you have ever watched Bill Belichicks teams, every player is drilled incessantly in the same way, and it has totally changed the way the game is played. Players todays spend tens of thousands of dollars of their own money in footwork camps where the spend hours on end doing dancing drills. For every drill and offensive player does, the defensive player does the opposite.

But remember, these are millionaires!

I guarantee you, VERY FEW companies execute this way. This is especially true in sales and marketing companies. Sales teams are given sales scrips they routinely ignore. They are given lists of people to follow up with that they throw out. They come in late, leave early and take extensive lunch breaks.

Many companies have scripted greetings for their front desk people. They are rarely used.

When Bill Belichick first started in coaching with the Patriots, he had a defensive back named Ty Law. This is his comment on Belichick.

“This guy came in and told me everything I was doing was wrong. I had been to three pro bowls! I was the best defensive back in the NFL.”

Ty Law listened to Belichick and won a Super Bowl, but don not even fantasize that your employees will be as coachable as Ty Law!  They will routinely ignore you.

The secrets to successful implementation of the Belichick model.

I will outline a few guidelines but it’s better if you design the system yourself. Only you will know the processes you have and personalities of the people you employ. (Not to mention your customers)

Map out your process in detail.

• Map each process separately. Steve Belichick had a map for each formation.
• Use as much detail as necessary without falling into the engineers’ trap… making it too complex to be implemented.
• Give weightings to each step in the process based on importance. For example, assembly, setting up the workstation is critical. Mapping out where each tool goes may not be.
• It’s probably not a great idea to dictate this to employees. If they are doing the job, they’ll have important feedback.
• Be non-emotional. Like Steve Belichick says, don’t be a fan. Something either works or it doesn’t. Whose idea it is doesn’t make a hill of beans.

One last thing…

In systems engineering, theories are not important. What’s important is what works and to really know that everything must be counted. If your plan is to save time, count time. If your plan is to save money, count money.

Your biggest enemy is rigidity. You’ll see this mentioned all over this website and in many of Landon Fillmore’s publications. You may also see it called “stabilization” or “stabilizing factors.”

Rigidity is the inability to change, adapt an evolve. If you have employees that won’t change, adapt, and evolve, they’ll probably have to go.