I am a huge Chicago Cubs fan. I have been since I picked up a glove and bat
when I was 5. My mom is an equally
devoted fan, as her mom was. The Chicago
Cubs are intertwined in the roots of our family tree, going back multiple
generations. I even named my puppy,
Wrigley, after the ballpark where the Chicago Cubs play, Wrigley field.
The devotion, as a fan to the Chicago Cubs has been
questioned by some for many years. The
nickname “Loveable Losers” was attached to the Chicago Cubs. As a fan you would hear about the curse of
the goat and that it has been over a 100 years since a championship. The losing became the identity of being a
part of the Chicago Cubs, either as a fan or a player.
The fate of each season seemed to be pre-written every
year. There was one constant similarity during
all the years of losing. The
ownership. The ownership accepted the
losing and I believe actually enjoyed the identity of a “Lovable Loser.” Every year, the same philosophy and the same
processes were in place that resulted in the same results. Losing.
Over and over and over again. For
108 years. The culture of losing became
the norm. The pattern of losing
continued not because of the curse of the goat or because of bad luck. It continued because nothing changed.
A new owner purchased the Chicago Cubs in 2009, Tom Ricketts. Tom Ricketts, who grew up a Chicago Cubs fan,
tolerated the losing for many years and experienced first-hand the “Lovable
Loser” culture. He confronted the
culture of losing and at the highest level demanded change. The change began when he trusted the baseball
decisions to a known winner, Theo Epstein in 2011. In his opening press conference, Theo Epstein
who recently built a similar losing franchise to a winner, The Boston Red Sox,
had this to say, "I don't believe in curses, (and) I guess I
played a small part in proving they don't exist, from a baseball
standpoint," Epstein said. "I do think we can be honest and upfront
that certain organizations haven't gotten the job done. That's the approach we
took in Boston. We identified certain things that we hadn't been doing well,
that might have gotten in the way of a World Series, and eradicated them.
That's what we'll do here." Theo Epstein knew the reasons for years of
losing was that the Chicago Cubs kept doing the same thing over and over again
and expected different results. He also
said, "When I
got to Boston they hadn't won in 86 years. We didn't run from that challenge.
We embraced it," Epstein said. "We decided the way to attack it was
to build the best baseball operation that we could, to try to establish a
winning culture, to work as hard as possible and to bring in players who care
more about each other and more about winning than the people around them
thought or the external expectations, the external mindset. That's something
that is going to be important to us here as well.” He knew that they had to change the culture of losing
and he had to put in place new processes and people that produced positive
results in a variety of baseball operational areas.
Fast forward 5 years and the Chicago Cubs experienced their
first World Series Championship since 1908.
The World Series championship never would have occurred without the
changes that was made at the highest level.
The owner, Tom Ricketts and the President of Baseball Operations, Theo
Epstein confronted the culture of losing by changing. They were honest in their evaluation of
themselves and made the necessary changes in hiring, training, drafting and
managing of the Chicago Cubs. These
changes occurred throughout all levels of the organization. We can learn from the story of the Chicago
Cubs in our personal life and in our business life. If the direction you are going in isn’t
resulting in positive results, change. Even
if the changes can be painful. Don’t
wait 108 years like the Chicago Cubs to do so though. Most of us don’t have that long.
