Your arms race
If you're engaging in a neck and neck battle for supremacy, it's entirely possible you've lost track of the purpose of the work you set out to do in the first place.
Consider recent stats about college sports:
- A coach who makes $6.9 million dollars a year
- A weight training coach who makes more than $6,000 a week
- A dozen non-profit universities spending more than $100,000,000 a year (each) on their athletic programs
What's it for? If winning is the point, and winning can be purchased with money that's available, then I guess it makes sense.
But often, winning is a proxy for something else. I think it makes sense to figure out what that is before you spend a nickel. Does spending ten times as much give you ten times as much of what you set out to create in the first place? Is bigger the goal? Is first place the only way to get to where you're going?
"You have to continue to move forward. The moment you decide to stand still, the rest of the industry goes by you very quickly." The industry in discussion is college sports, and that's one athletic director's take.
Not just college, not just sports. When in doubt, try not to turn your mission into an industry. It's distracting. What are you giving up in order to win a game you didn't sign up for in an industry you don't need to dominate?
Better to do the work that's worth doing.