Paying It Forward: Playbooks make it easy #160
Winning teams do not rely on heroics; they rely on shared playbooks that align effort and speed decisions under pressure. Such systems respect successors and compound results.
Jack Browne, Wichita Falls Times Record News
Sunday, April 12, 2026
Anyone who has ever coached a team knows how hard it is to get everyone moving in the same direction at the same time.
The lesson you learn early, often the hard way, is that you never win or lose alone. Success is shared. Failure is shared. What matters is whether the team understands that reality before the game starts.
Both of my sons played soccer. My youngest was a goalie, which means every mistake is public. When the other team scored, he took it personally, like a referendum on his own ability.
I kept reminding him — the other team did not beat you — they beat every player on your team.
They advanced the ball past midfield. They created space. They made the final move. The goal might show up in one place on the field, but it was created across the entire system.
That is how teams work. Offense gets the headlines because it scores. Defense keeps you in the game long enough to matter. One without the other collapses.
Watching the NCAA tournament this week brought that lesson back into focus.
A recent Wall Street Journal profile of UConn coach Dan Hurley described a leader obsessed with structure. His teams run deep, detailed playbooks. Each player knows exactly what is expected in every scenario. The repetition is relentless. The goal is not creativity in the moment. The goal is speed and certainty under pressure.
When the plays are internalized, opponents struggle to adapt. They cannot build a defensive plan that holds for forty minutes because the system keeps coming.
Even so, execution still decides outcomes. UConn jumped out early in the title game, then stumbled. Michigan adjusted, held the lead, and finished stronger.
The lesson is not that playbooks guarantee wins. The lesson is that without a playbook, you are relying on improvisation when the stakes are highest.
The same dynamic shows up in competitive industries.
The companies that consistently win are not winging it. They invest in shared language, shared process, and continuous training.
They move faster not because they are smarter in the moment, but because they already agreed on how decisions get made.
I was fortunate to learn this lesson decades ago from my late friend Alan Kelly. In the late 1980s, he taught me how to think about playmaking and the strategy of influence.
He went on to publish his playmaking strategy in a book, The Elements of Influence (with additional writings available from a web search1). Years later, he advised John McCain on strategy during his 2008 presidential run.
Alan believed influence was not a personality trait. It was a system. He defined three phases in any influence effort: assess, condition, and engage. Within those phases, he outlined twenty-four distinct plays that guide how you work with collaborators, compete against alternatives, and help a customer or constituent reach a decision.
Those plays were not abstract theory. They were practical tools. In the assess phase, you test assumptions. In conditioning, you divert attention, frame the problem, or freeze the conversation in a way that aligns people around a shared solution. In the engage phase, you press for action, preempt objections, or provoke momentum.
When the system works, decisions feel natural instead of forced. Everyone understands the game that is being played.
Now bring this down to earth. Think about your business, your nonprofit, or the volunteer work you care about. How do you engage competitors for attention, funding, or support.
Most of us operate with a loose bundle of habits. We do what worked last time. We train new hires from static documents and hope experience fills in the gaps.
Compare that to nonprofit work. You volunteer to lead a fundraiser and suddenly everyone is looking at you for answers.
Often there is no playbook. No record of last year’s sponsors. No list of suppliers. No notes on what worked and what failed.
You are expected to recreate success from memory and goodwill while the clock is already running.
I learned a better approach from another board member years ago. The Junior League of Wichita Falls passes down a set of functional notebooks to the subsequent board.
These contained lessons learned, contacts, timelines, and traps to avoid. That simple practice turned each event into a repeatable system instead of a one-time scramble. Every handoff mattered.
Without that continuity, you end up racing with one or both hands tied behind your back. You burn energy rediscovering what is already known. You miss opportunities to deepen relationships.
And at the end of the event, you forget the most important play of all, closing the loop with gratitude and purpose.
A recent full-page ad from United Supermarkets captured that idea perfectly. Easter greetings. Gratitude. Stores closed for one day so employees can be with their families.
A reminder that when you know who you are and how you operate, even small gestures reinforce trust.
Playbooks are not about control for its own sake. They are about respect for the people who come after you.
Leaving a system behind makes winning together more likely the next time the game is played.
Jack Browne is a community activist and former technology executive who believes in the power of connection, service, and lifelong learning.
An Evolution in Influence: The Playmaker Influence Decision System 2.0 August 2012
https://web.archive.org/web/20170203003127/http://www.playmakersystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/SSIS_2.0_Whitepaper_vZc.pdf