The Iron Shot Before the Three-Putt

I spent much of this weekend doing what sports fans do best: seeing reasons to believe, even when the evidence suggested I should be a little more careful.

First golf. The International team had given me plenty of encouragement at the Presidents Cup. With a South African in the side, I had skin in the game, and I was rooting for them to upset a formidable American team. For three days, they played with the commitment and cohesion you need when the opposition has so much individual talent. They built up a nice lead. But not nice enough. In the team formats, the US team always struggles. History tells us that in the final day singles, the Americans will haul you in. The Americans came back to win 17–13, ultimately a predictable result… and almost three decades will pass before the Internationals have another sniff in a lopsided contest.

Then the Springboks lost 42–38 to Australia in Perth in a chaotic but entertaining match. I had just watched us beat the All Blacks 3–1 in a series, and part of me wanted to carry that confidence straight into the next match. But Rassie had made 13 changes to the starting side. Giving more players an opportunity may serve a longer plan, yet it also changes what you can reasonably expect from the team on that particular day. I love Canaan Moodie, mind you. But in Australia, we lose more than we win against the Wallabies. Also, they came into the match on a five-game unbeaten run. I could support the Boks and still admit those facts mattered. Apparently, I chose to do the first part with more enthusiasm.

Both results left me with a question that applies well beyond sport: are you playing a team game or an individual one? The Internationals showed what a committed group can do together against stronger names. The Boks showed that having talented people available does not automatically mean they will perform like a settled team. Neither observation explains every moment of either match, but both make me think about the businesses we build around a few exceptional individuals, often including the founder. And how our blind belief in what we are doing can make us ignore the data.

In The Four Principles, Adrian Gore puts disciplined optimism first. I like the tension in those two words. We are quick to notice threats, setbacks and the one comment in a meeting that sounded slightly off. Finding possibility takes work. But discipline also means examining a hopeful story when the evidence starts to challenge it. Optimism gives us a reason to keep looking for a way forward; data helps us see where that way might actually be.

Sport exposes how selective we can be. When I support a team, I can build a compelling case from a brilliant passage of play and quietly file the less convenient evidence under “details to discuss after the final whistle.” Founders can do much the same. We have invested time, money and identity in a strategy, a product or a person. We remember the customer who loved it. We explain away the three who stopped buying. The more of ourselves we

put into a decision, the harder it becomes to ask whether it's still working.

Sam Walton offers a useful model here. As told in his autobiography and on the Founders podcast, he kept visiting stores, studying competitors and learning from what he saw on the floor. He was looking for signals that could help him improve the business, including ideas he had not thought of himself. That is optimism with its sleeves rolled up.

I got a smaller lesson in the same principle on the golf course this weekend. I shot 86, including six three-putts. The obvious conclusion is that I need to practise my putting. But all six started from very long positions off the green, which raises a second possibility: perhaps my iron play left the putter with far too much work. It may be both. If I only look at the three-putt column, though, I might spend the next month fixing the symptom while continuing to create it.

A business number can mislead us in exactly that way. A weak close rate might point to the salesperson, or to the quality of leads entering the pipeline. Slow delivery might be an execution problem, or the result of every decision waiting for the founder. The useful question is not merely: what went wrong? It is: what produced the result, and what evidence would tell us we are improving?

PG’s Pro Tip: Look for green shoots, then test them

This week, I would do three things. First, choose one result you care about, such as sales conversion, repeat business or the time it takes your team to make a decision. Second, look one step upstream for what may be producing it, the business equivalent of the iron shot before the three-putt. Third, find one positive signal worth developing and one fact that could prove your current explanation wrong. Speak to a customer or walk through the work with your team before deciding what to change.

If you want a starting point, use this prompt with ChatGPT:

I run a business that [describe your business]. The result I want to improve is [result]. Here are the figures and observations I have: [paste them]. Here is my current explanation: [explanation]. Help me identify three possible causes, including one that challenges my assumption. Tell me what data or customer conversations would distinguish between them, what positive signals I may be overlooking, and one small change I could test over the next 30 days. Do not treat my explanation as a fact.

I am also getting ready to launch my new book, Freeing Founders. It uses the Springbok–All Black rivalry to explore a question I keep encountering in business: what happens when the founder’s talent becomes the very thing the company depends on too heavily? The book is about building the leaders and systems that allow the business to play as a team, even when its strongest individual is off the field. More on that soon, and DM me if you want to be an alpha reader for the online PUB file (you will need to do candid feedback as part of the deal).

For now, I am going to look more closely at those six three-putts. My putter would appreciate a fair hearing.