I was watching some old footage of my favorite club’s championship run last night, and it got me thinking about this weird, cyclical pattern we see in sports. There is this specific type of madness that takes over a fanbase—and a board of directors—the second things feel "settled." It’s like we have this collective itch to disrupt stability, even when that stability has actually yielded results.
I remember back in my early twenties, I was a die-hard supporter of a team that was finally, *finally* finding its rhythm. We had a manager who had spent three years building a cohesive squad. We weren't the biggest club, but we were punching above our weight. Then, out of nowhere, the board decided that "good" wasn't "great" enough. They pulled the plug on a guy who had just delivered exactly what the fans were asking for, all in the name of "evolving the vision." We spent the next two seasons in a chaotic revolving door of managers, none of whom understood the culture that had been built, and we ended up right back where we started, but with less money and more resentment.
It feels like there’s a fundamental misunderstanding in modern management about the value of continuity. There is this pervasive, almost toxic, idea that if you aren't constantly chasing a higher ceiling, you're actually falling. But in professional sports—and honestly, I think this applies to business and life in general—the "ceiling" is often a moving target that stays just out of reach. If you keep swapping out the architect every time the house is nearly finished, you’re never going to actually live in it. You just end up with a pile of half-finished construction and a lot of wasted capital.
What really gets me is the timing. We see these sudden, jarring shifts that happen almost overnight. One day everything is celebratory, the next day there's a press release about a "new direction." It feels incredibly reactive. It’s as if the decision-makers are terrified of standing still. They mistake momentum for stagnation. They think that by bringing in someone fresh—someone who hasn't been "tainted" by the previous regime's philosophy—they can somehow shortcut the process of building something meaningful. But you can't shortcut chemistry. You can't shortcut the rapport between a leader and a group of people who have bled for the same cause.
I also wonder about the psychological toll this takes on the players and the staff. How do you maintain any sense of belief in a long-term project when you know the floor could drop out from under you at any moment? It creates this culture of survivalism rather than a culture of excellence. Instead of focusing on the next match or the next incremental improvement, everyone is looking over their shoulder, wondering if the person in charge is about to be replaced by someone with a completely different playbook.
It makes me cynical about the word "progress." We use it as a shield to justify impulsive decisions. We say we are "moving forward," but often we are just spinning in circles, discarding hard-won lessons because they don't fit the new guy's aesthetic. I truly believe that the hardest part of leadership isn't finding a new direction—it's having the courage to stay the course when things are working, even if they aren't perfect.
Is it just me, or has the "new manager bounce" become more of a desperate myth we tell ourselves to justify these sudden shifts? Do you think there’s ever a legitimate reason to dump a successful leader, or is it almost always just ego and short-term thinking?
I remember back in my early twenties, I was a die-hard supporter of a team that was finally, *finally* finding its rhythm. We had a manager who had spent three years building a cohesive squad. We weren't the biggest club, but we were punching above our weight. Then, out of nowhere, the board decided that "good" wasn't "great" enough. They pulled the plug on a guy who had just delivered exactly what the fans were asking for, all in the name of "evolving the vision." We spent the next two seasons in a chaotic revolving door of managers, none of whom understood the culture that had been built, and we ended up right back where we started, but with less money and more resentment.
It feels like there’s a fundamental misunderstanding in modern management about the value of continuity. There is this pervasive, almost toxic, idea that if you aren't constantly chasing a higher ceiling, you're actually falling. But in professional sports—and honestly, I think this applies to business and life in general—the "ceiling" is often a moving target that stays just out of reach. If you keep swapping out the architect every time the house is nearly finished, you’re never going to actually live in it. You just end up with a pile of half-finished construction and a lot of wasted capital.
What really gets me is the timing. We see these sudden, jarring shifts that happen almost overnight. One day everything is celebratory, the next day there's a press release about a "new direction." It feels incredibly reactive. It’s as if the decision-makers are terrified of standing still. They mistake momentum for stagnation. They think that by bringing in someone fresh—someone who hasn't been "tainted" by the previous regime's philosophy—they can somehow shortcut the process of building something meaningful. But you can't shortcut chemistry. You can't shortcut the rapport between a leader and a group of people who have bled for the same cause.
I also wonder about the psychological toll this takes on the players and the staff. How do you maintain any sense of belief in a long-term project when you know the floor could drop out from under you at any moment? It creates this culture of survivalism rather than a culture of excellence. Instead of focusing on the next match or the next incremental improvement, everyone is looking over their shoulder, wondering if the person in charge is about to be replaced by someone with a completely different playbook.
It makes me cynical about the word "progress." We use it as a shield to justify impulsive decisions. We say we are "moving forward," but often we are just spinning in circles, discarding hard-won lessons because they don't fit the new guy's aesthetic. I truly believe that the hardest part of leadership isn't finding a new direction—it's having the courage to stay the course when things are working, even if they aren't perfect.
Is it just me, or has the "new manager bounce" become more of a desperate myth we tell ourselves to justify these sudden shifts? Do you think there’s ever a legitimate reason to dump a successful leader, or is it almost always just ego and short-term thinking?