What the Oklahoma City Thunder taught me and my company, Off Madison Ave, about leadership and why your best strategy isn’t a plan. It’s a habit.
In 2022, the Oklahoma City Thunder lost 58 games. Three years later, they were NBA champions with the youngest roster ever to earn the number one seed.
That kind of trajectory doesn’t happen by accident. It doesn’t happen because of a great draft pick or a lucky break. It happens because of culture. Because of leadership. Because of a relentless commitment to getting better every single day. Ron Friedman’s latest research in Harvard Business Review identifies seven practices that define superteam leaders here’s how I see them playing out in the real world. HBR piece here → The findings should stop every leader in their tracks. Here’s what I took away and how it maps to what I’ve seen in 25+ years of building teams across industries, boardrooms, and boom-and-bust cycles.
“The best teams don’t have the best plans. They have the best habits.”
The Problem Most Leaders Don’t See Coming
Most teams don’t fail dramatically. They fade quietly.
They find something that works. They stop experimenting. They stop asking hard questions. And slowly, without anyone realizing it, they start going through the motions. The HBR research drawn from more than 6,000 knowledge workers across industries from healthcare to finance to tech identified what it calls “superteams.” These aren’t just high performers. They are teams that keep getting better, even after they’ve achieved success.
That distinction matters enormously.
Because sustained performance isn’t about talent. It’s about learning velocity. Superteams experiment nearly 50% more often than their average peers. Not because they’re reckless but because they’ve built a culture where trying new things is expected, rewarded, and safe. That’s not a strategy. That’s a mindset. And it starts at the top.
The Seven Practices. The One Thread.
The HBR research surfaced seven practices that define superteam leaders. I want to highlight the ones that resonate most with, what I’ve seen and lived in building Off Madison Ave and coaching leaders across the globe.
Practice 01
Run More Experiments
The best leaders don’t wait for proof before they try something new. They make experimentation a habit and they make failure an acceptable outcome of that habit. Reid Hoffman literally challenged his LinkedIn team to fail 15% of the time. That’s not recklessness. That’s permission to grow.
Practice 02
Make Curiosity Contagious
Leaders of superteams are 56% more likely to ask thoughtful questions of their people. Not because they don’t have answers but because they know the best answers often come from unexpected places. Intellectual humility isn’t weakness. It’s the strongest leadership signal you can send.
Practice 03
Ask the One Question Most Leaders Avoid
“What are you stuck on?”
Three words. Massive impact. That question doesn’t just surface problems it normalizes vulnerability. It tells your team that asking for help is a sign of engagement, not failure. The research shows superteam leaders are 43% more likely to guide conversations toward the obstacles that actually matter.
Practice 04
Roll Up Your Sleeves
The best leaders don’t disappear once the plan is made. They stay close to the work. Not to micromanage but to model. When your team sees you willing to do the hard, unglamorous work, something shifts. Accountability becomes shared. Collaboration deepens.
Brian Chesky learned this the hard way during Airbnb’s pandemic crisis. The lesson? Detachment breeds drift.
Practice 05
Make Feedback Feel Like Support
Here’s a sobering stat: A meta-analysis of more than 600 studies found that in over a third of cases, feedback not only fails to improve performance it actually makes it worse. The difference between feedback that builds and feedback that breaks? Safety. When people feel safe, feedback becomes data. When they feel threatened, it becomes noise.
Practice 06
Invest in Growth Even When It Doesn’t Benefit You
The leaders of superteams support their people’s growth even when that growth might take them somewhere else. This isn’t altruistic, it’s strategic. Workers on superteams are three times more likely to stay in touch with their manager after leaving. Those relationships become referral networks, talent pipelines, and communities of trust.
Practice 07
Lead with Meaning, Not Just Metrics
The Thunder didn’t just build a basketball team. They built an identity connected to the resilience of Oklahoma City itself. Every new player and staff member visits the Oklahoma City National Memorial upon arrival. That ritual connects culture to values and values to performance.
In our research, leaders of superteams were 59% more effective at helping their teams understand why their work matters. Purpose isn’t a perk. It’s a performance driver.
What This Means for You
I’ve spent the last 25 years building teams and getting it wrong as often as I’ve gotten it right. What the HBR research confirms is something I’ve believed for a long time:
Leadership is not about having the right answers. It’s about building the right conditions.
Conditions where people feel safe to try. Safe to fail. Safe to ask for help. And deeply connected to why the work matters. That’s the culture that builds a superteam. Not a single hire, a strategic plan, or a team offsite.
IF YOU WANT TO BENCHMARK YOUR OWN TEAM HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS I’D START WITH:
- When did your team last try something genuinely new and fail at it without consequence?
- Does your team know what they’re stuck on? More importantly, do you?
- Can every person on your team articulate why their work matters beyond themetrics?
If you can’t answer those questions with confidence, that’s not a talent problem. That’s a culture problem. And culture is always a leadership problem first.
“Accountability isn’t pressure, it’s trust. And trust is built in the small, daily habits of how you lead.”
The Work Conquers All
Engraved inside every Oklahoma City Thunder championship ring are two words from Oklahoma’s state motto: Labor omnia vincit. Work conquers all.
Not talent. Not luck. Not a brilliant strategy.
Work. Discipline. Continuous improvement. And leaders willing to model all three.
That’s the formula. It’s not glamorous. But it’s the one that wins championships and builds organizations that outlast any single season.