Question Week Two LED Mar (Due 6 Mar)

•

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PERSPECTIVES

Teams in all kinds of

nonbusiness settings—from

stock car racing to wedding

planning to hostage

negotiating—rely on flawless

preparation and execution.

Here’s how they consistently

achieve the highest standards.

When Failure Isn’t an Option

Perspectives from Michael R. Hillman,

Philippe Dongier, Robert P. Murgallis, Mary Khosh,

Elizabeth K. Allen, and Ray Evernham

Reprint R0507C

Teams in all kinds of nonbusiness settings—from stock car racing to

wedding planning to hostage negotiating—rely on flawless preparation

and execution. Here’s how they consistently achieve the highest

standards.

PERSPECTIVES

When Failure Isn’t an Option

Perspectives from Michael R. Hillman,

Philippe Dongier, Robert P. Murgallis, Mary Khosh,

Elizabeth K. Allen, and Ray Evernham

C O P YR IG H T © 2 00 5 H A R V A R D B U SI N E SS S C H O O L P U B LI SH IN G C O R P O R A T IO N . A LL R IG H T S R E SE R V E D .

Some teams, by the very nature of their work, must consistently perform at the highest lev- els. How do you—as a team leader, as a super- visor, as a trainer, or as an outside coach—en- sure that this happens?

To answer that question, we sought out a number of people who have worked with teams in settings where high performance is crucial: Michael Hillmann, deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and com- mander of its Special Operations Bureau, which includes the SWAT team; Philippe Dongier, who headed up a joint United Na- tions/World Bank/Asian Development Bank re- construction team in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban; the National Fire Academy’s Robert Murgallis, who trains firefighting teams; Mary Khosh, the former career coach for players on the Cleveland Browns of the Na- tional Football League; Elizabeth Allen, a plan- ner of society weddings, charity galas, and cor- porate events; and Ray Evernham, who, as a stock-car-racing crew chief, helped driver Jeff Gordon win three NASCAR championships.

The following commentaries—drawn from in- terviews with each of the authors—offer an array of perspectives on developing and man- aging high-performing teams.

The types of teams represented here are very different. Some are ad hoc, formed for a specific task, while others are ongoing, typi- cally improving their performance with each task they undertake. Some have a clearly de- fined leader, while others make decisions more collaboratively. Even when there is a clear hier- archy, some teams require a leader who micro- manages whereas others rely on the individual initiative of their members. The teams may be composed of people with similar or very differ- ent personalities and areas of expertise. And success is measured in very different ways: the buzz of excited conversation and media cover- age generated by a successful society wedding versus the little noticed resolution of a poten- tially explosive situation by a SWAT unit.

For all these teams, however, the stakes are high. And despite their differences, some simi- larities emerge in the ways they achieve top-

harvard business review • the high-performance organization • july–august 2005 page 1

• •When Failure Isn’t an Option • PERSPECTIVES

When a suspect walks

out of a building and

raises a rifle to the head

of a hostage, a SWAT

marksman doesn’t wait

for the command to

shoot.

level performance. For example, selection of team members is crucial—as is a willingness to get rid of members who don’t consistently de- liver outstanding performance. A leader who supports and builds confidence in team mem- bers is also important—and high-performance teams without such a leader will often infor- mally create one. Finally, the stress that defines the work of these teams in itself helps generate peak short-term performance—and poses the constant risk that members will eventually burn out.

Are lessons gleaned from such teams trans- ferable to teams working in other environ- ments? Certainly some of them are: Just ask the U.S. Army, which has studied NASCAR pit crews for ways to reduce the time their mede- vac teams take to get injured soldiers off the battlefield. And even those lessons that aren’t directly transferable may suggest ways to im- prove the achievements of your own high- performance team.

Life-or-Death Tactics by Michael R. Hillmann

Michael R. Hillmann is the deputy chief of the

Los Angeles Police Department and the com- manding officer of the department’s Special Operations Bureau, including the Special Weap-

ons and Tactics (SWAT) team, of which he was one of the earliest members.

On February 28, 1997, three members of our Special Weapons and Tactics team heard over their police radio: “Officer needs help; shots fired.” The call came from North Hollywood, where two suspects—heavily armed with auto- matic weapons and wearing body armor—had held up a Bank of America branch, shooting and injuring a number of people in the process. The SWAT officers, acting on their own initia- tive, drove to the scene and plunged into the thick of a firefight between the suspects and regular police officers already at the scene. As one of the suspects was about to carjack a by- stander’s vehicle, SWAT members shot and killed him and his cohort—thus preventing them from escaping into the surrounding com- munity and doing any further harm.

By contrast, the SWAT unit several weeks ago got a report from the Foothill area that a vehi- cle belonging to a suspected gang member re- cently seen brandishing a firearm was parked at

a residence. A SWAT team, led by their tactical team leader, arrived and systematically evacu- ated the surrounding neighborhood. Although a female leaving the house told SWAT person- nel that no one was in the building, a probe of the exterior by a canine team determined peo- ple were indeed inside. Team members covertly entered the house and, using sophisticated elec- tronic equipment, found the suspect and two others hidden in the attic, along with a stock of handguns. The three men—one of whom, it turned out, was suspected of involvement in several recent homicides—were taken into cus- tody. Not a shot was fired.

These two incidents, one extraordinary and one very typical, together highlight a key char- acteristic of a successful SWAT team: the abil- ity of members both to make quick and coura- geous decisions on their own and to work systematically and methodically as part of a highly coordinated group. When a suspect walks out of a building and raises a rifle to the head of a hostage, a SWAT marksman doesn’t wait for the command to shoot. But if that same suspect has barricaded himself with oth- ers in a building, the team needs to execute a synchronized plan of action, from initiating ne- gotiations to covertly removing door locks to creating a diversion that will draw attention away from colleagues entering the building.

This combination of individual initiative and disciplined teamwork requires a certain type of person, which means that selection of team members is crucial. When the Los Ange- les Police Department formed the nation’s first SWAT team in 1966 in response to a growing number of unusually violent and dangerous situations, it was staffed with volunteers, many of them Vietnam veterans using their own equipment. But in the following years, there were incidents—a deadly shoot-out at 4115 South Central Avenue involving members of the Black Panther Party, a confrontation at 54th and Compton with members of the Sym- bionese Liberation Army during which 9,000 rounds were fired—that made us realize we needed more than a volunteer organization of committed officers. We needed a budget and training and a formal selection process.

Over the years, we’ve developed selection criteria based on a number of key personal traits, including self-discipline, perseverance, maturity, loyalty, and, crucially, the ability to work as part of a team. Officers applying to

harvard business review • the high-performance organization • july–august 2005 page 2

• •When Failure Isn’t an Option • PERSPECTIVES

join the SWAT unit—already screened on the basis of their physical condition and their work record within the LAPD’s elite Metropolitan Division—go through a six-day selection pro- cess. The grueling test includes time in “Hogan’s Alley,” a mock street scene where candidates are confronted with surprise situa- tions in which they must instantly decide, among other things, whether or not to shoot at a suspect. There are obstacle courses designed to test the physical reserves of candidates so that we can see whether they are able to think clearly and make correct decisions when they are exhausted or even hurt. And a series of ex- ercises—for example, a six-mile group orien- teering test over rough terrain—show us whether an individual is a good team player. It’s important to add that the majority of can- didates who don’t make the cut are treated with honor and dignity and their tremendous effort during the six-day trial is acknowledged.

Passing the test doesn’t guarantee a perma- nent place in the 67-member SWAT platoon. If someone fails a physical fitness qualification more than once, he is removed from regular SWAT duties until he can pass the test. The fit- ness requirement is a measure of whether someone is really committed to SWAT duties.

Despite the high ongoing standards, mem- bership in the unit is very stable. The average SWAT team tenure is 14 years for supervisors and eight years for officers, and people some- times turn down promotions within the de- partment to stay in the unit. This consistency is crucial to the team’s ability to work together and carry out its mission: to defuse violence and save lives.

A Country at Stake by Philippe Dongier

From November 2001 to February 2004, Philippe

Dongier ([email protected]) was the Manager for Afghanistan Reconstruction at the World Bank in Washington, DC. He now leads a task force aimed at enhancing organizational effectiveness within the World Bank.

Crisis is a powerful motivator. That truth was brought home in 2001 when I led a joint team preparing the reconstruction effort in Afghani- stan following the defeat of the Taliban. The team included approximately 60 colleagues from the Asian Development Bank, the United

Nations, and the World Bank. Our mission was to help set Afghanistan on the path to recon- struction and development.

The urgency of the situation in Afghanistan focused our minds sharply. We all knew that the country could easily fall back into conflict if the government did not show rapid results. Because the international community was keen to get started as quickly as possible, we had just one month to conduct a needs assess- ment in order to guide how much assistance donors would pledge and how help would ini- tially be channeled to the country.

The team met the challenges and delivered. We consulted with many Afghans, analyzed all possible data, fleshed out a vision of what needed to be achieved over the next ten years, and prepared plans and cost estimates. Build- ing on the needs assessment and the subse- quent work done with the Afghan govern- ment, the city of Kabul doubled its power supply in one year. By the end of 2004, about a third of the country’s 20,000 villages were re- ceiving grants and implementing small recon- struction projects such as those for water sup- ply, schools, and roads. These villages also conducted secret-ballot elections to choose leaders to manage the projects—and the ma- jority of the women voted despite expectations to the contrary. During the same period, basic health services expanded in almost all of the country’s 34 provinces. In Helmand province, for example, the number of functioning health clinics has increased from six to 42. These are just some examples of the progress that has been made in Afghanistan.

That progress has largely come about be- cause the government espoused the team’s rec- ommendation of hiring private firms and not- for-profit organizations to design and run many of the country’s reconstruction programs, guided by a cadre of outstanding Afghan gov- ernment officials. In parallel, the government set in motion longer-term reforms of the civil service. Arriving at such a strategy usually takes years of debate between aid organizations and the governments being helped—and the strat- egy is rarely so clear and shared by key players.

When the team began its work, we found it was important to step back and take a moment to define our roles. We had to be selective in deciding who was going to produce what, as opposed to just rushing into action in many di- rections. Probably because of the pressure,

harvard business review • the high-performance organization • july–august 2005 page 3

• •When Failure Isn’t an Option • PERSPECTIVES

There’s no time-out

during a fire. You can’t

tell the fire to wait a

minute while you consult

somebody or look up the

solution in a book.

team members needed little convincing to stay focused on true priorities. Clear accountability helped generate results.

Furthermore, high team performance didn’t require micromanagement. To be effective, I had to step back from the details and play a support role that, in the end, proved crucial to the team’s success. It was important, for exam- ple, to keep the teams linked with one another. The group focusing on the health sector needed to remain in contact with those focus- ing on water supply, for obvious reasons. As overall team leader, one of my roles was to en- sure this communication took place.

Forming the right team was probably the single most important factor in our success. In choosing team members to lead each sector, we looked for people who had a reputation for making things happen. We needed to be sure that they had firsthand experience with getting a country rapidly on the path to reconstruction and development.

Forming the right team also meant letting go of the least productive team members. As work progressed, it became clear that familiar- ity with the country was less important than teaming up with Afghans who possessed deep knowledge of the way the country operated. In fact, some expatriates who had been working in Afghanistan for years resisted the leadership of new outside experts by systematically cri- tiquing their efforts. In the end, those who in- hibited team performance by focusing solely on risks and failing to offer constructive strate- gies had to be sidelined in favor of strong out- side technical expertise.

A compelling shared vision of a rebuilt and stable Afghanistan and the urgency of the situ- ation at hand helped to instill a focus on re- sults and overcome the inertia that often per- vades large organizations like ours. The Asian Development Bank, the UN, and the World Bank are not known for their speed, but in this case we were able to do away with much of the red tape during the critical stages of our project. Clear goals and accountability and close attention to team composition were other key success factors.

Performance Under Fire by Robert P. Murgallis

Robert P. Murgallis ([email protected]) is a training specialist for the Emergency Inci-

dent Policy and Analysis Programs at the Nation-

al Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

The difference between a team like the New En- gland Patriots and a team of high-performing firefighters is the time pressure. In football, you can call a time-out. There’s no time-out during a fire. You can’t tell the fire to wait a minute while you consult somebody or look up the solution in a book. This is one business where you have to make very quick decisions on the basis of very little information.

Intuition is critical to high-performing fire- fighting teams—it can mean the difference be- tween life and death. But our kind of intuition is learned. Through training, reading, respond- ing to emergencies, and talking with veterans, we learn the cues and signals that indicate that certain things might occur. We have a vast mental data bank that is based on experience and training. If a fire is a certain color, we know the chances are pretty good that a partic- ular product is burning. In a wildland fire, for example, you know that certain trees burn at a faster rate. And you know that a fire burns up- hill more quickly than it does downhill. But your training has to be such that you recognize those cues immediately. You can’t start ponder- ing and planning and getting an official weather report before making decisions and taking action.

The fact that there is seldom chaos when firefighters go into a burning area can be summed up in one word: confidence—confi- dence in their skills and in one another. Confi- dence is contagious. If leaders are self-assured, capable, and knowledgeable, their people will respond with high performance. Being a leader in name only and driving and intimidat- ing your teams will reduce the effectiveness of any unit. People need to be guided and moti- vated. Even self-motivated individuals will lose their drive if you don’t provide them with posi- tive reinforcement. The trick for you as the leader is to make your team members believe that you believe they have worth.

Like most high-performing teams, firefight- ers need a mission. It’s the mission that sets the priorities. If your mission is to stop the fire from getting to a certain place, all your actions and decisions will be targeted toward that out- come. Often the mission will force you to make very difficult decisions. You may have to antici- pate letting houses burn that haven’t even

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• •When Failure Isn’t an Option • PERSPECTIVES

Whatever form the

coaching takes—athletic

or psychological—a

coach needs to focus on

just one thing: his

players’ confidence.

caught fire yet, because they’re not defensible based on the type of roof they have or the fact that they’re surrounded by highly flammable brush. You can’t waste your resources if you’re going to accomplish the greatest good for the greatest number. But it’s hard trying to explain to home owners why you decided not to pro- tect their homes.

People who can’t cope with that kind of pressure shouldn’t be leading high-performing teams, and in my line of work, leaders who don’t perform don’t last long. On September 12, the day after the attack on the World Trade Center, the New York City Fire Department contacted the National Fire Academy to ask us if we could help them restore their command structure because they had lost so many of their top people. As part of that effort, I saw one of the team leaders struggling. He was a nice person, but he really didn’t have a good understanding of what needed to be done. His training and expertise in other areas did not equip him for the situation. As his inability to cope became more apparent, an unofficial leader emerged from among his crew who shepherded the project along. I’ve seen this happen many times on high-performance teams: If a leader is not up to the job, the top performers will step up to produce a leader who can carry the ball.

The Confidence Game by Mary Khosh

Mary Khosh was a career coach for the Cleve-

land Browns in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During that time, she advised players on work/ life issues and was the only woman doing psy- chological coaching in the NFL. She is currently a consulting psychologist with the Leadership Development Institute at Eckerd College in St.

Petersburg, Florida.

When I worked with the Browns, the coaches emphasized playing one game at a time—al- ways focusing on the immediate play and the immediate goal, always focusing on high per- formance. The Browns’ coaches pushed for team excellence—in life as well as in the game—player by player.

Coaching is a major factor in an athlete’s success. Most of the players I worked with rec- ognized this. They’ve been coached since they were first discovered in youth football leagues,

and they’ve always believed in and trusted their coaches. In fact, sports players’ reliance on coaches may explain why so many of them make mistakes in life and lose most of their money after their athletic careers are over. They are still looking for a coach, and there are many con artists happy to oblige.

Great coaches understand the way the minds of high performers work. Each player has his own needs. You can see this most clearly after the players lose a game. Some want the coach to come up to them and talk to them about it. Others want to be left com- pletely alone; they want to deal with the loss in their own heads first.

During my time with the Cleveland Browns, I saw players working with several different coaches. The successful coaches kept the indi- vidual needs and interests of each player in mind. The players willingly worked harder for them because they wanted so much to please them.

In my own work, my priority was also to try to get a sense of who each player was. I would begin with an interview, in which I focused on understanding a player’s background—when his talent was first recognized, how he had been steered into pro football. In a second ses- sion, I would conduct a more formal assess- ment to gain a deeper understanding of the player’s core personality, motivations, values, needs, problem-solving skills, and interests. Fi- nally, in a third session, we would go through all the results of the assessment tests. It was at that point we talked about who the player was, what really challenged him, what put fire in his belly.

Whatever the coaching takes—athletic or psychological—a coach needs to focus on just one thing: his players’ confidence. In a top pro-football team, all the players are talented and fit. What differentiates the winners is self- confidence. And that kind of confidence is a matter of choice. It isn’t something your oppo- nents can take away; it’s something you give away when you stop believing that you can win. That’s why a good coach never undercuts or demeans his players when a game is going badly. The players need to believe that their skills are better than their opponents’. That’s not to say that coaches should ignore failure— far from it. They have to analyze and under- stand the failure in order to avoid repeating it. But they must not point fingers, because that

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• •When Failure Isn’t an Option • PERSPECTIVES

The trick is learning how

to manage diverse

individual personalities

and take control with

style and grace.

only makes the players more likely to repeat the mistake.

I think my main contribution to the Browns’ performance was to get players to separate their personal identities from their results on the field. If self-worth were linked to scores, the pressure associated with each game would be tremendous. It was important for the players’ self-confidence to see football as their job— what they did, not who they were. We talked about their lives in general—about their fami- lies, their education, and their off-season ca- reers. The decisions they made in these areas helped maintain top performance as well as an attitude about success that accompanied them onto the field.

In my current work as a consulting psychol- ogist focused on coaching high performers in companies, I have found that effective senior executives are a lot like the best sports coaches. Like coaches, executives need to be excellent listeners, able to evaluate the characteristics of the people they manage. They need to be able to work in different ways, with different peo- ple, and in different places. They need to be dedicated, determined, persistent, and fair. They need to be visionary and able to commu- nicate that vision with confidence to those who are charged with executing it. As a woman, I used to object to all the male sports metaphors that are thrown around in business conversa- tion. Now that I see the parallels, I occasionally use sports language myself.

Creativity on Demand by Elizabeth K. Allen

Elizabeth K. Allen is the founder of Elizabeth K. Allen, Inc., an event-planning company that organizes and produces society weddings, chari- ty galas, and corporate events across the United States. The company has offices in New York and

Boston.

As an event planner who conceives, designs, and orchestrates every type of event from cor- porate affairs to weddings, it’s my responsibil- ity to put together and manage the individual creative teams that are contributing to the oc- casions. Together, we do everything from se- lecting the perfect stamp for the invitations to installing temporary roads in order to provide access to an event.

One of the greatest challenges of my job,

yet one of its most rewarding aspects, is work- ing with creative people on a day-to-day basis. I deal with a lot of high-profile, artistic individu- als—people who are extremely knowledge- able and well known in their own right. They are passionate and talented, caring and won- derful individuals who often have their own vi- sion of how they want particular elements of events designed and executed. Therein lies the challenge. As the event producer, it’s my re- sponsibility to keep everyone focused on the overall concept and design and to work with each team leader to ensure that the teams move forward in the same direction, all while minimizing difficulties and drama.

When you are working with creative minds, it’s crucial to keep them on track so they don’t go off on tangents and disrupt the project’s rhythm or production schedule. This means taking a very active management role. If an in- dividual is not functioning as part of the team in the way that he should be, I will manage him a bit more than the others until I feel he is back on track. If needed, I will take the person aside and remind him that producing an event is a team effort and not a platform for an indi- vidual to shine.

If you can’t get the creative team leaders to accept some kind of direction and parameters, then you must strongly consider removing them from the project and not hiring them in the future, however brilliant they are. For ex- ample, I worked with a very well-known and talented but very self-centered florist. His vola- tile behavior would wreak havoc on the team and affect the overall event production. Now I just won’t work with him. If I have a client who insists on hiring this particular florist, I decline the project.

At the same time, you do have to trust your most talented people. People in general always produce better results when you trust them— trust that they are going to perform not only to your expectations but to their highest levels. People hate being micromanaged because it implies that you don’t respect or trust them. The trick, I believe, is how to manage diverse individual personalities and take control with style and grace. I make sure that my people un- derstand their position within the project while giving them the latitude to express their abilities, talents, and ideas.

When you want people to produce at their peak levels, empowerment and communica-

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• •When Failure Isn’t an Option • PERSPECTIVES

The performance of the

entire race team was

crucial to our success:

The greatest car and

driver in the world, after

all, can lose four or five

places during a stop on

pit road.

tion are vital. I strongly believe in communica- tion—it’s what I do all day. I am constantly on the phone or in meetings. Communication doesn’t always have to be direct, of course, and I am a tremendous fan of e-mail. But I do think, even in this day and age, you really can- not beat just talking to someone face-to-face or at least by phone. Obviously, as a leader, you cannot do all the communicating yourself. The key is to identify the items that you really must communicate yourself and delegate the rest. Of course, for that to work you need to have an associate who can function as your right-hand person.

Inspiring and motivating a team to perform at the top of its game is exciting and some- times exhausting. But the process is always very rewarding. You learn a huge amount from your creative people, and they constantly sur- prise you with their ideas.

The Mechanics of Speed by Ray Evernham

Ray Evernham was the crew chief for driver Jeff

Gordon from 1993 to 1999, during which time Gordon won three NASCAR (National Associa- tion for Stock Car Auto Racing) championships. Today, Evernham is president and CEO of Evernham Motorsports, which fields a team of NASCAR entrants for the Dodge division of

DaimlerChrysler.

When seven people have to change four tires, fill up a gas tank, make quick adjustments to the suspension, and get a car back on the track in just over ten seconds, teamwork is, to put it mildly, essential. And not just for those seven pit crew members who “go over the wall” dur- ing a race.

Behind the wall is an entire team of peo- ple—several dozen mechanics, engineers, and other specialists—who must also work to- gether under extreme time pressure, even if measured in days rather than in seconds. From one weekend race to the next, they’ll dismantle an entire car and several engines, making re- pairs and modifications to correct problems and customize the car for the particular de- mands and configuration of the upcoming track.

I was a young, unknown mechanic when I began working with a young, unknown driver named Jeff Gordon. But from the beginning, I

realized that the performance of the entire race team was crucial to our success: The great- est car and driver in the world, after all, can lose four or five places during a stop on pit road. How were we going to get the top-notch performance that we needed?

First, we put together a team of particularly dedicated and intelligent people, looking even to individuals who didn’t have a lot of racing experience. Our chief mechanic was a former truck mechanic who’d been working at a car dealership in New Jersey. He soon learned the car racing business and was better than any- body. Our parts guy was a kid whose full-time job had been selling plumbing supplies. He was able to find and get the best piece at the best price—whether it was a wheel or a toilet, a shock or a sink.

We also put in place some formal processes that were unusual for the sport. We’d get ev- erybody together to watch “game films” of the previous race and discuss areas for improve- ment. We kept careful records of race and me- chanical data. We hired a pit crew trainer, a former Stanford football player, who was re- sponsible for the physical training of the crew and the high-speed choreography of the pit stop. Many of our rivals thought things like this were a waste of time. But our record, and the later adoption of many of our methods by competitors, proved their value.

And we worked hard to keep people moti- vated. NASCAR’s nearly ten-month season is the longest in professional sports, and it’s easy for people to burn out. But our “Rainbow War- riors”—the nickname adopted by the race team because our fire suits bore a rainbow of paint colors offered by our sponsor, DuPont— stayed motivated not only for an entire season but from one season to the next. In fact, the team remained pretty much intact for the six years Jeff and I worked together for Hendrick Motorsports, the owner of the car and em- ployer of the crew.

More recently, I’ve run a much larger team that reflects the changes in NASCAR as the sport has grown rapidly in popularity. In 1999, Dodge offered me the chance to lead the auto- maker’s return to NASCAR after a 20-year ab- sence. Today, we employ nearly 250 people, many of whom work in areas that go beyond racing itself: engine and body design (our engi- neering staff consists of numerous specialists, including one who holds a PhD in aerodynam-

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• •When Failure Isn’t an Option • PERSPECTIVES

ics), sales and marketing, product licensing, travel logistics, and so on. We have four facili- ties that house R&D and manufacturing, six tractor trailers and three aircraft to transport cars and people from race to race, and an an- nual budget of around $50 million.

Again, I’ve tried to establish processes— some of them, again, unconventional—that will help this team perform at a high level. These processes are particularly important as we grow, because they’ll allow newcomers to get up to speed quickly. With a team of this size, I can no longer communicate daily with everyone as I did when I oversaw 25 people, but we can instill in individuals a way of think- ing that will make us winners.

In fact, our team represents a new ap- proach. Instead of the traditional NASCAR

model that focuses on the individual driver and car, we’ve adopted a model that we think represents the future of the sport, one (based on Formula 1 auto racing) that focuses on the team’s technology and its sponsors. We run two identical cars in NASCAR’s Nextel Cup Se- ries, which doubles our sponsor’s exposure and the chances of winning. At the track, each car has its own team, and they both are out to win. (All I ask of our drivers, Jeremy Mayfield and Kasey Kahne, is that they don’t crash into each other.) But our motto is: “One team, one goal.”

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