Engineering Your Season Change

We woke up to our first snow of the season here on the farm this morning.

Dutch didn't care about my packed calendar. He saw snow and wanted to play. So we took a short walk in the crunchy stuff while the day was just coming to life.

Mother Nature doesn't ask permission to change the seasons. She just changes them.

Speaking of seasons changing whether you're ready or not...

On Saturday, I watched my Purdue Boilermakers get demolished by Indiana 56-3. 

That's not a typo.

Sixty-six to nothing. The worst loss in the 133-game history of this rivalry.

Last year it was 66-0.

Two years. Two new coaches. Same results for Purdue, but a complete transformation for Indiana.

It got me to thinking:

Both programs made major changes. Both fired underperforming coaches. Both hired experienced replacements. Both brought in massive numbers of transfer players.

But one program went from 26 losing seasons in 29 years to 12-0, a #2 national ranking, and their first Big Ten Championship appearance. The other went from 1-11 to 2-10.

The difference, as far as I can see at least, was the completeness of the transformation.

I've been fascinated by transformations like this for years. Not just in sports, but especially in business. I've studied them and applied what I've learned. 

For example, when I took a company from $700K to over $8 million in revenue, it wasn't because we made a few tweaks. It was because we replaced entire systems, brought in people who already understood what excellence looked like, and committed to standards that weren't negotiable.

Working with over 100 consultants making similar transitions for themselves and for their clients, I've seen the same pattern repeat. The ones who dabble in fits and starts stay stuck. The ones who commit to complete transformation break through.

That's why the Cignetti story hit me so hard. It's exactly what I've been teaching, played out on a (American) football field for the whole country to see.

So, Here's what I have for you in this issue: 

🛠️ Engineering Your Season Change: What championship coaching in sports teaches us about complete business transformation 

🤖 The "Season Change Architect" Prompt: Assess whether you're positioned for complete transformation or stuck in partial change 

What Championship Coaching Teaches Us About Complete Transformation

We're living through the largest consulting opportunity in modern history. Harvard Business Review just documented the collapse of the traditional consulting pyramid. Companies don't want armies of junior analysts anymore. They want senior expertise they can trust, delivered at speed.

But the catch is, opportunity doesn't automatically become results. Just like Indiana and Purdue both had the same opportunity to rebuild, most consultants will squander this moment by dabbling with no plan or if they have a plan not sticking to it, instead of following through, fearlessly eliminating or replacing when necessary, and creating complete transformations.

The Cignetti Difference

When Curt Cignetti took over Indiana football, he didn't try to improve what existed. He replaced it.

He brought 29 transfer players. Thirteen came from his previous program at James Madison, where he'd just won back-to-back conference titles. Six of his coaches had worked with him for over a decade. His offensive and defensive coordinators had been with him for nine and ten years respectively.

He secured $13.6 million in NIL funding before his first practice.

Nick Saban, perhaps the greatest college football coach ever, said it plainly: "I don't think you could change a program as quickly as he has Indiana, especially one that doesn't have a tradition of success and culture as a football program, without the transfer portal."

Cignetti didn't just bring new players. He brought people who already knew his system, believed in his methods, and could teach his culture to everyone else. He brought proof that his approach works, demonstrated across multiple programs (he'd turned around Elon and JMU before Indiana).

Meanwhile, Barry Odom at Purdue brought in 55 transfers and new coordinators. Significant changes. Real effort. But he's building relationships and installing systems with people learning together for the first time.

The difference isn't effort or intention. It's completeness.

What This Means for Your Consulting Practice

I've been studying what separates championship coaches from everyone else. Not just in football, but across sports. What patterns emerge when you look at Saban, Wooden, Belichick, and now Cignetti?

Five principles show up consistently. And every one of them applies directly to building a consulting practice.

Principle 1: Process Over Outcome

Saban never talked about winning championships. He talked about "the process." Focus on today's practice. Execute today's rep. Let the scoreboard take care of itself.

John Wooden at UCLA scheduled practices to the minute. Every drill had a purpose. He spent the first practice of every season teaching players how to put on their socks correctly to prevent blisters. Championships were the byproduct of daily excellence, not the target.

For consultants: Stop obsessing over revenue targets and start obsessing over daily client value. Are you delivering excellence today? Are your systems getting better this week? The revenue will follow if the process is right.

Principle 2: Character and Standards as Non-Negotiables

Every championship coach I studied had absolute standards for character. Saban famously dismissed talented players who didn't meet his behavioral expectations. Wooden's "Pyramid of Success" placed character traits at the foundation before any basketball skills.

Integrity isn't negotiable. It's the price of admission.

For consultants: Who you work with matters as much as how you work. Fire team members and clients who compromise your values. Refuse projects that don't align with your standards. Your reputation compounds over decades.

Principle 3: Recruit for Fundamental Mastery, Then Teach Your System

This is what Cignetti understood that made his transformation so fast. He didn't just bring talented players. He brought players who were already excellent at the fundamentals of football: blocking, tackling, effort, playing hard every rep.

Then he taught them his specific system. But he didn't have to teach them how to be good at football. He had to teach them how to execute his particular approach.
 

For consultants: When you need to hire or partner with others, look for people who have mastered the fundamentals of your domain. If you're an ERP consultant, find people who deeply understand ERP systems. If you're an operational expert, find people excellent at process improvement. If you're a marketing consultant, find people who understand the foundational principles of marketing. They don't need to know your specific methodology yet. That you can teach. What they do need is fundamental competence in the work itself.

Principle 4: Obsessive Execution of Fundamentals

Wooden spent more time on fundamentals than any other coach. Basic footwork. Passing technique. Defensive positioning. He believed games were won by executing simple things perfectly under pressure.

Saban's "process" was largely about doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. No shortcuts. No skipping steps.

For consultants: Master the basics before chasing advanced tactics. Can you run a flawless discovery call? Do your offers clearly articulate irresistible value? Do you follow up systematically? Do you deliver what you promise, on time? These fundamentals matter more than any clever strategy.

Principle 5: Feedback Loops That Treat Mistakes as Data

Championship programs review film relentlessly. Every play. Every mistake. Not to punish, but to improve. Saban had a "24-hour rule": celebrate wins or mourn losses for 24 hours, then get back to work on getting better.

Mistakes aren't failures. They're information about what to improve next.

For consultants: Build systematic review into your practice. After every project, what worked? What didn't? What will you do differently? Treat every client interaction as data for improvement, not just a transaction to complete.

The Complete Transformation Question

Here's what I keep coming back to: Both Cignetti and Odom made changes. Real, significant changes. New staff. New players. New systems.

But Cignetti's transformation was complete. He brought proven people, proven systems, proven culture. He didn't just change the roster. He changed everything that determines how the roster performs.

Remember last month when we talked about pruning? About cutting what drains you to make room for what energizes you?

Pruning creates the space. But what you plant in that space determines whether you get a season change or just another year of the same results.

As you head into 2026, ask yourself: Am I making ad-hoc partial changes? Or am I positioned for complete transformation?

Three Key Takeaways

1. Replace broken systems; iterate on working ones. Cignetti didn't try to improve a broken program piece by piece. He replaced the foundation entirely, then started iterating from a position of strength. Partial changes to broken systems rarely produce breakthrough results.
   
   
2. Championship principles transfer. Process over outcome. Non-negotiable standards. Fundamental mastery. Obsessive execution. Feedback loops. These patterns appear in every sustained success story, whether football or consulting.
   
   
3. The window is now. The consulting industry is in the middle of its biggest transformation in 50 years. Traditional models are collapsing. The consultants who commit to complete transformation now will own their markets. The ones who make partial changes will keep struggling.
   

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P.S.: When you're ready, here are more ways I can help you...