Between 1988 and 1990, Arrigo Sacchi's AC Milan pressed in a block no deeper than 25 metres from back line to front. It looked like a tactical detail. It was really an operating model.
Sacchi's insight was simple and brutal. A well-designed system could make ordinary positions world-class. His four reference points, the ball, the space, the opponent and the team-mate, were drilled until they were automatic. Individual brilliance was welcome, but the system set the floor. Milan won back-to-back European Cups this way, and three decades of high-pressing football followed.
The boardroom version is uncomfortable. Hire stars into a system nobody designed and you get expensive chaos. Design the system first, and ordinary inputs start producing extraordinary output. Sacchi never had the biggest budget. He had the best design.
Three questions worth stealing from him. What are our four reference points? Which of our processes are written down rather than carried around in someone's head? And if our best people left tomorrow, what would actually remain?