Watching the athletes perform in the World Cup was astonishing. One play stood out. A player leapt above the crowd, seeming to defy gravity, and drove the ball fiercely past everyone with his head.
It was amazing.
That same day, I was reading about the growing evidence linking repeated heading over the course of a professional football career with cognitive impairment, dementia, and other lasting brain harm.
In that single moment, I saw both things: real athletic excellence—and a beloved part of the game that may be harming the people who make it beautiful.
Football—or soccer, as we call it in America—has some hard decisions ahead. The header has been part of the game for generations. Yet if repeated heading is causing lasting harm to players, is there an imperative to make the game safer while preserving its beauty?
The Research is Compelling
Former professional football players have experienced neurodegenerative disease at substantially higher rates than comparable nonplayers. More recent research has found that retired professionals who reported heading the ball most frequently had more than three times the odds of cognitive impairment compared with those who headed it least frequently.
Researchers do not yet know precisely how much heading is too much or which players are most vulnerable. They also do not yet know how best to reduce the risk while preserving the beauty of this aspect of the game. And it is only one aspect of the game.
Uncertainty about the exact solution is not permission to ignore the evidence. Once there is compelling evidence that something we value may also be causing lasting harm, continuing unchanged becomes a choice.
That choice will be hard. Although heading is only one aspect of football, many people regard it as sacred. The moment I witnessed—an athlete rising above the crowd and driving the ball into the net—is one of the many moments that made it sacred.
If I were responsible for the future of football, I would struggle with that choice. But I would put the long-term well-being of the players—and therefore the long-term well-being of the game—ahead of preserving one beloved part of it unchanged.
Sports evolve. Rules change. Equipment changes. Training changes. Things once considered sacred disappear into the annals of history as we learn more.
And Then I Wondered
What do we consider sacred in our organizations that may be causing harm?
I have witnessed organizations treat heroic rescues as sacred. People worked nights and weekends, absorbed impossible pressure, and somehow dragged failing projects across the finish line. Their performances were genuinely heroic.
But the repeated need for heroes was evidence that the system was failing—and harming the people saving it.
Heroic performance can be real excellence in the moment. Saving a project creates a genuine rush of excitement and pride. Prevention would have been boring in comparison. Does the rush of rescue teach us to value failure followed by rescue more than boring prevention?
I have witnessed sacred reviews, approval gates, planning processes, and leadership rituals that once created real value but eventually became meaningless rituals. They feel good—but do they still have value?
That is difficult for leaders to see, especially when we are applauding the heroes, rewarding them, and telling their stories as examples of commitment. We love our reviews because we know we are supposed to do them.
We may sincerely believe we are celebrating excellence while perpetuating patterns that no longer create value—and may cause harm.
The sacred thing was not the valuable thing. The sacred thing was the particular way people had become accustomed to doing the work.
The value was always created—and owned—by the people, not by the specific act of heading the ball or the particular way the work was done.
So here are the questions I am now asking about my company—and the organizations I help:
What do you love, celebrate, and reward in your organization? Which of those things may be causing harm—even while producing something that looks like excellence?
Next Steps
Contact us or visit www.exceptionaldifference.com to learn more about our offerings and how we can help you and your team see reality, accept reality, and deal with reality. Leadership Growth Cycle and the Exceptional Engineering Experience are just a few examples of our offerings that will help you take ownership of your circumstances and create more value without causing harm.
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Yours in the calm pursuit of excellence,
Alan Willett