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Once upon a time, an average team faced a simple but frustrating problem: Their basketball was stuck high in a tree.
The team captain removed his shoe and threw it at the ball, hoping to knock it loose. The shoe fell back to the ground, while the basketball remained firmly lodged in the branches.
On their second attempt, the average team concluded that the issue was the strength of the team captain. After assessing each team member, they chose Joe, whose greatest strength was his throwing power.
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Joe took a few practice throws, adjusted his stance and launched the shoe toward the basketball. The result, however, was the same: The ball stayed exactly where it was.
For their third attempt, the team shifted from strength to strategy. They conducted a team planning session, carefully analyzing the situation. They studied the structure of the tree, examined the branches and mapped out the precise point the shoe needed to hit to dislodge the ball.
When they implemented their plan, everything went exactly as they designed it. Yet, despite their perfect strategy, the basketball remained stuck in the tree.
Across the street, another team had been observing the situation. After watching the third attempt, they walked over to offer their help. The other team assessed the tree and then the shoe.
Without much hesitation, they threw the shoe into the tree, lodging it alongside the basketball.
The average team reacted immediately with frustration, pointing out that the situation had only worsened now.
Calmly, the other team responded that they did not make the problem worse. Instead, they removed the thing (the shoe) that was preventing the average team from seeing the obvious solution.
They then pointed to a ladder nearby.
How this relates to running a business
I’ve consulted with thousands of businesses, mostly RIA firms, for nearly 25 years now. And I have observed the pattern illustrated in the above story at many different levels and in firms of every size.
The distinction between the two teams is subtle, but significant. The average team believed the problem was the basketball stuck in the tree, and they focused all of their effort, strength and planning on dislodging it.
What they failed to recognize was that their solution — the shoe — was in the way. Until the shoe was removed, no amount of additional strength, effort or strategic planning would change the outcome … unless they were lucky.
In my years of consulting, I have found that from the outside, the best-run firms appear remarkably similar to their peers. They offer comparable services, serve similar clients and often rely on much of the same technology. The difference is not visible on the surface, unless you work inside those firms.
Internally, the best-run firms operate with a fundamentally different kind of logic. Their effectiveness, performance and growth rates are driven less by perfect strategies and more by how they think about problems.
They move faster not because they do more, but because they simplify decisions, identify what matters most and act on them without hesitation.
This logic is the defining difference between average growth and exceptional growth.
How the best-run firms separate themselves
I have been able to observe this clearly through the length and depth of our consulting relationships, many of which span years and even decades.
That kind of sustained engagement provides a unique vantage point: We are able to see not just what firms say they will do, but what they consistently do over time and how those decisions compound.
The best-run firms separate themselves because of this discipline.
The firms that have grown from small practices into national leaders, many of which I have had the privilege to work with, did not achieve their success by refining the equivalent of the shoe.
They achieved it because they consistently recognized when the method itself had become the problem. In doing so, they avoided the trap of repeated effort, the kind that consumes time and capital and ultimately exhausts talented people without producing meaningful results.
By contrast, average firms tend to spend significant time discussing their challenges, analyzing their situation and documenting their strategic or growth frameworks (or learning someone else’s).
They provide detailed explanations of leadership dynamics, communication preferences, planning processes and internal meeting structures.
While these efforts are well-intentioned, they often fail to isolate the single limitation that is actually slowing their progress.
In many cases, the focus shifts toward improving performance within the existing approach rather than stepping back to question whether the approach itself is the problem. As a result, energy is applied in ways that feel productive but do not change results.
The best-run firms collapse and simplify that entire mentality. Instead, they operate from a more fundamental understanding: At any given moment in the growth of a business, there is a bottleneck (in consultant-speak, it’s known as the Theory of Constraints) that limits the organization’s ability to move forward.
Just as important, they have accepted that this is not a one-time exercise. Each time a constraint is removed, another emerges. Progress is achieved through continuous identification and removal of what is in the way.
Where these firms’ success comes from
The effectiveness of these firms comes from their discipline. They do not get distracted by complexity, nor do they confuse activity with progress.
They remain focused on the single question that matters most: What is in the way, right now, today?
Once identified, they act decisively to eliminate or replace it and then immediately turn their attention to what follows. Over time, this creates a compounding effect that is often mistaken for superior strategy, talent or marketing, when in reality it is the result of consistent, focused implementation.
I understand that not every firm aspires to be the largest or most prominent business. However, regardless of size or ambition, the responsibility of leadership remains the same.
Your role is not to perfect every system, satisfy every preference or refine every strategy.
Your role is to identify what is preventing progress and remove it.
In other words, stop throwing the shoe — and go get the ladder.
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