What do the Broadway musical Spider-Man, the Indianapolis Colts, and Domino’s Pizza have in common? They all used the same process to turn around a losing team.

Sports psychologists and Washington Post columnists Joe Frontiera and Daniel Leidl reveal that process, distilled from five years of research of business, sports, and government teams, in their book, Team Turnarounds: A Playbook for Transforming Underperforming Teams (Jossey-Bass, 2012).

They spoke with CEOs, front-line managers and governors, as well as owners, general managers, and coaches in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and the National Basketball Association to explore what it takes to get a failing team back on track. All of the teams they analyzed—across every sector—reversed their fortunes and did a 180 from failure to success.

Here Frontiera and Leidl answer a few questions on the art of team turnarounds and the parallels between business and sports teams.

Why did you choose Spider-Man on Broadway as an example?

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