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I nonetheless do not forget that American Amateur Baseball Congress (AABC) championship recreation the place, with the scoreboard studying 1-1 within the remaining inning, a floor ball shot towards me and all the pieces slowed down. The essential double-play required absolute precision – one fraction of an inch off, and our season would finish. We executed flawlessly, establishing the game-winning residence run moments later. Years later at Lawrence Stadium in Wichita, Kansas, I discovered myself in a fair greater highlight – the NBC World Series with 16,000 followers making a wall of sound, the power electrical as we battled by means of 9 intense innings with each fan on their toes for the dramatic conclusion.
Those epic video games taught me one thing I’ve carried into enterprise: in high-stakes conditions, the margin for error is vanishingly small. Teams that succeed aren’t simply proficient — they’re exactly calibrated machines the place each element works in good concord to ship outcomes that matter.
While my experiences come from baseball, these ideas of teamwork, preparation, and execution apply throughout all sports activities and aggressive endeavors, whether or not it’s soccer (soccer) groups coordinating intricate performs, biking groups working collectively within the Tour de France, or cricket gamers executing underneath stress. The common classes of elite sports activities transcend the particular recreation.
Growing up in a baseball household formed my method to enterprise technique. From following my father Luis Pujols as he coached the Montreal Expos to spending numerous hours in clubhouses watching Hall of Famers put together, sports activities knowledge has influenced how I work with our companions at Cisco to create distinctive buyer experiences.
As we put together for the Cisco 360 Partner Program launch in February 2026, I see clear parallels between sports activities coaching and customer-focused accomplice enablement. Both are about preparation, assessing capabilities, and making obligatory changes to ship successful outcomes.
The Greatest Team That Never Was
In the early Nineties, my father was the bench coach for what many think about “the greatest team that never was” – the Montreal Expos squad stacked with future Hall of Famers like Pedro Martinez, Larry Walker, and Vladimir Guerrero. This wasn’t only a good crew; it was a traditionally nice assortment of expertise poised to win a World Series.
Then the 1994 MLB strike occurred, chopping the season brief and shattering these hopes. I skilled this firsthand, shifting between Houston, Montreal, and Florida as my father’s profession dictated our household geography.
Like that Expos crew, our companions have assembled spectacular capabilities. But in contrast to that crew, we gained’t let exterior elements derail our momentum. The Cisco 360 Partner Program represents our window of alternative – an opportunity to align our enterprise mannequin with buyer wants in ways in which generate measurable worth for them whereas creating sustainable development for our total ecosystem.
The Mental Game: Creating Customer Value
What most individuals don’t perceive about sports activities on the highest degree is that it’s primarily psychological. The delicate changes, anticipation, and strategic pondering separate good gamers from nice ones.
I used to be reminded of this when an outdated teammate visited. As we watched a recreation collectively, my spouse listened to our dialog about catcher positioning to shave treasured tenths of a second off throw occasions and different delicate changes invisible to most viewers. She was surprised at this hidden layer of the sport taking place proper earlier than her eyes.
Similarly, the Cisco 360 Partner Program isn’t nearly altering incentive buildings – it’s about remodeling how we collectively create worth for patrons. By rewarding companions throughout the whole buyer lifecycle – from land to undertake, increase, and renew – we’re incentivizing the exact behaviors that result in superior buyer outcomes. The companions who succeed shall be those that perceive how these delicate changes of their method ship the experiences prospects must thrive of their digital transformation.
Commitment, Consistency, and Courage in Customer Success
During my teenage years, I spent numerous hours at Olympic Stadium practising the identical transfer repeatedly. One day, annoyed by the monotony, I complained about doing the identical drill for weeks on finish.
A veteran participant overheard me and walked over. “You’re complaining about doing this for days and weeks,” Larry Walker mentioned, trying me straight within the eyes. “I’ve been doing it for 20 years. That’s what it takes to be great: commitment, consistency, and courage.”
Those phrases modified my method without end. Throughout highschool and school, I wrote “CCC” underneath the brim of my baseball cap as a reminder that greatness requires these three components.
For our companions navigating the transition to the Cisco 360 Partner Program, this similar “CCC” precept applies to buyer success: Commitment to understanding their enterprise challenges, consistency in delivering dependable experiences, and braveness to evolve your service mannequin to fulfill their altering wants. These qualities separate companions who create transformative buyer worth from those that merely fulfill transactions.
Respecting the Process of Transformation
Learning to respect the method of transformation got here to me the onerous means. After one recreation, I made a careless choice to swing an obese bat that I had no enterprise utilizing. The consequence was a torn rotator cuff that sidelined me for a yr and a half.
Forced to look at others play the sport I liked, I mirrored on my mistake. I hadn’t correctly ready my physique for that transition. Transformation requires a full dedication – your total system must be prepared for change.
The lesson applies on to our prospects and companions in the present day. Digital transformation requires systematic preparation and holistic change. Our prospects want companions who perceive this journey and may information them by means of it safely. With the Cisco 360 Partner Program, we’re enabling companions to develop the capabilities wanted to attenuate buyer danger whereas accelerating their transformation outcomes.
The High-Performance Regimen
One of my most vivid reminiscences is watching Pedro Martinez – all 150 kilos of him – in his post-workout routine. While I may practically match his weightlifting numbers as a younger participant, what separated Pedro was his meticulous method to physique upkeep, diet, and restoration.
For our companions navigating the transition to the Cisco 360 Partner Program, there’s an analogous mindset required for delivering buyer worth. Success isn’t nearly making the massive performs when the highlight is on – it’s in regards to the constant, typically unglamorous work of constructing capabilities, understanding applied sciences, and growing repeatable processes that create distinctive buyer experiences each single day.
The Customer-Focused Ecosystem
What made nice sports activities groups particular wasn’t simply particular person expertise – it was how these skills complemented one another inside a system designed to win. Each participant had a job, and the entire grew to become better than the sum of its elements.
That’s precisely what we’re constructing with the Cisco 360 Partner Program. Moving past transactional relationships to customer-centric worth creation requires specialised capabilities and cross-industry experience. Just as a crew wants gamers with distinct abilities, our ecosystem wants companions who excel in numerous areas – managed companies, lifecycle help, vertical options, and extra – all working collectively to ship full options that deal with our prospects’ most complicated challenges.
Ready for the Customer-Focused Future
As we method February 2026, we’re in our preparation section. It’s our time to construct capabilities, perceive the place we have to enhance, and make investments earlier than the brand new program launches.
When I believe again to that Montreal Expos crew that by no means acquired its shot at a championship, I’m reminded that we are able to’t take alternatives as a right. With the Cisco 360 Partner Program, now we have an opportunity to align our accomplice economics with buyer success in methods that may drive mutual development for years to return.
The query is: Will you be able to ship the transformative buyer worth that may outline our shared success?
Before his know-how profession, Alex Pujols performed Division 1 baseball (the very best degree of U.S. collegiate athletics) as a catcher and third baseman. He is the son of former Major League Baseball participant and coach Luis Pujols, who’s cousin to Albert Pujols, one in all baseball’s biggest hitters of all time.
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