What I learned from Coach K.
A reminder that when the standard slips, success dips.
By Jenny Taylor, President & Chief Growth Officer, Able&Co.
I recently came across a photograph that made me smile. September 2016. Duke Athletics Hall of Fame induction. Me, a lifelong basketball fan and former player, standing next to the oracle himself, Coach K, and Grant Hill. Two people who’d spent their lives chasing excellence at the highest level.
Looking at the photo, my first thought was, “Wow, I look exactly the same as I did ten years ago. Haven’t aged a day!” Joking aside, what it really got me thinking about is the gap between how Coach K adhered to his craft and how I’m seeing it approached in my own industry right now.
In the years since that 2016 event, almost everything has changed in advertising and marketing. The speed of work. The tools available. The pressure to do more and do it faster and cheaper. All of which has me wondering: when did we start treating excellence as optional? Where is Coach K when we need him?
He said it best when he said, “Standards form a level of excellence that we consider our norm. They define what is acceptable for an individual or a team. When you allow your standards to slip, your level of success will decrease alongside your team effort, work ethic and pride.”
When Did Good Enough Become Good?
There’s an old saying in business: cheap, fast, good (pick two). You can have something fast and cheap, but it won’t be good. Fast and good won’t be cheap. Good and cheap won’t be fast. That triangle has existed forever. And it’s just an honest take on how quality works. What’s changed is the number of people who think AI finally cracked it. That maybe now you really can have all three. Fast, cheap and good. Well, I say not so fast.
A few years ago, preparing for a board presentation meant rounds of discussion, refining the story, anticipating objections and tightening every slide. Not only because the client demanded it. But because that’s what the work required, and it’s what was expected of us as their agency. Today, it’s easy to upload notes into AI and generate a deck in minutes. The slides may look polished, but the thinking often isn’t. Good presentations don’t just organize information—they build confidence and earn decisions.
I can also remember a time when a piece of direct mail from American Express announced itself before you even opened it. The weight of the envelope. The quality of the stock. The precision of the design. You knew who it was from before you read a word. That was standard back then and it was non-negotiable.
The Hidden Cost of Cutting Corners
Major brands are starting to notice what happens when the bar drops. Earlier this year, Adweek noted that brands including Aerie, Equinox and Almond Breeze were taking increasingly public positions against AI-generated content and “AI slop,” using authenticity and human creativity as competitive differentiators.
When you trade craft for speed, you get worse work and diminishing returns on everything connected to it. Your audience feels the difference before they can articulate it. And every piece of rushed communication you put into the world can quietly erode trust and compromise sales.
The phrase “good is the enemy of great” gets thrown around a lot. But right now, the more relevant threat is the seduction of fast. Creative has always been king, but now it seems speed to market gets to wear that crown.
Holding the Standard
Nobody lowered their standards on purpose. The tools just got faster, the pace got relentless and somewhere in there, speed became all there is.
Coach K didn’t build a dynasty by moving fast. He built it by moving right. By holding a line when things got hard. By believing that standards don’t slip just because the world speeds up.
In his words, “Discipline is doing what you are supposed to do in the best possible manner at the time you are supposed to do it.” Not the fastest manner. The best manner.
To me, the brands that can and will win now are ones that refuse to negotiate with themselves. Or as Coach K sees it: “When you attain excellence, success just naturally follows”
That’s not just sports wisdom. That’s business wisdom.
Maybe it’s time for brands to take a 30-second time-out and then start upholding the standard without compromise.
