I met Sam Darnold at the Jets training camp in 2019. The son of a defensive line coach introduced us; the young man loved the Jets’ quarterback.

The Jets, however, did not love Darnold. He bounced around the league for a few years and finally found a fit in Minnesota. After winning 14 games in his only season with them and then losing their first playoff game, the Vikings decided to part ways.

Darnold found the right fit in Seattle, a defense-oriented team that did not rely on quarterback heroics to win. They needed a steady field general who avoided the big mistakes. Darnold delivered, leading his team to win this year’s Super Bowl.

What does this mean for your business?

A common mistake I see many leaders (and athletic teams) make is looking for so-called top talent based solely on demonstrated skills or a university degree, without considering whether the person meets your behavioral standards.

If you are a sports fan, you’ve seen countless cases of teams hiring a signature talent only to find that person destroys the locker room and drags down everyone’s performance. It happens more subtly in your business. A highly skilled person who engages in gossip, hoards information, bullies co-workers, can’t get things done on time, and the like, degrades the performance of your company. People weary of the toxic environment or double standards begin to look elsewhere.

This chart illustrates the challenge. The lower left, poor skills plus poor culture fit, is the easiest to avoid, unless you are the type taken in by someone who looks, thinks, or acts like you, and you mistake them for the upper left: good culture fit but in need of skill training.

You can often find bargain talent in the upper left. This person buys-in to your behavioral standards, but does not yet have the skills to do the job. You have to determine if the skill deficit is bridgeable at a reasonable cost. If it is, you have a great hire.

The lower right is the seductive talent trap. This highly skilled person could damage your business even while delivering excellent individual results. Most adults have substantial challenges changing behavior, especially when the behaviors undermining your team are the same ones that have worked for the individual in the past.

The upper right is your right-fit zone. The biggest challenge to hiring and promoting there consistently is that most companies don’t describe their behavioral standards beyond platitudes. I facilitated an off-site recently for a company that has too many people in the lower right. We determined their operating values and identified the behaviors that illustrated what right and not-right look like. Now, they can hold employees accountable.

If your business is not realizing its full potential, it may not be a motivation, skill, or talent issue. It could be an internal culture clash. Breaking that pattern unlocks potential. Seattle unlocked Darnold’s potential and that of his teammates by assembling a team of talented players who shared the same behavioral standards.

In business, like sports, patterns don’t break by themselves. They break by design.