A business theory can explain the Philadelphia Union’s season so far.

In 1995, a book was published by famed organizational and management behaviorist and London Business School professor Charles Handy called The Age of Paradox. It focused on the ways in which businesses change and innovate in order to maintain their relevancy. The book has become a standby for CEOs and consultants hoping to navigate an ever-changing marketplace.

The lesson is a simple one: Successful businesses must identify when their current version of success has run its course so they can determine new ways to extend that success — before it’s too late.

A smart business will begin to rebuild when they are near the peak of their initial success (A), capitalizing on profits and their positive effects on a culture of goodwill in order to build. It takes one step back in order to take two or more forward.

A failing business will ride their initial success until it has begun to wane, eager to maximize every inch of positive trajectory, only to realize that the opportunity for change and renewed growth has passed (B).

There are two ways to apply this theory, called the Sigmoid Curve, to the 2017 Philadelphia Union. They begin identically.

The optimist’s argument

The Union’s opening day away draw with Vancouver was the beginning of a reasonably successful business cycle, the peak of which culminated in an open, entertaining, and ultimately unlucky home draw against the best team in the conference.

Knowing an enormous opportunity for points at home was on the other side of a deceivingly difficult two-game road stretch, the Union chose to “embrace their business model, fully committed to implementing it in all its details, while at the same time questioning whether this model needed to be replaced by a new focus” when the team returned home (Randel Consulting Associates, 2012).

The pessimist’s argument

Again, the Union’s opening day away draw with Vancouver was the beginning of a reasonably successful business cycle, the peak of which culminated in an open, entertaining, and ultimately unlucky home draw against the best team in the conference.

However, they apparently didn’t realize opposing scouts had learned how to neutralize players such as Ilsinho, Keegan Rosenberry, Fabian Herbers, and Alejandro Bedoya, or that the Union’s Island of Mismatched Toys 4-2-3-1 formation wasn’t a fit for current personnel. So the Union continued to run blindly down the path that had brought them some early modicum of success, only to realize too late that it was a dead end with a sign reading “Bottom of the table” and, in small print, “Union head coach: Applicants wanted.”

The pragmatist’s close

Organizations who follow the lessons of the Sigmoid Curve succeed because of the leaps they take to refresh their businesses, and they must make this leap over and over again as needs dictate.

What stage any business is along that curve, however, is difficult to determine from both the inside and the outside. Frankly, it’s a little bit like looking at a mountain range with a microscope. The problem is that you can see a lot of what’s in your lens and still miss out on the rest of the picture.

Four games into a 34-game season, the lens focused on the Philadelphia Union mountain is beginning to widen but still hasn’t shown much. What it has revealed recently, though, has undone much of the perceived good it identified to start the season. For optimists, pessimists, and pragmatists alike, much of the picture is yet to be revealed.