Founded in 2016, the Savannah Bananas have quickly grown from a summertime amateur baseball team to a worldwide cultural and social media phenomenon. The Bananas have accomplished this with a laser-focused and simple mission: Fans First. While it’s well-established that being a mission-driven organization can lead to success, the mechanisms that support the mission and propagate it throughout an organization are still unclear. This study uses semi-structured interviews and observations of the team’s players and personnel to investigate how the Bananas operate and succeed, both on and off the playing field. We show how the collective synergy of the mission, organizational culture, and leadership at all levels of the organization supports the mission and allows it to guide the decision-making of every employee.
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