In the book Astroball, Ben Reiter outlines how the Astros developed the World Series winning 2017 team. Reiter is the Sports Illustrated writer who correctly predicted the 'Stros would win it all two years earlier. He writes about how Jeff Luhnow, general manager, built the team by taking the Moneyball concept and looked for players adept at using sabermetrics. According to Reiter, Luhnow looked for players with a "growth mindset." Many organizations talk about the same trait when scouting for talent.

The 2017 team was a favorite. Not a favorite to win (that was the Dodgers), but a great story. A come-back story. Likable baseball heroes. Hurricane Harvey had decimated parts of Houston with flooding and the city was recovering. And the Astros won it all. A Cinderella story that Disney could not have written better. This year, the Nationals got the better of the Astros in seven games. Houstonians wondered if the Astros could become a dynasty like the Yankees of 2000s. We had the same team (essentially), plus some of the best pitching talent in the game.

Unlike 2017 where the backdrop was a city come-back story, this year, the side story was the franchise mishandling crisis. A female reporter from Sports Illustrated was in the clubhouse covering the American League win against the Yankees, and for reasons unknown to fans, the assistant general manager Brandon Taubman reportedly went on an explicative laden tirade about how fortunate the franchise was to retain Roberto Osuna (previously suspended for violating MLB's domestic violence policy). When one of the female reporters who witnessed the bizarre behavior covered the story, Astros alleged the report was "misleading and completely irresponsible." The problem was others in the clubhouse saw the scene as well, and the Astros quickly back peddled. Later, Luhnow restated, "There's nothing about that first statement that was correct or that's defensible. We take accountability for it, we take ownership for it, and it was wrong." Astros owner Jim Crane made a public statement in light of Taubman's outburst that "we made our statement, we got it wrong from the start. Jeff [Luhnow] had reached out to the reporters and apologized. We made our statement. Other than that, we're not going to revisit at this point. We'll play baseball." The original statement was later retracted (around Game 3).

Meanwhile, on the field, the Astros were favored to win the series by a wide margin. But they played like a team distracted (with news coverage split between on and off the field drama). During the first few loses, the saga continued to unfold. The Washington Nationals beat the Astros 5-4 in Game 1 at Minute Maid Park, pushing forward after the Astros' initial lead in the game. The Washington Nationals then pummeled the Astros on its home turf again with a victory of 12-3 in Game 2, giving the Nationals a 2-0 World Series lead. The stage then shifted to Nationals Park in D.C. for Games 3, 4, and 5 where (perhaps free from distractions at home) the Astros came back with 4-1, 8-1, and 7-1 victories. Upon the return to Minute Maid Park for Games 6 and 7, the Astros lost both home games with scores of 7-2 and 6-2, respectively, ultimately resulting in a 4-3 World Series win for the Washington Nationals. With some irony, the final game had Osuna on the mound in the last few innings while perhaps the best pitcher in baseball Gerrit Cole, who had pitched a winning game two nights earlier, was warming up in the bullpen. Not the ending Astros fans wanted.

The Astros came off as obtuse. Edward Hanover, now of DLA Piper (formerly CCO for FIFA), has written about the importance of compliance programs in sports organizations (Hanover, Edward, "The New Sports Compliance Program," Law.com. Oct. 9, 2018). Having the right culture is a key part of an effective compliance program. Good policies and procedure to address different risks, training, and monitoring don't mean much if the culture behind it is not focused on doing the right thing.

A key part of culture is setting standards of behavior. And if you watch the Astros in the community, individual players do a lot of good. They are the same hometown heroes we saw in 2017. Go to Memorial Park and you may find an Astro exercising with his kid, happy to give an autograph or talk up baseball. Star pitcher Justin Verlander and his wife, supermodel Kate Upton, are Houston royalty and regulars on the charity circuit, raising money for different causes, supporting Houston. Altuve, Correa, the entire club. That 2017 team lives and breathes in Houston. These guys walk the walk.

And then you have the episode in the background of the series, which team leadership completely mishandled. It may not have impacted the game, but it may have. Only the players know that for sure. An investigation into potential misconduct and termination of a key member of team leadership during the most important series of games for the franchise does not make for ideal playing conditions. And the way the story was handled seemed to play into the Astros as the bad guys facing the underdog Nationals. They were just two of the best teams this year, but we love stories.

What Astros leadership seemingly lacked was accountability. The players may have a growth mindset, but team management did not show that they have the same focus. The actions of leadership set the tone for an organization's culture. When leadership makes bad decisions, an organization's culture can become the victim of their actions (or lack thereof). Companies without a robust ethics and compliance program can struggle to get culture right. Measuring culture presents a challenge. Often there are warning signs. Issues with conflicts of interest, harassment—follow the headlines and lack of governance is a key theme. Paying attention to the small issues before they become larger is key. Organizations must find the root cause, pivot and change direction on actions by leadership, shift internal and external messaging, and rethink how effectively the ethics and compliance program syncs with business.

History is replete with examples of companies that have made this shift and come back stronger. Volkswagen is a firm favorite. Recently, the company unveiled a commercial that opened with an engineer drafting in a dark warehouse lit only by a single task lamp with news of the company's struggles with emissions compliance playing in the background. The commercial then shifts to the company's focus on electric vehicles and shows a design that looks like an old VW van that challenged even the most hardened VW opponents to remember why we love the brand. Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" plays in the background. The message—out of the dark, we found light. It's not just advertising. The company that owns storied brands including VW, Porsche, Audi, and Lamborghini has made real change. After numerous investigations, indictments and lawsuits (and $30 billion in penalties), VW underwent these changes, including a management overhaul, replacing its CEO who was handling its emissions scandal, Matthias Mueller, with the VW brand chief at the time, Herbert Diess. Porsche has undergone several leadership changes just this year, including change in chairman of its Management Board of Porsche Engineering and the change in CEO of Porsche Korea.

The Astros will get it right as well. They are America's team. And Houston still needs them. If the players can have a growth mindset, leadership can too. They've already taken some steps in the right direction. We'll see how the next chapter reads next season.

Ryan McConnell and Judy Liu work at R. McConnell Group—a compliance boutique law firm in Houston, Texas with Fortune 500 clients across the globe. The firm has mapped out different regulatory frameworks into compliance benchmarking materials available at http://www.rmcconnellgroup.com/compliance-by-design/. McConnell is a former assistant U.S. Attorney in Houston who has taught criminal procedure and corporate compliance at the University of Houston Law Center. Liu's work at the firm focuses on risk and compliance issues in addition to assisting clients with compliance program development. Send column ideas to [email protected].