Here are just 6 areas that I’ve observed that gave it a thought, maybe you can add more.

Structure of the team:

In a typical football team with sufficient depth (or even those without) there are likely to be five levels (categories) of players - Academy / Youth / Reserve / First Team / First Eleven.  This is very much a career path of every football player and all professional players would have their dreams of getting into the first eleven some day.  But what’s unique in the footballing world that’s could be replicated into the corporate world is the sense of purpose, goal and recognition at each of this level. 

While not as great as the World Cup, there’s the Youth World Cups and the Reserve Games where the teams challenge other teams of the same level.  Similiarly in the corporate world, every employee at every level ought to have some goals that they could strive to in order to be motivated.  More often than not, quantifiable goals are given to the senior management but very rarely cascaded to the more junior employees, causing an expectation mismatch and lack of motivation.

Imagine if we were to tell the youth players that their job is to just run around the field and passing the ball everyday until they have sufficient capabilities to become a First Team player, how long would he/she last in football?  So managers, to develop your people, give them subsets of your job too! And hold them accountable for results.

Discipline vs. Results:

Discipline is always to be put ahead of results.  Theo Walcott was surprisingly left out of the England squad for not heeding the instructions of manager Fabio Capello.  He’s a superstar and that’s ought to affect England’s performance.  But what would happen if Capello kept him?  Other players would look up to him as role model and the team will be out of hand.  It’s tough to take disciplinary action with your top performers (maybe your top sales person), but allowing one to continue will destroy morale of the team, make that tough decision and cut losses.

Role of the Veterans:

Have you come accross organizations that will renew the contract of retired employees over and over again way beyond their retirement age for the key reason that they could not find someone ready to take on the role.  When this happens, it’s often the organization that not ready to pur forth a slightly inexperienced person.

Football does it perfectly well.  In this world cup, we witness Thiery Henry being known as the (super-sub) and David Beckham joining the team as an assistant to Manager Capello.  Henry was a former great and I believe his ability is sufficient to keep him as current great too!  Some may say Beckham isn’t playing because he’s injured, but I bet even if he plays he’s unlikely to be first choice.  He has a role larger than just playing, they’re there to guide the next generation, become the inspiration and become a ready stand-in for emergencies.  Same for other teams, older players who were once a star are kept in the team as role model but only bit part player.

Let’s look beyond world cup into professional football, some older professional footballers are given rolling contract year-on-year.  Do clubs depend on these players on rolling contract to be in their first-evelen?  Likely not, they’re to take a backseat and let the next generation flourish, but ready to come in whenever needed.

Apply it to business world, we’re ought to have retired employees on contract to take a back seat and play mentor role to a new Head of Division/Department instead of keeping them as Head of Division for as long as the contract last.  Nobody will ever be 100% ready until they’ve been put on the seat, so it’s important to have veterans make way especially if we want succession to happen.

I’d acknowledge the fact that the veterans in football take a backseat because they would physically slow down when they go into their 30s, doesn’t that feel the same for veterans in corporate world and technology (not all, but quite a majority)?

World Cup vs. Professional Football (i.e: Premier League)

Compare managing a world cup and managing a professional football team - which one would you prefer?  World Cup gets you more glamour (it happens only once in 4 years) but professional football manager gives you more flexibility (you can add players from any nation as long as you have the funds, no nationality issues).  Obviously World Cup success is tougher than Champions League success due to nationality constraints.

In corporate world, it’s also obvious that it’s easier to buy talents than to develop internally especially when you’re looking for quick-wins, but they’re not exactly that sustainable and cost much more.  So the key here is to work like a National Football Team Manager and build your team.

Remember also that National Team Managers don’t get a hand in grooming every younger since the early stage of their footballing careers, these footballers are most likely groomed by clubs.  So it’s very important for National Team to cooperate with the clubs to identify talents and groom the players accordingly.  Relationships with clubs are also important to ensure that players remain fit for important national teams (often an unwritten gentlemen agreement).

What does this translate to the business world?  Build your relationships with your talent source! - Universities!  Colleges!  Institutes!  Professional Bodies!  They’re the one who mould you next big star.  So rather than continuously complaining about bad quality graduates, work with the universities to align expectations and develop good ones!  Most corporate organizations build relationships with more headhunters than universities, that’s then no wonder HR cost kept increasing.  Headhunters are the Scouts for football players, they’re the model used by rich proffesional clubs and not national team ona budget.

Team Dynamics vs. Individualism:

Sometimes we see small countries create upsets by lifting the cup (maybe we’ve not seen that in the world cup finals but definitely in semi finals as well as Euro Cups).  How did this happen?  Because smaller countries tend to have more players who are not all over the world and therefore they have a longer practice time together with the national team.  They’re built into the core of the team with similiar culture, norms and understanding.

So in corporate talent build vs. buy strategy, think about this.  Short term “victory” could be bought, but long term team dynamics is better built internally.  Buying big superstars may not produce the same results when they’re with a different organization.

Relationships with Customers:

Each team maintains very good relationship with their Fan Club.  The fan club is actually the Customers!  They buy the merchandise, ticket to the stadium and cheer the team.  It’s the energy from the fans that brings evergy.  Customer/Supplier relationship is very much inter-dependent, so treat your customers well because they will in turn cheer you on and give you more energy to go further.  We should all have our “loyal customers” in our mind.  If you haven’t, start building your supporter base (by providing exceptional services that meet their needs)!

Alright, enough of Business Talk, now let’s get to leisure and play some fantasy football –> http://www.deloitte.com/my/fantasyfootball (Let me know if you’ve created a league and I’ll join you too!)

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Tags: corporate, Culture, development, discipline, FIFA, Football, hr, Leadership, Succession Planning, talent management, talents, World Cup, youth

This entry was posted by Clayton J.C Tan on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Business Strategies, Culture, Human Resources, Leadership & Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.