The World Cup & Your Business
With football fever all around, it is easy to go into holiday/relaxation mode. We also tend to go into analysis and speculation mode – assessing performance and likely winners and losers. However, as we speculate and assess others, we should listen to the various assessments and judgements we make and apply them to our business. There is a lot we can learn from the world cup for your business.
Game plan – How would performance be without a game plan and what do we say about team who does not seem to have one and be executing it? Do you have a game plan for your business or are you leaving it exposed to the competition? Do you know your strengths and how to play to them and have mechanisms to manage your weaknesses?
New players – are you staffing with players of great potential? Do they have the right attitude to listen and learn and to push towards the ultimate goal. A proven track record is not enough – alignment of attitude and culture is so important.
A team or a group of individuals – there may be great players who will not pass the ball, who do not communicate well with their team members on the field. You need a team of people who will work together, communicate well, trust each other and who are pushing for team prize. If an individual just wants to be man of the match, he might not be best for the team. Is your team acting in unison and working well together?
Communication – football managers constantly give feedback – they stand pitch-side and keep in constant communication. They use half time to review and guide and they do post-match reviews. This timely communication is key. Do you do this in your business or do you wait for intermittent meetings or, even worse, annual appraisals to give your feebdback? Think about the benefit of timely communication and the missed opportunities that can result from a lack of it.
Post match analysis – after a game, the manager and team will do a post match review. If they lose, they are keen to understand why, learn from their mistakes and be better prepared for the next game. They don’t dwell on the past but take the learnings from it and move on, better equipped and having implemented the changes needs. Resilience to any loss is key – look on it as a learning opportunity and move on. Do you encourage learning from and moving on from mistakes in your business?
Think about the performances in the world cup and what makes a great team and a great game – the manager, the players, the culture, the preparation and the execution. Do you and your business compare favourably to the best?
Do you want to be among the best and winning? It is unlikely that an armchair analysis will get you there but taking action will. What action are you going to take?
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