C-suite business professional and author Stuart Blyth shares how leaders can learn business lessons from the football field to unleash the potential of every single member of their team.
As a business leader you are managing a highly skilled team of people who you believe can deliver outstanding results for themselves, the company and you - but do you really understand whether this team is performing to its maximum or not?
Business Lessons - Harness Key Skills
One of the important factors in deciding whether or not you have the right person, doing the right job, on the right project, has a lot to do with understanding what each person’s individual world beating skill is.
In my book “From Pitch to Boardroom - The Principles Of Team Excellence From The World’s Most Popular Game” we show how leaders can identify this one world beating skill in each of your team members so that you can deploy them in the best possible way at all times.
Know the Team
We know that football coaches and managers will know this skill about every player in their squad; they also know where players can and want to improve in certain positions and where they will need to look for a new specialist to fulfil that position.
Consider a football team that has a good right back but not a great right back. The manager will be looking for the best right back that they can play in that position and will look to bring in the best player they can find if only on a temporary or interim basis – why then would you not want to do that with your business team?
When you are putting your business team together for an important task, you must create the best team that you can – you can only do this if you understand the unique world beating skills that each and every member of that team will bring to the task. If you are placing people in the team that do not measure up to the standards of the others, then this will cause the team to underperform.
Find the One
Furthermore you would always want to ensure that your employees could use their individual world beating skill at every and all opportunities even if they did nothing else.
When looking for that person with that world beating skill you will need to be very clear in what you are looking for – your skill is identifying exactly what you need and for how long you need that skill. As business leaders and interims alike will tell you, clarity when it comes to understanding your challenges, is essential.
So the next time you are thinking about the team around you, think of it in terms of selecting a team for a specific match. You wouldn’t always choose the same team, but you would always want your best team for the match.
What do you think of the parallel between the boardroom and the changing room? Do you agree with Stuart’s points and business lessons? What is your one world beating skill? Let us know in the comments below.
For more information about the book and executive transformative training programmes please see www.frompitchtobpardroom.com or contact Stuart Blyth at stuart@fp-tb.com
photo credit:wintersixfour cc
