Building a winning team: How football and Corporate are two sides of a coin

07/13/2018

For all of you who follow Football, you will see leaders encouraging their teammates when the score isn’t in their favour; I personally love that leadership skill. Your team needs you more when they are failing and you as a coach need to help them to be successful.

World Cup 2018! My sleeping hours have reduced from 6 to 3 in the last one month because the telecast of the World Cup in India starts only at night and gets over by midnight. I think it’s a very small price I am paying keeping in consideration my interest in the game, although let me accept that my love for football started just a couple of years back when my son forcibly made me watch few of his school foot

ball tournaments. I love this game because it makes me feel energetic and the fast pace of the game forces us to think fast and act faster! This game also made me realise that individual champions can’t win matches on their own unless they are equally backed by a talented team; we have examples of Messi/ Ronaldo/ Neymar during World Cup 2018!

This game completely fascinates me because there is lot of similarity between the game and the way organizations run, both need group of players (employees) with complementary skills to be a successful team (organization). An organization, can never achieve success unless it has skilled employees who are supported by skilled managers like for every football game you need skilled players supported by efficient coaches. This game also helps us to understand that in order to achieve success you need to compete with others as well as yourself. To compete with others you need to research, think critically, plan and execute well. To compete with yourself, you need to keep on learning and you need to develop your skills.

Football is one game which follow “one fail, all fail” policy. Individuals never win football games, and same is applicable for every organisation. Effective collaboration of team is essential for success, both in corporate world as well as in a football match. We need a unified team who behave in the same way and create a strong team spirit.

There are no shortcuts in this game and team would never quit till the end. They fight until the last second of each match. This equally applies to every employee who is aiming for success in any organization. You have to use your mind, heart and soul and never give-up. The journey is important, if we follow the right path with right tools, we definitely will reach our destination. We just need to be disciplined and focus.. Again one of the important skills required for football.

The final match of this world cup will happen this week between Croatia and France, I hope the best team wins. (I have my favourite team and will surely cheer for that, will keep my fingers crossed…)