INNERGISE!

Time and time again we hear about football club owners putting extreme pressure on managers for results, and then when those results don’t happen the manager pays the ultimate price and loses their job. One Championship League club is on manager number five after eight months (that’s an average of tenure of less than two months!)

Now we aren’t going to go into football politics and start the club debate in this article but it is interesting to see these leadership incidents being played out in the spotlight and observe what parallels, if any, can be drawn between the footballing world and the day to day running of your typical business.

When the club doesn’t perform to their expected standards where does the blame lay? Let’s look at each role within the club/business and how each can be managed to drive up results.

Club Owner – Company Owner/Shareholders

The Club Owner will have brought in the new club manager – has the process for recruiting the most important person in the club been thought through and has the experience, capability, attitude and fit of the person been properly tested? Too often in football, club managers are recruited on either past glories, reputation or potential, or gut instinct.

Great clubs and organisations know the impact poor recruitment of the top individual can have and use robust, systematic and thorough selection approaches, often with appropriate external support. They also ensure the vision is clear and understood before engaging anyone.

We often see the quick removal of a manager from a club when results haven’t happened and replaced with somebody else. That, more often than not, is a result of poor recruitment.

Club Manager – Managing Director

Football is a results game and so is, and should be, business and while the old cliché of ‘one game at a time’ makes sense, the principle is the same in business and getting performance right on a week by week basis should lead to longer term business success. Yet to what aim?

A manager with a clear vision of success – place in the league, style of play, team ethics, pay structure etc. – creates a framework to help align activity and effort and is typically more successful. Effective visions and values help dictate the type of player you bring in, training you do, community support programme you build and support staff you hire and so on.

The manager has to be a leader and leaders create a sense of direction which in itself sets expectations for the team. Think of those ‘rogue’ players whose antics eventually lead to them being released because despite their talent, they don’t fit and ultimately disrupt. If the manager has clarified the expectations, or values, they have removed an excuse for people stepping out of line.

The other thing we often observe when following high profile clubs is the ‘dressing room’ – you see managers ‘losing the dressing room’ and ultimately losing control, ousted by the owner or the fans. Could it be avoided? Well one lesson that football could potentially learn from best practice business management is the way great business leaders excel at listening to their team.

Whether it’s talking on a one-to-one (‘getting out there’) basis or conducting online surveys, the power and value of upward feedback is huge both in terms of closing the gap between managers and players and also gaining ideas. Interesting to see the Australian cricket team suspending some of their players for not contributing ideas as asked for in a task set out by their coach.

Picking issues up early and taking action will stop them from festering within the club/business and become a bigger issue where removal of key players – or the manager -may become the end result.

Club Assistant Coaches – Departmental Managers/Team Leaders

With a large team to manage you inevitably need assistant managers who can handle a smaller group of employees and monitor their day to day activities to ensure everyone is performing their role which will allow you as a team/business to achieve your goals and objectives.

Why is it that football managers seem to take their assistant coaches with them from club to club? It is because the team dynamic works and that they all come from the same place – minimal conflict and everyone’s nose pointing in the same direction with clear goals and responsibilities.

Communicating your goals and objectives to your Assistant Coaches/Departmental Managers /Team Leaders will ensure that they know where you are heading and what success looks like.

Club Players – Employees

Without the right players/employees success won’t happen, no matter how inspirational and great your management team are.

Within any team there is a mix of personality types that need to be managed to allow the team to blend together as one and achieve their goals, great companies recognise that and develop individual and team working. Within football they also focus on the clear understanding of different roles and how they fit together – what do we need to do for and with each other to create a successful result? Set clear roles and goals for everyone and measures of success that provides shape and accountability.

The other lesson from football for business must be the succession planning. The youth team, the reserve team, new talent coming in to refresh the overall quality of the team. Whilst different in business the principle of effective succession and manpower planning still works.

The profile and visibility of the big football clubs is fascinating to watch and provides as many lessons as warnings that are relevant to any business.