Soccer. I am not a fan. Not by any means. Every four years though I get swept up a little bit in the worldcup fever. Who doesn’t? The excitement of two National Teams battling it out on the pitch to see who advances to the next round. The thrill of picking your favorite Team to see if they can make it all the way. The late nights watching the games and subsequent critique of all the plays. It almost sounds like we know what we are talking about. Right?
Not this year though. I am angry. Angry at myself for sitting through the entire ninety minutes of even the most boaring of games. Even when it was clear after 10 minutes that the favorite is beeing run over, painfully believing it will turn around somehow. Germany out in the Group Stages. Outsch. Didn’t they win the Cup four years ago? Spain beaten by hostnation Russia. Portugal going home loosing to Urugay. Argentina loosing to France. Italy and the Netherlands. Hold on, that’s right, they didn’t even make it to the Cup this year. What is going on?
While sitting in a traffic jam today I started thinking and wondered what happened to these supposedly unbeatable teams. Why did they loose? Is there a lesson for the business world?
First thought I had. They need better players. Hold on, that can’t be true. They have the best players in the world. The cream of the crop, with a transfermarket value north of about 20 million euros each for every one of their players. So that can’t be the case.
As I said, I have no clue about soccer but here is something painfully abvious to me. These guy’s don’t seem to run the extra mile. It doesn’t look like they fight for every ball. It feels like they don’t do whatever it takes. Quite the opposite, they look bored. Almost as if they don’t want to be there. They look like they expect someone else to do the hard work. Maybe the star player will save the day. Well don’t we all? In turn, it seems like the big guns just want to wait in front of the goal and score. Expecting everyone else to pass the ball to them. And together as a Team they sure as hell don’t look like they are having fun.
I am missing the team spirit and the winning attitude! A bunch of highly skilled individuals does not make a winning Team. Never has, never will.
So here is what every business can learn from all these supposedly unbeatable Teams being beaten.
Hire for attitude rather then skill.
Sure, skills are expected but too many hiring managers forget that the best skilled team member isn’t going to help you if he/she doesn’t fit into the company culture and doesn’t support the values you stand for. A rotten apple will spoil the whole fruit basket. Get rid of it or in other words, fire him or her. FAST!
Sell the vision and build an awesome company culture.
You Team members are there for more then just a pay cheque. The want to be part of something bigger. As a business owner you have to sell that vision. Where are you going and why are you going there. In addition to that you have to tell them what’s in it for them. Your team has to be hungy.
Back to the Worldcup. France won the Cup, Croacia and Belgium made up the places. All three showed attitude! All of them had great players but not the superstars of teams that bombed out early. You could see that these teams were hungry. They showed spirit and heart even when behind a few minutes before the end of the game. They came out on top with that winning attitude.
That’s how you win in the worldcup and that’s how you win in business.