I have spent many hours over the past five years on soccer fields and basketball courts. I am passionate about both sports, but soccer takes more of my time these days.
Learning how to teach kids about how sports can impact their professional lives is important to me.
Sports can provide valuable insights into building effective teams and leveraging each other’s strengths to drive success in the business world.
Teamwork
Teamwork is a fundamental principle that drives success in both sports and business. In the world of soccer, where coordination, communication, and collaboration are essential, teams that understand how to leverage their strengths often emerge victorious. Similarly, in the competitive landscape of business, organizations that foster a strong sense of teamwork and capitalize on their collective strengths are better positioned to achieve their goals.
The more knowledge we have of our own personal strengths and weaknesses and those of our team the more we can put the right pieces in the right places. We can also understand how to help each other. Great leaders and teams know how to pull people into organizational challenges and opportunities, learn from them, mentor them, and help them and the Company succeed. Good coaches lay the foundation of this in teams too. They instill a culture of teamwork and then take themselves out of the equation allowing the players to take over. There is nothing better than seeing young players huddle up at halftime discussing amongst each other what is working, what is not, what needs to be changed and ultimately executing!
It’s not the team with the best players, but the players who make the best team, that win.
Open Communication and Trust
Communication is the lifeblood of teamwork. Soccer teams rely on constant communication to coordinate movements, adapt to changing situations, and execute strategies effectively. Similarly, open and transparent communication is critical in the business world. Teams that foster an environment where every member feels comfortable expressing their ideas, concerns, and feedback can harness the collective intelligence of the group. Trust, built through effective communication, enables collaboration, innovation, and faster decision-making, propelling the team toward success.
I see this in youth soccer. Some players are too quiet, some may be too loud and some instructions are unclear or destructive. The positive outcome here is that the kids are exposed to communication issues early on in their lives. The idea of timely and constructive communication needs to be taught and encouraged continuously (every practice/every game) with young players. They do forget to make this a priority. The best teams start with verbal communication on the pitch…
Contain, get your shape, make the run, take the space, you have time, turn, drive, support, through, drop, clear, cross, keeper, switch, and press
They build trust and eventually, their support for each other becomes more and more unspoken. The players are automatically where they need to be. Regardless, the field should never be quiet and the foundation is trust and communication.
Clear Roles and Defined Responsibilities
Like in soccer, where each player has a specific role on the field, businesses must ensure that team members understand their responsibilities and how their contributions align with the overall objectives. Effective teams in both soccer and business have clarity on individual roles, enabling seamless coordination and minimizing overlaps.
If everyone is responsible, no one is responsible.
By defining roles, organizations can tap into the unique talents and expertise of their team members, maximizing their potential and enhancing overall team performance.
The correlation to youth soccer is not only helping them understand their roles but also knowing your audience and simplifying your message. If there were perfectly made players who fit their exact roles this wouldn’t be necessary. Very rarely do you have a balanced team of natural defenders, born goal scorers willing to take risks or balanced midfielders (this is where I played which I believe actually ties to my focus on cross-functional work today) who can defend, distribute and score when necessary. You have to understand who they are, what they bring to the table, and make sure they are clear on their roles and responsibilities.
An example of this is the position of an attacking mid. I see players in this role excel at distributing and defending, but when they are in the final third of the field and need to take it to the goal, they don’t. The risk part isn’t necessarily natural to them. You have to let them simply know that this is a part of their role (the attacking part!) and they need to help the team by taking risks. You also have to support them when it doesn’t work. Give them the skills and the confidence to do it the next time.
What is my role and what my experience can help your Team with:
STE Advisors helps companies prioritize organic and inorganic value-creation opportunities and then executes against these activities. Frequently, organizations are too busy managing the day-to-day to take a step back, put together/confirm the big picture, and have the bandwidth to execute against the cross-functional initiatives that could drive the most value. STE Advisors partners with companies to:
- Develop/confirm the strategic plan, the execution plan, and related KPIs.
- Assist or lead the execution with team members inside your organization pushing key initiatives forward that you know you need to execute against.
- Work with you to continuously enhance the value of your business.
Specific past work and roles have included:
- Acquisitions and Partnerships – Helping companies target, acquire and most importantly integrate acquisitions and optimize partnerships.
- Integrator Roles – Acting as an EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) Integrator orchestrating the business functions, ensuring accountability, and executing on the initiatives that systematically move the business forward.
- Developing and Executing Go-to-Market Strategies – Launching products and services by understanding buyers, differentiating from the competition, developing pricing, choosing distribution methods, establishing the sales process, creating marketing content/stages, measuring results, and continuously refining the process.
If you would like to learn more, please contact me at rsternot@steadvisors.com.
