The stunningly different approaches to teams in business and football.
In football, we see very different levels of skills, maturity, professionalism, and available budget. In organizations, we see the same, but we treat the situations entirely differently. Business should learn a thing or two from football, to be honest.
Likeness
First of all, the relatedness. In football, you have a team of players put together based on skills and fitness for the job at hand. There is a coach that is supposed to make a successful team out of this group of players. In business, we see a similar process. A group of employees with certain skillsets and knowledge is put together to form a team, and a manager or coach is there to guide the team through the forming, storming, norming, and performing phases, as described by Bruce Tuckman.
Great Expectations
The differences lie in the context, and not only between the field and the office. It makes a whole lot of difference if a football team plays at Champions League level or is simply your local run-of-the-mill football team. Nobody expects the players of FC Local Team to perform like the best players in the world. Nor does anybody expect the coach of the local team to be able to lift it to the Champions League level. But in business…
