My 5 learnings for management from the WorldCup

The FIFA WorldCup is over. The matches are played. Spain is the new World Champion. The team really has deserved to get the Copa del Mundo (…not only because they won against Germany.. ;-)… ). Now that the tournament is over I thought about it and asked myself, what were my management take-aways from the last five weeks…for me.

1. The team is the star. Worldcup 2010 was like Enterprise 2.0: Teams with top stars fail (Rooney, Ronaldo, Ribery, Kaka, etc…), real teamwork wins.

2. A scarf seems to be a team managers fashion guarantee for success. Though, managers who wear a scarf built world-class teams, it’s no guarantee to make a world-class team win the cup (Jogi Löw, Bert van Marwijk, etc.).

3. Managers need to have the courage to change long-serving systems in favor of integrating young players techniques, visions and ideas (Mexico, Germany, Uruguay, etc.). Nevertheless, the accompany of “old stars” as motivators is a great back-up…

4. Management stand-still is a killer. The market-competition for the “on-paper” leading countries is increasing. Globalization, new training opportunities and new markets offer countries great opportunities to become a challenging competitor for the old market champions (England, France, Italy, Brasil).

5. It’s all about communication, authority needs to be defined anew. There is no right or wrong in leading until the communication is not aligned with the culture and mentality of the players (France, France, France,…).

What are your key-findings, take-aways from a management perspective. Share them with us… And by the way: If it is serious fun you would like to share, just go ahead…

6 replies
  1. Nils Kowalczek
    Nils Kowalczek says:

    The most important learning is: It makes no difference what you are wearing. The only thing what counts is what the octopus sais. But I am still searching for the octopus in our company …

    Reply
  2. paper writers
    paper writers says:

    There are so many lessons to learn from the World cup that relates to project management. First, Don’t just depend on star player. Because anyone in the team can be the star player. Second, the managers should be open-minded letting the young ones to do their thing that may help the team. But the important of all is respecting the opponents. Because at the end of the day it’s just a sport and all of you are just participants.

    Reply

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