3 Things Football Can Teach Us About Teamwork

And once again, the World Cup is upon us!

With 32 teams vying for the coveted trophy, this quadrennial tournament would surely be drawing billions to their TV screens and stadiums as we witness excitement, shock, sadness and pure joy at a global scale.?

But football isn't merely a sport.

It is also a tremendous source of learning some crucial life and professional lessons, especially when it comes to teamwork.

All the players, including defenders, midfielders, and forwards, need to be in sync with each other to taste any victory. It is that same formula that we should adopt at the workplace to meet our goals (pun intended), because being a part of a team in a workplace environment demands the same level of collaboration.

With this thought in mind, I've created a list of 3 super helpful lessons that football can teach us about working hand in hand with each other.

1)?Stay Strong When Things Go South

Mistakes and failures are inevitable in sport. Even the most outstanding football teams, like Brazil, or Real Madrid at the club level, face failures now and then.

The trophy-laden Manchester United dynasty of the late 90s and 2000s are now experiencing a trophy drought. An all-conquering Spain that won two European Championships and one World Cup in a row is now re-inventing itself.

But how do these teams come back stronger after every defeat?

The answer lies in bouncing back quickly from setbacks and staying strong in the face of defeat. And one of the best examples of this is when Portugal lost their captain and talisman, Cristiano Ronaldo, to an injury early in the final game against France at Euro 2016. Starting the game as underdogs against a star-studded French team, the Selecao das Quinas were starring into the eyes of possible defeat when their only star, Ronaldo, hobbled in agony and tears to the sidelines after just 25 minutes of play.

But with determination and doggedness for the rest of the game, and against all odds, Portugal scored the only goal of the match through a “no name” player and was subsequently crowned the new kings of European football.

Likewise, it is not always fun and roses in the corporate world. And it is perfectly normal for your team to feel disheartened upon receiving negative feedback from a client, especially when every team member has given it their all.

But you and your team must not let the failure get to your hearts like strong, resilient football teams don't.

Instead, stay composed and consider the setback an opportunity to understand what went wrong for there is no such thing as failure, only feedback.

2)?Align, Collaborate & Work For Each Other

Football, being a collaborative sport, requires each team member to come together to score a goal. No goal can be scored even without the defenders who are often required to build up play in modern football. Every player needs to be on the same page with their match strategy.

Whether a football team plans to attack the opponent or defend its goal, team members must align and communicate their plans before collaborating to achieve the desired outcome. Often, members have to cover for each other and understand that the team comes before the individual.

In a now famous game play during his time as a player at DC United, Wayne Rooney, despite his advancing years back then, ran almost the full length of the pitch to stop an opponent from advancing towards his team’s goal.

Though technically not his job, Rooney tackled the opposing player successfully and prevented a possibly deadly counter-attack that would have doomed his team to defeat especially when the game was tied at 2-2 at that moment at the 95th minute.

Then to make things even more like a page out of a fairy tale, Rooney took the ball forward and lofted a beautiful cross for this teammate to score, what was eventually, the winning goal, with DC United pipping Orlando City 3-2. (You can view the clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBSrKMfz33w)

In a space of 30 seconds, Wayne Rooney became a defender, midfielder and forward all at once because he knew he was playing for his team, not himself.

The same can be applied to a team in a workplace. Aligning ourselves towards our shared goals is the first step toward success. By laying all the cards on the table and even keeping egos at the door before a project meeting, enables teams to raise their collaborative efforts to achieve more than each of the members can on their own.

3)?Even The Best Needs A Team

For the past decade and more, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have been the best players to kick a ball. But even they alone cannot clinch victory for their respective teams.

Ronaldo needed Pepe to organise a rock solid defence so that he has the confidence to hurt the opponent at their goal.

Messi would not have thrived if not for the selfless plays of Di Maria and his dazzling dribbles on the touchlines before releasing that final pass for Messi to score and take the glory.

Football is a passionate sport.

Even when a player isn’t the one who scores the goal, he/she would erupt with euphoria when his/her team scores. Stranger still is when the fans celebrate wildly as though they themselves were on the pitch when they were “simply” in the stands or even watching the match on television thousands of miles away.

For every “star player” in the workplace, there is a team supporting that person. Without the involvement and input of each team member, one cannot deliver a milestone, let alone a project. There are also other contributory “fans in the stands” like business networks, other departments or stakeholders, that help a team to accomplish those tasks.

So let’s acknowledge the fact that no man/woman is alone. He/she needs the team as much as the team needs them.

Undoubtedly, individual talent exists but as mentioned, even Ronaldo and Messi can’t win anything without theirs.?

As cliché as it sounds, teamwork makes the dream work, and there is a lot that football can teach us in this regard in order to thrive in the modern business world. So may I invite you to do more than just celebrate the goals that your supported team scores during this World Cup, but deploy these aforementioned teamwork suggestions to experience perhaps the same euphoria in your workplace :)

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Written by Andy Pan, Director (Client Solutions) at Right Impact, and the Author of Happy Companies, Healthy Profits.?

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