BUSINESS LESSONS FROM THE MANCHESTER CITY UCL WIN

Congratulations to Manchester City for winning the Champions League in the process winning the treble this season, the second ever treble for an EPL Manager since Alex Ferguson and the second Treble for Pep Guardiola.?

I study Football like I do business and there is something which is fascinating about the best European teams in the world. They have invested in scouts in every continent to harness talent not only for the present but for the future.?

They also continously invest in soccer academies training future soccer players from as young as 6 years old. They also hire top tier coaches and are not hesitant to fire them if they don’t produce results.?

I was just looking closely at the team which has managed to win a treble for Manchester City this season, it a completely different from the team which played three years ago with the likes of Nicholas Otamendi, Kun Aguero, and Rahim Sterling in the squad.?

Now they have the likes of Haaland, Alverez etc. One thing l have noticed is that the coach is quick to sell nonperforming players to other soccer teams, and the management is quick to fire nonperforming coaches. They do not care if you were a star, relative of the owner or even if you are the shareholder of the business.?

Nonetheless, they retain performing players, for example, in Man City, they have Kevin DeBruyne, Ederson or even their coach Pep Guardiola who have stayed with the team for more than three years.

When you compare these professional teams to companies, especially African companies, you will notice a huge difference. In our companies, no one is accountable for failing to reach targets or for the losses being made. We keep people because we were advised that staff turnover is a bad thing for the organization.?Even the CEO and MDs of most of the Small to Medium enterprises stay at the helm without producing results.

If the organization has the guts to fire or retrench, they usually target the junior employees which is the wrong constituency instead of getting rid of the executives. The way we run our businesses in Africa is contrary to how they are running soccer teams in Europe.?

In these soccer teams, you only maintain your first jersey if you are producing results, if you are failing, they will relegate you to the bench like what they did to Raheem & Mahrez in the Saturday Champions League Finals. They also do not care if you once won them championships, the only thing that matters are results.??

In our companies have people who have spent 10 years because they once gave us a lot of sales when they were still in year two. These people now feel entitled because they claim to have build the company from scratch even when they are now producing mediocre results.

The reason why we are forced to keep nonperformers is our bench is often times weak hence it is so difficult to dismiss average performers because it will take time to get a replacement. Why can’t we also invest in scouters as companies? A company must be able to replace anyone in the organization including its founder or CEO because it is a going concern. No one should be bigger than the company they are working for.

The Manchester City story shows me that a team that can win you an FA Cup might be different from a team that can win the Champions League. This is also the same fact with our companies, there are people who can help you reach $10000, but sometimes, to get a million or a billion, you need a different team.?

In conclusion, l do not believe that staff turnover is bad if you are removing bad apples from your team paving a way for good apples. Running an organization requires tough and unpopular decisions that might be considered barbaric by the public. No one is bigger than the team.

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