Would total football work in an average office job?

Same same but different

Though the implementations are very much different, the base and foundation of a football game is made up of the same essences as an office job. Here are a few ways football and corporate mirror each other:

• SWOT analysis as the first step. Just like how a football coach will dissect the opponent’s opportunities and threats while identifying internal strengths and weaknesses, business managers must do the same to assess their market position.
• Strategic positioning. In football, the strategic placement of players is crucial to control the game and generate scoring opportunities. In business, it is vital for companies to define their target audience and create unique value propositions.
• Resource management. Available players, budget and infrastructure need to be managed efficiently for a football team to achieve success. All of these will amount to no wins under the wrong coach—just like how a company works.
• Effective communication. On the pitch, players need to communicate with each other to coordinate plays and make quick decisions. At work, it is key to aligning objectives, increasing transparency, and ensuring success of initiatives.
• Crucial teamwork. The winning team always has aligned players who collaborate and move towards the common goal. In companies, it’s reflected in knowledge-sharing employees working together and committing to company goals.

Coming from the same visions and philosophies, you might relate to a lot of the players when they seem to be carrying their teams on their back alone.

Learn more on how your team, too, can achieve wins by strengthening its basics with football philosophies here.

Should we 'totally' go for it?

In 2016, PETRONAS’ Head of Leadership Academy, Asrif Yusoff, explored the idea of ‘Total Football’ being an organizational strategy through his piece in the Imperial College Business School Blog.

Yusoff laid out the concept of 'totaalvoetball'—pioneered by the Dutch national team back in the ‘70s, in which any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team. This is due to all players being at the same high level of skills.

Though this strategy did help the Dutch national team dominate, it is no longer the popular strategy for most national teams today. During its peak, a few main points made this tactic vital to the success of teams implementing it:

Discipline

Total Football requires everyone in the team to have full awareness of the game for the entire 90 minutes. Players need to strike a balance between sticking to the initial plan and adapting themselves to the dynamics of the game.

Tip: Company vision, mission, and values need to be easily understood across the company to ensure decisions don’t steer too far away from initial objectives.

Adaptability

The goalkeeper aside, defenders, midfielders, and forwards are expected to not only play in each other’s position, but also excel in that function. Players are forced to understand and appreciate the expectations and challenges of every role.

Tip: In a workplace setting, this type of understanding promotes a culture of empathy, compassion, and motivates team members to push aside personal aspirations.

Composure

To avoid mistimed passes and losing the tempo of a game—where the team has to rebuild the play all over again, this tactic makes it possible for different players to lead at different points of the match, producing proactive and versatile players.

Tip: Strong sense of ownership among team members will create resilience against tough challenges.

With its pros and cons, ‘Total Football’ has brought the Dutch national football team to the top. Though it might not be wise to implement it completely, there are a few takeaways you can absorb to upscale your team.

Read more about this strategy in the full piece here.

A game of body and mind

In hindsight, it seems that the two jobs could not be further away from each other—one requires constant physical stamina, while the other relies more heavily on mental models.

Uniquely, the average football player and your colleague at work will benefit from the same mental aspects of work ethic. Continuously break your limits and keep your focus, as all elite athletes do, with the following methods:

• Training intensity. The importance of training, both for an office job and for an athlete, carries the same weight of building your confidence by being highly conditioned. The loop of positive habits will give you a competitive edge.
• Skill development. Though a player or a worker will have one thing they excel at as their expertise, tending to all aspects of the game—or, up-skilling by enhancing all aspects of a job, will help you grow and not settle.
• Competitiveness. Racing against yourself and being at your own pace is good, but looking at the market and seeing where you are compared to your peers will do you great. You will take more risks when you are confident in your ability to ace it.

Check out more examples of the mind games a football player needs to master, which will be beneficial for office workers as well, in the full article here.

Have you always dreamed of scoring a winning goal at a major tournament as a football player, just to end up scoring your own wins from your work desk?

You could still apply the mindset and vision of a football player into your office work as well!

Learned something new from this week’s Monday Mavens edition? Spread around the good news and let your team members in the loop by sharing this edition.

We’ll see you again next Monday.