WOW The Ego Has Landed.

WOW The Ego Has Landed.

Appropriate that this epistle is taking place the day after Gareth Southgate resigned as England football manager and the day before I am presenting a business team to potential partners from across the pond, Canada to be exact.

It was suggested that I publicly imparted some of my knowledge and experience, over two years ago by my Sri Lankan business partner Rasika Thenuwara when he designed two of my websites. Since that time, whilst still active in business, I have completed three novels, one of which has been published.

WOW may be interpreted either as Words of Wisdom or Whingeing on Wednesdays so will let the reader decide.

I am a great believer that team sport is a superb school for life in general and business in particular. A team has to be a combination of abilities, ages, ethnicity, understanding, ambitions and most of all attitude in order to cope with almost any situation. The word almost is deliberate as sometimes things happen which are totally outside of our control as we have seen recently with Covid and Wars.

For today, let us deal with the expected and not the unexpected.

Amongst many criticisms of Southgate perhaps the most damning is his refusal to alter the strategy of the way his team played, despite the change in skills and abilities of those from whom he could select.

Like football management, business team management requires clear leadership and direction but, wherever possible, individuals should be designated with tasks which they are capable of carrying out.

There is no doubt that when Gareth Southgate inherited the job the England setup was in a mess and he used his own personality and attitude to bring about necessary changes. Due to limitations of individuals available to him, not surprisingly, he introduced a defensive attitude, not dissimilar to the late, great, Brian Clough who always ensured that he had the best goalkeeper to start with.

Results bore fruit as we qualified for the knockout stages, reaching semifinals and finals. Unfortunately, as his talent pool improved, he resisted the opportunity to change style and go on the attack against teams who his squad had the ability to beat.

The greatest compliment which I can pay to Southgate is the respect shown by his team, clearly impressed by his empathy and fatherly or brotherly manner. Whilst this is commendable in sympathising it does not always work in motivating.

Like many other managers, Southgate had to learn how to manage egos. Whilst this is challenging, confidence and enthusiasm are much less contagious than the lack of it. Confidence is sometimes misinterpreted as arrogance and my impression is that we did not show confidence in our own ability. If we needed an example, from a different sport, not a team game but individual, the Wimbledon men’s final is a good example stop

Steering is much easier than powering but does require a lighter touch.

In wishing Gareth Southgate a happy and successful future, I look forward to my own challenge tomorrow when I will be called upon to practice what I preach.