Business Manager or Football Manager – Is there much difference?

I've played football since I was about 5 or 6 years old. I managed and coached our university team, and when I left university I usually helped manage and coach whatever team I played with. I played at a decent level and had trials for England (although I never made it as I was never quite good enough!)

I now manage my step-daughter’s under 10 girls team. I’ve done my coaching badges and really enjoy teaching them the skills to play the game well.

And so a thought struck me the other day…. what if I were to manage my business like a football team? Would that make it any clearer what decisions we had to make day to day, on what to do or how to do it, or motivate our staff ‘team’ in order to ‘win’ the match?

Now I should say I’m an Arsenal fan, it’s very frustrating at times watching The Arsenal because they get so close and never quite make it (apart from the FA cup two seasons in a row!) And then I can’t help thinking about the success of people like Ferguson at Man Utd or Guardiola at Barcelona…. and wonder if these guys were truly Managers or Leaders or both?

So how does this relate to my business and how I manage it? It’s all about having a game plan.

I’ve thought about all the similarities these two great pillars of our world have, and wondered if other people had the same thoughts.

The first one is Game Plan – there is a different opposition each game, you need to get the plan right in order for it to be a success. That success might come in a few different forms depending on the game plan – don’t concede a goal, settle for a draw, don’t throw all your people up front but attack with pace and directness. You generally know what you want to achieve at the end of the game -maybe it’s just not to lose, it doesn’t always have to be a win. Does any of this resonate with running a business? Absolutely, in my mind!

The game plan is my business plan, but it’s also my action plan, my marketing plan, my sales plan and my exit plan. We can have a game plan for anything in our business, but if we don’t have a plan, it’s the old adage – how will we know when we get there? I’ve been part of Stuart Johnson’s Action Coach, and TAB with Dougie Brown. Both have been pushing to make a plan, even if it’s a 90 day Plan with Action Coach, or the SBL with TAB – it’s about focusing in on your goals in order to devise the best game plan for that next challenge.

The next similarity is the People/Players in the team. Jeez I’ve had some people challenges in the 8 years I’ve been in business, and I got it SO wrong at the beginning when I was green around the gills. I set up as a Social Enterprise originally to help people back into work. My main reason for this was that if I had found it hard to get a job with a degree, how hard must it be for people who didn’t choose to go down that route (I know it’s more complicated than that, but you get my gist)?!

We learn from our mistakes, pick ourselves up and move on.

I took on 2 guys part time to do the delivering of our furniture. I thought I was helping them – they both had a few issues and naively I imagined that just giving them a job would give them something meaningful, and it did…. however, as with many good intentions all it gave me was issues. Problems, which at the time I wasn’t able to manage well and it took my time away from making a profit to survive and establish my business.

So, I got a real wake- up call as to what it was like without the right team of people. I went on to make more judgement errors with staff and probably still will, as I genuinely believe that the majority of people have good intentions …. even though my experience tells me otherwise.

But let’s get back on track – players in the team, they need to be in the right formation/position, know the game plan, be motivated and rewarded (and that’s not just about the money!). As a football manager if someone isn’t performing I might sub them, or change their position. Change doesn’t worry me, in fact most of my current team are probably sick of me making changes, but it’s the beauty of a football team or a small business – you can move people about to make quick changes.

Or… is it the curse of a small business that you can make decisions quickly? Do we make round pegs fit in square holes, do we think because they have some pace they should go up front instead of being quick to recover at the back? Should it be the best person in their best position? But then hold on, we’ve just had an injury or a player sent off, what happens – we have to juggle the team around don’t we? Is that the same as Fred is off sick and we need Alice to cover his position today?

So when it comes down to it it’s all the same – right?

There are so many variables and parallels in football and business – I think they are so similar it’s untrue. When a player, even at under 10 level, is having an off day, I change it around. If it was the older teams, I’d have dragged their ass off the field, and Alex Ferguson might have kicked a boot at their head or told them to find another club. Apart from the boot kicking, do we do the same as business owners? Of course we do!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 20th, 2016 at 10:03 am and is filed under Caroline's Blog Posts.