Are you a professional or an enthusiastic
amateur when it comes to managing and coaching your business team?
The coach in an amateur or school team (if there is one at all)
is there to exhort the players to greater heroic achievement. The
game plan is "kick butt!" or "watch the defense" or "don't
let them score". In an amateur business, you often hear "work
smarter", "watch your costs" or "I don't want
to see a single sale lost".
Amateurs win with huge doses of energy and enthusiasm, quick thinking
brilliant "heros" on the field and threats of being dropped
from the team. And sometimes that is enough. Especially when you're
playing another amateur.
Unfortunately for most South African companies, a lot of first-world competitors are professionals.
What do professional teamS do differently?
There is obviously access to the best people, and the best equipment,
the best training practices and a 24 hour focus on the game and
how to improve it. And there is the financial backing to pay for
it all.
Winning team start by assessing the
opposition's strengths and weaknesses. Most companies do this - although often only once each year, and only with a few key players.
But knowing is not enough
- winning teams then define and describe in detail, exactly how they intend
exploiting that weakness, and avoiding competing head on with the
strengths.
Winning teams LEAD the game to be played in the way
that suits them. And since the opposition will be doing the same
thing, the players on the field need to understand both the plan
and the specific tactics, to continually redirect the game back
to THEIR game plan.
Remember it's not always the richest, biggest teams that win.
Sometimes a professional team hires great "heroes" from
other teams - and still loses. What is missing?
WHAT'S YOUR COACHING STRATEGY?
Is your team amateur or professional? Are you as coach providing
your team with a clear, well thought, practical game plan that
they understand and will follow? Or are you exhorting them at the
top of your lungs to "work harder"? Do you keep diving
onto the field to save the game in the final minutes?
hey, YOU'RE NOT A PLAYER, YOU'RE A COACH!
Perhaps the most important point: when it comes to the crunch,
the game is won by the players not the coach. It is irrelevant
how much the coach knows, and that he can see the problem from
the sidelines (so can many amateur spectators). It is also no good
if the coach goes onto the field and starts playing for them!
IT'S THE COACH'S JOB TO OUTLINE THE PLAN
The plan needs to be so integral to the players thinking and actions, that in the crisis of the moment he still knows how to behave.
If you think the business world changes quickly, try an ice hockey
game or a rugby match. The direction can turn around in a few seconds.
But a good game plan not only allows for change, the players themselves
understand the big picture, so they can respond quickly and in
a co-ordinated way.
A game plan that lies unread in the bottom
drawer is just an expensive paperweight.
A business needs a game plan. It needs to understand its competitors,
exploit their weaknesses and avoid competing against their strengths.
The team needs to know how to mitigate its own weaknesses, and
make sure it understands what strengths are leading to success
with customers and shareholders.
Your objective is to force your competitors and industry follow
YOUR game plan.
But you can't lead if you don't know where you're
going. And if you don't know where you (and your industry) are
going, you will be relegated to following someone else's agenda.
SO SHARE YOUR GAMEPLAN!
Like the professional sports team - the game
plan cannot remain in the heads of the top management team - with
the rest of the staff operating on a "need to know" basis.
It may make the management team feel safe and in control, and give
them ammunition to criticise from the sidelines, but it won't win
the game.
Is it efficient for your business team to be forced to
come to the sidelines every few minutes to ask what they can and
can't do. Yes, it makes the coaches feel all-powerful and clever
- "look how they can't do without me and the place falls apart
when I'm not here". Give your team AS MUCH INFORMATION AS
THEY CAN HANDLE and let them use their considerable skills to win
the game.
Remember, it's the players on your business team who score the
goals - not the coach
This is true even though the coach was one of the great
players of the past. By ensuring that ALL your players understand
your business game plan, they will be able to identify environmental
changes quickly, and know how to respond appropriately and in a
co-ordinated way.
KEEPING SCORE
Sports teams are fortunate - scorekeepers
are provided free to measure the score. And the media provides
a neat set of indicators on "possession", "territory" or
breakdowns of scoring. Business is not that fortunate - it needs
to define and measure its own performance indicators, and then
assess what led to success. And they need to keep winning over
the season, not just individual games.
Game plans can operate at a holistic business level, or at a departmental
or project level. In all cases you need to
- know your objectives (how will the business as a whole profit
from this initiative)
- know your capabilities as well as the core in-competences that
need to be addressed
- have a set of plans in place to deal with in-competences quickly
and efficiently.
- have a defined set of performance measures in place to know
how you're doing against the plan
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