Individual flare thrives in a well defined strategy

"The aim should be to allow the team to thrive and create new opportunities within a well defined and articulated strategy"

This blog is a short diversion as we work through the way senior leaders cope with change. I enjoy observing how good sports coaches develop successful teams and strategies. In a previous blog I quoted one aspect of how Jose Mourinho developed teams (Sunday Times 08.08.10).

Another very successful football manager Carlo Ancelotti gives some insights into his approach in building great teams. (Interview with Matt Lawton Daily Mail Sat 23rd). He says: “It is important to have good organisation, play quickly and have the right movement. But I knew by then that you have to build the shape of the team to the characteristics of the players. It’s very important to use good organisation but also use the instinct and ability of the players when you attack. It is different when you defend. When you don’t have the ball the players have to take up the right positions.”
As a leader you can find yourself operating in two very different ways. One is to build on a rigid reporting and permission-requiring model, where everyone has to fit into the structure and know their positions. Another is where you are so enamoured with talented individuals who have energy and vision. You allow them to create a micro organisation/ministry, without them having any regard to how it fits into the shape and structure of the whole.
Leaders can major on one of these models, often settling to manage within their individual comfort zones. This often can be the result of overwork, time, capacity and emotional pressure. Or simply mental laziness, where leaders don’t get down to the hard graft involved in getting the balance right between the shape and requirements of the organisation and harnessing the varied talents and characteristics of the team members. The aim should be to allow the team to thrive and create new opportunities within a well defined and articulated strategy.

Mourinho on developing teams

"A leader will build a team in the comfort zone of their own preferences"

I recently read a fascinating interview with the new Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho in the Sunday Times (08.08.10). When asked, “What is the key elements to a pre-season with a new club? Mourinho answered, “you must come with two objectives. One: build a team in the human aspect. The other build a team from the tactical structural point of view.”

Commenting on the advantage of a pre-season USA tour he said; “When you go to Europe or Asia you’re effectively locked in - you train, you eat and you go to your room. Here you have space, they can walk, they can be together, they can go shopping. They really share the day with one another and that is very important for me to understand how they are, the way they behave, the way they relate with each other. The other element is to have clear ideas about the team: to know what we want, the principles we have to work.”

So many team leaders concentrate on only one of these two aspects. It is nearly always according to the way they are wired. A leader will build a team in the comfort zone of their own preferences. They can often be very relationally or overplay the tactical / structural element of team meetings.

Getting the balance right as Jose Mourinho has proved can help lead to amazing success