The five fingers in a hand don’t appear to be much of a threat, except when they are closed perfectly into a tight, compact fist and then the perception they project is very different. The same could be said of the power of teamwork: the fist is, in fact, a metaphor used by the mythical basketball trainer Mike Krzyzewski (also known by him nickname Coach K) in his famous book Leading with the Heart: Coach K’s Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life (2000), which discusses the influence of teamwork on any individual performance no matter how brilliant the player.
Team sports are the quintessence of collaboration aimed at achieving a common goal. They produce, in a reduced space, almost all of the elements that determine an organizational situation in which different players intervene. There are leaders (the coach, team captain, etc.), different roles (players’ positions: goalkeeper, attacker, base, pivot, etc.) and important differences between group members. Differences in talent (the star, the specialist, first choices, substitutes), responsibility (that assumed by the best player in contrast to the young starlet or one who has just come into the team), and influence on team-mates or the group as a whole (a veteran, compared to a new signing or promoted youth player).
Sport is a wonderful school
Also in team sports, many circumstances occur that are similar to the dynamics of the business world: resilience, or performance under pressure, internal tension, sacrifice, commitment, pride at belonging, and togetherness. This is why sports psychology is so valuable in almost any business situation, whether in a tech startup, multinational, or even a professional kitchen (in the Disney+ series The Bear, which takes place in a Chicago restaurant set on winning a Michelin star, one of the characters reads Coach K’s book cover to cover). Sport is a wonderful school for learning how to work in a team.
So what can be learned from sports, exactly? Krzyzewski explains the metaphor of the fist in describing a “quintet” to form the dream team of collaborative effort. For the three-times Olympic gold medal winner with the US basketball team, the ingredients are:
1) Communication: open and permanent, to ensure all team members are aligned with the same goal.
2) Trust: transparency and honesty, the bases of mutual support.
3) Collective responsibility: both in success and failure, avoiding blaming individuals and promoting group cohesion.
4) Care: demonstrating genuine interest for the welfare of each group member.
5) Pride: at belonging to the group and in the work necessary to maintain high levels of effort and quality.
Success is forged in adversity
Resilience and sacrifice in overcoming difficulties are other great lessons that can be taken from team sports. In 2014, English soccer coach Jill Ellis took over the United States team a year before the World Cup. At the time, the US were Olympic champions, but had gone 16 years without winning the World Cup and Ellis thought they needed to step up their game if they were to break the hoodoo. In her first meeting with the players, she told them: “Part of my work consists of making the journey uncomfortable, because adversity is the best teacher.” She knew that without demands there is no challenge, and without challenge no group of humans is prepared to offer the best versions of themselves. The US won that World Cup.
Psychology and demands are two qualities all leaders of successful teams employ. A lot of psychology is needed, for example, for the egos of hugely talented individuals such as Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant to fit into teams. And the demands placed on them, once incorporated, are aimed at getting the best out of such players – and need the help of their team-mates. This becomes incredibly difficult when a team, in sports or the workplace, is formed not by one but a constellation of stars. Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane (Real Madrid), Pep Guardiola (FC. Barcelona and Manchester City) and Phil Jackson (Chicago Bulls and Los Ángeles Lakers) could testify to this.
The best team functions as a family
German former coach of soccer teams Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool, Jürgen Klopp, is another sports professional from whom the business world can learn many applicable lessons. He’s considered one of the best coaches in soccer history – with hard work, passion and teamwork the main characteristics of teams inspired by his leadership inside and outside the game.
One of his maxims is to build groups based mainly on unity, in which the players form real family, with shared values and objectives. He says, for example, that a team’s success is 30% tactics and 70% togetherness. His dressing rooms have signs spelling out such maxims as: total commitment; ferocious obsession; determination, whatever is happening in the game; all for one and one for all; let others help you; use all of your qualities (skills and dexterity) for the team’s benefit; responsibility is everyone’s.
An old children’s TV program encourages kids to help one another, with the phrase: alone you can’t, with friends you can. This slogan also works in the world of sports and, without doubt, applies to the corporate world.