Key Lessons the World Cup Can Teach You in Business

With rabid soccer fans all across the globe, an estimated 700 million live television viewers are watching the World Cup unfold before their very eyes right now as 32 teams battle it out to become champions of the world.  Billions of people love the World Cup – soccer or “football” as it’s referred to in the vast majority of countries is like a religion to most and it only comes along every four years.  One might wonder what the World Cup can teach us about business and, in fact, there are numerous lessons we can take away from it.  Here are a few.

First off, getting good at your craft requires discipline.  Whether your dream is to become a soccer legend or a business legend, the formula and techniques for getting there are quite similar.  You must use measured practice to gradually get better at your craft.  Acquiring good skills through practice often makes perfect or at least great.  Often the most valuable abilities for getting better at your expertise and knowledge aren’t the most fun and easy to develop – they take time to grow and you must dedicate yourself to learning them.  The same way soccer fitness drills can be tedious for soccer players, often putting solid practices in place for business success can be no fun at times.  That said, you have to force yourself to get through the pain and tough times in both sport and business.  If you do so, the rewards can be huge!  As they always say: “practice makes perfect.”  The steady accumulation of a related set of skills relevant to your craft make you become truly great at what you do.

A good coach can have a tremendous impact on your career.  Most athletes realize that having a strong coach can transform merely mediocre individual talent into greatness.  Most people in business thrive under the tutelage of a wise, encouraging boss or mentor.  Looking for a strong mentor in business, while often challenging, is key to a winning formula for success.  It takes time to find a strong mentor and you have to do your homework just as team owners seek long and hard to find great coaches.  But putting in the effort to finding one that helps and challenges you will offer you vast rewards.

Learning to manage your emotional state is as important as managing your workload.  Anxiety is often the most important contributing factor to performance failure in soccer as it is in the business world as well.  Anxiety makes you feel stuck and doesn’t allow you to perform at your very best.  How many soccer stars have missed key penalty kicks throughout the years which should be simple?  However, they put so much pressure on themselves that they’re unable to perform under the stress and with the world watching.  The same is true in business.  If you try to do too much at once or take on too many high-level tasks, you’re setting yourself up for failure.  You need to remember to stay calm during the stressful times so that you can perform at your very best.  In business as in sport, you need to learn to remain calm and stable in the face of difficult challenges.

Checking your ego at the door increases your chance of success.  Teamwork is key to success in both winning the World Cup and winning in business.  Often the teams with the least individual talent triumph because they know how to work together to make themselves great as a whole.  It’s the same in business.  You must trust your colleagues and realize that sometimes it’s OK to ask for help.  Your way might not always be the best way so asking for a co-worker’s opinion on your strategy for success or for their ideas, often creates a winning business team.  To increase the likelihood of the success of your organization, you must be willing to give up individual recognition for the benefit of the team and the long-term goals your business is looking to achieve.

Planning is good but knowing how to improvise on the fly is key.  In sport, coaches often watch the first forty five minutes of a game and make key adjustments at half-time to increase the likelihood of their team’s success.  They have to carefully and meticulously watch what’s going on and make changes on the fly.  No matter how much you try to plan ahead in business and stick to your game plan, often things come up that require last minute changes that deviate from the original blueprint.  To avoid frustration and disappointment when changes occur in a project at work, you must understand that it happens to everyone and that it doesn’t mean you’ve failed.  Make a concerted effort to understand why you must embrace rapid change for the benefits of your business as soccer teams must as well.  If they want to win a match but are losing, changes must be made in order to reach the ultimate goal of victory.  You should also try to look at the bright side and embrace change or see the humor in it.  Beating yourself up that things haven’t gone according to plan doesn’t get you anywhere in business or in sport.  Sometimes you must embrace failure no matter how hard it might be.  Not all soccer teams can win every match just as not every business can acquire every client or customer.  But, you can always learn from botched plans and work on how not to let them occur again.

Additionally, there’s no good in complaining.  Often, in soccer harassing a referee for what you think is a bad call can penalize you by either a yellow card or worse off, a red card that gets you ejected from a game, leaves your team down a man and means you must sit out the next upcoming match.  It’s the same in business.  You need to keep your emotions in check when things don’t go your way or are out of your control.  Everyone has bad luck.  In soccer, there are always unfair or bad calls just as in business but it’s how you deal with adversity that decides whether you are successful or not.

Do your research.  Coaches and players in soccer watch endless hours of tape of their competitors that they will have to play in the World Cup.  It’s the same in business.  Always keep an eye on the competition to see what they are doing and how you can beat and outsmart them through your own unique ideas of how to do things better or things they’re not doing.  Both sport and business are all about embracing competition and trying to beat your competition through studying them and learning how to win over them in the long run.  Never underestimate the competition and always keep a close eye on them.

Always remember that it’s not over until it’s over.  Sometimes miracles do occur when you least expect them.  Everyone remembers the great Abby Wambach’s goal in the last few seconds of stoppage time in the match against Brazil in the Women’s World Cup three years ago to tie the game when her team was down a goal and a player but she kept fighting until the very end and never gave up and eventually, in penalty kicks, the U.S. won the game.  Never give in during the tough times whether in business or in sport.  Always keep going and remain positive.  Draw strength and confidence from your ability to rise above adversity and oftentimes, you can beat it.

Lastly, never forget that in the end, all that matters are results and you must do whatever it takes to reach your goals.  The 32 teams in this year’s World Cup are focused on one goal and one goal alone: winning and raising that trophy atop the podium when all is said and done.  It’s exactly the same in business.  Always keep your eye on the prize and do whatever it takes to reach your goal.  There’s always an end result and you want to come out on top!

So what have we learned here today?  Can you see the similarities between this year’s World Cup and sport in general alongside business?  How have you looked at these parallels before and learned from them?  Leave a comment and let me know.  Let’s start up a conversation!

Here are some articles you might want to check out about lessons the World Cup can teach you in business:

“5 Things the World Cup Can Teach Us about Entrepreneurship”: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/234960

“What Can Your Business Learn from the World Cup in Brazil?”: http://blog.freelancer.com/uncategorized/what-can-your-small-business-learn-from-the-world-cup-in-brazil/

“What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from the Upcoming World Cup”: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/55377213/ns/business-small_business/t/what-entrepreneurs-can-learn-upcoming-world-cup/#.U6q0-7EXJdA

“World Cup Footballers Can Give Innovation Lessons to Business”: http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/retail/413608/world-cup-footballers-can-give-innovation-lessons-to-business

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