We love football, but do we really need to link it to business? In our leisure time we enjoy the game of football. Like few other sports soccer unleashes our energy and our emotions. This fact is bringing in big money into the game. The recruiting, the training and tactics have become highly professional, while still keeping the passion up during the 90min of the games. The short time frame spent on the field, the rather simple setting and number of participants (stakeholders if you want) make it a rather simple guinea pig. For me the analogy to business is obvious: it is getting people to work together to achieve a positive objective – winning. Sure not all aspects can be linked one-to-one to business situations, but looking out for lessons to be learned is a lot of fun, and also brings new points of view that can be helpful in our daily business life. I hope you find my insights interesting but also enjoyable!

1. Acrasio logo area Client logo area
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What BUSINESS can learn from FOOTBALL
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Dr. Karin Stumpf, Partner
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We love football, but do we really need to link it to business?
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In our leisure time we enjoy the game of football. Like few other sports soccer unleashes our
energy and our emotions. This fact is bringing in big money into the game. The recruiting, the
training and tactics have become highly professional, while still keeping the passion up during
the 90min of the games.
The short time frame spent on the field, the rather simple setting and number of participants
(stakeholders if you want) make it a rather simple guinea pig. For me the analogy to business
is obvious: it is getting people to work together to achieve a positive objective – winning.
Sure not all aspects can be linked one-to-one to business situations, but looking out for lessons
to be learned is a lot of fun, and also brings new points of view that can be helpful in our daily
business life.
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I hope you find my insights interesting but also enjoyable!
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THE SIX LESSONS
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1 The Formula for Success
2 Adapt but Remain True to Yourself
3 Promoting a Better Practice of Standards
4 Stars Don„t Matter – The Team Mattersof origin
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5 We Are Just Human Beings
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Invest Now – Earn Later
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The Formula for Success
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The key question in football is: who is going to win? Statistics and different figures are being
shuffled around to guess who is going to make it to the final. As in business, we are all looking
for the magic formula that is going to make us successful.
A newspaper stated that championship winners in the past had two factors in common: the
total financial worth of the champion was the highest AND the monetary value of each
individual player in the winning team was distributed most homogeneous.
For companies this holds many truths: you want to be successful? you need to invest in hiring
employees that can deliver high quality work, and this obviously will cost you. But it is not
enough to hire stars, e.g. former McKinsey employees, you need to form a homogeneous
team where everybody can perform at a similar level: one person can not become your
company‟s savior. You will need adequate support in each key responsibility to become and
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remain successful.
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Adapt but Remain True to Yourself
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In the last 20 years football has evolved as its roles and structures have become more
permeable. Teams switch between 4-2-3-1 and 3-2-3-2 trying to find the ideal structure for
their team and against their competitors.
Matrix or flat organization reflect the same approach: companies want to become more
flexible and adapt better to their environment. After decades of total quality and kaizen, there
is a tendency to encourage innovation and adaptation. But as we could see on the
field, flexibility isn‟t the solution to all problems. Well managed restructurings, where new and
old employees clearly understand their roles and responsibilities will go through the transition
and will be efficient in a very short time frame. But a mistake is to try to create an all-in-one
employee suitable for all purposes. Small companies have little choice, but large corporation
should try to place people based on their competences and skills.
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Oliver Kahn, Germany‟s former top Goalkeeper, said in one of his analysis: “You need to know
what you stand for. You have strengths and you should remain true to yourself.” This is what
good managers should always keep in mind when supporting their organization to evolve!
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Promoting a Better Practice of Standards
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One third of all football goals are scored after standard situations. Some teams have even
shown that it is possible to score one out of seven corners. But most trainers, as Germany‟s
coach Joachim Löw, don‟t put much effort in practicing these.
This reflects a certain attitude found in business: practicing and improving standard practices
is not a top priority in most companies. Instead of clarifying roles and responsibilities, setting up
clear processes and training these, they continuously identify new and more promising
projects. Not that innovation or the entry into new markets is not important, but optimizing your
basis, your standard processes, is one of the simplest way to increase your efficiency, to free
up resources, and so to reduce your costs. And still many companies don‟t use business
process management tools and spend only little time in defining roles or responsibilities while
offering little process and tool training.
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2004 Greece became European Football Champion. The team had not superstars, wasn‟t
gifted with a great offensive, but showed how an average team after some focused training
could use well practiced standards to score. I think this is the best promotion for a better
recognition of standards!
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Stars Don„t Matter – The Team Matters
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Last year some of the Bavarian stars Schweinsteiger, Robben or Ribbery were injured and
could not play. Some of their replacements or second row players could not fit in the big hole
left by their peers. Or remember the Euro2012 when Top scorers Huntelaar and van Persie had
to go home prematurely. Stars are important and can turn a game around, but a team is only
successful when the whole group can deliver. And it shows again that the skills and
capabilities of an individual player can only develop in the right environment.
Companies should never only rely on a few star managers by hiring executives with famous
names or exceptional CVs and arguing that they don‟t have the right human resources within
their own ranks. Newly recruited high flyers often fail because they don‟t get the company
culture and lack empathy and team skills. And what is true for star footballer is also true for our
employees. Some people will thrive in an open and flexible organization; some will need more
structure and processes. Leadership based on the individual situation and competency, helps
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managers to support their team. But an employee needs more than assisting leaders. People
need jobs that are meaningful to them, a team where they feel supported and responsibilities
that challenge them adequately. A team really becomes effective when each individual can
add value, not when some personalities can outshine their colleagues.
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Adapt Your Game to the Team‟s Capabilities
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The Spanish team has brought this strategy to perfection. Their team‟s tactics and strategy are
modeled around the individual capabilities. During the World Championship in South Africa we
saw what happens when a team has to adapt to a forced tactic: The approach of the Brazilian
team did not match their capabilities and they were out. One day up, one day down.
Some players can, with the correct mixture of endurance, team cohesiveness and luck (yes
luck!) amaze us with their skills and game intelligence. But far from being robots, on other
occasions they fail to impress us. Last year Schweini (nickname of Schweinsteiger) was the star
in the game against Real, but came out as the loser in the Champions league finale.
The same holds true for employees. Under certain circumstances they perform and deliver
outstanding work. But then sometime the results they deliver are poor and below expectations.
Consistent achievements are difficult to get, of origin the employees up to the executives. And
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one time failure should not be the reason for downgrading or out placing employees. And
most employees do not play along with new strategies not based on the internal
capabilities, their capabilities. Often, they just sit out such new ideas. Managers and directors
will be more successful if they take small tactical steps bringing their employees slowly
towards the new strategy.
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Invest Now – Earn Later
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The spotlight in football usually is on star players of great soccer clubs. Ajax Amsterdam, FC
Barcelona or Bayern Munich – all three teams are traditionally investing a lot into young
players and spend considerable amounts of time and money on discovering and training fresh
talent (remember the young defender David Alaba from Bayern Munich against Real?). These
investments might not have paid off in the last game, but they certainly will under other
circumstances, in the next season – their time will come! They might have lost some - crucial -
battles, but they haven't lost the war.
What about European companies? Professional training, continuing education and High
Potential programs are rarely high on the agenda. Rather, they find themselves relying on the
„mercenary principle‟ by hiring expensive outside help instead of putting more faith in their
own people. Research has shown that companies investing most in training are financially also
the most stable company. This key argument origin
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should help prioritize budgets.
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About Acrasio
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Acrasio is a Berlin based boutique consulting company with an international focus that
supports large blue chip corporations in implementing their strategy. The team of Acrasio
offers expertise, insight and energy to help its clients unlock, implement and sustain
the very best competitive strategies for their business success.
In our consulting approach we support our client in bringing these two different aspects
together:
1. the understanding of the market environment with the identification of the competitive
advantage required to support the company‟s strategy
2. the awareness of the internal structure and actual employee base to move towards a
better alignment to the company‟s objectives
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Karin Stumpf
Managing Director Acrasio GmbH
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Tel.: +49 30 32 536 536
Mobile: +49 171 1222 886
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Karin.stumpf@acrasio.com
Bissingzeile 11 Potsdamer Platz
Berlin, Germany
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