Business zen: Good communication is the key

The business of football ... Spain score as poor communication undoes Morocco. Photo / AP

THE FOOTBALL World Cup is taking a lot of my "after hours" attention as the competition progresses to the end of the group stages.

There is an interesting trend of crucial goals being scored at the end of matches, particularly in what is called injury time (I guess it would be too much to call it "time added because the players wasted time in the match perfecting their acting skills for their career after football").

Such events are a reminder that in any endeavour you need to keep up the intensity and concentration right through until the end — particularly when it comes to projects.
Most of the late goals are caused by misunderstandings, failure to cover certain eventualities and bad communication.

Take the match where Spain got out of jail against Morocco thanks to a very late and disputed goal. You can see in the replays the Moroccan players looking in vain at one another going, "What happened?", leading to a video review and award of a good goal followed by wailing and gnashing of teeth by the conceding players.

It is clear that in the later of stages of the game there was a breakdown that led to this eventuality — and the same thing happened to the Swedes against Germany.

The breakdown, as can happen with businesses and projects, had many facets.

Firstly, there was a strategic error — too often teams who have played a certain way to get a lead in a game then abandon their approach to defend a lead. Changing strategy on a whim like this, particularly when things are going well, never ends in success.

If your team is down 4-0 after 15 minutes, then you do need to change things up, just as a business would react to negative environmental factors. In both cases it is a time for leaders to step up — to stay the course when things are going well or make changes where they are not.

Secondly, and this was very evident in the Spanish match, mistakes were made in execution — possibly because the Moroccans had their minds wandering to, "Oh my goodness — we are going to beat Spain!"

It is crucial that participants in any business endeavour continue to manage and execute right until the end. In today's competitive business environment it is important that service is full and complete. [A note to Noel Leeming: If you invite people to message you on your Facebook page, please reply.]

Russell Bell

Thirdly, there is communication — both goals conceded by Morocco were due to poor communication between the players in defence.

It is interesting how when something goes wrong on the field or in any other situation, the remonstrating and analysis is full and consistent. A shame for the Moroccans that such fullness of expression was lacking when there was a chance to actually line the defence up to cater for the attack by Spain.

As the tournament goes on I am sure that there will be more examples of the above and some matches will be thrown away because of poor strategy, lack of execution and communication failure(s).

The eventual winner will be the master of these or the one who realises the opportunity to fix these issues.

Balance Consulting is a Whanganui consultancy specialising in business strategy, process excellence and leadership mentoring — contact Russell Bell on 021 2442421 or John Taylor on 027 4995872.