Team sports are worth watching regardless of your love for sports. It’s nearly a perfect observation environment for understanding group dynamics and behaviour patterns, mostly controlled by a set of clear rules -which can be mended or broken sometimes as in the real world- where every participating party tries to reach the same goal as a group. Such an opportunity to observe how each node interacts with another, and how each component that makes a node weighs differently. From season planning to a contending individual’s morale, from having the best team to deploying different training techniques: the interconnectedness between varying factors, the different compositions needed for different objectives and more, there are so many reasons to follow a team and go beyond watching merely a game as it promises more.

At a base level, a franchise or a club, much like an organisation, has two pre-set components: A vision and a culture. The rest, every bit of doing business, can change from time to time, from roster to training facilities. Everything is a variable with varying degrees of significance. But the objectives -aligned with the vision- and the culture you’ve built are there to stay or can only change by a colossal shift such as ownership changing hands or the changes in the rules. So clubs choose their coaches or are supposed to pick coaches who are on the same page vision-wise and culture-wise with a franchise. Abiding by the culture, creating a game plan and assembling a roster to achieve those objectives is the job that falls upon a coach.

There are mainly two types of coaches. Coaches who are good at maximizing a team’s output, aka reapers. And coaches who are good at building systems that optimize for maximum output, aka builders. The former is bound by the level of quality of its team whereas the latter’s success is relatively irrelevant to the squad as it leans more on processes. The former creates a plan according to its team’s capabilities while the latter picks profiles that fit into the system put in place. The former’s work is measured in weeks, and the latter’s in decades.

Not all clubs want championships in essence. From the outset, it looks like the ultimate goal. It has to look that way. But some just try to survive. Some want championships indeed. Some try to run a profitable business. However, no matter the end goal, there is a fundamental piece to being successful. Having a clear idea of where to go.

When zoomed in, you can easily see that a club’s failure most of the time is related to mismanaged expectations. A club that wants quick wins chooses a builder coach who knows results will take time. Or a club that seeks to have the best youth academy finds a coach who is only interested in getting results whatever the cost. The worst happens when short-term expectations meet with a builder or long-term expectations meet with a reaper. Yet, the fault does not solely fall upon coaches. It’s the clubs or organisations that are expected to make conscious decisions. The vision and culture come within the organisation and its management layer. Therefore, their perspective on the definition of success and its link to the culture is the culprit. It all starts with situational awareness: which league you’re in, how many goals you need to score, who are you competing with, and what your culture entails. Success belongs to those who can articulate what they want concisely, believe in a vision, and pick a coach who can speak the same language.

The most skilful leaders I worked with were good at both, building systems and reaping performances. But, the key thing to their success was not their broad skillset. It was their organisation’s expectations of them. You should not expect a sprinter to win a marathon. One can definitely manage to pull it off. But statistically, it’s highly unlikely. And its unlikeness has nothing to do with the skillset, it’s being sensible about the tools and the mission. The leaders that flourish in their roles are handpicked by their organisations that know what they’re after.

As an organisation or a club, you need to have the stamina to pursue your vision through thick and thin. If you are good at knowing what you want and finding people thinking like you, it’s only a matter of time for your days to come. So much to draw on from team sports, but a good coach makes a huge difference.