The Management Secrets of the Barcelona Football Club

Barcelona is the best soccer club in the world.  They provided evidence of this fact yesterday by defeating Manchester United 3-1 in the UEFA Champions League final.  Many people view the club as the best soccer club that the world has ever seen.  The United manager, Alex Ferguson, who took control of the club in 1989 was quoted after the game - - "I'd say it's the best team we've faced."  Best is broadly defined as the best managed.

The management of Barcelona provides an interesting topic for the discussion of management in the age of globalization.  Consider the following four questions that Barcelona has excelled at addressing - -

1. What is the right balance between stars and the rest of mankind?  Soccer is the ultimate team sport.  Eleven players all on the same page.  One great player will not define a championship.  One great pitcher can dominate a baseball game.  One defence can win the occasional football championship.  With only five players on the court at a time - - one or two great basketball players can take you to the Sweet Sixteen.  Barcelona seems to have struck the correct balance between the team and the stars.  Research has consistently shown that organization are too obsessed with hiring stars rather than developing teams.  For all their swagger, it seems that the success of stars depends as much on their co-workers as their innate talents.  When a sports page reads - - "No team works better in cramped spaces.  If the game were played in a closet or on a pool table, Barcelona would still find a way to keep the ball away from its opponent." - - you have the correct balance of stars to team.
2. Should you buy talent or grow your own?  Barcelona is dominated by local players - - Catalan is often spoken in the dressing room.  Eight of the team's leading players are products of its football school, La Masia (Messi is from Argentine, but he moved to Barcelona as a small boy).  Training is not just restricted to the technical elements of the game.  The goal is to create an organization with shared values, team spirit, self-sacrifice, perseverance, and character development.  Success in the long-term lies in cultivating a distinctive set of values.
3. How can you harness the enthusiasm of customers to promote your brand?  Barcelona has the strategic vision of "More Than a Club" - - with the goal to cultivate a two-way relationship with its fans.  Nothing produces enthusiasm like ownership.  It is owned by its members (socis in Catalan), who now number 150,000, rather than by shareholders or foreign tycoons.  The management is answerable to an assembly that consists of 2,500 randomly chosen socis and 600 most senior members.  It is not uncommon for a million fans to come out to celebrate after a regular season victory.
4. How do you combine the advantages of local roots and global reach?  The key question for the metanational organization.  The ability to leverage local resources and apply to a global economy - - the ability to be so local that signs like "Catalonia is not Spain" are seen at matches yet still having the ability to make the front page of the New York Times.  For all the talk of diversity and globalization, a long-term winning culture usually means promoting from within and putting down deep local roots.