What Footballers Can Teach Engineers

From the Financial Times today by Mike Forde and Simon Kupur - Taking Care of the Talent: Football coaches grapple with egos, tantrums, and rivalry.  Business could learn a lot from them.

Their list of the lessons:

1. Big talent usually comes with a big ego.  Accept it.
2. Look for big egos that have "got over themselves."
3. Single out and praise those who make sacrifices for the organization.
4. The manager shouldn't aspire to dominate the talent.
5. Ask the talent for advice - but only for advice
6. The manager's job isn't to motivate.
7. The talent needs to trust each other more than it needs to trust the manager.
8. Improve the talent.
9. 99 percent of recruitment is about who you don't sign.
10. Accept that the talent will eventually leave.
11. Gauge the moment when a talent reaches its peak.

Number 6 was telling - A review of Amazon illustrates that it has over 200,000 book titles on the subject of motivation.  From the article:

"Motivation has not really got much of a place in sport."  You win the Tour de France, he [David Brailsford, general manager of cycling's Team Sky] explains, by going out to train on rainy mornings where you aren't the slightest bit motivated.  Rather than motivation, Brailsford emphasizes long-term commitment: sustained motivation over time."

A key takeaway - Big talent is usually self-motivated.  He or she wants to succeed for himself or herself.