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Just like Spain, the Euro 2024 champions, building a world-class team, whether on the football pitch or in the boardroom, requires a similar level of dedication and a focus on each individual player (or employee) and how they contribute to the whole.
In today's competitive landscape, companies can't simply rely on individual brilliance. Success hinges on fostering a collaborative environment where diverse talents come together to achieve a common goal.
Let's delve deeper into the secrets of crafting a world-class team, drawing inspiration from the strategies employed by these elite footballing nations, and exploring how businesses can translate those tactics into a winning formula for their own organisation.
Watch Charlie Blakemore, CEO at Intercity, discuss how the lessons he learned while managing Chase Town Football Club helped him to become a better business leader.
1. 54% of companies saw their My Team score decrease by an average of -3%.
2. Leadership and My Manager also decreases, with 61% of companies seeing an average Leadership score decline of -4%.
3. What strategies organisations can implement to improve clarity at all levels of their business.
4. Download your free resource and identify the areas where your organisation needs to focus its energies to build world class teams.
“When you’re thinking about building world class teams, it's important that everyone understands the purpose and vision of the organisation, that we lead by example, that we build trust across the whole organisation, that we appreciate and recognise everyone at every stage of their career, we collaborate, communicate, and listen to everyone all the time, and we provide opportunities for people to learn and grow.” – Lawrence Cramer, People & Culture Director, Inspired Villages
Every great team needs great leaders. In the instance of Spain, their national FA has clearly focused on ensuring their teams have a clear purpose and aims that is fully understood by everyone from the managers to the coaches to the players. The result of this unity has been the women’s team winning the 2023 World Cup and the men’s team winning the 2024 Euros. Just like Jorge Vilda and Luis de la Fuente and their coaching staff created a winning strategy and ensured that this was communicated with clarity to their teams, organisations need a leadership and management team that are able to do the same for their employees.
Fuente’s Spain went into the Euros tournament with no great expectation on them, being behind the favourites – France, England, and Germany – and without any of the household names that their national teams have had in past tournaments. However, Fuente and his coaching staff developed a strategy that played to the strengths of their squad. They instilled belief in the team, made sure every player knew their role, and explained how their role could help bring success to the team. Ultimately, each player bought in to the system and did their job effectively, leading to the glory of winning Euro 2024.
Similarly, the English FA has put a focus on setting up a communication structure that encourages success. Both the women’s and men's teams have finished runners up in their most recent tournaments, with the women’s team also having won their most recent Euros tournament in 2022. This FA strategy has not only led to the success of winning England’s first international trophy in almost 60 years, but both teams consistently reaching finals is highly impressive.
Regarding the men’s team, the leadership had an approach to their management of the team comparable to that of Spain. Despite Southgate and his tactics being much maligned by the public and media, he and his coaching staff were dedicated to their methods and ensured that each team member also bought in to the project. Ultimately, England may not have won the Euros this year, or in the previous iteration in 2021, yet the fact remains that only by having a united team that was committed to their leader’s vision could they have successfully reached two consecutive European Championship finals.
The impact that leaders and managers have on teams is significant whether you’re a football team or a business. Using the Best Companies 8 Factor methodology and data gathered from nearly 350,000 employees that completed the b-Heard survey, we can see that success (or failure) of leaders, managers, and teams is intrinsically linked, and this is reflected in how scores for each factor tend to increase or decrease together.
Last year, 61% of companies saw their Leadership score drop by an average of -4%. Furthermore, 173 companies saw their My Manager score decline, of which, 47% also saw a decrease in their My Team score. Across all companies, 54% saw their My Team score decline by an average of 3%. On the other hand, 68% of companies that increased their My Manager score also improved their My Team score.
Therefore, it is vital to a company’s success that they ensure that these relationships are strengthened through clear and open communication about the organisation’s purpose, strategies, and goals; personal and professional support and development opportunities; and recognition of achievements. Only then will employees truly believe in, and strive towards, an organisation’s aims.
However, this is also an issue that many companies are currently facing: a lack of clarity from the top of the organisation to their teams, as we can see when we look at how the survey statements scores for the My Team, Leadership, and My Manager factors have declined over the past year.
“If we think about when people do their best work, they feel confident, they feel highly connected to the organisation, they feel connected to each other, they have great clarity about the job to be done... that they have a suitable level of control... and that they’re suitably challenged.” – Simon Grosse, CEO, FSP
From our data, it is the Leadership statements have seen the greatest decline. In fact, the three Leadership statements “I have confidence in the leadership skills of the senior management team”, “I am inspired by the person leading this organisation”, and “Senior managers of this organisation do a lot of telling but not much listening” saw the greatest decline in score across all statements when looking at the organisations whose Best Companies Index (BCI) Score decreased, with declines of -4.55%, -4.09%, and -4.83%. Should the Spain team choose to take our survey, we would no doubt see the opposite results to these statements – particularly having gone from being knocked out of the 2022 World Cup by Morocco to winning Euro 2024.
Furthermore, we can see how this lack of connection to the leadership team is having a knock-on effect on employees' relationships with their managers. Again, surveying companies whose BCI Score declined have seen their My Manager statements scores also decrease, highlighting the connection between how employees' feelings towards their leaders and managers are intertwined. Without leadership teams providing their managers with the knowledge and tools to communicate clearly with their teams, employees are starting to become disengaged with their managers.
This disengagement is also evident in how employees are feeling about their own teams. Companies whose BCI Score decreases also saw declines for the My Team statements, "People in our team don't care much for each other", "My team is fun to work with", and "I feel a strong sense of family in my team". If managers aren't able to provide clarity on the organisation's purpose, strategies, and goals, then employees can quickly become unsure of how effective their role and their team are being in moving the company forward. Team relationships can also degrade due to a lack of communication as they feel that they are unable to be open with their managers and their colleagues, resulting in a lack of trust - something which if vital for creating cohesive teams.
It is clear that employees are currently struggling to connect with their leadership and that their is a lack of clear communication across all levels of organisations. As such, leadership teams need to re-evaluate their communication strategies to their managers and teams. This includes regularly reinforcing their company's purpose and strategies, providing updates on targets, and recognising accomplishments – in other words, creating clarity.
Gareth Southgate is a master communicator. His ability to create a unified team atmosphere, something that previous England managers have struggled with, reflects his excellent man management skills. Regarding his approach to communication and developing a positive team environment, Gareth says, “When you have team meetings, you’re communicating certain messages to the team. But every meeting can be slightly different depending on what you want from it. There are meetings where you’re delivering information, meetings where I’m seeking opinion and looking for contribution from the players. And there are times when I’m looking to check their understanding of things. But for me, the most rewarding communication is one-to-one, and that may be in a formal meeting or a very informal environment. I tend to prefer informal. It allows people to open up more and feel more comfortable expressing an opinion. I think it’s important to listen, and it’s important to get a feel of what motivates the individual”.1
Managers are key to this communication. Often the bridge between leadership and teams, managers can provide updates and feedback more often and, due to the closer relationship between managers and their teams, more effectively. Read more about how managers can reinforce clarity, here.
Just like how Spain’s footballers fully understanding the purpose and strategy of their manager and coaches led to their victory, employees who have bought in to their organisation’s plan are more likely to succeed. But how can companies ensure clarity?
An organisation’s purpose is the ‘why’ they do what they do. Effective strategies for doing this includes regular meetings to discuss the organisation’s purpose, setting benchmarks for how this can be achieved, and providing updates on the journey towards their current goal.
These meetings can be held between the leaders and managers, and then followed up with meetings between managers and their teams to ensure a clear message is being communicated. However, for teams to fully understand and appreciate the organisation’s purpose, leaders should also hold full company meetings where they reinforce this messaging directly to their employees themselves. It is key that leaders set the example for the rest of the organisation to follow.
Further messaging through emails, company newsletters, or videos from the leadership team can also help to create clarity throughout the organisation.
It can be very easy in the heat of work and deadlines for different departments to become introverted and lose sight of the bigger picture. When this occurs, there is a lack of clarity in how each team’s projects are helping to support the organisation’s strategies.
Providing an opportunity for departments to mix and offer insight into their current workload is essential to helping individuals to see how their work and others’ is moving the business forward. This also helps to forge stronger relationships across the business and enables employees to see how they can support their colleagues with their current workload.
Again, regular cross-department meetings and sharing sprint plans can help teams to get on the same wavelength. Furthermore, company-wide social events can also bring departments together in a more fun and informal setting, allowing employees to be more open and creative together.
For Spain, the focus remains on ensuring that their winning team spirit continues for both the men’s and the women’s teams. They will celebrate their success and then turn to face the next challenge, with their manager and coaches reinforcing their purpose and strategies.
This is also true for any organisation. Companies that want to be successful need to engage with their teams, communicating with clarity and providing and platform for their people to be truly listened to.
The old adage is ‘you’re only as strong as your weakest link’. Whether this is an individual or a team, it is vital that organisations continue to support and reinforce their people if they want to be champions like Spain.
Gareth may have resigned, but the next England manager and squad might want to download the free Team Index Calculator and identify where they can improve to take the next step and win the 2026 World Cup by creating a truly world class team!
