How do you get your team members playing like Bruno Fernandes?

If you were a Premier League football manager and could pick any player from the past or present, who would you select for your team? Would you be tempted by a proven great like Messi or Ronaldo, or one of the next generation of greats, like Mbappe or Haaland? Someone with the ability to make a difference when all else is equal. Or would you pick someone who makes teams thrive? Someone who brings the best out of others, like Eric Cantona, Patrick Viera or Paul Scholes? They made teams greater than the sum of their constituent parts.

Because this question relates to football, the debate would be endless. One player who is worth closer examination is Bruno Fernandes. He was bought by Manchester United in January 2020 to prop up an ailing team, 30 points adrift of the league leaders. Since then he has excelled, scoring 28 times in all competitions (more than any other Premier League player). He has also set up 17 assists and been instrumental in galvanising the team. In the year following his arrival, Man United accumulated more points than any other side.

Fernandes has many qualities: ambition, presence, technical skill and flair. The two I want to highlight are his visual perception and the ability to orchestrate the interplay of different team members. These qualities not only define the very best football players, they can also be developed within commercial environments.

Let’s start with visual perception. This is a skill that can be taught. Clive Woodward brought Sherylle Calder, a dedicated eye coach, into his staff for his successful Rugby World Cup campaign in 2003. She worked on the key rugby skill of peripheral vision, being able to see out of the corner of your eye and focus on the ball as it comes towards you. In football the skill is slightly different. What matters more is the visualisation of players’ positions and movements. Good players develop the skill of scanning (quick glances) so they can picture the game in their minds and make the right choice. Usually this entails making the perfect pass. Arsène Wenger said some players have a ‘head like a radar’.

Scanning has been proven to aid pass completion. It makes attacking play more effective by making better use of space. It was also shown to be an important cause of innovation. For instance, once Ajax’s centre backs had developed the same scanning ability as central midfielders, they were able to play further up the pitch, resulting in tactical benefits.

This ability to visualise the field of play applies to other professions. Generals do it. Professional racing drivers and pilots do it. Founders and commercial teams can do it as well. As companies grow there is a tendency to create silos around teams and functional disciplines. Scanning is one way of reducing the impact of this. Staff should always be scanning to see what other people are doing, looking into the ‘spaces’ where no one is working (so they can spot new opportunities or better ways of doing things), and visualising how their tasks and work integrate with everyone else’s, to drive the company forward. If a footballer becomes a better scanner by looking little and often – and always before they receive a pass – so too can employees. They should be constantly interested in what other teams are up to and especially when new projects commence. It is not enough to be plugged into Slack or some other collaborative tool. You need to coach and encourage people to be actively scanning. Team meetings are a great forum for testing how aware people are of the other interactions going on around them, and creating a common visualisation of the company’s current operations and priorities.

The other related skill is orchestrating the interplay between people. As well as knowing where his team mates are, Fernandes also moves them around the pitch through his own passes, movement and exhortations. He creates the shapes necessary to score. The leaders in this field are Liverpool FC. They employ multiple mathematicians, an astrophysicist and an ex-particle physicist at CERN, to help them map and analyse the dynamics of game interactions. They collect data on every pass, shot, ball and player movement, to build models that enable them to simulate and create advantageous tactical scenarios. For example, finding the best place for players to be standing or moving to in order to be able to cross threateningly, and where that cross needs to go to be more likely to be converted. This data team are part of Klopp’s coaching staff and help shape training plans, as well as player education and transfer policy. It’s like a hyper version of Moneyball.

Whilst the ability to collect such data in the workplace is some way distant, the principles are the same. Managers need to be aware of not just the performance of individual people, but also of teams and the relationships within and between them. In a small business this can be easy as everyone is in such close proximity. As the company scales this becomes harder, and you need to be able to identify – and coach – winning behaviours. We see a lot of talk of culture and values, but very little on the dynamics that shape them, and determine whether the company is a success or not.   

Knowing when to mix teams up, bring in different people, deviate from established work processes and protocols, re-plan priorities based on mood or energy levels, and introduce new systems are all important skills that you need your team leaders to have. You don’t want Bruno Fernandes playing for you. You want one in every team, in every meeting and in every customer interaction.

Thinking about and analysing behaviour is a good place start. Footballers watch video analysis of their previous match. You can ask some questions about how things were done that led to particularly good or poor outcomes. Try to isolate the behaviours and socialise them, so people know what they need to do. Even better, invite them to contribute to the debate and shape the interplay. The best teams are balletic in their choreography.

Founders and leaders should role-model the winning behaviours. For them to gain traction, you will have to codify them and propagate through on-boarding and training programmes. And above all, remember to celebrate that sublime pass, that bit of vision, that brilliant interplay, that creates the goals your company scores.

UP AND TO THE RIGHT. 

Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/magazine/soccer-data-liverpool.html

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