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The Competitive Amateur Sports Team:
A New Model for the Employee-Owned Company
By Martin Staubus, Beyster Institute Staff
A good part of corporate America is still carrying a lot of baggage from the old days. Once upon a time, commercial production was done on a “cottage industry” scale, in which a business was staffed by the owner’s sons, daughters and a couple of apprentices – people who had close ties to, and work directly with, the entrepreneur. Then came the industrial revolution, fueled by the terrible new technologies of steam and electric power, and the advent of the large-scale corporation – enterprises that enlisted the services of hundreds, even thousands, of individuals.
Gone from the workplace were the personal relationships of yesteryear. Absent, too, were virtually any other inherent ties that gave the employees a compelling sense of affiliation with the company and a stake in its performance and achievements. With the workforce having little reason to care about the financial fortunes of the business, it was left to the financial investors’ agents – a new phenomenon known as the business management team – to supply the initiative, the motivation, the discipline and the focus that a productive organization requires.
The challenge of operating an enterprise that is staffed with people who have no stake in, and thus don’t care much about, the bottom line results is surely a daunting one. The overused expression “like pushing on a string” comes to mind. It compels a system in which extensive amounts of management time must be committed to determining activities and actions, overseeing the work of all employees, and meting out carrots and sticks to generate performance. And, inasmuch as large amounts of time and effort are spent on activities that are not directly a part of producing and delivering goods or services to customers, it is woefully inefficient. It is, in a word, bureaucratic. We rarely stop to think about it today, because it has been the norm for well over a century and we take it for granted, like gravity and growing old. But this conundrum has fundamentally shaped – or warped – the structures and ways of doing business that characterize the standard corporate organization today.
The Competitive Amateur Sports Team as the New Model
As a consultant to companies that want to take the employee ownership path to success, I see a special opportunity when I work with startup ventures. When it comes to questions of organization structure, process, and communication, I suggest that the leaders forget much of what they have learned in past jobs with corporate or government organizations. What they have absorbed in those experiences, after all, is almost certainly the standard bureaucratic model of corporate personnel management.
What, then, should entrepreneurs look to in its place? If the traditional corporate approach is not the right model for an employee-owned business to follow, then what is? The answer, in my experience, lies in the competitive amateur sports team.
Readers may have had their own experience with amateur sports teams, whether their sport is basketball, softball, soccer, volleyball (this writer’s favored sport), or something else. Competitive teams, it should be understood, are to be distinguished from purely recreational teams. With recreational teams, the social role they play (e.g., an opportunity for employees of a company to bond outside of work) is prominent, as is perhaps the chance simply to get some exercise and then swap stories over a beer after the game. Competitive teams are more goal-oriented – that is, focused on winning – with other aspects of sports participation relegated to secondary importance. Participants come for the purpose of testing themselves, individually and as a team, against the challenge of overcoming the competition.
Characteristics of the Competitive Sports Team – Lessons for Business
Competitive sports teams feature a set of key characteristics that a growing employee-owned business can look to. These include:
- A Mission-Oriented Focus. First and foremost, competitive sports teams are strongly mission-driven. They are formed around a clear objective that is understood and embraced by every member of the team. It is, after all, a voluntary endeavor, and participants elect to be there with a single overriding purpose in mind: to succeed by performing at a winning level. Every person in the organization understands and takes to heart the organizational objective.
- Organic Leadership. In a competitive sports team, there is a key role for leadership. But two things may distinguish leadership here from the more traditional corporate setting. First, leadership, while still a key determiner of success, plays a more limited role. Second, leadership emerges in an organic process, based on the individual’s talents, personality, expertise, and time availability for this demanding role. This organic process depends on the acceptance of a leader candidate by the rest of the team. Individuals may put themselves forward through self-nomination, but they actually assume the leadership role only with the consensus approval of the rest (unsuitable nominees are either told to sit down or are abandoned by players who resign and join another team).
- Personal Commitment. Each individual on the team takes responsibility to be proactive in the pursuit of the team objective. While competitive teams hold regular practices, individuals don’t settle for the minimum effort. A basketball player may go on his own to the gym or playground to work on his shot and thereby improve his ability to perform; a softball player may head to a local batting cage. They don’t need to be manipulated with incentive awards or directives from above.
- Everyone’s a Player. Competitive sports teams don’t include anyone who is not a “key contributor.” Every member’s performance is critical. As such, members feel both self-respect and respect for their teammates.
One more characteristic is so obvious as to hardly seem worth noting – except in the context of providing a model for business. It is the fact that every team participant thoroughly understands the game he is playing. He knows the rules of the game, how the game is scored, and how to read the information on the scoreboard. Beyond that, players know the strategic considerations, like how to play conservatively when protecting a lead, and how to ratchet up the intensity when time is running out and the game is close.
Imagine what might happen if a sports team operated like a traditional corporation. This is something you can have fun with. “Players” have only a vague sense, and less interest, in the objectives of the group (who cares if we finish first or last in the league, as long as we get paid?). They are not expected to actually know the rules of the game; a softball player will simply be directed to stand beside that white five-sided platter on the ground and try to hit the ball with the bat. Players sit around unless and until directed by a manager to go do something. Of course, while a competitive basketball team might have seven or eight members (enough to rotate through the five court positions and allow members to alternate between play and rest); the corporate basketball team will need at least 10 players, plus an HR person, a purchasing manager, 3 supervisors and an in-house counsel. All would be directed by an autocratic CEO who was chosen by the investors but gets no respect from the players. First-place material?
The more serious question is: how effective might your business be if it had all the characteristics of a competitive sports team? First-place material?
©2007 The Beyster Institute and its authors and their entities. All rights reserved.
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