My apologies in advance for the Rugby themed article this week but I am sure most of you know that success in sport and success in business are not a million miles apart. We are in crazy times and as a Harlequins season ticket holder for 9 seasons now, I have only been able to go to 3 games since March 2020. Thankfully one of them was at Twickenham on Saturday 26 June when Quins won the Rugby Premiership Title and to look back on where they were in December 2020, they were fighting relegation. An amazing turnaround. So what happened?
They started believing anything was possible, they pulled together as a team unit, they worked on their strengths and the strengths of others in the team. They believed in each other, they trusted each other. They started to enjoy their Rugby – they fell in love with the game once again. It was as if the chains had been released and they were free to play the way they knew they could play. They were fearless and had an unbelievable “never say die” attitude.
Some of you may have seen a poem called “Don’t Quit” – one I remember having on my office wall many years ago, and we all need to be reminded of it, read it, and put it somewhere where we can all read it every day. You can download it and print it. As they say, “Winners never quit and quitters never win” This epitomises everything good about Quins and what they have achieved this season.
This attitude is an attitude we all need to have to be successful in business, but don’t forget the players had a coaching team who could help keep them on track. Every successful sports individual or team has coaches and yet in business, so many business owners try to do everything themselves and really think this is the right way to build a business – I can assure you it’s not.
We need to do what we are good at doing and focus on our own game, and then build a team of people around us – staff and an outsourced team – who can add quality and experience to make our business true “Champions” of the business world. We need to all work together and not be a team of individuals. You do not need to have the best players in the world to be the best team in the world – just a team of people who are good at what they do and who gel together well as a team, and work on each others strengths.
Start to understand how to build a business properly and stop trying to be all things to all people – it doesn’t work!
Wishing you every success for the future, and always here for an informal chat with anyone
This article was first published on LinkedIn by Richard Knight on 28/06/2021