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Contractors Need Football Tactics

Football Teaches Tactics Contractors Need

By Eugene Peterson

It continues to amaze me that there is a belief floating around that fewer meetings in a company
setting are better. That holding meetings is simply a waste of time that takes away from productivity. And that a company can be successful without holding meetings. On the other hand, you may outwardly believe that meetings are important, yet is that the message you are telegraphing to others, by your actions, when you are not holding appropriate, structured and meaningful meetings that set the tone of your company environment. In this case, your actions
are speaking louder than words. One of my small pleasures in life is watching a good college
football game. And fortunate for me, there are some exceptional football bowl games coming up.
The race to the top has been exciting as outstanding teams demonstrate how to win and in business terms, become successful winners. I like the fanfare, the rivalry and delight in the physical competition. I love to watch well executed plays, listen to good commentary and get very excited when I see a team win because they know how to function together to win. There are simply some teams that stand out, because everyone on the team knows his role, what he is supposed to do and where he is supposed to be during the play. From my observation, the teams that win do an exceptional job of: Creating a vision of where they are going and have the ability to track their progress. Set goals for the season – and are wise enough to understand that sometimes goals need to be reviewed and changed. Train and re-train the players – in order to keep peaked performance. And they hold meetings. Yes, meaningful meetings, where they
review past performance, prepare for new opponents, analyze strengths and weaknesses and
come up with a game plan for the upcoming game. On game day coaches remind and reinforce the team vision and review the goals. During a game, can you imagine a winning team not having huddles, or saying that we are having too many huddles? Obviously, huddles have an important role in communicating and coordinating the team’s pending action. Is it important to know what the next play will be? Can you imagine eliminating the half-time team meeting where a SWOT analysis
(Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) is held and where the game plan is reviewed and tuned? Companies will do much better when they follow the example of winning football
teams. And that can be done by: Getting to know each other. We do our best work when we know the strengths and weakness of our team and each of its players. Train and retrain and hone
our skills to razor’s edge perfection. Commit performance and values to each other, with accountability. And communicate by holding “plan it, fix it, tune it, and praise it” meetings.
The best meetings are time sensitive, pre-planned and have agendas with purpose. Those in attendance have either something to contribute or something to learn. Meetings satisfy the need for the team to get real time information, crucial to winning. Meetings get needed and timely information into the hands of players and managers. Good meetings are worth their weight in gold. Improve your profitability by taking steps to see how you can improve the qualities of your meetings by making them a meaningful tool that can help you and your team WIN.

 

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