Roma Wasn’t Burned in a Day

Manchester United v.s. Roma on April 9, 2008 – all you needed to see was the first twenty minutes. The red devils were in overdrive, at full sprint. Every loose ball was United’s, if not with the first challenge, then with the next or the next until they had it and were attacking again. Fun to watch unless you’re a Roma fan. The shock of Park’s full speed industry all over the pitch is stuck in my mind, but the whole team was moving on hyperdrive. This without Rooney or Cristiano on the pitch.

At least, that’s how I remember it.

There are so many talented players, and so many teams with talent, but rarely do we see football like that. Playing beautiful is one thing, playing with that level of team desire is something else; it wins games, and hearts, and engraves memories forever.

I’m not sure how Sir Alex Ferguson motivates his professional team, but I do know the names on his roster are humans, as are the rest of us, and the same principles of motivation apply. My own research on motivation has yielded the following formula, which I offer below for the good of your team. It works – use it only for the good!

Instructions for building a fire under a team:

1. Give them a common goal, an achievable challenge they share and care about
2. Help them believe in it, give them the vision of success
3. Structure the team so that each player has responsibilities which make a significant contribution to the goal
4. Give each player a growth path so that they see themselves developing and ascending personally through their efforts for the team
5. Remove the individual’s fear of failure so that their minds are focused only on success
6. Foster camaraderie and fraternity among team members so that these well motivated players are as one

Or, the elements of a team’s motivational fire are:

• Goal
• Belief
• Contribution
• Growth
• Fearlessness
• Emotional bond

You might think that winning a game is a sufficient goal for high motivation. It usually isn’t. Everyone has won and lost games before. Some players may not believe they can win the game, and they may even be right. Players may not feel their contribution is significantly tied to the team’s success, or that they will not ascend through their efforts for the team, and they may be right. Players may have one eye on what happens if they give 100% and fail, and maybe they should. It all depends on how the coach has built the mission and the team dynamics.

Players out to serve their own needs sometimes will win games as part of a team, but that feels more like statistics, not like something of meaning to the human heart. What is possible as a team is beyond the individual, but building the highest level of fire under a team is hard.

It takes a whole lot more than pointing out the players’ errors, or giving a speech and a bit of encouragement.