Image by Keith Johnston from Pixabay
Even though it’s a game, professional football is still a business and it provides lessons for all industries.
Successful athletes and teams have one thing in common – they have great coaches to beat the competition.
Admittedly, I’m not a fan of the New England Patriots. But love them or not, business lessons can be learned from the Patriots.
It’s worth noting their 21st century record of consistency: Six Vince Lombardi trophies, nine AFC Championships, and 16 AFC East titles.
Obviously, the team has a winning formula for sustainable success. It all stems from enlightened management that focuses on adaptability and resilience.
In reshaping his team, owner Robert Kraft wanted an astute coach to elicit the strongest-possible dependable performance from the 53 players.
He hired a coach, Bill Belichick in 2000, with broad-based experience who understood the keys to business economics for infinite resilience.
Coach Belichick was a coach who wanted operational control with a promise of developing a flexible long-term vision, building the right team with an adaptable workforce, focusing on affordable operations, and instilling a culture with an unquenchable thirst for continuous excellence.
He’s accomplished the goals by hiring and training green coaches, acquiring unheralded players who had the character he desired, and adapting to different competitors each week.
So it goes in business. To avoid costly periods of trial and error, successful entrepreneurs also often have coaches who have a broad perspective from a full range of experiences.
If you want a Coach Belichick for sustainable growth, find a business coach to help you realize your vision for growth with focus, planning, fine-tuning and execution.
Here’s how to get the right business coach:
1. Hire a coach who has wisdom from broad experience
Whatever your goals, and to save time and money while building profits, look for someone who already has the insights to avoid unnecessary pitfalls.
2. Look for big-picture expertise
While you might want to solve a particular operational problem, remember that it might be linked to other problems. If so, you need a coach understands your situation and can provide a big-picture map to success.
So find a coach who has a global-cultural perspective to provide you with controls and solutions for growth.
3. Look for a coach who communicates well
You’ll succeed with a person who is empathetic and who will explain plans in easy-to-understood language.
4. Interface on a regular basis
The business environment is more dynamic than ever before. For many business situations, ideally, meet with your coach weekly.
A weekly update isn’t in real-time, but you’ll be in the best-possible position for creating progress reports in monitoring your initiatives and promptly implementing any necessary fine-tuning.
5. Be transparent
True, your financial, marketing or human resources situation might be embarrassing. A great objective business coach will not judge or ridicule you.
To get the confidential help you need, it’s important to share the right requested information and be coachable.
6. When in doubt, challenge your coach
If your coach gives you solutions that you doubt or with which you feel uncomfortable, sleep on it. Discuss your concerns with your coach.
But chances are, the solutions conflict with your ego.
Whatever the discussion, your success depends on being able to honestly communicate with your coach.
From the Coach’s Corner, here relevant tips:
Tips for Strategic-Thinking in Finance: Your Staff, Individuals — Many companies want accountants and finance professionals who are strategic thinkers. But that’s not happening at most companies. Here are tips for managers and employees.
Thought Leadership — Why Companies Hire Management Consultants — Companies want knowledge and manage risks. A good idea can be worth $1 million and more. That’s why companies hire thought leaders. It’s also why you see many consultants position themselves as thought leaders and give away free information in how-to articles or studies, which lead to books, seminars and being quoted in the media. Successful consultants know that’s the road to take — to become an in-demand consultant by companies and in the public sector.
4 Tips to Get Your Money’s Worth from a Consultant — To get your money’s worth from a consultant, you might be surprised to learn you have to use best practices in your role as the client. For strong results, it’s not just a matter of hiring a consultant, forgetting about it and expecting work to get done. You’ll get top results after retaining a consultant if you’re at the top of your game as a client. Here’s how.
Strategies to Make Change Management Programs Work — Management is mostly to blame because most change-management programs crash and burn. Why? It’s up to management to hire the right people, and to invest in the right tools while inspiring employees to accept and drive change. Here’s how.
“There are no shortcuts to building a team each season. You build the foundation brick by brick.”
-Bill Belichick
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
