Make the exceptional a routine
Learning Curve: Perspective
New Sunday Times - 15-07-2012
IN a fast-changing and competitive world, organisations are often likened to football clubs where "players" are headhunted.
Today, leaders are regarded as coaches. The latter is said to be better facilitators, unlike traditional bosses who tend to more rigid.
Over the last decade, approaches to learning and development are more effectively led through facilitating talent and creativity in classrooms and organisations.
The system must be fluid enough to allow for quick response to the changing environment without those at the helm acting as a barrier.
This is where the advantages of coaching lie — leaders too are constantly adapting.
During Euro 2012, we saw how coaches performed.
No one is more illustrative than Vicente del Bosque, coach of the victorious La Roja (The Red One).
He is, after all, the first coach who can lay claim to winning three consecutive major accolades for Spain, viz. the Champions League, European Championship and the World Cup.
And he is looking forward to a fourth feat at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
No European team has ever made it in South America.
Not surprisingly, the La Roja coach was heaped with superlatives such as "one of the all-time greats".
He was also conferred the noble title of the First Marquis of Del Bosque by King Juan Carlos of Spain when the team won the 2010 World Cup title.
With del Bosque's trademark humility and serenity, he refused to gloat over his recent achievement.
He said: "I have not spent much time in the dressing room because so much euphoria is a bit too much for me." Spain's premier radio network, Cadena SER, described him as "never wanting to steal the limelight from the players".
He is widely recognised for his "ability to motivate" and "is able to get a little bit extra from his players".
Despite the team's line-up of "rival" players from the different Spanish football clubs, they are held together by del Bosque's magic coaching formula to perform as a singular winning team.
He is able to earn their trust and hold back their egos, in addition to his own.
Madrid defender Sergio Ramos highlighted that although each footballer played his own style during the season, they exhibited a unique brilliance as a team during Euro 2012 by scoring the most number of goals to qualify for the semi-finals.
It looks like del Bosque's techniques bound the team together by mounting the "tiki-taka" strategy of short passes without the real need for the all-too-important centre forwards as a success factor.
His willingness to take the risk of drawing criticisms from fans makes him a game-changer.
Now his 4-2-4-0 (or 4-6-0) formation sans a traditional striker has given a new meaning to the beautiful game.
There were those who went as far as predicting that the days of playing football "the English way" may be over.
Contrast the "explosive temperament" of managers such as Sir Alex Ferguson with del Bosque, whom even the British Broadcasting Corporation has acknowledged as "cool as a cryogenically-frozen cucumber".
Coaching seems to emphasise building trust and relationships, and a two-way learning at once, which traditional leaders often fail to appreciate.
Coaches have greater latitude and therefore assume a wider role allowing more creativity in dealing with new demands.
A protest written on a wall near a bank in Madrid, Spain reads: "This bank steals and defrauds."
Yet on the field, coaches such as del Bosque are not only able to steal the show but also the hearts of football fans as well as casual spectators worldwide through his exemplary genius for combining humility and creativity to achieve great things.
To quote player Andres Iniesta: "We have made the exceptional into something routine, which means winning is the norm."
- The writer is the vice-chancellor of Albukhary International University