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I cannot pass this week without mentioning the dramatic footballing efforts of Bradford City FC beating Premier League Giants Chelsea FC in the FA cup – the biggest shock result in the famous competition’s 143-year history.

This reminds me of Bradford’s previous exploits in early 2013 which I discussed when referring to high performing teams. In that article I summarised the importance of a team’s focus on:

goals,
team member roles,
how people work together at a practical level
building positive working relationships through mutuality & trust

This weekend’s technically excellent performance by Bradford at Stamford Bridge (Chelseas home ground) highlighted the importance of clear work processes – how people do the work. In this particular case of football: passing and shooting when in posession, and tackling and blocking when defending. The Bradford players excelled and this simple and straightforward work, supporting each other throughout the game. Whilst the millionaire Chelsea players may have had more skill and flair, they were overwhelmed by a team displaying high technical proficiency, high temp (and determination) and close discpline on the simple task of competing in the match.

Bill Shankly, the iconic football manager at Liverpoolin the 1960s and70s described what football involved: ‘Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple.‘

Those were the basic blueprints of the work, to which Bradford stuck.

Bob Paisley followed Shankly as Liverpool manager also talked about simplicity: “Some (football) jargon is frightening. They talk of “gettin’ round the back” and sound like burglars. They say “You’ve got to make more positive runs” or “You’re too negative”. That sounds as though you’re filling the team with electricians. But people talk like this without real depth or knowledge of what they’re really talking about.”

People need to know how to do the work in a straightforward way, getting what needs to be done, done. Leaders need to know what is happening and be able to explain what needs to be done in clear terms. Bradford City did this and everyone was suprised.

*** Are we allowing our own teams to focus on the right work? ***

Links:

Calvin M. (2015) Bantams produce one of the all-time FA Cup shocks after fighting back from two down to beat the blues. The Indpendent. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/fa-league-cups/chelsea-vs-bradford-city-match-report-bantams-produce-one-of-the-alltime-fa-cup-shocks-after-fighting-back-from-two-down-to-beat-blues-10000547.html

Bob Paisley Quotes. http://www.bobpaisley.com/article/2532

Bill Shankly in Quotes. http://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/latest-news/bill-shankly-in-quotes

It is 7 months since the Change Academy team started these blogs, in which time we have have covered a lot of ground. There is a tendency in change initiatives to get trapped in a web of jargon – using a lot of buzz-words without understanding the message.

So, to informally test this out lets have a look at a wordle created from my blogs of the past few months:

John Macdonald (1998) talks of a mischievous attempt by engineers at Honeywell bust the jargon culture. Their ‘buzzword generator’ included three columns of words, where a choice of one from each column generated plausible (but nonsensical) buzzwords, such as’ parallel synchronised timephase’ or ‘compatible policy projection’ to throw into discussions with colleagues.

To put a positive slant on his idea, lets play a similar sort of same game in reverse, using phrases suggested by this Wordle, and instead look to get some value from the message:

‘People need change’ – we are adaptive creatures and getting stuck in a rut appears to lead us to boredom (at least in work). Boredom reduces creativity and improvement; the rut deepens. On the other hand change (though perhaps stressful) energises people; new ways of working get noticed and new behaviours rub off.

‘Theory changes behaviour’ – theory is often presented as the opposite to ‘being practical’, but actually this is not the case. Theory shapes thinking and your thinking shapes your behaviour, so useful theory should change behaviour in useful ways.

‘Things values see (better)’ – if we define our values (rather than relying on what we assume to be values), we open up new conversations that begin to challenge what happens round us. We start to see dis-functional working relationships and inappropriate practice and this allows us to raise questions and make challenges on things that previously never hit the radar. Our organisation becomes more alert and ‘alive’ to new things.

‘Work suggests approach’ – people who do the work know the work, warts and all. Their knowledge should be used to identify and implement improvements. Often change initiatives involve implementing great new ideas or benchmarks from other organisations which fail to work in the context of our own organisation. Don’t impose outside solutions until you know what is actually happening to the work on the ground and why it occurs. Only then are you going to get on the correct route to improvement.

Although this is just a bit of fun, change can be a serious business – always remember to keep your mind open and your feet on the ground.

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The basics of teamwork

Change the words – keep the message

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