As a big fan of sports (and their practice), I want to share my vision of the meaning of sports to me and what can be applied to Management and organisations:
- Sports are continuous improvement, I remember when I did a swimming perfecting course, the training saying to me “Miguel sports are all about the five minutes more, the desire of improvements, just try every time you swim five minutes more and you will see the results”. If everyone thought that in companies and applied it, things would be different.
- Some sports are pure team building. Rugby. No one can win the match if you don’t work together with your colleagues. One team for all, no individual. Similar are football and basket. Another example of team building is when out in a walk in the mountains or bicycling someone is tired, and the others support this person and encourage to finish the race. Companionship should be studied in schools.
- Sport is commitment, commitment to healthy life, to better body, commitment to a goal. Sports are target oriented, what is your target ? loosing weight? climbing the mountain? triathlon ? NYC marathon ? whatever it is, sports help you to achieve that goal, feeling better after it. All you need is trust yourself. Apply this to a department, mix it with team building and you have it.
- Running can be fun, but not only alone, running with colleagues can be a nice way of empathize with colleagues . In most of my world-wide meetings, I remember everyone expected a jogging session with the others, more than the reference dinner. Why? because not only you feel better physically in mind, but you can have small chat with colleagues in a closer way and even close business agreements on the run.
But if you really want to be a leader in Management, go for Golf. Perfect sport for a Manager/director: combines socialization, with physical agility, target yourself, and the most important thing strategy. competition is out there !!!
Miguel Brines 