#322: Business is not sport

Football season is here again and so is my pet dislike – holding up sports teams as models for business teams to copy. It’s ridiculous for business teams to strive to be like sports teams. And it can be dangerous. Here’s why.

Sports teams are trained for only one sport. Team members know exactly which sport they’re playing, how to play it and which rules apply. How simple.

Sports teams wear uniforms so that you can easily spot the competition. They are introduced as your competition before each game. How polite.

Competing teams agree to respect the umpire. Sports umpires tend to be very visible, very loud and very strict. How reassuring.

Best of all, sports teams face only one competitor at a time, at a date and place agreed on well in advance. How convenient.

In business you do not have these luxuries. That’s why I think sports teams should study how business teams do it.


I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

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