42 | The Lion King
Collaborating
for value
creation
By Ola Babs-Olugbemi
W
hat makes one team of 11 men
superior to another team of
11 in the field of play? Many
ardent football watchers have always
wondered. Is the coach a differentiat-
ing factor on the field of play consid-
ering he or she is stuck on the sidelines
when the game starts? What makes a
team like Barcelona or Real Mardrid
able to exhibit superior performance
from year to year?
Football is a team game where at the
beginning of every game, each team
seems to be equally matched. Each
side has 11 men with a referee in the
middle. The referee’s job is to ensure fair
play and make sure no team has an
unfair edge or even cheats.
Despite the equal platform given to all
teams, some teams have consistently
over the years excelled, while other
teams have always been unable to ex-
cel. This has raised the question of what
makes one team excel and another
continually flop.
A good example of a winning team
is the German team that just won the
just concluded World Cup in Brazil. To
emerge champions, the German team
won all its matches. Though, none of
the players in the German team won
the golden ball (for the best Keeper)
and golden boot (for the highest goal
scorer) they went home with the most
important trophy in the competition-The
World Cup.
Germany’s winning coach, Joachim
Löw was not the highest paid coach in
Brazil 2014. The honour went to Russian
Coach, Fabio Capello, who earns
$11,235,210, which is 763 times more
than an average wage in Russia. Fabio
Capello’s team exited the World Cup
in the group stages despite his huge
salary, a pointer to the fact that there is
more to a team’s success than financial
incentive.
The German team emerged winners
of the World Cup with the most goals
scored in the competition (18 goals)
and in a match (7 against the host
nation-Brazil) and the highest goal
difference of 14 goals. What character-
istics did Joachim Löw put in his team
to turn them into a winning team? Did
the players have any special traits that
made them stand out?
The word “team” is always associated
with the slogan “together everyone
achieves more”. This is true if the team
does more than having it as a slogan.
It is the level of collaboration in a team
that makes it successful.
Every business or non-business establish-
ment is a team, though with sub-teams.
Every team has a leader who is not
necessarily the highest ranked officer in
the team. Some studies have revealed
some of the characteristics that can
make any team excel. These character-
istics include:
Team Leadership:
A leader in a team
is someone who fixes his eyes on the
team’s objective or goals. He or she is
someone who is driven by the achieve-
ment of the team’s goals and steers
