Management 101

From sports I learned how to get a group of people to work together.  As a quarterback, I usually was the organizer.  I would put a disparate group together and try to get them to work down the same path.  I had to understand people's motivations, their weak and strong points more than anything.  And that's Management 101 - knowing how to organize people, how to manage people and motivate them, how to get people to work toward a common goal of winning.  In advertising, you take fifty, sixty, however many people are working on the pitch, and set a goal of getting everybody to be their best and to come together to work as one.  It's very similar in sports.

I would have been a good coach.  That's what you are in business, at the end of the day.  If you run your business, you're a coach.  I'd have been a better coach than an athlete.  I know how to motivate and, hopefully, inspire people.  I think I'd be a very good play caller, in fact.  I'm just a good strategist.  That's what running a business is.

Business is no different from sports.  Businesses are people, and the most successful businesses find the best talent that works together well.  They don't have a star system.  I never wanted one prima donna, one creative superstar, in the agency.  You want people to work well together.  It's so easy for me to see why some sports teams don't make it.  The winning teams have the right pieces that come together.  It's that simple.  You can see it.  I never understand how guys putting professional teams together don't understand that.  You can't just put a bunch of stats together.  It's very clear.  And it's no different in a work environment.  Over the years, I've hired one or two people who turned out to be a mistake, people who did not foster that team spirit.  It was much more about them as individuals.  They didn't work out.  I've learned from those mistakes.
                                                                by Donny Deutsch