The World Cup through Merced’s Performance Management Eyes

So the World Cup has come and gone for another four years and all the pundits have analysed it to death. Everyone says the best team won and they were always the favourites, so it ran to plan. One thing that does stick out loud and clear though is that apart from the winners it very much didn’t run to plan for any other team.

All the ‘big’ teams went out earlier than anticipated, some badly. Less established and fancied teams did substantially better. Why? and what comparisons can we draw?

If you condense all the punditry right down, each team brought three factors to the party, rather like a company brings a strategy to the market.  Management,  Ability,  Game Plan.

Those that did well blended these three factors and executed against them superbly.  They understood their competitive advantages and made full use of them.

We can all see how England, France and Italy failed against several of these factors, whilst Brazil and Argentina just simply failed to execute. ‘Surprise’ teams such as Uruguay, Paraguay, Holland, even Germany had all these factors and executed well.

So what about in the performance management world?

 
Can you manage your resources well?

Smart, nimble teams, properly motivated can beat much bigger competition, just look at Holland. 

The goals aren't always scored by the players with the biggest pay checks, proving that incentives are important but they’re not the only way to motivate behavior and drive results.  Coaching, team support and competitive comparison drives strong performance.

What about the ability of your team and its individuals?

Who are your best team members and do they know who they are?  Find the metrics that matter and make them count.

What's your game plan ?

Are your team able to play according to the plan or do the processes and systems unempower them? Just how agile are you to adjust your plan mid-game?

Can you execute well? 

With the right performance management on the team helping you drive your competitive advantages you can.

The best team won, it wasn’t a fluke. Have you got the winning team?

---------------------------------
Author: Suzanne Congdon

Suzanne Congdon is EMEA Marketing Manager with Merced Systems.  Suzanne has over 15 years experience working for enterprise software providers delivering solutions and services to the contact centre industry and can be contacted at suzanne.congdon@mercedsystems.com