The power of self-awareness for a football club.
✅ Players change, values are forever
Players and coaches matter, but they change over the years.
A club must have long-term values and goals regardless of the people who work there.
There is research showing that 95% of people think they are self-aware when in fact only 10%-15% are.
We often don't know which are our strengths.
And so do clubs.
If there is a culture of self-awareness in the club, all employees are more motivated because they are honest about what they have to learn.
It’s something to be addressed in a club.
Self-awareness allows the club to recognize what things the club does best so the executives can then go hard on those aspects and create a competitive advantage.
✅ What's the club's DNA?
The club must first decide what it wants to do 'when it grows up'.
Am I a club that puts all its eggs in the academy and sells talent?
Am I good at signing promising 22-year-olds for €1-5m, developing them, and selling them to top clubs?
Do I aim to win but in a sustainable way?
Do I want to grow my fan base in Asia?
Do I want to offer the fans the best show every Sunday?
Do I want to use A.I. and Web3 to build the best relationship ever with my fans?
👉 What works for one club doesn’t work for everyone.
✅ It's all about the strengths
Self-awareness is accepting your weaknesses while focusing all of your attention on your strengths.
The moment a club decides to bet entirely on its strengths, its future will change.
A club can never at the same time have the best academy, acquire talent to develop and sell, win trophies, increase the fanbase abroad, and offer the best entertainment to its fans.
A club with a stadium of 18,000 spectators can never offer the atmosphere of a full Santiago Bernabeu.
Just as a club like Real Madrid C.F. cannot afford to wait for a player to grow for too long. Its goal is to win everything now.
Every club has its own identity.
✅ How to start?
An analysis of the club's history, the results of recent years, and the current situation is a good start to outline the direction to take for the club.
- What’s in the club's DNA?
- What are the club’s values?
- What's important to its fans?
- What can the current club’s employees do really well?
- Which skills do they have?
- What are the current capabilities?
Answering these questions it's a powerful exercise.
❗ As well as obsessively pay attention to the feedback of fans and athletes.
Do you know a club that is struggling because it is not exploiting its strengths?
Yes, Vasco da Gama in Brazil is a perfect example of what this article is for.