– Vince Lombardi
With football season in full swing, usually around this time you see articles about how Fantasy Football can have a negative impact on office productivity. Contrary to this belief, an office Fantasy Football League can actually have a positive impact on office life in a lot of ways:
Convinced? Well, unfortunately that’s not the aim of this piece, so we’ll sit that discussion on the sideline and leave it for others to cover. I’ll be addressing how Fantasy Football Leagues and Football Teams in general, mirror some basic elements of the Business functions of a research company with one overlying theme: Team Support = Team Success!
How are the three related?
First, let me paint a picture of what life looks like at a market research company. It’s a dynamic environment, much like that of a football game. The project-based nature comes with hard deadlines and having over 1,000 plays (projects) in a given season (year), a research company has to be agile and improvise along the way. Much like football, success is contingent with a lot of factors, the foundation of which being the players (employees) and the guidance provided by coaching staff (management).
The structure of these three entities have striking similarities from top to bottom. Allow me to elaborate with some of the X's and o's.
Ownership & Management: Everything starts at the top
Coaches & People who craft the game-plan
The “Players” who execute the game-plan
The “Buyers” who make the organization viable
With any organization, talent level is inevitably correlated with success.
With Football, Fantasy Football and the Business of market research, the goal is to be the best and continuously improve, which can’t be accomplished in a poorly run organization with unqualified professionals.
Essentially:
In any given season, setbacks are bound to take place along the way, presenting challenges that can have an effect on the end result, and how difficult or easy it might be to get there. To navigate through these obstacles, you gotta roll with the punches.
In Football and Fantasy Football, injuries and hold outs mirror terminations, resignations and sickness in the Business environment. These unforeseen challenges require organizations to improvise to get the job done, and sometimes this means “throwing up a Hail Mary” to obtain the results or desired outcome.
When all is said and done, the conclusions are rarely what was anticipated at the start. For all three, you start with a slew of expectations and forecasts, but you never know what is going to happen until the season gets going, and seldom if ever are all expectations realized.
In the end, you either achieve or exceed initial expectations and finish on top, or you underachieve and fall to the bottom of the standings.
Only in the end can you evaluate trends and performance to see what worked and what didn’t. Looking back on the season or market research project provides a lesson for the future and helps determine further action. As different as they may appear, Football, Fantasy Football, and Market Research all attempt to use the same equation to win:
Professional, trained and motivated players/employees + a supportive coaching staff/executive management = RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
However, having the best team on paper doesn’t guarantee you’ll win the Super Bowl, but without adequate training and a strong work ethic, the probability of success is slim to none. Pat Riley said it best:
“Hard work doesn’t guarantee you anything, but without it, you don’t stand a chance.”
In summary, it’s really about taking care of your people. In life. In business. In football. At the end of the day, people are what make things happen. People win the game, people drive results, and people build your brand.