Pride, passion and a sense of belonging - emotions which I felt when, alongside 60,000 other fans, I recently watched my football team put our bitter sporting rivals to the sword. It’s a feeling which I have been fortunate to have experienced many times over the years along, of course, with the odd occasion which I’d sooner forget.

The fabric of a quality football team, or any team for that matter, is based on skills, belief, performance and results. These elements are intertwined by the threads of success and the motivation of failure… in other words experience and how individuals and teams apply that to their situations.

Over the years I have both worked for and with organisations where the game is lost virtually before it has begun. Mandates, directives and objectives imposed from on high do not facilitate cultural change in organisations. Actually, they create completely the opposite effect, alienating the very people who could and would be able to drive a desired change in results attainment. If companies spent more time reflecting on the experiences they create for their colleagues and made the effort to acknowledge and positively impact their beliefs – that’s when they would start to observe behavioural change and performance improvement.

The way people think and act is culture. If a company fails to consider the importance of these factors its culture will develop but not in the way which it might wish for.

As the final goal of the day was hammered in from twenty-five yards I recalled when the scorer was a twenty-year-old kid who couldn’t even find a starting place in the team. Having been loaned out to another club, he looked destined to leave. Based however on this experience he returned with a new sense of purpose and belief. This was encouraged by those around him, which fundamentally changed the way he played. In due course, he became our club captain and today motivates those around him through his professionalism, desire and hunger for success.

How many “club captains” are there within your organisation? Those who simply need a different experience to positively impact their outlook and the actions which they are willing to take in the interests of making your business more successful.

…more than you’d think!