I just had a full week workshop with my company. Some colleagues were flying in from U.S., Japan, Korea, Australia, Shanghai and India while some of us are based in Singapore. The workshop was quite intense, lots of information needs to be churned. And I learned a lot.
One of my colleague was sharing through a simile. A soccer team. Everyone of us has a role to play, striker who charge ahead or defenders who keep baseline.
That session made me remembering my high school time when I played soccer with my classmates. My stamina is not particularly strong, so I played defense position. I can see the fields ahead and anticipate the attacks by moving earlier. In that way, I can reserve my stamina and energy longer.
I feel that there is a lot of similarities between sport team and my working life now
1. My role
I’m the defender or more like a libero/sweeper. I need to take care the baseline and occasionally charge ahead to help my team.
2. The coach
Our boss is the coach. They will determine how we should play the game.
3. The match
Is the project we are working at. Different project requires us to react/respond differently. Sometimes it can be an easy match, but at different time, it maybe a long and difficult match. But it will end at some point, just like a match duration.
4. Other players
Our team mates. The longer we worked together with, we will know what they will do during some situations and vice versa.
5. The league
We are all play to win “the war”. There is no team, walking into the field and say, “we play to lose”.
But, we may lost some battles, but the target is the final league table, how do we stand against other teams (companies).
And when you think of it, there will be tons of similarities you can find. Do you have one which is not mentioned above?