This is the translation of an article by Julio Velasco, his achievements speak for themselves, at the bottom of the post you can read what they were!
JULIO VELASCO: “Team spirit is the key to success”
Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman re-united in a room furnished with totem and other Indian objects. The Chicago Bulls collected around their coach, Phil Jackson, he is reading them pieces from “Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling preparing the team for a match. One phrase in the novel that recurs often: “The strength of the wolf is the pack and the strength of the pack is the wolf”. Strange coincidences happen. “It is one of my favorite books”, comments Julio Velasco (the multiple winning coach of Italy’s Volleyball teams), “it is said, however, that when the wolf becomes old, and is no more able to hunt, the pack kills it. This is a little like what happens to all leaders”.
Why, according to you, does the business world talk more and more about playing as a team?
“For a number of factors connected with the changes in society: more competition, growing complexity, focus on the entrepreneur and finally globalization”.
How good is the business world at building “team spirit”?
“It seems to me that in our society, in organizations, the culture of the team isn’t very widespread. All insist on speaking of teamwork, it is as if there is a moral imperative and all must do better at it. That is equivalent to saying, we must be good guys and girls, we must have team spirit. This is positive but not sufficient. It is merely a concept of solidarity: we are all in this boat together”.
But then it is essential to work in teams?
“It is necessary to frame the problem. I don’t agree that without the team you can’t achieve anything. The business world is full of people that alone, using others as a means to an end, have achieved great things. I reckon, however that business, as many other activities, in a society that is always more global, is always more complex, more vast. Consequently even if the individual is world class, in the business or sports world, one has to work harder and harder. Therefore the team starts becoming a necessity. And it isn’t the case that the team concept is becoming talked of much within companies”.
What is the motivation, in a world always more orientated towards individual achievement, pushing towards teamwork?
“Essentially because it is worthwhile to whoever is part of a team. Even for the individual achiever. For the same principle of the team game: the tactics. The technique, of team, is only the means to the end. A good tactical system allows one to play to ones strengths and hide ones weaknesses, and at the same time, to underline the weaknesses of the competition and neutralize their strengths”.
It is the tactics then, that is the added value of playing as a team?
“Exactly, because even if a player is outstanding, there is always something in which they will not be very good. And by playing together one is able to bring out the best of everyone, compensating for the defects of one with the good qualities of another team member. A team that doesn’t do this is applying the wrong tactics. Moreover, the continual clipping away at the strengths of the individual, over time, will tear them out of the team. In a sports team they can always be substituted, but in a business, where the movement of people is much lower, it can become much more serious”.
And how does one keep an individual within the team?
“Certainly not with moralistic speeches. They are more useful to us, utilitarian and pragmatic methods: you have to help the person see the benefits of being part of the team. Especially that the other team members will cover for their weaknesses and allow them to showcase their strengths”.
From where do you start, then, in building a team?
“From having clear objectives, and secondly having the rules of the game clearly spelled out, known to all”.
What do you mean?
“It means that the approach, the way of working and operating together as a team must be clear to all, and not only to the boss. Many conceive of teamwork as: I will task the team, they will execute. And whoever doesn’t follow doesn’t have any team spirit. True teams aren’t this way. The role of the coach consists of knowing how to construct the game in collaboration with the players “.
And here is the role of the coach. “One isn’t a great coach when you get a player to act out according to the intentions of the coach, but when you teach them to act out according to their own account. The absolute ideal, which is out of reach, is when the coach has nothing further to say, because the players know already everything there is to know. They have to know, besides the technique, how one acts, in a word, the tactics “.
The role of the coach, therefore is comparable with that of the leader?
“It is undoubtedly a role of command. One must be in a position to assume on ones own shoulders the risks. The approach must be shared by everyone, also through a contradictory. If there isn’t agreement between everyone, what does one do? Here comes into play the leader, better he decides, because one cannot live in a state of conflict. The leader assumes his responsibilities, searching to make mistakes as little as possible. A margin of error will exist obviously always, it is vital it is explained clearly in advance”.
Team and group, they are not the same thing.
“No, and they shouldn’t be confused. The group is the component at the foundation of a team. Groups are formed by carrying out a common activity: for example, a class at school. In the group the individuals have their roles, but they are not very clear cut, they are assigned them spontaneously from the other members. Moreover there isn’t a single leader, because the leader is chosen according to each activity in turn. The group is an entity in its own right: that means that its characteristics aren’t just the sum of the characteristics of the individuals that make up the group, but there’s a need to find them in the dynamics that are created within the group. It is necessary to verify how each individual operates within the group and not as they were, if they have talent, or if they have a certain character, or if they are consistent to a certain way of working”.
What then, characterizes a team in comparison with a group?
“The roles must be well defined. According to the type of game that will be played, of the approach that it is agreed will apply.
It is unacceptable, for example, that a full back goes to attack only because the centre forward doesn’t mark. This implies also to accept the limits, the weaknesses, the errors of ones companions. Every player owes it to respect the role assigned to them from the coach, from the leader, from the top”.
They are starting the problems for the coach.
“The boss is part of the pre agreed roles, his is that of command, institutionally. It is necessary to differentiate between the boss and the leader. The leadership is earned by consent, one must establish a moral authority to command. The leader stabilizes the group, doesn’t have a role assigned, for example, on the organization chart. Staying with sport, there are coaches that are not leaders and that utilize those that emerge within the group as leaders”.
When however there is something that doesn’t work it is hard to stick with the roles.
“All depends on the climate created from the top, from the bosses, on the way to interpret an error. It is in cases of difficulty that one sees if there is indeed team spirit. When things are going well it is simple to respect the role, when instead they are going badly, it sparks off a process whereby each tries to demonstrate their own innocence, between thousands of excuses and justifications, and put the blame on the others. The source of the problem is that the error becomes seen as a demonstration of incapacity and not as something to learn from”.
You have often spoken of a culture of excuses.
“The excuses, besides destroying the harmony, block progress, block learning. It is a situation that in my experience I have found everywhere. The error marks the necessity to make modifications, the excuse, instead, prevents the mobilization of resources that sometimes you don’t even know you possess”.
In the story ‘I Promessi Sposi [the fiancées]‘ of Alessandro Manzoni, Don Abbondio justifies himself saying: “If one doesn’t have the courage, one can not give it”. How much does it count the motivation?
“So that the roles, the group, the team works it is clear that motivation is a key component. It mustn’t be abstract, neither cultural nor moral. There are three types of motivation, base, economic and of the challenge”.
What does the motivation of the base consist of?
“To do what pleases you. Consequently when teams form, it must choose people for the roles that appeal to them. In any case it is possible to improve the job conditions, the environment (for example a pleasant office, the ease of getting to work), to grant benefits, at the end to make you more satisfied with what you have. In this the Americans are the masters, for how much it regards them: the better one lives the more one gives. In Italy there is a complete disregard for these arguments. A good coach must search of putting, if he can, a player in the position that he will enjoy the most”.
The financial motivation instead.
“It is very important, the prizes, the incentives are an optimal stimulus. But it becomes negative when it is asked of the team to play hard and then the rewards go only to the owners”.
You have spoken of challenge…
“This motivation for me assumes a fundamental role, not so much with regards to daily tasks but for the big undertakings. I believe that people, above all in a society decidedly standardized as it is, have need of the emotions, to feel themselves part of something beyond the daily routine, to compete for an above ordinary undertaking. There is even greater reason for this in the world of work”.
How do you make yourself have the winning mentality?
“To this question I always respond with a paradox. Winning! The problem is how to win? Three typologies exist. The first victory is against your own defects and limits. The role of the boss is fundamental: they must set easily reachable objectives, in a way which allows them to take one step at a time and, above all it must give help to individuals to resolve their defects. And then to overcome difficulties is the key training needed. This is the second typology of winning. The difficulties they must no longer be seen as something that impedes progress but as an opportunity of training myself to overcome them”.
And the third victory?
“It is that one against the adversaries, the contenders. That is scheduled: on one side challenging adversaries that are within my reach, on the other side, at the same time, challenging against the best, even if I lose. This serves me by establishing a high point of reference. Sometimes one learns more losing against a strong adversary rather than winning from a weaker one”.
Translation is mine not:
intervista gentilmente concessa da Stage Up – Il primo sito italiano di Sport Business http://www.stageup.com
Julio Velasco
Argentinian, born 1952
He rose to fame by coaching the Italian male volleyball team to great success in the early nineties. With the Italian national male Volleyball team:
2 World Championships: 1990, 1994
3 European Championships: 1989, 1993, 1995
5 World League: 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995
1 World Cup: 1995
1 silver medal at the Olympics: 1996
1 Grand Champions Cup: 1993
1 Top Four FIVB: 1994
1 Top Six FIVB: 1996
He has also coached football teams, softball teams and the Italian Women’s National Volleyball teams.