Be like Germany to succeed in Business

When it comes to World Cup records Germany has an impressive CV, having reached 11 final stages out of 15.

This year they reminded us yet again of their brilliant winning strategy.

Whilst the South American teams play all-out football, woven with flair and talent; whilst the Italians are busy rolling around dramatically on the pitch and the French break down with internal problems; whilst the English play school kid playground football and the Aussies and Yanks provide amusement before the real games start… the Germans remain consistent and flawless.

Nobody else has beaten two teams by four goals twice in this World Cup, and if the above paragraph offended anybody take solace in the fact that my team will probably not make it to the final either

But all things aside, this is an important business lesson in the German strategy. The fact is that they are playing a beautifully simple type of football, just as they’ve always done, which still works even at that time where football players have evolved significantly from what they used to be in terms of performance and competitiveness.

That is things worth noting about the German team:

1 – they have been unfazed by the flair and whizbang football of many of the other teams
2 – and they have stuck to a strategy from beginning to end

And the strategy is simply this:

pass, move forward, pass, move forward, pass, move forward, score.

And it works. So much so in fact that it’s made the German team the most consistent and solid team in this entire World Cup, and enable them to beat the giant Argentina by 4-0 (add that to your CV!)

And so the business lesson is simple and clear: do what works, and do it well.

Business Tip: stop doing what doesn’t work, stop trying new things all the time and bring it all back to basics. Find one thing that works and get good at it, then keep doing it over and over again.

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