The New York Times has a great article about the talent school at Dutch football (ie. soccer) club Ajax, where young players are discovered and train to be the stars of the future.
But how do you know who’s got it? How can you tell if this or that 10-year old kid will be a football legend? Interestingly, the biggest talents are not necessarily the ones who score the most goals. One coach says:
I am never looking for a result — for example, which boy is scoring the most goals or even who is running the fastest. That may be because of their size and stage of development. I want to notice how a boy runs. Is he on his forefeet, running lightly? Does he have creativity with the ball? Does he seem that he is really loving the game? I think these things are good at predicting how he’ll be when he is older.
At our conference in Copenhagen on May 20, the head of talent development of FC Copenhagen, Denmark’s leading football club, said essentially the same thing: He looks for young players who enjoy the game for itself. Playing football should be the coolest thing ever – even if you’re just practicing on a rainy Monday evening. This means that they also focus on making training sessions and games fun.
I like that approach and I think it translates well into business (unlike a lot of other sports concepts). Essentially, this is what Southwest Airlines does when they “hire for attitude and train for skill.” British food chain Pret a Manger also emphasizes happiness. Jay Chapman, their head of communication says:
You can’t hire someone who can make sandwiches and teach them to be happy, so we hire happy people and teach them to make sandwiches.
What about your organizations? Do you look for talent based only on performance or do other factors count?
Leave a Reply