Are you holding your team back?

 

My coach used to say, “If you’re not offsides at least once per game, you’re not trying hard enough.”

 

When I first heard this it surprised me. Why would a coach encourage us to get penalties?

 

Regardless of which sport you play, you get an offsides penalty when you cross an imaginary line.  Whether we admit it or not, we have drawn offsides lines around areas where we don’t allow our team to go, too.

 

This is very safe. This is very sane. And this may also be killing your business.

 

The best managers encourage their team to own their roles fully, and that means that they will get offsides sometimes.

 

Why would a good manager want this?  Think about this old adage, ‘We lose more to inaction, than wrong action.’

 

If every one of your teammates is being held behind the ‘line’ on purpose, how do you expect to grow your team rapidly and effectively?

 

This leads to one big problem for most managers: How will you deal with your team having an offsides penalty?  Or maybe bunches of them? It depends. Were they too aggressive on a sales email, or a little too pushy on a call, or maybe they followed-up a little too often, or, did they credit back $20 to a client to keep them happy – without permission?

 

The reality is you don’t know.

 

If you truly want great performance, you and your team are going to need to get offsides sometimes, and then, trust yourself to handle any potential problems that happen due to your team’s performance.  

 

But it’s not all bad, because some of these offsides moments will lead to opportunities that you could not have imagined on your own.  There is good in the unknown, too.

 

Get offsides and see what your team has been missing.