{"id":1548,"date":"2011-02-21T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/outsourcing-leadership-02212011\/"},"modified":"2011-02-21T16:01:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-21T16:01:00","slug":"outsourcing-leadership-02212011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/outsourcing-leadership-02212011\/","title":{"rendered":"Outsourcing your leadership team: build it… or buy it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Would you buy a goal from this guy?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One of the newest additions to the HfS family is Brian Robinson. Born in Ohio, raised in Florida, educated in Florida and Virginia, Brian was living in the UK when we started talking to him about working for us. In fact, he was renting my London flat, so I was guaranteed he’d give the place a good clean when he moved out to embark on his Italian adventure.<\/p>\n

He’s now based in Rome, where he’s starting to learn the language. Give him a few more weeks and he’ll be ordering the Pasta alla Carbonara in the local tongue, while explaining it’ll be far easier to outsource Berlusconi than trying to lock him into a captive. \u00a0Hmmm… maybe CNN can sign him up for a double-act with Elliot Spitzer?<\/p>\n

Brian is an internationalist to say the least, so it comes as no surprise that this Ohio boy uses football (you know, the one where you can’t use your hands) as an analogy for how to nurture leadership teams.<\/p>\n

Is it better to build or buy? For the answer, over to you, Brian…<\/p>\n

Outsourcing your leadership team: The build vs. buy debate heats up<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Were you surprised that Rooney biked home the winning goal in the Manchester derby? I wasn’t. Hands down, the goal<\/a> was amazing. And it may well go down as one of the best goals ever scored in the Barclays Premiership.<\/p>\n

Rooney\u2019s ability to catch the ball at this angle speaks to his unrivalled skill as a footballer. The fact that he was in the match to score the goal speaks to strength and intelligence of the management team running arguably one of the most prolific football teams in the world today. To date, Rooney\u2019s 2010-2011 performance has been lackluster: a mere seven goals in 27 matches. Other players would have been benched or traded by now, but Rooney has something special. He knows it and so does his management.<\/p>\n

There are similarities between good companies and good football teams: solid staff employees that consistently make the right decisions at the right time. So if you are the helm of a flagging enterprise, should you nurture management talent internally or go to market for it? A review of several clubs\u2019\u00a0performance and related management decisions in the Barclay\u2019s Premiership sheds some light on the subject, but the evidence is far from conclusive.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, Manchester City. Today it\u2019s one of the richest clubs in the world, bankrolled at a massive loss by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour,\u00a0which has already changed managers four times in the last five years. Yet, despite all the talent money can buy, they have yet to win a single trophy. In contrast to Manchester\u00a0City are clubs like Manchester\u00a0United and Arsenal, which have each kept faith with the same managers for 26 and 14 years’ respectively. Each has a stable and revered management team that coaches some of the world\u2019s best footballers. These two clubs have a combined seven Premiership titles over the last 10 years and are currently ranked number 1 and number 2 in this year\u2019s title race, and have both spent far, far less money on new players than their main title rivals. And then there is Chelsea, who’s spending has been even more magnanimous that Manchester City’s, and results have followed with three Premiership titles and three FA Cup titles in recent years. However, this year, the club is ranked a concerning 5th and is in danger of dropping out of Europe’s elite competition, with an aging team and clear disharmony in their camp. Could changing managers four times in three years be a contributing factor? It certainly has not helped. And the darling club of this year\u2019s season has to be Tottenham.<\/p>\n

Consistently strong, but rarely considered a star, the club has been under the management of Harry Redknapp for the last two seasons. Having spent his entire life in the Premiership as player and coach, he has enabled existing players to achieve new heights of performance while attracting new talent to the team on a modest transfer budget and salary ceiling. The result: Tottenham had their highest ever finish in the Premiership last year placing fourth.\u00a0Moreover, they are in the round of 16 in this year\u2019s Champions League, having beaten both Inter Milan and AC Milan along the way, and are currently ranked fourth\u00a0in this year\u2019s table.\u00a0 Can Tottenham maintain this level of performance?\u00a0 What is certain, is that decisions both on and off the pitch will contribute to the club\u2019s long-term performance.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve supported a fair share of management teams over the last 13 years, both large and small, and from all parts of the globe.\u00a0 Despite the language barriers and, at times, differences in culture, I have observed that the best managers often share a similar set of attributes.\u00a0 For example, they:<\/p>\n