How to develop an invincible team1 , a team building motto, said by Japanese football team director

Mr. Inamori*, the honorly chairman of Kyocera, who is the main sponsor of Kyoto purple Sanga, the Kyoto based football team, conducted a leadership of Sanga team building. Okada, the director of Japan national football team, fought in several World cup matches. Okada joined Seiwajuku lead by Mr. Inamori to learn the tips of leadership for a good team building. Okada developed his team philosophy and shared it with Seiwajuku workshop members.

Okada’s team building motto is as follows.

Let me explain one by one. I would like to refer to Okada’s words.

1 Enjoy

“I was here because the director asked me” if he says that the player is definitely an idiot. In the past, I made up my teams of players of such types. “I remained in front of our goal because the director asked.” My team players are such kind of guys. That is the quickest way to win if we play with those guys. Those guys are easy to control. However, for sure, we could never play under the global arena with that kind of players. “Don’t think, just feel and react.” I should say my team. The brain has a neocortex and an old cortex, where the old cortex is like an instinct, and the neocortex is where your logical thinking and language skills are governed. The calculation speed of the neocortex is slower than that of the old cortex when compared to a computer. Sports must be done in the old cortex. In the actual match, there is no time to think twice, “Should I do a dribble or a pass?” Instead, “Don’t think. Believe in what you feel and play with courage.” In short, the starting point is to bring out what is inside you, and that is what I call “enjoy”. This should also be a leader’s mindset. ”

2 Our team

Sometime before, our team was losing zero to one with the remaining game time of ten minutes. A player, who was defending the position close to the bench side, was running while glancing at me. I was wondering what he was thinking and why he was glancing at me. Soon I realized that he was demonstrating that he performed well as I had expected even though the team lost. At that time, I told the player: “Well, assuming that a company is going bankrupt due to the bad sales performance, do you believe that you could be justified by saying -I am just the accounting guy, I have nothing to do with the sales performance-? No matter how great an accountant you are, it doesn’t make any sense if the company goes bankrupt. Everyone should go out and sell the product. I would like you to think it is YOU who should do anything for the team to win. This is not my team, YOUR team!” Everyone has to think about what the team can do to win. Some players ask me to help his skill  development, and train him to be the best player. That’s not a joke. Training a player is not that easy. First of all, he will not get ready unless his mindset changes.

3 Do your best

It means that the team should do their best to win. It means sticking to winning with strong determination.

.. .. (The day after the match against Antlers in the final league, a small bunch of flowers arrived at my house) That was from Toninho Cerezo, the director of Antlers. The message said, “With respect to your professional work.” When I saw that message, I wondered if I could do the same, if I were in his position. Maybe, I can’t. I felt I was the one who lost the game. If I do my best but lose, I would be very much disappointed. But Cerezo paid respect to the winner, his enemy. I thought it was wonderful. Doing your best also implies such a wonderful attitude and mindset as well. ”

Further queries or doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com

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