Lessons from Germany’s World Cup 2018 campaign in Talent Management
Eric Lim Wee Hiok (阿伟)
L&OD & Talent Mgt Leader | Transformation Consultancy experience | First-time Leadership Guru
On 13 July 2014, Germany won the World Cup through a goal by Mario Gotze during extra time. That was their first win in 24 years. The team was filled with great talent like Lahm, Klose, and Schweinsteiger whom were in the tail end of their career, and young talents like Kroos, Ozil, Muller, Neuer and Boateng. Against all odds, Germany beat a Messi-led Argentina, possibly one of the greatest player of all time, in South American soil (Brazil). After the final, the saying goes, ‘Argentina had Messi, but Germany had a team’.
I am a huge fan of the German’s and japanese’s systematic way of working. The quote I always use is, ’Systems drive Behaviours, Behaviour drive Results’. I believe a close co-relation between Science and Art. So when I came across the article below, I was intrigued.
The intriguing thing is that this whole act of building a talent network and pipeline is both bold and evolutionary. I see a lot of great correlations between HR's talent management and this project in Germany.
Building A Pipeline of Talent
The call came in August 1996. National coach Berti Vogts had urged DFB president Egidius Braun to do more to foster youth development. The German FA were only concerned with the youth national teams then. The real footballing education was in the hands of the powerful Landesverbände, the regional federations, and the clubs. The person who drove the effort would be Dietrich Weise. He was a World Cup winner with West Germany in 1974. Weise’s project in building young talent started in 1978, and that effort paid off when the youth teams won their first honour in 1981. He left his post in 1983 before being called by the DFB president Braun to lead a Talent project.
The decrease in talents was then widely seen as a sociological issue. Football was suffering thanks to the appeal of video games and individual activities, like going to the gym, the theory went. There were also mutterings about the current generation of teenagers being maybe a little too comfortable and well-off; too soft to defend their birthright against the post-Bosman influx of foreigners. Weise began nine months of research and found that youngsters who didn’t happen to play for one of the professional clubs were falling through the cracks. They had to rely on the federal associations, the FA sub-branches in every state, for recognition and development. Most Bundasliga clubs did not have the financial power to build regional networks for talent identification.
After the 1998 World Coup Quarter-Final exit against Croatia, the German FA board approved Weise’s concept of an introduction of a comprehensive talent-spotting and development scheme, with the help of a network of 115 regional centres. These were supposed to develop 13 to 17-year-olds. They would also support the Landesverbände, so that they could work more regularly with the best 11 and 12-year-olds. DM3.2m (just over £1m) was made available to set up 121 regional centres (Stützpunkte) that would provide two hours of individual, technical coaching for 4,000 13 to 17-year-olds, once a week.
Four years later, Germany got to the Final in Japan, losing to a Brazilian team with Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo. In the next decade or so, more and more German talent emerged.
Lessons Learnt: The need for talent in an organisation is always there. In the corporate world, talent can be bought. However, many examples of corporate success from internal talent can be found across the corporate world. In Jim Collins’ Good to Great, this is one of the findings of those great companies when they outlasted their competitors and reign of their competitors’ charismatic CEOs.
Not only that, the culture of the company had to be crafted to be conducive enough to attract back Boomerang employees who are talent. Sometimes some talent outgrow their positions faster than expected. But the organisation is unable to accommodate the growth due to existing headcount and staff. Fast forward a few years later, the higher position for that talent could be available again, and the organisation will be ready to accept that talent back. It is a win-win situation!
http://www.yoh.com/blog/boomerang-employees-who-are-they-and-why-they-are-on-the-rise
Talent Deployment
When the World Cup 2018 began on 14 June this year, they were one of the favourites to win the World Cup. On 26 June, they were out during the group stages with one win against Sweden, and two losses against Korea and Mexico. Leroy Sane, the young player of the year in Man City (the Championship winning team in the English League) could not even get into the team this year. The team is filled with up and coming talents and experienced talents. Joachim Low opted to choose a more experienced squad with an average age of 27.1 years. However, the team did not meet expectation and fall short.
Photo Credits: www.soccerladuma.co.za
The same could be said about Argentina, Spain and Brazil, which are the other three favourite teams. Many blamed Argentina’s demise on their coach, leaving established players like Higuain, Dybala and Banega on the bench on more than one occasion. Spain had to deal with sacking of their coach, less than a week before the World Cup started.
Lessons Learnt: While Talent Management teams in corporates continue to work their magic in developing talent, the deployment is as important. There are other factors such as commitment, desire and aspiration of the talent. To this end, I opt that Talent Engagement has become more and more important. The constant engagement of Talents through the team will work wonders to retain Talents and also work within the team for better succession planning. In my previous roles, the plans were often discussed with the Talent so as to take the other factors such as commitment and aspiration into account. Sometimes counselling is required to convince the Talent of the plans and more often than not, of the need for patience.
We all love the World Cup and as HR and Talent Management professionals we love see Talent succeed. This article serves only to bring out opinions and discussions around Talent Management and I hope you enjoy reading this article as much as I enjoy writing it. Anyway, I am rooting for Belgium to win the World Cup. Cheers