6 BUSINESS LESSONS FROM A NETBALL TEAM

As I spend most of my adult life either at work or on the netball court I thought it would be interesting to see how many transferable skills there are between the court and the office. There are a lot of skills that you pick up on the netball court that very much replicate those that you will find in the workplace:

Teamwork – it is imperative that you work as a team on court, and are one unit. If you are pulling in all different directions it is not going to work. This is the same in an office, if you are not working towards the same goal and vision then the end result will never be achieved.

Timing – on a netball court timing is everything, you have only 3 seconds once you take possession of the ball to pass it onto the next player. If you don’t pass the ball in this time you are penalised by the umpire and possession is given to the opposing team. This is very true in marketing a business, when you have a great new concept or idea, if you don’t move quickly you will be pipped to it by the competition. We obviously do not want to rush the strategy and planning stage, as time does need to be given to these activities, but once agreed we need to keep the momentum going to stay ahead of the competition.

Training – Keeping your skills updated – within the netball arena you have to keep your skills and drills up-to-date to keep ahead of the competition and at the peak of your ability and fitness. You have 40 minutes to make an impression, work as a unit with your team and ultimately get a win.

This is the same in the workplace, you need to always be learning and never stop growing, skills are not just given to you, they need to be learnt and enhanced.

Support and celebrate – within a netball team you will see the best results when you support your teammates (and in return you will be supported back). It makes each teammate believe that they can win and with that self belief will come success. To get the best out of people you need to support them through the good times and the bad and be open with feedback, ensuring that this feedback is constructive and can be used to grow and develop.

Mentor and grow – This is imperative within a workplace to ensure that knowledge, skills and experience is passed through to the new graduates, school leavers and apprentices. We have seen apprenticeship schemes flourish in recent years and this will only continue to grow as the UK works to ensure that the ageing industries are revived with keen and enthusiastic generation Z.

Umpires  – a game of netball is unable to go ahead without the presence of an umpire, and whilst these individuals are there to ensure the rules are followed and obeyed, they are also there to offer guidance to the players. These individuals are extremely important to the game of netball and along with the coaches and team managers will shape the game and play. They will see the game from a different perspective and a very valuable perspective at that.

In the workplace our umpires are the industry experts and influencers that cross our path everyday. These could be the accountants, legal experts, marketing consultants or training providers. Even through we may think it, we will never be an expert at everything and we will never have knowledge on every subject out there. So we need these people to guide us and advise us on the best path. There are also those that have experienced similar events and happenings in their career that we can learn from, such as Richard Branson or similar entrepreneurs. As it currently stands Mr Branson has a following of 6.48M followers on Twitter and 8.25M followers on LinkedIn, so there are a lot of people using his knowledge and experience to help them grow.

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