What a pickup soccer game can teach us about management

There was management in our weekly soccer games. Then we gave up management to gain more control over people’s behavior.

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Every Monday, a group of friends gets together to play soccer. It’s a time to see friends again, get a little exercise and relieve the stress of the work still ahead in the week.

The games are played on a small-sided artificial turf field enclosed by netting, whose dimensions determine the size of the teams: 6 players on each side.

Each match lasts 8 minutes, the ideal time to balance effort and rest for these occasional “athletes” and to let everyone enjoy the 2 hours of the “pickup game”.

The official lineup and the excuses for not showing up happen over WhatsApp, where the players keep a group to exchange messages, a few jokes, and interesting photos and videos.

Players pay R$50.00 a month or R$20.00 per individual game. One member of the group is in charge of collecting the money, which, besides paying the field rental, also covers a first aid kit and a barbecue at the end of the year for all the participants.

Game Day

On game day, someone brings the pinnies to assign the players to each of the three teams. The split is made by common sense and seeks the best balance between the teams: slower and faster players, more and less skilled, physically stronger and weaker — all harmoniously spread across different teams.

To decide which teams start playing, a traditional decision method: “two or one”. Two teams play the first game and the other team waits for the next match, also taking charge of keeping time and playing the part of the crowd.

With no referee, the first match begins. The whistle is replaced by a “stop!” that any player can call when a foul happens. Everyone respects the call and the game goes on without much trouble.

After eight minutes, the winning team stays on the field. The losing team gives its place to the team that was waiting on the sideline.

Then the second match begins. If the same team wins again, it gets only one more game: each team plays at most 3 matches in a row. Even if it wins the third match, the winning team must give its place to the team waiting outside. This practice helps balance the players’ time on the field, so that everyone plays roughly the same number of matches.

After the 2 hours of soccer, the players get together to talk, eat something and play cards. A small get-together to rest and enjoy the end of the evening before the next workday.

Rules and Constraints

After new members joined the soccer group, invited to fill out the teams, some changes happened in the pickup game. Three rules and two more constraints were introduced.

Constraint #1: in a team’s third game, if it wins by more than 3 goals, it keeps playing. In the fourth game, it must win by 4 goals to keep playing, and so on.

This constraint was created to solve the following problem: in a team’s third game, the players on the opposing team would relax, since they didn’t need to win to stay on the field. It made more sense to save their energy for the next match, which would really decide whether they kept playing or left.

Constraint #2: when the ball touches the netting that covers the field, a throw-in is awarded.

This constraint was created to keep teams from being harmed when, on a longer pass, the ball hit the netting covering the field and fooled the opposing team’s defense or set up a counterattack. So the group established this constraint to make the games fairer and more competitive.

Rule #1: the players on each team will be decided by a draw.

Some people complained that there were “cliques” in how the teams were formed, meaning the good players were always together on the same teams. So the group thought it best to draw the players for each team and leave the balance between teams to chance.

Rule #2: when the ball is passed back to the goalkeeper, he may not pick it up with his hands.

This rule was created to prevent the infamous stalling in soccer. When some people on a winning team realized there was little time left in the match, they would pass the ball back to the goalkeeper again and again to run down the clock and “cool off” the match. The group noticed this bad behavior from some players and established this rule to make matches more dynamic and prevent this kind of unsporting play.

Rule #3: when any player, except the goalkeepers, deliberately handles the ball, a direct free kick is awarded to the opposing team.

This rule was also created to prevent unsporting play. Some players, realizing they couldn’t stop the opposing team from scoring, would “kill” a dangerous play by handling the ball. This drove the opposing players crazy. So the group established the handball rule to curb this bad behavior.

Benefits and Consequences

After the first games with the new rules and constraints, the soccer group noticed some benefits, but also some bad consequences.

The possibility of winning or losing by a 3-goal margin in the third game made the teams play for real: the winning team started running more and going for the biggest goal difference. The opposing team started playing seriously so as not to risk leaving the field at the end of the match.

The throw-ins awarded after the ball hit the netting above the field gave the games a new dynamic, and they became more hard-fought and balanced. On top of that, the long, aimless boots upfield decreased and the passing game improved.

As for drawing the teams, things got worse. The teams became even more unbalanced. Some teams were made up of the group’s best players while other teams got the worst players. This increased the discontent of most of the players. Some of them even left the pickup game before it was over.

As for the back pass to the goalkeeper, many plays led to arguments over whether the back pass was intentional or not. The same goes for handball, which created conflicts between players who disagreed about the intentions of the player who committed the infraction.

These rules created more arguments among the players, who ended up inventing new forms of unsporting play, like dragging their feet to take a free kick or a throw-in. Because of this, some members of the group floated the idea of bringing in a referee to officiate the games.

Lessons on Management

1. Create constraints that help improve collective performance

The constraints were created with the purpose of improving the dynamics of the games and the behavior of the teams, encouraging the players’ self-organization and increasing competitiveness.

Setting constraints helps teams rethink their way of “playing” during the “game” itself, always seeking better performance. Thinking about the work while doing it generates more learning and more possibilities for innovation.

2. Avoid creating rules to control and punish people

The rules created to prevent unsporting play and stalling didn’t work, because they imposed control and punishment on players and teams because of the bad behavior of a few people.

On top of that, these rules aimed to micromanage the players’ activities, replacing autonomy and mastery in dealing with situations of unsporting play.

Management doesn’t mean imposing decisions and controlling the behavior of the 3% of workers who do poor work, but rather guaranteeing freedom and all the support needed so that the other 97% of workers achieve even better results.

3. Don’t delegate responsibility for management to one person or to chance

The rules began to be questioned and interpreted differently by each player, which raised the idea of having a referee to enforce these controls and punishments.

Having a “referee” means delegating decisions about the “game” to one person who would, in theory, be better prepared for it than all the players together.

However, if people are aligned with the company’s purpose and goals, there’s no need for a manager for them to do their work with mastery and responsibility. In fact, the presence of a manager is already a sign that management is being replaced by command-and-control.

Drawing players to form the teams was well-intentioned, but it was naive to think that chance could do better than people’s common sense.

Afterthoughts

The constraints were aligned with the purpose of the pickup game: seeing friends, getting exercise and relieving work stress.

The rules caused arguments between friends, reduced the amount of exercise and increased people’s stress.

Before, we treated all the players as adults, people aware that this was a pickup game and that we were all there to have fun. After watching the childish behavior of a few people, we started creating rules that treated everyone like children, unable to decide on the intention behind a given play in the game.

In the beginning, everyone knew they were there for a purpose and, together with their knowledge of soccer, were capable of making decisions based on common sense. Later, that capacity was replaced by rules and even by the possible presence of a referee. This shows how people lost power over their own pickup game.

Third Half

What are the definitions (purpose, goals, values, principles and constraints) that characterize your company and guide people’s work and behavior toward better results?

What rules were created to micromanage people’s work and end up encouraging bad behavior and worse results?

In what situations in your company has people’s active participation been replaced by processes, tools or managers?