Executive View: Can motor retail learn from the Euros tournament?

The leadership of England's football squad in the recent Euros inspires AM's regular columnist Professor Jim Saker, emeritus professor of Loughborough University's business school and president of the Institute of the Motor Industry.

It was interesting to read the comments that were made about Gareth Southgate during the recent Euros. Southgate is a well-qualified coach who statistically is the most successful England manager since Sir Alf Ramsey. 

He was however vilified by commentators in the early stages of the tournament for the way in which the team had played. Yet the team successfully won their group and were eventually beaten in the final by Spain.

It raised the whole issue of how do you judge management performance?

Most managers at a reasonable high level have been through and passed the basic coaching qualifications for the role in which they are going to play. As in the motor industry there are standard courses and training that are attended but this does not guarantee future success.

Some people adapt to the role and through their personality or empathy and understanding can get people motivated to perform well. But sometimes this is situation specific.

Continuing the football analogy, some managers perform well at one club but when they move to another their team appears to underperform. They obviously know the basics otherwise they would not have had success in the first place.

The issue seems to rely not on their base competence but in their ability to perform in a different context and with a different group of people.

Gareth Southgate throughout his career has been conservative in both his team selection and the formations in which they played. This was nothing new so why were people questioning his managerial capability?

The challenge came when you looked at the resource (the team) that he had at his disposal.

People looked at the individual players and the way that they had performed for their clubs and believed that this team had the potential to play exciting dynamic football but seemed to be playing poorly and just scraping through.

The players seemed motivated and spoke highly of Southgate and how the wider squad had worked well together but when it came to the games the team seemed dysfunctional.

The motor industry is interesting in this respect. Managers often move around the industry with variable success.

Obviously in each situation the team that is inherited will differ in both performance and potential. Success seems to come from the ability to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals and what motivates them to perform.

I have found that this is one of the most difficult things to teach on any training programme.

You can have all the qualifications in the world and still not have the ability to understand the people that are working for you and how they can best gel well to meet their full potential.