Blog

• tonydorigo
• Blog
• January 17, 2025

How Authentic Are You?

Authenticity in Leadership: Leading with Your Whole Self

During my football career, I remember working with a couple of outstanding coaches who went on to become managers. I found it interesting that they changed their personalities to fit their roles. Their strength and authenticity were altered by their idea of what a manager should be.

For one, the new ‘manager’ job drove him crazy, and he didn’t last long. The other had a degree of success, but I always felt the superb ‘coach’ I knew never fully came across in his new guise.

This brings me to genuine authenticity—leading with your whole self is desirable in leadership and essential for building trust, fostering collaboration, and driving sustainable success.

Authenticity in leadership isn’t a trend; it’s a fundamental requirement for navigating the challenges of the modern workplace and inspiring genuine engagement from those you lead.

Authentic leadership transcends the superficial. It’s not about mimicking successful leaders or adhering to rigid leadership models. Instead, it’s about embracing your unique strengths, acknowledging your weaknesses, and leading with integrity and self-awareness.

Authentic leaders are genuine and transparent in their actions and words. They operate from a place of genuine care and concern for their team members, fostering a culture of trust and psychological safety.

I had a few authentic leaders in my football career, but one sticks out—Sir Bobby Robson. He wasn’t perfect, but he never tried to be. He would get names mixed up and accidentally have the opposition with 14 players on a tactics board, among other minor clangers. However, every one of the best players in England would run through a brick wall for him. Time and time again. He led with integrity, embraced vulnerability, and fostered genuine connections.

Authentic leadership is not a destination; it’s a journey of ongoing self-discovery and development. Always strive to improve.

The rewards of authentic leadership are far-reaching. They impact not only your team but also the broader organisational culture and, ultimately, the success of your endeavours. It requires courage, self-awareness, and a commitment to continuous growth.

This type of leadership isn’t about perfection; it’s about self-acceptance and a willingness to be vulnerable. So, be yourself, be authentic!

#Authenticity #Leadership #Teamwork

• tonydorigo
• Blog
• January 15, 2025

Communication – it’s just talking, right?

The obvious and not-so-obvious ways to Communicate

Excellent communication is vital in both personal and business life. Without it, issues would have arisen that could have been easily solved or may not have existed in the first place.

A corporate culture where open and honest communication abounds can stay ahead of the opposition through innovation and problem-solving, where no idea is too silly, and the team feels comfortable expressing opinions.

This brought me back to my football career and how I communicated differently. It certainly wasn’t just talking!

1: Verbal communication:

• Calling out to teammates during a match
• Discussing tactics with coaches and teammates
• Giving interviews to media

2: Non-verbal communication:

• Hand signals and gestures on the pitch
• Body language to express emotions or intentions
• Facial expressions to convey feelings or reactions
• The weight/speed of passing the ball communicates to the receiving player
• By example, all of your actions

3: Visual communication:

• Using tactical boards to explain gameplay
• Watching and analysing match footage
• Learning from demonstrations of techniques

4: Written communication:

• Corresponding with club officials or agents via email

5: Physical communication:

• Physical contact during play (e.g., tapping a teammate to signal a run or a firm opposition tackle!)
• Celebratory gestures after scoring (e.g., who doesn’t love a good goal hug! high-fives)

6: Media communication:

• Press conferences
• Television or radio interviews
• Participating in promotional videos or advertisements

Since retiring in 2001, the digital world has increased significantly. So, add team communication apps for schedules and updates, video calls for remote team meetings or analysis sessions, instant messaging with teammates or coaching staff and communicating with fans through social media posts.

So, it’s a lot more than just talking! In your business, think of all the ways you communicate, whether intended or not. To be an effective communicator, be aware of all your forms of communication.

#Communication #Teamwork #Leadership

• tonydorigo
• Blog
• January 13, 2025

Stop focusing on your Goal

Stop focusing on your Goal

When delivering a motivational keynote, I always like to start with a dream! Dream big; the bigger, the better.

The reason for this is twofold:

• It removes the artificial ceiling we put on ourselves that restricts our belief of what we can achieve.
• It is a marker in the sand and a direction of travel

A level down from your ‘dream’ is a goal. A goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don’t sometime in the future.

For instance, your dream might be to win the World Cup, but your goal for the season might be to score 20 goals. Your dream might be to own a trillion $ company, but your goal this financial year will be to increase your turnover by 50%.

I then quickly return my audience to earth to focus on the ‘systems’ needed to achieve those goals. A system is something you do regularly that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday, it’s a goal. Don’t focus on something you are waiting for – get on with working daily on the right ‘systems’.

Scott Adams, the artist behind the cartoon Dilbert, first proposed this goal/system theory. It resonated with me on many levels. How does a footballer, when he wins a cup or a league title, have the hunger to win more and more? The goal is always there for every season, but the focus is on the systems you put in place for endless refinement and constant improvement.

Looking back on my career, I can rest easy knowing that I attempted to listen, learn, and improve at (almost) every training session (go easy; no one’s perfect). My daily ‘system’ brought medals, titles, personal accolades and international caps over a 19-year football career.

Your daily commitment to those ‘systems’ will determine your progress and subsequent achievements. So, let’s stop focusing on those goals 😊

Remember, winners and losers have the same goals….now you know what sets them apart!

#Motivation #MaximiseYourPotential 

• tonydorigo
• Blog
• January 10, 2025

Culture – does it matter?

Four reasons why culture matters

In football or business, culture is the invisible force shaping behaviour, decision-making, and overall performance. It’s the organisation’s shared values, beliefs, and attitudes. Culture is not just about having a pleasant work environment; it is critical to a business or football club’s long-term success and sustainability.

I played for six clubs during my career, and it wasn’t a coincidence that success or outperformance was achieved when the culture was at its strongest – and the opposite was also true!

1: Culture correlates with performance 

For data geeks, based on the research of over 1,000 organisations encompassing more than three million individuals, those with top-quartile cultures (as measured by McKinsey & Co.’s Organizational Health Index) post a return to shareholders 60% higher than the median company and 200 % higher than those in the bottom quartile. So, culture matters a lot!

2: Culture is inherently challenging to copy

The quickening pace of innovation in Sports and Business means that tactics, products, and business models constantly face the threat of being replicated. In this environment, the ultimate competitive advantage is a healthy culture that automatically adapts to changing conditions to find new ways to succeed.

3: Healthy cultures enable organisations to adapt

In a world where the one constant is change, culture becomes even more critical because organisations with high-performing cultures thrive on change. The converse also holds: Unhealthy cultures do not respond well to change.

4: Unhealthy cultures lead to underperformance…or worse

Over time, not only do unhealthy cultures foster lacklustre performance, but they can be your undoing. Daily headlines attest that culture can bring corporate giants to their knees. Clubs used to playing in Europe suddenly embrace midtable mediocrity or worse.

Do you have examples of businesses or teams with good and bad cultures?

Good: The great overachievers – Leicester City under Claudio Ranieri. Warning: culture is constant and always needs to be worked on….they were relegated 6 years later.

Bad: Uber in their early high growth years? Numerous scandals, along with several senior figures resigning, including the co-founder/CEO.

What’s yours?

#Culture #TeamWork #Leadership

• tonydorigo
• Blog
• January 8, 2025

Want Elite Performance?

Want ‘elite’ performance – work on good habits!

My latest read is the international bestseller Atomic Habits by James Clear. I’m halfway through, but I’m already looking back at my football career, the good and bad habits, and how they affected the teams I played for.

For context, habits are regular practices or routines people follow, often automatically. They can be both positive and negative and play a significant role in shaping our daily lives and long-term outcomes.

At Leeds United, the Thursday training session before a Saturday game was very methodical, detailed and long! It was set-piece day, both attacking and defending. We would work our way through defending set plays in our defensive 1/3^rd, middle 1/3^rd and attacking 1/3^rd, both on the left- and right-hand side.

We would then work our way through attacking set plays in our defensive 1/3^rd, middle 1/3^rd and attacking 1/3^rd, once again both on the left- and right-hand side.

We repeated this for every game, so it became ‘routine’, and we automatically assumed the correct positions. We just repeated our habits at Anfield, Highbury, Stamford Bridge, or Old Trafford, hanging on to a point or a lead with 10 minutes to go.

However, another significant benefit to our good habits was that they freed up our brainpower to deal with the unexpected. We weren’t thinking about where we should be on every set piece, as it was automatic. Amidst the heat of the battle, we could decipher those unexpected threats or changes and react to them. Did the man I was marking get replaced? Have we lost our main header of the ball? Has the opposition changed their corner routine? Do the playing conditions dictate a different approach?

Good habits can raise your performance to the next level….. I now need to read a bit more to eliminate the bad ones!

#GoodHabits #HighPerformance #Growth

• tonydorigo
• Blog
• December 9, 2024

Cycling Challenge

𝗖𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲 – 𝗪𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗟𝗮 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗮!

I was fortunate to experience elite-level football, which teaches you much about yourself, teamwork, and leadership. The constant pressure cooker of the media, the fans, and the very public assessment every few days is unique and, once retired, can’t be replicated.

There are plentiful transferrable lessons for business, but can a successful businessperson be immersed, at least partly, in the psyche of professional sports?

Many years ago, I did a charity bike ride for breast cancer with four other ex-professional footballers, along with nine others from different walks of life. Wembley to La Manga in Spain, nearly 100 miles daily for 14 consecutive days. One particular rider, a very successful businessman, did get to experience something that he would never forget.

It was the most challenging day, and we had to get up and go over the Pyrenees. Constant switchbacks going upwards splintered the group as we all just tried to pedal at our own ‘survival’ speed. After many hours, the riders arrived at the summit at different intervals; we started to cheer the next rider home.

We had all arrived except for one. Looking back down the mountain, we couldn’t see him anywhere. As a group, we decided to walk down the mountain, find him, and cheer him on to the finish. After walking quite a way down, we spotted him, shin and knee bleeding, grinding his way towards us at a snail’s pace and wanting to give up. If he had gone any slower, he would have come to a complete stop and toppled over.

For the next 20 minutes, the 13 finished riders cajoled and encouraged our beleaguered businessman up the mountain. We looked like a bunch of hyenas around this poor dead-tired cyclist.

However, he was one of us, and there was no way we could not all get up that mountain. He found energy he didn’t know he had and reached the summit, tired but deliriously delighted, with us wildly celebrating his achievement.

At that moment, he understood—he was part of a team, it was our Team, and we were stronger together.

#Teamwork #DreamTeam #Motivation #Leadership