Teamwork From the Gridiron to the Business World

Post author By nikkoelblinger
Post date January 30, 2020
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Do Your 1/11th

In the game of football, there are 22 players allowed on the field at any time. It is you and 10 other guys on one side of the ball, and 11 opponents on the other side. The mentality that my high school program developed was that every player needed to do their 1/11th.

Doing your 1/11th means to do your part on the field. Everyone has a specific task on each given play and the 10 guys beside you and your whole sideline is counting on you to do what is asked. If one person does not fulfill their job responsibilities, the whole team is at fault.

Working Together Towards a Common Goal

The Best 11 Not the 11 Best

One of the sayings the coaches also used to use was that they were going to put the best 11 players on the field, not the 11 best. Now, this may be confusing at first, but it actually makes perfect sense. They wanted to put the 11 players that were the most successful working together on the field at the same time. They did not care if someone was a better athlete or thought they should be playing over someone else. It came down to who was going to work the hardest for their teammates beside them, and if they thought that a good athlete wanted to perform for themselves rather than the team, then that individual would not play.

Translation to the Business World

Work together in teams in both situations
If you can not work well in a team you will not play, or keep your job
Communication skills are imperative
Have to respond well to leadership, or lead yourself
Teaches you the importance of listening

Playing football taught me how to be a part of a successful team. If even one person is giving less effort then the rest of the team, it brings the whole team down. A successful team includes a group of people that know their duties and how to execute them and are striving to accomplish a common goal.

Business Football

The Value of Relationships

Post author By nikkoelblinger
Post date April 25, 2020
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One of the most beneficial things that came from my football playing days is the ability to make and retain relationships. Football is truly a team sport and businesses are run like a team. I have made my best friends from the sport, and I am even close with the guys that I did not hang out with.

Attributed Abilities

Ability to build relationships
Ability to maintain relationships
Ability to problem solve in relationships
Ability to communicate clearly

These abilities were all taught to me by relationships that I had with coaches and players on my team. If you did not like someone for some reason, then you better go up to them and figure it out because at the end of the day they are your teammates and you are all focused on the sames goals.

I have had to mend relationships with some of my good friends because they played on offense during practice and I was on defense. There was a battle everyday, but everyday we would fix the problems because we were all one team.

The coaches taught you that you have to respect the people that were in charge, but also treat the guys on either side of the field with you with the same respect. It is way easier and you will be much more successful if everyone is friendly with each other and share common goals. If someone is having a down day, you better pick them up because they will just make it miserable for everyone else as well.

Transition

The transition the the business world is pretty simple. Again, everyone works together as a team in a business and it is very important to have relationships with everyone around you. There will be people of higher standing than you and people of the same standing as you. The right thing to do is treat everyone with the utmost respect. The ways we learned to maintain relationships and the importance of them will transition seamlessly to the business world.

Tags battle, Business, Football, relationships

Business Football

The Vitality of Communication

Post author By nikkoelblinger
Post date March 31, 2020
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When coach is talking, your eyes better have been on his eyes. In football, the coach is your leader besides your captains and he deserves all of your undivided attention if he is talking. My coach sent kids home from practice if they fell asleep in a team meeting, or would send a kid on a focus lap if he was not paying attention when the coach was speaking. One of the main goals of my football team was to teach us players the importance of communication and how to do it well.

The defensive coaches were incredibly focused on getting us to communicate to improve our success as a unit. Everybody on the defense needed to talk in order to succeed. We wanted to be loud on the field, whether it was communicating a new play call in or calling routes out to the defensive backs behind us, the outside linebackers needed to be able to communicate.

From the Field to the Office

My football experiences set me up for success in the office. In the office you are constantly working as a team in order to improve your business. Instead of all eyes on coach when he is talking, in the office it is all eyes on the boss when he is talking. Another communicative element that was instilled in us was how to problem solve. A lot of situations arose on the football field where people at differing viewpoints and you would need to work it out in order to figure out what was the right way to do something. This will be similar to the business world when someone has an idea, but someone else has another. Sometimes, you just need to stop and figure things out before you move any further.

Without the communication skills that I learned in football, I would have been ill-prepared for the business world. I am forever in debt to my coaches for not only teaching me how to be a successful football player, but how to be a successful man in life.

Tags Business, communication, Football, listening, talking, Teamwork

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Overcoming Adversity and Keeping Your Mental Focus

Post author By nikkoelblinger
Post date February 20, 2020
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My personal goal for my senior year of high school was to be a captain of the football team. Yes, we had team goals, like winning conference and the state championship, but I really wanted to be a leader of the team. The voting process was that everyone on the team had to write down the 4 players’ names that they thought should be captain for the year. After tallying up the votes, I was fifth on the list…

My coach pulled me a side afterwards and told me that if he could have five captains then I would be the fifth, however it just was not the case. He encouraged me to continue to lead by example and to be a vocal leader. Even though I was not going to be representing my team at the coin toss, he ensured me that everyone would still respect me as a leader of the team.

Honestly, I was disappointed.

I wanted to be one of the actual captains for the past 3 years of my life. To be let down like that hurt a little bit, but I knew I still had to fulfill my role on the team. People were counting on me to do my job and to do it well. After a day or two, I did not let it get to me anymore. I knew my role and my purpose and I wanted to do the best that I could to help the team.

Defense on the field for state championship, 2016.

I needed to overcome the situation that occurred and move on for the better of the team. In the business world, people are always striving to get that new job or job promotion. In a sense, it would have been a promotion for me to be captain. Even though you might not get what you want, you always have to remember that the team still needs you. Learn from the experience and that way the next time you are going for that job or promotion you are ready and can win the competition. It is extremely important both in the business world and the world of sports to be able to overcome adversity and strive to be better. Without mental focus and clarity, I could have sulked the whole season and had a miserable senior year. Now, I know how to be a leader even without the title and I know how to accept a challenge and overcome adversity.