For the Love of the Game: Winning the Competition for Talent in Work and in Sports 

For those who don’t know me, I love a good sports analogy. As a former professional football player, I’ve found many connections between the lessons I learned on the field and the challenges in business. I’d like to share my observations on the strong parallels between the world of sports and the competitive landscape of business.

In 2024, whether you’re competing on the field or in the boardroom, picking and grooming talent remains important—perhaps now more than ever. Organizations are selecting individuals they believe best align with their vision, coupled with expectations of high returns on their investments. How do they achieve this?  

Let’s examine a few key points I’ve learned from my playing days that have translated well into the corporate environment. 

1. KYP: Know Your Personnel

Start with the goal, work backwards, and create lead measures to help gauge progress. If the goal is to win the Super Bowl, then evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your team. Can you win with what you currently have? What causes the shortcomings you face? Is it a strategy issue, a talent issue, or both?  

Spend time scouting your team, the competition, and the market to get a full picture of where you are and where you’d like to be. Then devise a plan aimed at strengthening the weakest link. This could involve developing in-house talent (“Grow Your Own”) or pursuing new talent through strategic hiring. 

2. Review your Game Plan

After getting to know your personnel, you have a choice to make: change your strategy to highlight your talent strengths or adjust your talent to fit your strategy. Most would choose the latter, as we all believe we’re good coaches and strategists, right? 

This is also where talent acquisition is so important as you prepare to enter the season with targeted needs for positions. You’re not just filling a slot; you need to decide if it’s better to pursue experienced talent or draft a rookie and invest in their learning curve, banking on future potential.  

Both options come with costs. Experienced talent likely demands premium market value, but they’ve been in similar environments. Rookies are typically less of a financial burden but require more time to reach optimal productivity. 

3. Do Your Prep Work

This is where you lay the groundwork, bringing your strategy to life. Reach out to other leaders on your team for a 360-degree view of focus areas, defining what success and production look like, outlining your current challenges, and reviewing training and other developmental ideas to overcome those obstacles.  

Map out a 30-, 60-, 90-day plan for the post-talent acquisition phase and communicate with your leaders about expected production from this talent. For those in executive roles, this planning phase often extends to the first 180 days—a critical period for setting the tone and direction of leadership. 

Gather all the feedback and advice to create a priority list of skills needed from incoming talent to contribute specifically to your organization’s goals. Remember, getting the right talent is only half the battle. A proper onboarding process is necessary to ensure your new hires hit the ground running and quickly become valuable team players.  

4. CARE = Collaborate, Assess, Research, Evaluate

Here’s the fun part… evaluating talent for potential production. To succeed, you must love the process as much as the prize. Assemble a talent evaluation team, partner with your scouting advisors, and get to work! Review performance data, meet candidates in person, talk with their references, and assess their talent, character, integrity, and motivation.  

In the corporate world, this evaluation often involves leadership assessments, providing insights similar to a player’s statistics and character references in sports. Remember, finding great talent isn’t enough; their character must align with your organization. 

In business, as in football, it’s all about results, and motivation is key. Offer your talent prospects a compelling vision—one they can strive for, contribute to, and see results from. If they can’t embrace the vision, don’t force the fit. 

Repeat this process with other candidates to find the right match on all fronts. When someone buys into the vision and you’ve completed your CARE process with your talent advisors, act decisively; don’t hesitate. 

5. LEAD = Learn, Empower, Align, Deliver

Congrats, you’ve made your picks. Now comes the championship, right? No, not yet. Now is the time to begin executing the plan you’ve created from your prep work. Lay out expectations for your new talent, implement the playbook, get them properly oriented in their new environment, and empower your talent to tackle challenges head-on with an outsider’s perspective. 

This approach creates a culture of production among team members and breeds excellence. It may not happen consistently at first due to the learning curve, but as long as you coach and lead with your team’s motivation aligned to your organization’s strategy—they’ll trust you. 

Trust is crucial on the path to high performance. People go the extra mile for leaders they believe will reciprocate their effort. 

Don’t Fumble Your Chance—Avoid Being Sidelined to First Pick Every Season 

Whether it’s the game of life or the game of sport, everybody wants to win. Winning requires production, and production requires talent. A tree can’t bear fruit without the right environment and soil conditions. Similarly, acquiring top talent without a strategy, vision, or culture is pointless.  

Organizations that create nurturing environments and choose talent suited to thrive in them usually come out on top. And those who select the best talent without a plan for their culture… well, they probably end up with the first pick in the draft every year. 

About the Author

As a former professional athlete, Al Smith Jr. is fueled by creating winning strategies in the teams that he builds, the execution techniques he deploys, and the trusted partnerships that he creates. With an extensive background in talent acquisition across multiple industries including healthcare, finance, aerospace, and manufacturing, Al’s expertise enables him to be a multifaceted leadership partner, aiding his clients in their most important decisions: selecting and retaining superior executive leadership talent. 

In his role as Managing Partner at Stanton Chase Huntsville, Al primarily conducts executive search within the industrial, consumer products, government, and technology sectors. He works with Fortune 500 corporations as well as small to midsize organizations who benefit from his ability to intersect passion and purpose through relationships at the highest levels of leadership.