8 Quotations About Football by the Late Johan Cruyff That Can be Equally Interpreted and Applied to Business

• Johan Cruyff (1947 - 2016), regarded by many as one of the greatest football players of all time and who went on to have outstanding success as a coach and manager, has some great football quotations attributed to him.

• Cruyff's maxims might equally, however, have analogies in business and below are eight of my favourites with some possible interpretations.

Johan Cruyff 1947 - 2016

• 'You have got to shoot, otherwise you can't score' - take some risks, invest in your business ideas or you'll never develop products that will maximise your success.

• 'Without the ball, you can't win' - if you don't continually produce what your customers want then success can never be sustained. Keep investing and always keep your 'eye on the ball' including updating your knowledge of customers, markets, competitors, suppliers etc.

• 'Every disadvantage has its advantage' - every situation has an upside or provides opportunities to learn. Mistakes made and the subsequent knowledge gained about internal weaknesses, external opportunities or a need to increase capabilities and adjust market focus will always pay dividends long term. As long as your enhanced knowledge is transformed in to the required actions that is!

• 'To win you have to score one more goal than your opponent' - competitive advantage comes from capitalising on your strengths and mitigating your weaknesses to serve a specific customer - the one who's currently keeping score. Pay attention to this for all customers and you'll gain the points needed to win every time.

• 'Speed is often confused with insight. When I start running earlier than the others, I appear faster' - do your homework early and really understand your customers, markets, competitors and internal capabilities. Only then will the many opportunities to gain the advantage before your competitors do arise.

• 'Footballers from the street are more important than trained coaches' - experience counts and the demonstration of real world success will always trump a knowledge of the theories of how it might be achieved. Remember this when recruiting, developing and promoting your staff.

• 'Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple' - aim to keep business models, systems and processes simple because they'll typically evolve to become more complex anyway. Remember in most situations complexity breeds more complexity and complexity equals cost. Often that additional cost providing limited extra value to anyone.

• 'Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins' - in business mistakes are inevitable, failures sometimes inescapable and it is learning from these experiences quickly that's important. If you learn quicker, you'll get it right sooner and succeed more often in the future.

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