Can Your Child Compete & Lead the Team?

I work with entrepreneurs that begin start-up companies. These are the founders and CEOs.  Many mistakenly believe effort is what it takes to reap rewards, but effort alone is never enough. Yet others believe it is just a technical or innate skill that brings success, such as a high I.Q. or a particular talent, but that’s not enough either. One talent I see missing from their bag of skills is the ability to compete and perform as a member of a team.

They’ve never been trained to compete. They’ve never learned that when you enter the playing field, you had better have the intent to win. They’ve never learned that sometimes you have to live in the moment. That when you are swimming in a race, your entire world is that lane; there isn’t a thought of the party or anything else later in the day. They haven’t learned to perform under pressure. They haven’t learned how to build a team or how an effective team functions.

In the past, I’ve seen studies on successful people and one common experience is many have played sports at a serious competitive level when they were younger. The connection became crystal clear when my oldest daughter got heavily involved in sports.

Practices don’t always go well. It seems as though the athlete practices and practices, and there is no discernible progress. They have to believe that everything they do moves them one very small step closer to the goal.  And one day, all those small steps will come together and they’ll have it. Without believing this, they will quit. Athletes are willing to persist even in the face of this seemingly lack of progress.  In school, teachers hand students a worksheet with problems and the answers can be found in short time.  In sports, the athlete can work on a new technique for many months. More than anything else, athletes learn it’s a mind game.

Coaches aren’t school teachers. Teachers know every student is capable of learning the material, some will learn it faster than others, but all learn it. Teachers are nurturing and patient with students. Coaches push athletes to their limits.  At times they are nurturing and at other times they are frustrated by the athlete’s performance – and they show it. It’s not easy keeping coaches happy, and it is inevitable the coaches will be disappointed at some point.  If there is any good early training for dealing with investors and shareholders, it’s dealing with coaches. They are indispensable; they help and guide the athlete. Coaches expect and demand exceptional performance, but this too is not enough, consistency of high performance is emphasized too.

Every investor admits that the team is the biggest factor is deciding whether to invest in a company. How many children learn about teams?  Most of their school work is individual effort. On rare occasions, they will work in a team. Team members aren’t always selected because of the skills they bring to the group, often they are based upon friendships. I see this all the time with start-ups. The so-called team is really just a random collection of individuals, they don’t make sense.  Yet, the founder calls it the team because it’s a group of people. Investors aren’t fooled. Even for individual sports like figure skating or tennis, there is a team hiding behind the athlete.  The team is more than just the athletes; it’s also the coaches, parents, sponsors, and other professionals. Likewise, in a start-up, the team isn’t just the workers; it’s the shareholders, mentors, advisers, board, and even customers.  Learning about how to build a team, how to change team members, and how to make a team perform its best isn’t taught in schools.

Those in sports know there is nothing like the feeling of the thrill of victory. It’s what they live for – to compete and to win!

If a parent wants to raise a future CEO or a highly successful person, it means they are raising a competitor as well as a team player. The question for many parents is how to train a child to compete and be a team player.  Athletics and sports are one such way to gain this  skill.

About the Author: Cynthia Kocialski is the founder of three tech start-ups companies. In the past 15 years, she has been involved in dozens of start-ups. Cynthia writes the Start-up Entrepreneurs’ Blog www.cynthiakocialski.com. Cynthia has written the book, “Out of the Classroom Lessons in Success: How to Prosper Without Being at the Top of the Class.” The book serves up tips, insight, and wisdom to enable young adults and parents of kids to know what it will take to forge a successful career, no matter what their academic achievement.