Football and Leadership

Little did I know that my budding interest in the Premier League would remind me of the importance of succession planning.

As I mentioned a few months ago, I took an interest in the Premier League last year in an effort to find a hobby that I could enjoy with my wife, who is one of the biggest football fans that I know.

I randomly decided to support Brentford, in part because they have an almost comical mascot (the Bees), but more so because they are an underdog.

Much to my dismay, in only my second season (er, “campaign”, sorry, I’m still getting used to the British vocabulary for these things), the team was entirely raided during the off-season. They lost their captain, their coach, the keeper, and perhaps most importantly, their twin leading goal scorers, Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa. The pundits declared my newly beloved Bees as the most likely candidate to be relegated this season.

Lo and behold, about halfway through this campaign, they were in 5th place, with a real chance at a spot in the Champions League. At least that’s what I think it’s called; I’m still hopelessly confused by Champions League, the Championship, and being a Champion.

My friend sent me an article about how Brentford has a history of cultivating, selling, and promoting new strikers. It’s all thanks to careful succession planning.

Brentford isn’t a big-money club. Their best players get raided again and again, so they are constantly rebuilding. It’s a good lesson for managers of teams with exceptional talent yet limited means to retain them.

The team I managed at Google was primarily a vendor team. The managers I had would frequently move on to bigger and better things, so I always had to have a solid succession plan in place. I would flag good talent early, engage with them to show them their future leadership path, and have them ready to step up.

If there’s one thing Brentford keeps reinforcing for me, it’s that strong teams don’t panic when people move on. They plan for it, they invest early, develop deliberately, and accept that success often means letting good people grow beyond you.

That’s a big part of the work we do at Teamwork Unlocked. Helping leaders build teams that are resilient to change, confident in transition, and intentional about developing the next person up. For more on what we do and how we can help your team, see here.

I’m thankful to the many “strikers” who grew through my “developmental system” and are now enjoying successful careers. It was a pleasure to work with you, and I’m thrilled at your growth. Ryan Costa, Rory Clayton, Shannon Karaka, Kenneth Lee, Trish Kuswara, Natalie Fong, Shweta Dhopes, Far Mukthar, Sury Chow, Arrada Chamnankarn, Eric Ong, Bineet Khurana, Deeksha Arora, Satish Lakhchora, and so many more.