Pianigiani: from parquet to enterprise, the real competitive advantage is knowing how to be a team player
Multi-talented coach combines sports and business experience to teach how to build winning teams and deal with change with management skills and effective communication
In the world of sport, as in the world of business, the real challenge is to get to the result. Together. A concept that also finds among its supporters Simone Pianigiani, one of the most successful Italian basketball coaches (twenty titles in four different countries and never an entire season on the bench without raising at least one trophy), who in his first book - "Essere Coach", Roi Edizioni - has built a solid bridge between the dynamics of the parquet and those that characterise the corporate world.
In an era dominated by individualism and the quest for instant gratification, the need to be a team player, to value different skills and to create a collective identity capable of withstanding complexity must be put back at the centre. The book, which opens with a preface by Marcello Lippi, who emphasises the importance for a coach to be a manager of human resources, is a real manual for managers that interweaves episodes from Pianigiani's career with lessons in organisational leadership. It starts from some precise assumptions: sport, once self-referential, is evolving into increasingly articulated structures that require widespread managerial skills; at the same time, companies need to adopt the spirit of sport to face markets and scenarios in continuous and rapid change. What emerges is a topical reinterpretation of the fundamentals needed to achieve results, namely effective communication, empathy, trust, the ability not to stifle talent and the ability to build a winning mentality from day one.
The former coach of Olimpia Milano and the national team, guides us to explore the key themes of teamwork (motivation, organisation, change management, conscious delegation, cultural sensitivity), offering concrete parallels between the 'machine that never stops' of a professional basketball team and the needs of modern businesses
In the book we read that pachydermic organisations, slow in their reaction times, are no longer suitable for constantly changing scenarios: the solution to adapt?
Let us make a comparison with sport, which has had and still has its criticalities, such as being self-referential. The key point is that different skills are needed, because scenarios change and so do the people one has to deal with. What the two worlds have in common is the need to arrive jointly at a result: we live in a society that is perhaps the most individualistic ever and in which individual satisfaction always wants to be immediate. Never before has there been such a need to arm oneself with different skills and to create a good team spirit. The solution to the great need for flexibility and dynamism is to welcome new talents and not leave them to their own devices for lack of regular evaluation of their level. Every opportunity for confrontation is a chance to improve the way of working, but not all organisations have the courage and the ability to really launch young people and put them to the test in the field, putting them in the team game in a position to give their best and to do the right thing, including through a direct and decisive approach.
