The probelm with sports analogies in executive communications

American Football Team Wimbledon tennis has concluded for another year, the Tour de France is rolling through the French countryside, the boys of summer are playing on baseball diamonds and the world awaits the start of the Olympics in a few weeks. Sport is filling the airwaves and, as I’ve noted before, is a common topic in business circles.

The proclivity for senior executives to attribute their success in business to lessons learned as a team sports player is discussed by Lucy Kellaway in Monday’s Financial Times.

Kellaway reports that a recent survey of British business leaders found that

Nearly half of the chief executives of the biggest British companies have won awards for their sporting prowess – twice as many as have any academic trophies. Most of them were captain of football or rugby at school or at college and quite a few went on to play for their county.

Executives credit the teamwork learned on the playing field for later business success.

Kellaway is not convinced. In her view, sports encourage delusions of grandeur, a stifling conformity and an inability to communicate clearly:

Sportsmen and CEOs also both make a hash of the Queen’s English. Each generates its own jargon and then feels compelled to borrow the jargon of the other. Sport is responsible for some of the most grating phrases in business, including ballparks, level playing fields, stepping up to the plate, bench strength, getting to first base, raising the bar and playing hardball. Footballers, meanwhile, are starting to talk like management consultants: David Beckham now says “going forward” every time he opens his mouth.

Finally, she points to the problems women have getting ahead in the business-world being exacerbated by the jock culture of boardrooms dominated by the ethos of the locker room.

I’m not a sports fan myself. And look, I’m not a CEO. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

The saving grace for businessmen using sporting cliches is that they are marginally less offensive than military ones. Despite the fact that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

Game, set, match

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