One third of all football goals are scored after standard situations. Some teams have even shown that it is possible to score one out of seven corners. With an average of almost 10 corners per game, we could have seen more goals. But most trainers, as Germany’s coach Joachim Löw, don’t put much effort in practicing these. No surprise that so far the Mannschaft hasn’t been very successful in scoring after corners (or even free kicks).
This reflects a certain attitude found in business: practicing and improving standard practices is not a top priority in most companies. Instead of clarifying roles and responsibilities, setting up clear processes and training these, they continuously identify new and more promising projects. Not that innovation or the entry into new markets is not important, but optimizing your basis, your standard processes, is one of the simplest way to increase your efficiency, to free up resources, and so to reduce your costs. And still many companies don’t use business process management tools and spend only little time in defining roles or responsibilities while offering little process and tool training.
2004 Greece became European Football Champion. The team had not superstars, wasn’t gifted with a great offensive, but showed how an average team after some focused training could use well practiced standards to score. I think this is the best promotion for a better recognition of standards!