If company culture and manager performance is any guide then Brazil and Portugal will contest the World Cup Final on 11 July, according to analysis from Towers Watson.
This topical and light-hearted analysis took as a starting point the assumption that national teams are illustrative of what happens in companies in their countries in terms of organisation support and management skills. It is based on employee data the consultants already hold from their own research of 32 participating countries and applies this to the drivers of superior team performance.
The Towers Watson World Cup Analysis uses a weighted average of country employee opinion benchmarks against the latest FIFA rankings.
‘We thought it would be fun and interesting to apply our research and expertise to predict the winner,’ said Yves Duhaldeborde, managing director of employee engagement at Towers Watson.
‘In short, we believe that Portugal would be the team most likely to win the World Cup, beating Brazil in the final. Serbia would beat Greece in the third place play off. England would be eliminated – by Germany – in the round of 16.’
‘We used a weighted average of the TW Index (2/3) and the FIFA rankings (1/3) as that combination provided a fairly realistic option with a few surprises,’ he explained. ‘Other solutions tested were too similar to many pundit results and other predictions so we thought we would keep it interesting.’
Here are the Towers Watson World Cup Analysis predictions:
Knocked out the group stage:
Argentina, Algeria, Australia, Denmark, France, Ghana, Honduras, Ivory Coast, Japan, Korean Rep, Korea DPR, New Zealand, Nigeria, Slovakia, South Africa, USA.
Round of 16
Mexico beat Nigeria
Serbia beat Slovenia
Germany beat England[1]
Greece beat Uruguay
The Netherlands beat Paraguay
Brazil beat Spain
Italy beat Cameroon
Portugal beat Switzerland
Quarterfinals
Brazil beat The Netherlands
Serbia beat Mexico
Greece beat Germany
Portugal beat Italy
Semi-finals
Brazil beat Serbia
Portugal beat Greece
Third-place play-off
Serbia beat Greece
Final
Portugal beat Brazil
‘Clearly our index will be a poor predictor of the real World Cup – for example, there is no way France will drop out at the group stages,’ said (Frenchman) Yves Duhaldeborde. ‘However while this is a bit of fun, it does highlight significant differences from country to country in organisational style and employee perceptions. These drivers of performance are as important for companies are they are for football teams.
‘Successful football coaches take an increasingly sophisticated approach to managing their teams. They use data and analytics to better predict outcomes and deploy ‘talent’ around specific operating models – such as Brazil’s use of two defensive midfielders. The comparisons here with successful companies are more than a coincidence.’
The Towers Watson World Cup Analysis takes into account organisation level factors such as:
- Encouraging innovation in tactics and general play.
- Matching pay to team performance.
- Encouraging good performance in non-financial ways.
- Dealing appropriately with poor performance.
- Using data to improve team and individual performance.
- Implementing adequate security measures to protect players.
- Using the latest technologies and data to improve team performance.
- Providing access to adequate equipment/tools/resources [to train and prepare for the competition].
The index also looks at team level factors, such as a manager’s:
- Leadership skills.
- Vision.
- Technical competence.
- Ability to set ambitious but achievable targets.
- Attention to celebrating success.
- Ability to inspire confidence through their decisions.
- Communication skills/quality of communication with players.
- Efforts to encourage players to improve their performance.
- Attention to ensure that resources are available to facilitate their team’s success.
- Authority.
- Ability to treat players with respect.
- General management skills.
‘Football has embraced the use of data in the last few years enabling its managers to pinpoint their team's areas of strength and weakness,’ said Duhaldeborde. ‘Too many organisations still rely on intuition when looking at performance. To modify the old adage: you need to measure to know what to change.’
www.towerswatson.com
[1]At the time of writing, Robert Green’s slippery fingers in goal when England played USA in the group stage raises a slight question mark over his team’s likelihood of even reaching the round of 16 if ‘normal football results’ were applied. The People Bulletin has no comment on what this might mean for the team’s engagement!