Real business is driven by cooperation. Barca knows how to do it. Does your organization knows the psychological mechanism to start and strengthen cooperation?

1. Dariusz
Ambroziak
dr Victor
Wekselberg
FC BARCELONA
AS A LABORATORY
OF COOPERATION AND MOTIVATION
24.10.2017

2. Gauss Institute
About us:
Being a consulting company, we encourage organizational development and efficient going through
different business challenges
Our team:
Mainly industrial and organizational psychologists, using scientific knowledge in the business area
Our services:
• Enhancing level of cooperation in organizations and teams
• Employee selection services
• Constructing and adapting tailor-made diagnostic tools (e.g. competency models, employee
survey)
• Developing individual programs for managers in a direct, consulting manner (it is neither
coaching, nor trainings)
How do we work?
We diagnose, design and put into practice organizational changes, using evidence-based
approach

3. Cooperation
COOPERATION forms the basis for the efficient
organizational functioning.
Barça’s well-thought-out and consistently developed over the
years idea of the club and playing football itself is firmly based
on cooperation. Not only all of this contributes to the team success,
but it also determines specific approach to motivation and how to
motivate players.

4. Psychological concept of cooperation
CONGRUENCE OF
GOALS
CONGRUENCE
OF ATTITUDES
KNOWLEDGE
OF OTHER
MEMBERS
Congruence of individual
and group/organizational
goals
Groups develop through
co-action in tasks
Knowledge of each other
team member in important
areas for group goals’
accomplishment
Similar evaluation of the
issues important for the
group

5. Signs of Barça’s cooperation
• The game strategy requires from the players realization
of the team goals as well as taking into account the
individual goals
• Staying on the ball: maximalization of co-action as an
important condition for the cooperation development
The best business organizations:
▪ Adapt themselves to their employees
▪ Enhance participation in decision-making

6. Why La Masia is such a great success?
• Players learn to see the world from a similar perspective starting
form the early youth
• Players from La Masia know each other well
• System forces cooperation, but not every team player has a strong
social orientation (Delofeu hypothesis)
The best business organizations:
▪ Select employees carefully
▪ Keep the best employees for a long
period of time
▪ Enhance the exchange of knowledge –
not through the integration events

7. Barça sets itself different types of
goals, not only winning the titles
1st example: The number of scored/conceded goals is not the
best measure of how well the team functioned
during the game
2nd example: Famous Guardiola’s speech at the first training
session in 2008
3rd example: Mes que un club
Efficient companies:
▪ Have the organizational strategy written in the form of specific and clear
goals
▪ Set different types of goals, not only the business ones (sale, profit, etc.)
▪ Motivate employees by increasing efficiency of their actions, not by
exceeding targets

8. Balance between individual goals of the
team players and group goals
1st example: Transferring Mascherano from the defensive
midfielder position to the centre-backs
2nd example: Ibrahimowic employment failure
3rd example: Goalkeeper Pinto and loss of Copa del Rey
4th example: New team member
Efficient companies:
▪ Get rid of the workers whose individual goals are contradictory to the
organizational ones
▪ Take care of new workers induction process, adjusting to them some of
the goals

9. Game situations
• The important rule is: one should pass the ball to the player
who stands in a better position to score a goal
• The team starts most plays from the goalkeeper – he is not
kicking the ball far away
• Tiqui-taca is not about the number of passes, but about
heading towards the goal and creating goal situations.
Guardiola does not like the tic-tac name.
The best business organizations:
▪ Engage as many workers as possible in organizational goals realization
▪ Let the employees with the best field knowledge make important decisions

10. Why Guardiola had to leave?
He influenced the team players
in an emotional way not only
during matches, but also during
training.
The best managers:
▪ Understand the limits of the popular
transformational leadership style
▪ Avoid motivating people using emotions and
stress

11. Contact
Dariusz Ambroziak
Managing Partner
d.ambroziak@iakg.pl

12. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST