World Cup Lessons: Now It's Over, What Can We Learn?

(MoneyWatch)  So the World Cup is over, and the best team won.

But what, as businesses, can we learn from the whole experience? From my endless hours of research watching all the matches from South Africa, here are seven quick lessons I took from it you might want to ponder on:

1. It's noisy out there. The world of social media is like a football stadium packed with vuvuzelas. Everyone can and does make lots of noise. They don't need any particular training or skill to have a voice, although many do. So don't just blow your trumpet, do something to help you to stand out from the herd and get heard.
2. Skills alone are not enough. In today's competitive markets, you can have the most skillfull people in your team, but that's not enough. It's about making sure that they know what is expected of them, having clear roles and responsibilities, playing to their strengths, and it's about ensuring they have the right attitude at all times (even if they are tired -?€" Fabio Capello, take note).
3. Adapt to and embrace technology. If there's new technology or processes in your industry, find out about it in advance. Then learn to adapt and practise using it to help you compete in your market place (For technology, think balls -?€" England, take note).
4. It's all about the now. Reputation and history are irrelevant. We're in a fast moving world and your competition can and does come from anywhere. It's about competing in today's marketplace, not yesterday's -?€" past performances are meaningless (England, Brazil and Argentina, take note).
5. Don't be afraid to get an outside view. You can be as expert and experienced as you like, but sometimes a consultant's outside view can help ?€"- like Paul the octopus.
6. Learn from your mistakes. Even the best businesses sometimes get things wrong ?€"- the key is to learn from this and build on it. What can you 'learn' from your mistakes to help you move forward? So.... come on England, let's learn and win it in Brazil 2014!

(Pic: Axel Buhrmann cc2.0)