Always do what the boss tells you, or?

Continuing on from my last blog post, about trusting your gut, some of you might wonder how you handle the situation of when authority gives you instructions that you feel uneasy with performing.

In one of my former teams I was once asked to time waste. This meant that I should fake an injury or something to get the team some extra time to solve some tactical issues, if it turned out we were under pressure. I performed this action once, blaming I got something stuck in my eye (creative, huh?!) and it felt horrible. It conflicted with my core values of fair play and the idea of the best one wins, not the one who fakes best. If I win I want to win because I am better, not because I was able to use the system in a way so that I could win. I have full understanding that we are different here, and our values are different for various reasons, so no shame on those of you that does this, I know many are, I am just not comfortable with faking an injury.

Most of us have faced teams that are time wasting as a strategy. Slowing the game down, looking for free kicks everywhere and trying to break up the game. While I don’t think this is an attractive way of reaching a good result I can understand that a team is using all that is at hand to survive in the short term. I don’t think this is a strategy that will make you succeed in the long run, but I would lie if I said I never time wasted when under pressure in a tough game, such as walking quite slow to get the ball and so on. My idea of how to become the best however, is that you become better at performing your best act than the opponent best defence against that very same act. That is my idea of a real champion and that is my idea of how you are going to be the champion in the long run.

So when I pretended to have a something in my eye, it felt terrible. I felt like I was cheating and I told the coach I wasn’t happy about doing those actions in the future. The coach respected my wish. It worked out for me personally until the team needed it again and someone else was willing to perform that for the team. In my case I had the choice to change my behaviour and adapt to what the team wanted and needed, but for me it was more important to stand up for what I believed in. Doing this might get you dropped from a team so it is a risky play of course. I was willing to take the risk because of the feeling it gave me. Would I have felt the same if I was paid a significant amount of money? I hope so but I do not know.

This is what one have to gamble with if an authority gives you an instruction that you don’t feel you can perform. You always take the risk of being pushed out of that environment if you don’t comply with what is expected from you, whatever it may be. Of course what may also happen is that the environment changes towards your own values as well, as you effect people you meet and work with. So maybe a discussion with the authority about conflicting values can be the solution in some cases? Have you tried going down this road and what was the result?

One always have to ask oneself, is this just tough in the short term but better in the long term? For example, a coach might demand you play equally as good with your left and right foot, but that would demand lots of practice from yourself and hard work to stay on the team. Or another example, the coach might want you to tell people off if not focused. Are you willing to accept that you have to improve and/or change a current behaviour to fit with the teams values? Or is it conflicting so that you feel you loose yourself and your core values in the long term process? In relation to the ability to play with both feet my answer is of course yes, but if I was told to yell at people, then no.

These are not easy questions to answer. If the answer is yes, in 1-2-3 years time I want to continue doing this then do what is needed to get to where the team wants you to go. But if the answer is no (pretending to be injured/scream at people - is for me a no), then you might not be the right fit for that team there and then. Questions like this can of course contain lots of different aspects. It can be social behaviour or within any of the areas that we roam as footballers. Tactically, technically or physically. Of course, if you are also paid a lot of money or other benefits (status, connections, relationships) it might be an even tougher decision to take. Is there a price on your core values? To walk over your core values a bit to provide for a big number of people, does it make it worth it? What is more important and what would be your limit? What would you always act on, no matter the risk at stake? Bullying? Abuse? Where is your limit?

What’s your thoughts about this? Have you ever been faced with a tough decision and looking back, did you take the right decision?