Álvaro Merinoexpert in leadershipin talent and in organisation of teams. In 2016 he participated as academic director at the launch of the Real Madrid University School together with Jorge Valdano. Boosting the company 3’59 from where he provides comprehensive solutions to business and sports organisations and accompanies sportsmen and women in their future challenges. He is also the author of the book Teams with a future.
In a colloquium held at the headquarters of PROA CommunicationMerino reflected on the similarities and differences between teams in sport and high-performance professionals in companies. "I like to explain that the world of elite sport has a lot to do with the business world. But not everything is positive, the world of elite sport is not healthy, we push athletes far beyond the limits linked to health. In the business world it is not usually very healthy either when you have high levels of pressure. And that, I think, speaks of the need to take care of people," he says. He adds that "team building, and connecting naturally with the people around you in your day to day life, is vital so that when we have to work in stressful moments, we can do it much better.".
In addition, he spoke of the lessons and the most important values a team must have to reach the topand pointed out: "...Individual talent is not talent, talent must have a collective essence in a high performance team.". It set out the three most important elements that have to be present in every professional to get his team to the top: "The first one is humility as a capacity to soften the ego, has to do with wanting to learn from everything, everyone and in any situation. Secondly, hungerThe first is about moving in both stimulating and uncomfortable environments and projects in order to be able to push ourselves to meet challenges. Finally, empathy with the other members of the team. Y when one of these three elements is missing, the team failsespecially when teams are not hungry and don't want to face challenges.
He pointed out that values are defined by a team and "are absolutely non-negotiable elements in order to reach the summit". Adding two basic ones that are common to both sport and business, defining them as "winning mix": the style and the results. "Style is our DNA, it is what we are recognisable by, what we are going to be attractive to our customers. Being attractive generates that your customers become prescribers, that is a sign of the health of an organisation.. And within the results, the biggest problem of companies is that they set the goal to grow, and sometimes they grow undisciplined.
In this respect, it shares the entrepreneurial vision of PROA Communication about the fact that "growth is the consequence of maintaining excellence at all times.". "When you grow beyond the level of excellence you can give, that undisciplined growth can lead to mediocrity," Merino concluded.
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