I recently started to watch Ted Lasso (I know, I am a little late to the game - pun intended) and besides being a very funny show, it also brings a lot of lessons on leadership and how to better work with people as a team.

Before starting the post, just a heads up: This post is full of spoilers.

Just a bit of background of the show. AFC Richmond, a soccer team in England is passing by a bad moment, and the new management, Rebecca, hires an American football coach that knows nothing about soccer. The thing is that the new management secretly wants the team to fail as the team was the love of her ex-husband. You can watch the trailer here.

As I said, it is a very good and funny show (despite I am not getting most of his joke’s references). I really laugh with the participation of the ussie guy. Not a selfie, an “ussie”.

You should watch the show, it is delicious, but let’s go to the lessons. Many of them we know, but sometimes, in our daily activities, we just forget. And this show was a good reminder of many of them.

Know people by name

Dale Carnegie said in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People, in 1936, “A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

This is very evident in one episode, where Ted asked the Kit manager, what was his name. He said: “Me? No one ever asks my name”. And some scenes later, Ted calls Natan (the kit manager’s name) and he says: “You remember my name”

Everyone is part of a team

In the second episode, Ted is trying to get to know Rebecca a bit more, and when she was trying to avoid he said: “Everybody in this building, part of the team” and he brings the management present in many of the teams wins and loses, making people bond and connecting.

Be optimistic (BELIEVE)

This may be the clearest lesson, as Ted hangs a sign written BELIEVE above his office door. In many parts of the shows, Ted reiterated the idea of believing that they will win, believing in themselves.

Don’t internalize bad feedback

There was a lot of resistance when accepting Ted as a coach, as he did not know anything about soccer. But in the second episode, he had a “suggestion box” and asked everyone to write a note of what was making the team “hot and bothered”.

Surprisingly, he got many replies, but all of them (except one) were calling him bad names or telling him to go home. But just read it and did not care about all the bad ones, only the one “shower pressure is rubbish” that mattered.

Let people take action

In one of the episodes, Roy went to Ted to complain that Jamie and other players were harassing Nathan, but, as evident by Ted’s reaction, he already knew. Roy asked if he was going to take care of it, and Ted said no. In not doing anything, he let Roy have an inner battle and in the end, act. In not doing, he makes Roy become a better version.

Give opportunity

The team was doing badly, and Nathan had some thoughts about the team and left a note to Ted. Ted read and liked the ideas, but said he was not going to say it to the team. He said that Nathan would be the one doing it, that that created it needed to say it. This was very nice on Ted’s part, as we have many managers or bosses that want always to be in front, and be elevated. But a good manager, makes the team grow.

Resources are people

Sometimes we forget that a company is made of people. We sometimes think of resources and forget that behind every one of the resources, there is a person with dreams and fears, with life. That is very evident in one of the episodes where they celebrate the birthday of one of the team members.

Respect

Once he went to a restaurant, one that was owned by the father-in-law of the driver that picked up him at the airport when he arrived in Richmond (Ollie), they order food and it was very hot, but he ate everything out of respect, not to shame Ollie in front of this father in law and he thought that leaving food uneaten was not going to be good for Ollie’s image with his father-in-law

Be patient

It took a lot of time for Ted’s approaches to start delivering results, and he was very patient. He was slowly moving the pieces and making changes in behavior, relationship, and other things around the team and that was almost unnoticeable for the ones that were with him.

Have a goldfish memory

According to Ted, goldfish are the animals that have the shortest memory. So we should sometimes have the memory of a goldfish, most important in the moment of suffering and failure. Meaning that we should forget and move on. We sometimes feel sad, feel destroyed, but we should forget and just focus on what is ahead.

These were the main lessons that I got from Ted Lasso’s TV show. There are many other small ones, but I just wanted to share the best ones and not spoil the entire TV show for you.

I hope that some of these lessons help you.

Happy living!