Daily Lessons from Life 28 June 2010 - A Lesson from World Cup?

The old enemies met again after 44 years and football showed its aged and lack of progress with England's 2nd goal that would have made the score 2-2 just before half-time being DENIED!

The main reason, or more like an excuse, by FIFA, dominated by the President, Mr. Blatter, for insisting non-deployment of goal line technology is to keep the 'human touch' in football. Many have questioned this stand arguing that human being cries out for fair play and justice in football. Nothing could be more symbolic that a 'legitimate' goal being denied due to the referee or the assistant referees' inability to spot that.

Lessons for me are:

1. if you are a leader, you decide the direction of the future. You can be 'principled', or stubborn or stupid, holding on the progress that had been voiced by the majority, including professionals and the public and fans; or can lead the way by adopting the sensible and logical suggestion;

2. after this incident, I am hopeful that FIFA will reconsider the insistence to NOT employed goal line technology. Sometimes significant change, while widely acknowledged within the inner circle of the 'autocratic' leader, happened due to event outside the control of the 'leader'. The 'leader', if you like, are FORCED to accept the change. This is sad as the 'leader' could have taken lead and looked visionary and good!;

3. the failure of England, despite being denied the supposedly 'equalizing' goal, does not hide the fact that most of us had high hope for it to do well because of the high media exposure around the world of EPL (The English Premier League). However, England has consistently disappoint fans around the world and under-achieved big time. It showed that people are quite easily influenced by publicity. Hence, leaders who wand to develop of corp culture needs to work on publicity. At the same time, delivering results through execution with envisioned, enabled, empowered and energized people.

May England win the next time without any controversy when the 2 old enemies meet again on a football field!