Watching the build-up to the Champions League Final, I couldn’t help being taken by the different characters that make up a football team. From the big, brave, dependable goalkeeper to the small, unpredictable striker, it takes all sorts to make a winning team – but more pertinently, each position has its ‘type’.
I was interested in this because it echoed my experience as someone who is always on the look-out for brokers with talent and promise. Brokerage demands a certain skill set –intelligence, appetite for work, humility, coolness under pressure – and the very best brokers will be great all-rounders. But when you’re putting together a team of brokers you find that different candidates have different strengths that, as with the footballers, lend themselves to specific roles within the team.
The art lies in putting together brokers that complement each other, combining their skills to form one winning team.
So where do you fit in?
The opportunist striker
Amid all the strategy, it’s important not to lose sight of the end goal. In football, that is putting the ball in the back of the net. Some managers seem to overlook this while preparing their teams to play pretty passing games or ‘park the bus’ to keep the opposition out. But most managers agree that their striker is their most valuable player, simply because they are the one that turns all that preparation into goals.
Most managers agree that their striker is their most valuable player, simply because they are the one that turns all that preparation into goals.
A good striker is quick to spot an opportunity developing and even quicker to take advantage. Timing is a real strength and a good striker never hesitates. They don’t wait or defer to a teammate. There is a certain amount of selfishness required, but at the end of the day it’s for the good of the team. Striking requires a combination of solid technique and improvisation. You learn how to be in the right place at the right time by following tried and tested moves, responding to situations (that is, market situations) and choosing the finish that is most likely to result in a ‘goal’.
Because of their appetite for pouncing on opportunities, strikers make more mistakes than other players. But the most important trait in a good striker is being prepared to miss and not letting a fallow period dent your confidence in your own ability. It is a confidence position and when your confidence is high the rewards just seem to flow naturally.
The creative midfielder
Midfield is the engine room. A midfielder needs above average stamina, as well as 360 degree vision, composure, imagination and strong decision making. As the link between defence and attack, midfielders possess a combination of combative and finishing skills, as well as the creative flair that sets them apart. The finest strikers, like the best brokers, need to be backed up by their team – people with other skillsets that are just as valuable.
The job of the midfielder is to get the ball to where it needs to be, to supply the bullets to the striker. That means having the selflessness to let others take the glory for your endeavours and occasionally picking up the pieces from their mistakes. In brokerage terms, midfielders have outstanding knowledge of everything that’s going on around them and are quick to form pictures in their mind. They understand the strengths and weaknesses of those around them and know the best way to knit them together.
In brokerage terms, midfielders have outstanding knowledge of everything that’s going on around them and are quick to form pictures in their mind.
Midfielders are not as quick or impulsive as strikers but they still have the skills and quick thinking to act quickly and coolly under pressure, buying time for themselves and their teammates. They always like to be in the thick of the action, always looking for work, thriving on the team environment. For brokers it comes down to what’s often described as ‘dual-process’ thinking, explored by Nobel Economics laureate Daniel Kahneman in his best-selling book Thinking Fast and Slow. Kahneman describes two cognitive processes: System 1, which governs our instinctive reactions and System 2, which deals with measured, considered thinking. The midfielder needs a combination of the two.
Kahneman is renowned for his research into ‘loss aversion’, which is the tendency to regard a dollar lost as disproportionately impactful to a dollar gained. While strikers focus almost exclusively on the gains, midfielders also keep a watchful eye on the losses and take more of a balanced view of their relative importance.
The safe pair of hands
When it comes to loss aversion, the goalkeeper stands out as the team member who feels the pain of loss more acutely than anyone else. In football, a clean sheet is the ultimate achievement for a goalkeeper. Nothing conceded. They are attuned to spot threats and organise everyone to help deal with them before they can escalate. A good goalkeeper must be decisive, brave and a good judge of when to move and when to stay put. Ever vigilant, they are always ready for the unexpected, so while the rest of the team might be enjoying a period of easy wins, the goalkeeper will be preparing to repel the next attack.
Like strikers, goalkeepers are a rarer breed who can be very single-minded and quite insular in their attitude to responsibility. They are disciples of the Warren Buffett school of sound investment – the school that lives by the edict, ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.’ Goalkeepers traditionally wear the number one shirt and in investment terms, the number one rule, according to Buffett, is ‘Never lose money.’
Rule No.2 is, ‘Never forget rule No.1.’
Every team needs a good goalkeeper to guard the back door while the strikers and midfielders go in search of glory.
The captain
Great leaders are rare in football and they are rare in life too. But you know a great leader when you see one. They not only have the ability to lead, organise, nurture and inspire, but they lead by example too. They will be the first into the fray, rolling their sleeves up and ready to demonstrate their wide array of skills.
A leader needs to understand the hopes and fears of every member of the team, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. You may have very different ambitions to your goalkeeper or striker but if you can understand what motivates them you will understand how to get the best out of them. Therefore, captains need to combine a gritty resolve and desire to succeed with strong emotional intelligence. The ability to focus under pressure is particularly important, as are good communication skills and an air of calm confidence. These are skills that tend to develop with experience.
A leader needs to understand the hopes and fears of every member of the team, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.
Doing it for the team
Something those of us who are not professional athletes tend to overlook when we assess the skills of top footballers is that, while their specialities define them at the very highest level, they are all great footballers first and elite specialists second. Put a top-class goalkeeper in your office team and you’ll be amazed at his skill in front of goal; put Cristiano Ronaldo in goal and he’ll still stun you with his agility even though that’s not his regular position.
The point being that the best players are accomplished at all aspects of the game. As brokers, we too need to have a certain mastery of all the attributes before we can begin to dream of playing at the very top. We need to be intelligent, hardworking and fearless. We also need to be as competitive as the next, as each day we compete against other brokers for success. But, just like a football team, you’re only as strong as your weakest link, and letting the team down isn’t an option. Every day you need to aim to improve your game and be the best you can be to gain business and market share.
We need to be prepared to get up early, and do our homework. We need to know how to develop a game plan and follow it, but also be prepared to change tactics when the situation demands. We need to have the confidence to think differently to the majority – in Buffett’s words ‘be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful’ – but also have the humility to learn from our mistakes.
Coolness under pressure is a must when you’re responsible for managing millions of dollars. Like a penalty taker, there will be times when you are on the spot and your next move decides whether you win or lose. That is immensely stressful but it’s part and parcel of the game – and the rewards are very attractive. You need to know how to detach your emotions from the deal so that your heart doesn’t rule your head. It also helps if you can ‘leave your stress on the pitch’, so you don’t take the pressure home with you.
A truly accomplished broker will combine the loss-averse traits of a goalkeeper, the vision, work rate and decision making of a midfielder and the opportunism, hunger and decisiveness of a striker, albeit in different measures. But just as a bonded team of good individuals will usually beat a disparate team of outstanding individuals, it is your contribution to the team that will really decide your value as a broker.
About the author: Nathan Thomas; Senior Swaps Broker
Nathan Thomas is Senior Swaps Broker at GMG where he has grown the GCC FX Swaps business into one of the market leaders. He moved into stock broking in 2006, first with Ascension Securities and then with a number of boutique brokers. Nathan went on to co-found Pinnacle Absolute Management, a sports management enterprise with offices in London and Europe. In 2015 he moved to Dubai where he took on a role with Ranco Trading Ltd, a boutique PE advisory. He holds a degree in psychosocial studies and business from the University of East London.
