I spent the evening with Liverpool Legends John ‘Digger’ Barnes, Jan Molby, and Razor Ruddock last night (along with 320 other people).

They shared some great anecdotes from the ‘old’ days and imparted some insightful thoughts on today’s football – all very mixed with some strong opinions.

There was one thing they all agreed on, which struck a chord with me.  Not from a football perspective, but business. It was about the secret to their success.

Unlike other clubs at the time with strict formations, complex team briefs and an array of instructions hurled at you as you ran onto the pitch, the brief from Liverpool’s leader was simply: “off you go”.

And it worked, because:

The team structure was clear.

Every player knew their roles.

They had the desire (the will) to get on the ball, and the skill to do something magical with it.

They understood what their 100% looked like and knew how to achieve it.

They had accountability.

They were given freedom to play.

Their leader had created the right environment, provided the tools, and got out of the way.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But no one else was doing this in England at the time.

And the same goes for business.  I see so many companies that aren’t getting their set-up sorted, the basics.  In our experience, strategy isn’t the first thing to start with – it’s your environment. Until you’ve got that right, you will never be in a position to scale.

The evening ended with Barnes taking to the mic and rapping his famous ‘World in Motion’ World Cup anthem: “And what you’re looking at Is the master plan…”

This week, I want you to go back to basics and identify any cracks in your work environment and sketch out a plan to start fixing them.