You can’t mandate spirit

The teams triumphed against expectations thanks to their talent, discipline, focus, strategy, training and a big dollop of that mysterious intangible: spirit.

It’s shown again and again how powerful positive thinking is. But how do you get it?

The former leadership of Crossrail tried to mandate it, by swearing blind that the target completion date would be met and using top-down commercial and management pressure to force it through. It didn’t work.

Spirit emerges from the ground up and, while it’s mysterious and intangible, it comes from somewhere real, and can be cultivated through relationships, dialogue, empathy, vision and imagination.

There are tangible management techniques for cultivating spirit, but it’s the territory of “heart”, which is often foreign to those of us who prefer the world of “head”: i.e., logic, transaction, reason and calculation.

As the new leadership of Crossrail set about getting this amazing project over the line, I hope they keep this in mind, and try new approaches to invoke the Liverpool and Tottenham spirit.