Yesterday marked ten years since Johan Cruyff passed away, one of my childhood references and, without a doubt, one of the great geniuses of football.
For me, Cruyff was, above all, a genius of collaboration. He introduced intelligence as one of the most valuable qualities in a player, even above physicality or technique, which for years had defined the standard of the game. That intelligence had a shape: thinking together.
As a coach, his primary goal was to build a shared team mindset, something he developed through individual rigor and made visible in collective behavior. That mindset is built on principles that transformed modern football and that reappear, under different names, in any activity where success depends on how a group collaborates.
Cruyff demanded constant presence. A player is part of the game at all times, ready to attack, to press, and to occupy the space another player leaves when needed.
He also promoted a way of playing where creativity emerges from the unexpected, and therefore each player must be ready to receive any initiative from their teammates and carry the idea forward without hesitation.
And above all, he left an idea that holds everything else together: in a team, individual brilliance depends on the collective, which changes the way players show up on the field and beyond it.
Coming back to what I mentioned earlier, these same principles form the foundation of activities as different as improvisational theater, where the quality of the scene depends on a shared mindset, or special forces units, where collaboration is a matter of life and death.
This mindset is increasingly applied in the business world, where AI has accelerated complexity and raised the cost of poor thinking. Companies like Google, in their search for the perfect team, or Pixar, in their effort to protect their creative processes, have already identified that building the right mindset is critical to achieving excellence.
In summary, this is the reflection I want to share today:
Real collaboration begins with the mindset that supports the team: being present to see the play unfold; the intention to build on the ideas others bring; and the generosity and intelligence to let go of one’s own idea when the moment calls for something else.
Yesterday marked ten years since Johan Cruyff passed away, one of my childhood references and, without a doubt, one of the great geniuses of football.
For me, Cruyff was, above all, a genius of collaboration. He introduced intelligence as one of the most valuable qualities in a player, even above physicality or technique, which for years had defined the standard of the game. That intelligence had a shape: thinking together.
As a coach, his primary goal was to build a shared team mindset, something he developed through individual rigor and made visible in collective behavior. That mindset is built on principles that transformed modern football and that reappear, under different names, in any activity where success depends on how a group collaborates.
Cruyff demanded constant presence. A player is part of the game at all times, ready to attack, to press, and to occupy the space another player leaves when needed.
He also promoted a way of playing where creativity emerges from the unexpected, and therefore each player must be ready to receive any initiative from their teammates and carry the idea forward without hesitation.
And above all, he left an idea that holds everything else together: in a team, individual brilliance depends on the collective, which changes the way players show up on the field and beyond it.
Coming back to what I mentioned earlier, these same principles form the foundation of activities as different as improvisational theater, where the quality of the scene depends on a shared mindset, or special forces units, where collaboration is a matter of life and death.
This mindset is increasingly applied in the business world, where AI has accelerated complexity and raised the cost of poor thinking. Companies like Google, in their search for the perfect team, or Pixar, in their effort to protect their creative processes, have already identified that building the right mindset is critical to achieving excellence.
In summary, this is the reflection I want to share today:
Real collaboration begins with the mindset that supports the team: being present to see the play unfold; the intention to build on the ideas others bring; and the generosity and intelligence to let go of one’s own idea when the moment calls for something else.
And most importantly, as Cruyff would say: “Get out there and enjoy the game.”
If you’re curious about how you could become a genius of collaboration, keep exploring this website.