危 wēi  danger

Arsenal, the London-based football club is highly leveraged.  The Club is in the process of paying down debt on its new stadium and has been hit by the falling property market on the development of its previous stadium.  This, coupled with an increase in player costs due to high-spending foreign-owned clubs, has left Arsenal forced to limit spending on new players and therefore at risk of falling behind its competition.

机 jī opportunity

Arsenal shocked the football press by selling two of its star players for a combined £38m and spent only £10m on a new player in the summer of 2009.  Although these star players were known to have had disagreements with other team-members the press predicted Arsenal would be hugely weakened and its results would be negatively impacted.  The reverse seems to have happened, the team spirit among the remaining players appears to have been bolstered and the team has performed better.

how about…

• asking whether your ‘stars’ are good for the overall performance of the team?
• rewarding those that glue the team together to drive overall performance?