We all love Ted Lasso; he is messy, and he knows how to build a team and talk in a way that brings tears to your eyes and makes you believe. But in season 3, things are going downhill: he misses his son, he is navigating his own struggles, and his football (soccer) team is not performing. No matter what tactic the coaches try, nothing seems to work.
Long story short, Ted gets inspired during a trip to Amsterdam, and his vision starts taking shape with ketchup and mustard bottles on a restaurant table.
He realizes the team's practice is too rigid, but they perform better when they have freedom. But freedom, just like jazz or painting, needs structure. The players form triangles, giving each other options to pass, move, and create opportunities together.
Apparently, there is a name for this approach: Total Football. Ted introduces four things they need to focus on. Here is how I understand them:
Conditioning: Build the physical and mental capacity to perform.
Versatility: Understand one another’s roles and be ready to step into different positions.
Awareness: Pay attention to what teammates are doing and adjust your movements to support them.
He doesn’t know yet. He leaves space for the team and coaches to find it together as the practice evolves.
The team starts practicing for the big game against Arsenal, but they still mess it up during the first half. During halftime, Jamie Tartt, the self-centered star (let's say even a prick most of the time), says they are all getting it wrong: the team should play through him instead of passing the ball to him. Through me means I’m the playmaker, not the gatekeeper.
That’s a moment when Jamie matures and steps into his leadership. He sees that his ability can create opportunities for others to score the goal, and that his contribution can be bigger than the goals he scores himself.
If I am the leader, do I need to speak first? If I see a possible answer, do I need to give it immediately? If two people disagree, do I need to be the one to resolve it?
Sometimes the answer is yes. Our experience, authority, and judgment have a purpose.
Other times, our involvement becomes so familiar that nobody pauses to consider who else could move the work forward.
In a football game, Jamie has to make those choices while the game is moving. In a team conversation, we can pause and ask, “Should it be me?”
I call this BEyond leadersship:
Beyond leadership is the ability to look beyond ourselves, our own role, ideas, and decisions, to see what the team needs from us.
Freedom takes shared practice of the team
But giving people freedom takes practice, especially when everyone is used to passing the ball to the same person.
That includes being willing to question our own picture of what leadership should look like.
It is easy to watch a scene like this and conclude that we should give people more freedom. But Ted and his coaching team prepare AFC Richmond for game day through practice.
This is where Ted’s three elements become useful in thinking about how we work together.
Conditioning: Build the capacity to stay in the work together
A few months ago, a crisis manager told me that we should get to know and trust each other during calm days because we will need each other during a crisis.
We take the same approach with teams, preparing them for the next conflict, complex situation, or restructure during their team meetings. We practice with what is happening in the room, while people are working through it together, rather than waiting until a week or month later in a separate workshop or hotel room.
When teammates practice these skills together in their real work, they build experience they can draw on in moments of crisis.
They also need to learn how to debate, ask questions, and work with each other in a way that makes everyone feel invested in winning together.
Part of a team’s success is knowing which goal we are aiming for. If we all play on the same team but each of us is aiming at a different net, why are we even playing together? It doesn’t make sense.
Yet we can come into a meeting with different priorities, different definitions of success, and different ideas about what needs to happen, without ever discussing those differences.
Getting clear about what we are trying to achieve together is part of the practice.
Versatility: Understand the work beyond your own position
This is where Jamie was brilliant. He noticed that the team’s focus on him scoring was getting in their way and keeping them stuck. The goal is for the team to score, and everyone needs to move into the best position to make that happen, or get out of the way so someone else can.
That question deserves attention. Do I understand what my team members need from me, what I need from them, and what becomes possible when we work together?
When team members understand those relationships, they can make better decisions together and recognize when another colleague needs to be involved. They can explain why that person’s contribution matters and recognize where the knowledge and strengths are, so the team can make use of them.
Awareness: Notice the effect you are having on the team
Who is speaking? Who has stopped contributing? Where are people agreeing too quickly with each other or with the leader?
What happens when everyone is stressed or low on energy? What keeps us excited? Is it time to say out loud that the project we are working on is not going well?
When everyone shuts down, rushes, or becomes overconfident, what’s going on with the team?
Who, beyond the leader, will name it? Who will share what they notice inside and outside the meeting?
Awareness includes noticing our own habits. Are we honoring our team agreements, ignoring them, or avoiding them?
When we pay attention to where one teammate or the whole team is heading, we have a better chance of recognizing whether our next move is taking us toward the goal or into another messy game plan. And we have a chance to speak up while we can still do something about it.
Practice in the work already happening
As a leader, for people to play through you rather than always pass the ball to you, ask yourself: should I even be in this conversation, and in what position? At the front, alongside, in the center, further back, or perhaps, like Ted Lasso, on the sidelines?
Pay attention to where you are needed and where someone else is ready to lead.
As a team, building these skills starts with asking questions, debating, noticing each other, and being willing to share what we see. It means learning how to move beyond softball questions and ask the hardball questions that open up debate, critical thinking, and deeper learning with each other, so we develop an ongoing awareness of where the team and its members are at each moment, noticing the players in our triangle.
But how do we recognize the patterns we are part of? Who pauses the conversation when we rush toward an answer, avoid a disagreement, or keep passing the ball to the same person?
Even a team full of talented players has a coach watching how they play together. It helps to have someone alongside your team who can notice what is harder to see in the middle of the work, pause with you, and ask the question that opens a different conversation. With practice, teammates learn to do more of this for each other.
Richmond still loses that game against Arsenal. But we begin to see the players understand how to use their freedom together.
Ted leaves space to discover what number four will be.
What might your team discover if you left space to figure out your fourth together?
Where can you start? Think of a conversation your team keeps having without moving forward. Let’s talk about what keeps repeating and how we can partner with your team to practice a different way forward.
