Forcing Others to Do What They Don’t Want

Nov 14, 2008 Sports

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AALBORG, DENMARK - SEPTEMBER 30: Dimitar Berb...

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Everyone who watches any sport would have seen or heard stories about players who wanted to move to a new team/club. Players who didn’t want to be on their team anymore, and wanted to leave. This season, in soccer, it was Dimitar Berbatov.

Berbatov’s is actually a great example, because it really demonstrates my point. Before he was sold to Manchester United, he was a negative influence on the Tottenham team. He didn’t want to be there anymore, and it was clear for all to see. It was damaging for the atmosphere of the team, and ultimately very disruptive.

In the end, even though he was arguably one of their most gifted players, it was better to just let him go. Because forcing him to stay where he didn’t want to be would have been even worse – the discontent could spread more easily, it could cause problems with the atmosphere of the team.

And there’s a great lesson in there. More often than not, it’s not worth it to force people to do something they don’t want to do, even if you can. The effects of having discontented, unmotivated people could be worse than not having people at all. It’s better to have a small, focused, motivated group who love what they’re doing, as compared to a large, unmotivated group that doesn’t want to be there.

Forcing people to do what they don’t want to do doesn’t work anymore (if it ever did).

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 1:51 am and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  • My thoughts are that it is not worth to REALLY force someone to something. Being disagreeable is not bad, as long as the person can support the decision or request. But I do find most people need persuading.
  • Definitely, there's nothing wrong to persuading someone. But you shouldn't force someone to do it before they have been persuaded.
  • Guest
    Of course, of course, of course. Why didn't I think of this before? You shouldn't force your friend to do what he doesn't want to do, such as stopping him from jumping off a building. It obviously doesn't work at all. So let him jump.
  • Well, again this goes back to the persuading vs forcing issue.

    And I'm probably going to get some flak for this, but I think you shouldn't FORCE someone against it. Here's the difference between forcing and persuading, in this case. Persuading him would be talking to him and convincing him not to jump (doing an intervention or anything). Forcing him would be tying him down so he can't jump. I don't think the latter is necessarily a good idea.
  • hey derrick interesting post. do you think that there are some situations where forcing people to do something they dont want to do actually works out well?

    i often whether manchester united would have won the champions league had sir alex ferguson not forced ronaldo to stay at manchester united after euro 2004. ronaldo looked hell bent on leaving manchester united as he became public enemy number 1 after getting rooney sent off in the portugal england game. but because of SAF's intervention, ronaldo has gone on to become the best player in the world.

    oh well thats just my 2 cents worth, thanks for the link previously!
  • Well...I'm not a fan of Manchester United, so I don't want to say too much. Haha. But if I remember correctly, Ronaldo himself never really said he wanted to leave.

    And well, I dont' think Sir Alex forced him to stay. I think it was more a case of persuading him to stay. There's a subtle, but really important difference there. Trying to persuade someone to do something they don't want to can work out well. But if you try to persuade them and fail to do so, forcing them isn't a good idea, in my opinion.

    Of course, that's just my thoughts. =). You're free to disagree. And as for the example of Ronaldo, it's all speculation, I don't think either of us know exactly what happened, what was going through his mind, etc (unless you have some connections I don't know about?)

    Anyway, thanks for your comment, and you're more than welcome with regards to the link. =). Keep creating.
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