Unless you’ve been living under a rock these last few months you’ve surely heard about the breakout new Apple TV+ comedy Ted Lasso. 20 Emmy nominations after just one season? C’mon! It’s only shortcoming, really, is that it’s only available on Apple TV+. The streaming wars continue..

There are some lessons to be learned from Coach Lasso if you’re willing to read on. Season Two just started so, in an effort not to share too many spoilers, let’s look at a few highlights we can translate into management lessons from Season One:

The Goldfish Mindset:
Do you know what the happiest animal on Earth is? It’s a goldfish. Because it has a 10 second memory…at least according to Coach Lasso. Having a short memory can be a gift sometimes he explains to his frustrated player.

Whether it’s a tough client call, a difficult conversation with a direct report, or some other challenge of the day perhaps experiment with the goldfish mindset to brush it off as quickly as possible.

Show Your Team The Way:
Ted gifts each member of his team a book as a sort of motivational tool. An exploration of their journeys through a novel. But really he wants to get in the head of his most important player who he gives “A Wrinkle in Time” in order to show him that his leadership will be the key to the team’s success. Coach Beard, Ted’s assistant asks “Why you windin’ him up?” Ted replies “Because he’s the one, coach. If we’re gonna make an impact here, the first domino needs to fall right inside of that man’s heart.”

Who’s the one on your team? How can you show them the way in order to deliver for you and your mission?

Keep Your Friends Close, Your Critics Closer:
Coach invites his sharpest critic, sports columnist Trent Crimm of the Independent, to spend time with him and the team to see the inner workings of his coaching. He wins him over too! Because Ted is transparent and authentic in the way he goes about building his team. He has the courage to show Trent the good, the bad & the ugly of his operation.

Many of us might benefit from having the courage to shine more light on how we operate our teams.

Be Curious, Not Judgmental:
Ted is challenged to a game of darts by the team owner’s ex husband Rupert. After rebuffing a monetary wager, Ted wages the choice of his starting lineup vs. banning Rupert from the owner’s box. Feeling pretty confident, Rupert pulls out custom darts and the game is on. Ted proceeds to tell Rupert that he’s been underestimated his whole life. He saw a Walt Whitman billboard that said “Be curious, not judgmental”. His experience has been that others judge everything and everyone because they think they have everything figured out. If they were curious they would have asked some questions before passing judgment. Like if Ted was right handed (the hand he was warming up with) or left handed. Long story short, Ted is left handed and beats Rupert with flair.

Where has your curiosity gone? How have you passed judgment instead of asking some questions first? Pessimists get to be right, but optimists get to be rich you know!

Lead With Compassion:
Team owner Rebecca admits late in the season that she wanted Ted to fail. She hired him to fail. She hired paparazzi to take incriminating photos, got Trent Crimm to write the article on Ted AND traded the team’s best player. She wanted to destroy the team because she was going through an ugly divorce. Yikes. Ted immediately forgives her because he’s going through a divorce himself and understands the difficulty of the experience.

Couldn’t we all be a little more compassionate? We usually know what our team’s going through professionally. We’ve been there! Lead with compassion maybe even when it’s unwarranted. Life is hard! A little more compassion never hurt anyone.

The most important message this show inspires in the lessons that Ted delivers is whether you’re talking about professional soccer, college football, or the inside of a technology company you’re talking about people. People build companies and teams deliver the mission. Bringing people together is the whole point!

It’s not just about what happens, it’s how you deal with what happens together. Coach Lasso shows us the way. Catch up and tune into Season Two to find out what happens next. That’s a free #ad right there with some free lessons…for just $4.99/month. You get the point!