by Pamela Scott Crace

FIFA World Cup passions will be in full swing by the time you read this. In this spirit, we thought Rustum Southwell’s portrait by Sandor Fizli is ideally suited to embody our annual People We Love section and also channel the summer of 2010.

Rustum’s leadership success at Nova Scotia’s Black Business Initiative is well known, but he’s got sporting street cred too. He’s been a soccer player. He’s nuts about the World Cup (though outraged that Portugal and Brazil are both in first-round Group G). And it’s a family affair—three of his brothers played on the national team of St. Kitt’s, Southwell’s birthplace. The Caribbean island is a hotbed of soccer fervour, historically divided along the two powerhouse nations destined for an epic showdown on June 25 in Durban.

Like me, Rustum agrees business can take a lot from how the world’s game is played. Success is based on a deep understanding of strategy, on having the right team, assessing the competition, and executing on a plan. Winning also takes patience, capitalizing on opportunities, and sometimes luck.

In a recent speech to Saint Mary’s MBA students, real estate entrepreneur Richard Homburg added this twist to a soccer-business analogy. He compared managing to thinking like a soccer coach. At the professional level, every player is equally skilled. And a team’s ability to strike is, by and large, the outcome of a relentless effort by the midfield and forwards to keep moving the ball up the field and into the 18-yard box. If it’s not happening, then a coach’s job is to look to the equally skilled players on the bench who want to be in the game.

Homburg put it something like this: if your top people aren’t executing, put someone else out on the pitch. Maybe the first stringer needs a rest. Maybe the unique skill set of a certain bench player is more suited to a particular situation. Whatever the case, you as a leader need to assess the ongoing play knowing the mindset and talents of each and every one of your team members.

Ironically, follow any country’s premier league and see the morbid fascination with individual players. Yet there is no more perfect expression of a team pursuit than soccer.

Speaking of teams, The People Issue is like an all-star lineup. We think of these 18 achievers as a dream team whose combined actions, attitudes, and attributes will power this region’s organizations, communities, and future for the long, beautiful game.