They say that Italians’ primary passion is soccer; the second is food. There must be some truth in this commonplace, although despite the alleged passion, the multimillionaire Italian team didn’t score so well during the World Cup this year. They did so poorly, in fact, that the team’s coach resigned.

To be honest, I’m no soccer fan—I much prefer motor sports or regattas—but once every four years I like to watch a few games. I don't know about you, but I’ve seldom seen such boring matches as I did during this year’s tournament.

Why so many boring matches? Who’s at fault? Here’s my analysis:

Many players know each other very well; they play for the same local teams. It therefore can hardly be expected that, once every four years, when they dress in national team colors, they will play “objectively.”

Auditing, consulting, and training businesses bear a remarkable resemblance to this phenomenon, where many of the “players” in that industry know each other very well, and their interactions are so close that one can’t expect them to be truly objective.

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