Leadership Lessons from the Performance Environment of the All Blacks

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Leadership Lessons from the Performance Environment of the All Blacks
By John Bull, a consultant with Management Futures  (Specialists in High Performance Leadership), who has interviewed key coaches and personnel in the environment, and Mark Campbell, Strength and Conditioning coach with the English Institute of Sport, who spent a European Tour with the All Blacks.

Over the next three weeks, eight teams will battle it out to see who will be crowned world champions of rugby.  On trial are not just eight squads of players, but eight performance environments and the leadership approach of their coaching teams.  Amongst them are the New Zealand All Blacks; the host team, and in terms of the percentage of games they win, the most successful international team on the planet in any sport.  We take you inside their camp and the leadership philosophy of their head coach Graham Henry, to look at how they create an environment that the players say adds another 30% to their performance.

 

No team, no brand, has so dominated a sport to the extent of the New Zealand All Blacks in Rugby.  They have the highest win percentage of any International sports team in the world; in 107 years of test match rugby they have won 75% of their games.  Under the reign of their current coach, Graham Henry, this percentage has increased to 86%.  The average margin when playing the All Blacks is 25-12 - that is to say, on average they score twice the amount of points as their opposition.  South Africa, their closest rival over the years, has only won 61%.  Even the great Brazilian football team has only won 63% of their games.

Only one prize has continued to elude them, and that is their failure to regain the world cup since winning the inaugural tournament in 1987.  But their response to this challenge (particularly over the last couple of years) is in itself a great lesson in performance leadership - it continues to drive them to new heights, and few people will be betting against them in their own National Stadium where they have not lost a single game for 16 years!

So, putting the mystery of  world cup performances aside for a moment; how is it that such a small nation with only one quarter of the registered players that England has, can continue to outperform the rest of the world, when many competitors have more resources and players?  Most casual observers assume it is the natural talent of the players which explains their performance; but talent is only part of the story - if the same players came up through the performance system of any other country the simple fact is they would not achieve any where near the heights they do in New Zealand.  The real secret of the All Blacks can be found in the performance environment the coaches and senior players create around a player with potential from the moment they are spotted.  Understanding the key characteristics  of this environment, and what the leaders do to create it, offers powerful lessons for anyone who would like  to recreate a little of their magic within their own organisation or team.

As part of our ongoing research into high performance leadership, John Bull has had the opportunity to interview the coaches, support staff and a number of players, on several occasions.  Mark Campbell, Strength and Conditioning coach with the English Institute of Sport, had the opportunity to spend a European tour with them in his capacity as a Strength and Conditioning Coach.  He has also experienced the commitment to a team approach as a member of the coaching team for one of the professional franchises who feed players into the All Blacks.  The following article sets out our insights into five key ingredients at the heart of their culture.  As we note throughout; there are a lot of parallels between this environment and other high performing organisations we have studied; organisations like Google, FAIRTRADE, or Gore (voted the most innovative company of the last 25 years by Time).  This is a critical point, because it proves there are a number of generic principles which are key to getting the best out of people what ever the endeavour of the organisation.  We hope you enjoy reading the insights as much as we did the research!

Five key ingredients for creating a culture of high performance

1. Ambition - Engage people behind a great cause or challenge

The first step in creating a high performance culture is to switch people on by engaging them behind a great purpose, goal or challenge - one which excites them, gives their work meaning, and challenges them to reach inside themselves and grow.

In 1998, on the back of England's worst ever tour down under, Clive Woodward set an audacious goal for the team to become the best side in the world.  Over time that goal, and the standards which flowed from it, transformed everything about how the team played and practiced.  Eventually the results began to follow and at their height they won nine games in a row against the Southern Hemisphere giants, culminating with the victory over Australia to take the 2003 world cup.

With the All Blacks, the ambition is less explicit, but if anything it is even more challenging.  Irrespective of who is in the team, the expectation is to win every test; and winning alone is not sufficient, a nation of four million 'shareholders' expects them to dominate every aspect of the game in the process.  It’s about living up to the legacy previous teams have laid down, and as captain Richie McCaw put it in a 2007 interview; “That legacy is much more intimidating than any opposition.”

These goals, to maintain the All Blacks record and to do the jersey proud by continuing to dominate the world, provide the energy and drive which makes everything else in the environment work.  It challenges every individual to try and become the best that has ever been in their position or role.  It drives the team to set exceptionally high standards for on field performance. It drives the hunger for learning and improvement.  It drives the climate of esprit de corps within the team.
The lesson for us as leaders here is critical, and we could take the same lesson from any other performance environment, whether it be Google, Nike, FAIRTRADE, or the team of scientists who cracked the human genome.  People are at their best when in pursuit of a great purpose, goal or challenge.

2. Set very high standards in key areas of performance

The secret of the All Blacks is not that they do anything particularly different on the field.  It is that they take the basic disciplines of the game to an uncommon level of skill and intensity.  They define with a piercing clarity what winning depends on, and then ask themselves 'how can we outperform everyone else in each of these areas?’

Take fitness.  It is not uncommon for the All Blacks to be behind with 20 minutes to go; Wales and Ireland have both been in this position in recent years, so the difference in these games is not the skill of the players.  But then they begin to tire and the All Blacks, who pride themselves on maintaining the intensity for 80 minutes, often score two or three tries in that last quarter.  It can hardly be a secret that fitness and physical performance are critical to winning in rugby, and yet why is it that the All Blacks are consistently the fittest team in the world?  Answer, they simply set the bar higher than anyone else, and take it more seriously.  The players achieve more of their potential because the environment demands it of them; not by pushing them, but by inspiring them to push themselves.

Another example: many observers marvelled at the All Blacks mastery of the new rules last year, it looked as though they had been playing under them for years.  How was this possible?  Simple really; the coaches predicted it would be a critical area of performance, asked themselves how they could make it a defining strength and brought in referees (as experts on the rules) to give feedback and help them innovate new ways of playing with the rules.  They were the only team to do this.
It’s exactly the same at an individual level.  Every player, and every member of the support team, is challenged to try and become the best in the world for their position.  It's the same pattern over and over again; define what success depends on, set the highest possible standards in each area to stimulate progress, and never stop thinking of ways to innovate and raise your game further.

This principle of setting high standards and challenging people to aspire to being the best in the world is a key feature of every high performance environment we have studied or worked with.  The best coffee cafe will be obsessive about the quality of its coffee, the average cafe won't be; the best airline will be obsessive about customer service, for others 'good is good enough'.  Apple is obsessive about design and the customer experience, Microsoft isn't - and it shows.

3. Grow responsibility and leadership at all levels

A third striking feature of the environment is the amount of leadership responsibility you see at all levels.

In terms of individual responsibility for performance, players understand the enormity of what is expected of them, and require no supervision or 'push' from management to do what ever it takes to ensure they fulfil their potential.  In other environments, the strength and conditioning coaches will literally have to push players into an ice bath or chase them up for a long and boring stretching session.  With the All Blacks, Nick Gill (their strength and conditioning coach) just puts a list of instructions on the team notice board, and knows it will be completed to the highest possible standard.

When it comes to needing someone to 'step up' as a leader in a critical situation, it could literally come from anyone, and this gives them a huge edge both on and off the field.  To give just one example of this distributed leadership which also shows their stated value of a 'yes attitude' in action.  In the lead up to a mid week game against Munster, the team found that the practice pitch which had been organised was far too small; who ever had checked out the facility had obviously made a big mistake (it was about half the size of a hockey pitch)!  Everyone paused to look at it, and you could just see what some of the management were thinking.  Then Mils Muliaina, not the coach or the captain; spoke up; “Don't worry about it guys, we can make this work - just compact it up.  Let's make it a great session.”  It was a leadership moment, to which the response of many teams would have been to vent their frustration and waste an afternoon.  Instead it was one of their best sessions of the week.

So how do they create this level of responsibility and leadership?

1. Lead with questions

A defining quality of Henry's leadership style (as head coach of the team) is his openness to ideas and insights from others; in particular the players, but also from other sources such as the coaches of the provincial franchises.  From day one, new members of the team are welcomed as equals and encouraged to bring their ideas to the table.  Henry and his colleagues lead with questions as often as they give advice or direction, and the senior players often listen to the younger players before speaking up.  Not only does this involvement ensure they tap into and use all the experience they have available to them, but it challenges these new players to think as leaders and begin to trust their instincts.

2. Grow people by giving them responsibility

From the moment a players talent is spotted, which can be as young as 15, they are encouraged to take responsibility for their own development.  They are given a clear benchmark of what it will take for them to become an All Black.  They are offered world class coaching support.  But it is made abundantly clear that the energy and drive has to come from them; no one is going to knock on their door on a rainy morning to get them up for a training run.

Within the team itself, leadership duties are shared around in a conscious effort to grow players.  Where as in other teams the coach will take full responsibility for activities such as analysing footage of the opposition, this kind of task is often given out to a couple of players within the All Blacks environment.

3. Give people freedom to act on their initiative

Within a broad game plan and a clear understanding of the principles which underpin their thinking on how to win, players are always on the look out for opportunities to make a breakthrough and are encouraged to act on their initiative.  This is why the All Blacks are so devastating in open play; it's often impossible to predict where the move will come from because it is not pre planned.

Again, there are great parallels with this level of involvement and empowerment in other high performance environments such as Google.  Focused by their mission to improve people's lives by making information more accessible, 'Googlers' are able to organise themselves into project groups to organise initiatives like a missing persons’ site within hours of the recent Japan Tsunami.

4. High quality feedback supports the hunger for continuous improvement

One of the most important predictors of success for any team or organisation is how fast they learn.  Three ingredients combine to make this another defining strength of this All Blacks side; hunger for improvement (fuelled by their ambition to dominate every aspect of the game), high quality feedback, and a disciplined approach to taking time to apply the learning.

Players are able to search and analyse every tackle or catch they make (or miss) on their own computers within hours of the match.  While this system is not unique to the All Blacks, their mindset to it perhaps is.  The phrase they use to describe the learning culture is 'confident discontent'; their belief in their potential and ability to learn sets up an openness to this feedback; the high standards they set drives their hunger for it.

An interesting example of this is Richie McCaw's approach to his development as a captain.  When it all went wrong in 2007, and McCaw's leadership was questioned by some, he vowed that he was going to master the art of captaincy and become one of the greats.  He has been singularly devoted to that goal, and for the first time since the days of Sean Fitzpatrick, the captaincy is again a striking strength of the team.
What are the lessons for us as leaders?

1. Speed of learning, not current performance, is the best predictor of long term success.

2. To create a learning culture; first create a hunger for improvement by inspiring people to aim to be the best in the world, then support this learning with high quality reviews, feedback and coaching.

5. Team before ego - Build commitment to a common cause

There is a strange characteristic of many All Blacks you meet - despite their profile as world class performers, they tend to be incredibly humble and dismissive of their individual achievements.  This is a common trait in other high performing team environments and it seems to be a reflection of the total focus on team performance and the commitment of individuals to do what ever they can in the service of a cause they feel is much greater than them.  Yes, every individual is focused on performing to the best of their ability, and they receive coaching and feedback to help them excel as individuals; but the motivation is service to the team not individual glory.

One recent example of this is the way with which Ma'a Nonu has embraced the responsibility he was given to mentor Sonny Bill Williams, an up and coming player who may put his own position in the team at risk.  Yes, Nonu is still desperate to play for the team, but he has poured all his experience into helping Williams play to his full potential; and the two 'rivals' are best of friends.

Another great example is the unusual level of teamwork between the five professional franchises in New Zealand and the All Blacks.  While these teams compete against each other frequently on the field of play, several times a year the coaching teams come together with the coaches of the All Blacks to openly share insights and ideas on the bigger question of 'how are we going to play better than anyone else in the world.'  The franchise coaches see their role in the bigger goal; if the All Blacks ask them to rest a player or try them in a different position, they do so.  While they do everything they can to win where there is no conflict, they constantly make sacrifices for the good of the greater goal.  This collaboration across boundaries could not be greater contrast to the infighting between clubs and unions which is typical in other countries such as England, and it gives the All Blacks an enormous edge.

So how has New Zealand rugby and Graham Henry created this esprit de corps at so many levels, and what might be the lessons for other organisations who are trying to build teamwork across boundaries?

First of all, they have united everyone behind a common cause.  Individual players and the franchise teams have goals (very important goals); but they understand that they are subservient to the bigger goal.  Winning as a team matters more than individual credit; when they do win, everyone feels a part of it.

Secondly, the coaches have worked enormously hard to create an environment of equality and respect - everyone, no matter what their role, is made to feel welcome, valued and respected as a part of the team.  This engenders enormous commitment to the cause.

Finally, people are not selected on talent alone, they are selected on the basis of their collective value to the team; and plenty of very talented players and coaches have not been selected because they would have a negative impact on the environment.

To explore how your organisation could develop high performance teams contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 020-7242 4030.