15 Lessons in Leadership You Can Learn from the All Blacks
Legacy: 15 Lessons in Leadership by James Kerr — What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life
Summary:
The All Blacks, New Zealand national rugby team, are the most successful professional sports franchise in history, undefeated in over 75% of their international matches over the last 100 years. Legacy dives deep to uncover what is needed in developing an extraordinary high-performance culture and how to maintain it over time. What do we — as individuals, companies, and teams — learn from them? How do you achieve world-class standards, day after day, week after week, year after year? How do you handle the pressure? What do you leave behind you after you’re gone? What will be your legacy?
Review:
The book is filled with many stories about the All Blacks culture. It is practical, easy to read and makes absolute common sense. James Kerr brings many examples from other sports fields, business, and psychology to draw the lines to the All Blacks culture. All along the book, there are quotes and references from the Maori culture and specifically stories behind the Haka.
The All Blacks created a culture in which “It is the identity of the of the team that matters — not so much what the All Blacks do, but who they are, what they stand for, and why they exist.” The book gives an inspiring look at the ingredients the All Blacks are using to be successful as they are.
It is inspiring to learn how the team comes together before each test (=game) to perform the haka, reminding everyone who they are, why they are there, and where they came from. Work ethics, continuous improvement, and creation of an ethos are just a few examples of what the All Blacks are using to maintain such high level of performance. No one is bigger than the team — “A collection of talented individuals without personal discipline will ultimately and inevitably fail.”
The book is extremely insightful. It is about leadership, decision making, and self-mastery. The lessons of this book can be perfectly applied to personal life and business environment.
Takeaway Points:
1) Character — Character begins with humility and discipline. Even after a major win, the All Blacks finish their celebrations and “Sweep the Sheds — because no one looks after the All Blacks — the All Blacks looks after themselves.” Don’t be too big to do the small things. Your failures are the biggest opportunity to learn. The All Blacks created a culture in which players are accountable not only to their coaches but even more to their teammates. Performance = Capability + Behavior. Character triumphs over talent
2) Adapt — Go for the gap — when you are on top of your game, change your game. Four steps to drive change: Make a case for provide a compelling picture of the future, sustain the capability to change and create a credible plan to execute. Culture is subject to learning, growth, and decline. This continuous improvement was able to lift the All Blacks to an even better win rate.
3) Purpose — Play with Purpose, ‘ASK WHY?’ Understand the purpose for which you are playing. Better people make better All Blacks. Leaders connect personal meaning to a higher purpose to create beliefs and a sense of direction. Reference to Daniel Pink — Drive, “humans seek personal purpose”; Reference to Simon Sinek — Start with Why, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
4) Responsibility — Be a leader, not a follower — pass the ball. Create a structure of meaning, a sense of purpose, belonging, teamwork and personal reasonability. Empower the individual by empowering them with the success of the team. Leaders create leaders by passing responsibility, creating ownership, accountability, and trust.
5) Learn — Create a learning environment. Leaders are teachers. Reference to Daniel Pink — Drive, “human beings are motivated by purpose, autonomy and a drive towards mastery,” this chapter focus on enabling mastery. Kiwi Kaizen — improving 100 things by 1%. By finding the 100 things that can be done just 1% better, you achieve marginal gain which creates an incremental and cumulative advantage in performance and results.
6) Whanau — The All Blacks stated policy of ‘No Dickheads’ excludes highly talented prima-donnas. One of the first steps in developing a high-performance culture is to select a character. Follow the spearhead — birds, as a cyclist, one leads, another follows, another takes the lead, in an endless synchronized supporting system. Everyone works together towards the same goal. No one left behind. Reference to Phil Jackson Eleven Rings, a great player (MJ) can only do so much by himself, how does one sacrifice one’s glory to improve the team? The strength of the wolf is the pack, the strength of the pack is the wolf.
7) Expectations — Embrace Expectations — aim for the highest cloud. In 93’ the All Blacks were faced, for the first time in history, with losing two straight matches. As there is an expectation for them ‘not to lose’, it’s the fear of not doing it properly that drove them. It forces you to prepare as hard as possible. Successful leaders have high internal benchmarks, they set their expectations high, and try to exceed them.
8) Preparation — Train to win, practice under pressure. Practice with intensity to develop the mindset to win. Intensified training in preparation to win will condition the brain and body to perform under pressure and make peak performance automatic. It helps to develop the mindset of winning. Get out of your comfort zone. If you are not growing anywhere, you are not going anywhere.
9) Pressure — The first stage of learning is silence; the second stage is listening. Know how to manage, deal and embrace pressure. Control your attention. Switch from ‘Red head’ — tight-inhibited, result-oriented, anxious, aggressive, overcompensating, desperate; to ‘blue head’ — loose, expressive, at the moment, calm, clear, accurate, untasked. Bad decisions are made because of an inability to handle pressure at the pivotal moment.
10) Authenticity — Know thyself, keep it real. If you succumb to peer pressure and do things because others want you, you will be cut-off. Be genuine, stay true to yourself and be honest with your environment. Adopting the behaviors and values of others will often conflict with what got you there in the first place. Leaders need to create an environment that encourages safe-conflict, honesty, and integrity, in which people genuinely know one another.
11) Sacrifice — Find something you would die for and give your life to it. Do the above and beyond for a cause, activity or mission you believe in. Champions do Extra. Bleed on the field and know that your teammates will do the same for you. Be the first to arrive at the gym, be the last to leave. “There are no crowns waiting in the extra mile, on the extra mile we are on our own, just us and the challenge we’ve set ourselves.” Push yourself outside of your comfort zone.
12) Language — Let your ears listen. Invent a language — sing your world into existence. A system of meaning that everyone understood. A language, vocabulary and a set of believes that bind the group together. Meaning, rituals, stories, heroes all bound together. An oral culture — a common story. Leaders are storytellers.
13) Ritual — Ritualize to Actualize. Create a culture. A culture of continually growing and chaining. Identity and purpose need to evolve and update. Inspiring leaders establish rituals to connect their team to its core narrative, using them to reflect, remind, reinforce and reignite their collective identity and purpose.
14) Whakapapa — Be a Good Ancestor. Plant trees you’ll never see. Connect the past, present, and future. True leaders take responsibility adding to the future. Ensure knowledge transfer. Leave the jersey in a better place. Know that you are standing on the shoulders of giants — live up to that expectation and know that you will be looked upon as one. Don’t let the music die.
15) Legacy — Write your Legacy. This is your time. Be purposeful. Add to the ethos, make your mark.
Few books that were referenced in the book:
· Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson
· Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
· Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
· Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
