by Kerr, James
LEGACY
WHAT THE ALL BLACKS
CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE
BUSINESS OF LIFE
LEGACY
15 LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP
JAMES KERR
Constable • London
Constable & Robinson Ltd
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London WC1B 4HP
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First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013
Copyright © James Kerr, 2013
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologise for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
The right of James Kerr to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-47210-353-6 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-47210-490-8 (ebook)
Printed and bound in the UK
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Cover design: www.aesopagency.com
The Challenge
When the opposition line up against the New Zealand national rugby team – the All Blacks – they face the haka, the highly ritualized challenge thrown down by one group of warriors to another. Māori believe that the haka draws up tīpuna, our ancestors, from the earth to the soul. It summons them to aid us in our struggle here on earth with the sound of ngunguru, the low rumble of an earthquake:
—— ’Tis death! ’tis death!
I may die! I may die!
’Tis life! ’tis life!
I might live! I might live!
Opposing teams face the haka in different ways. Some try to ignore it, others advance on it, most stand shoulder to shoulder to face it. Whatever their outward response, inwardly the opposition know that they are standing before more than a collection of fifteen individual players. They are facing a culture, an identity, an ethos, a belief system – and a collective passion and purpose beyond anything they have faced before.
Often, by the time the haka reaches its crescendo, the opposition have already lost. For rugby, like business and like much of life, is played primarily in the mind.
The All Blacks are the most successful rugby team in history. They have been called the most successful sports team, in any code, ever. In the professional era, they have an extraordinary win rate of over 86 per cent and are the current World Champions.
How do the All Blacks do it?
What’s the secret of their success?
What is their competitive advantage?
And what can we learn from it?
˜
In June 2010, alongside photojournalist Nick Danziger, I was embedded for five weeks inside the All Blacks set-up as they began working towards the Rugby World Cup. This gave me a privileged insight into an extraordinary high-performance culture; I learnt that their methods provide an inspiring and effective model for leaders in other fields.
In February 2013, I revisited former team coach Sir Graham Henry and his right-hand men Wayne Smith and Gilbert Enoka, key figures in the All Blacks’ World Cup success, and asked them some questions of leadership. I also spoke to iconic former All Blacks, advertising men, management consultants, HR and engagement specialists, designers, teachers, lawyers, a cocktail of psychiatrists, psychologists and physiotherapists, an opera singer, a stunt pilot and experts in Māori tribal customs, language and beliefs. I cross-referenced the research to my own experience in brand storytelling, culture change and engagement for some of the world’s leading businesses in an attempt to explain the All Blacks’ exceptional success and how we might apply it to leading our own businesses and our own lives.
What I learnt forms the basis of this book.
˜
The haka reminds us of the inherent fragility of all life. How little time is given to each of us. And how much we still have to do.
It reminds us:
This is our time.
James Kerr
CONTENTS
I
CHARACTER
II
ADAPT
III
PURPOSE
IV
RESPONSIBILITY
V
LEARN
VI
WHĀNAU
VII
EXPECTATIONS
VIII
PREPARATION
IX
PRESSURE
X
AUTHENTICITY
XI
SACRIFICE
XII
LANGUAGE
XIII
RITUAL
IV
WHAKAPAPA
XV
LEGACY
THE FIRST XV
WHAKATAUKĪ
ALL CREDIT TO
REFERENCES
—— Exceptional success requires exceptional circumstances.
Wayne Smith, former All Blacks assistant coach
I
CHARACTER
—— Waiho mā te tangata e mihi.
Let someone else praise your virtues.
SWEEP THE SHEDS
Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done
New Zealand v Wales, Carisbrook, Dunedin, 19 June 2010
‘It’s a cold place, Carisbrook,’ says All Blacks centre Conrad Smith. ‘The wind whips off Antarctica and heads straight for your balls.’ The posters for the match say ‘Welcome to the House of Pain’.
Head coach Graham Henry takes a walk with Raewyn, his wife – a pre-match ritual. His assistants, Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen, chat with manager Darren Shand in the breakfast room of the hotel. Gilbert Enoka, the mental skills coach, moves through the players, chatting. Their barefoot guru.
Upstairs, Errol Collins, aka ‘Possum’, the baggage man, begins laying out the jerseys.
Every team has its Poss. Ostensibly his role is to take care of the kit. From goal pads to practise balls, warm-up jackets to chewing gum, training socks to sensible, wry, homespun advice, Poss is your man. He’s there to take care of the players. On test day, he lays out the black jersey.
Māori have a word, taonga, which means treasure. The black jersey is taonga, a sacred object.
This black jersey with its silver fern.
Since 1905, when the ‘Originals’ arrived and took Europe by storm, the black jersey has captured the essence and hopes of this small island nation. Over the last 100 years or so it has transformed from a makeshift garment with laces at the neck to the modern, sweat-wicking, tight-fitting gladiatorial armour of today, but at heart it remains the same; a symbol of excellence, hard work and a New Zealander’s ability to become, with effort, sacrifice and skill, the best in the world.
Successful leaders balance pride with humility: absolute pride in performance; total humility before the magnitude of the task.
After an early lunch – chicken, baked potatoes – the players head upstairs in twos and threes: the captain, Richie McCaw, Kieran Read, Tony Woodcock, Brad Thorn, Joe Rokocoko . . . The Chosen.
They collect their prize: black shorts, black socks with three white stripes, the black jersey with the silver fern. As the jerseys go on, so do the ‘game faces’. The players become All Blacks.
‘I can s
till remember Richie McCaw’s first jersey,’ Gilbert Enoka says. ‘He spent about forty-five seconds to a minute with his head just buried in the jersey.’
Today is McCaw’s ninety-first test.
˜
‘A win today against the Welsh is not enough,’ says a pundit. ‘It has to be a big win.’
In the stadium, beer cans rattle against the hoardings. A helicopter thumps overhead. Someone sells T-shirts.
McCaw steps off the bus. There is a cry, a pōwhiri, the traditional Māori welcome. A lone Māori male with a taiaha, a thrusting spear. There is an explosion of camera flashes.
McCaw accepts the challenge on behalf of the team.
Women swoon. Men too.
The All Blacks head for the sheds.
Under the stadium there are trestle tables loaded with lineaments, bandages, and cups of carbohydrates. The New Zealand flag is on the wall; the Union Jack and the Southern Cross.
There are no histrionics. The team prepares silently, many in headphones. Above, 35,000 voices chant, ‘Black! Black! Black!’
The coaches hang back as the players prepare. There is no rousing rhetoric. A word here, a backslap there. Now it is all about the players. About ‘the being of team’.
The talking is done. It’s time to play rugby.
˜
It turns out to be Dan Carter’s day, one of his finest. The New Zealand playmaker runs in two tries, the second of which will be replayed for as long as the game is loved. He scores 27 points, the Perfect Ten. Later, the papers will say ‘the Welsh have no answers’.
The All Blacks win, 42-7.
Carter has proved himself, once again, indispensible. But, really, it’s Richie McCaw’s time. Today he becomes statistically the most successful All Blacks captain ever.
˜
In the sheds, the drink flows.
The room fills with journalists, politicians, sponsors, their sons, their sons’ best friends. Dr Deb administers stitches. Richie McCaw drags himself out for the media. A few forwards shiver in large, ice-filled rubbish bins, a state-of-the-art recovery technique. Pacifica Rap plays, then some reggae.
After a while, Darren Shand, the manager, gently clears the room.
It is just the team. The inner sanctum. McCaw, Read, Thorn, Smith, Carter, Dagg, Muliaina. All household names. Squashed together on the benches, they look like huge schoolboys.
They debrief.
The session is chaired by Mils Muliaina. Injured, he is today’s off-field captain. The etiquette is like a whare, a Māori meeting-house, where everyone is given the opportunity to speak, to say their truth, to tell their story.
Muliaina hands over to Steve Hansen, ‘Shag’, the assistant coach, whose assessment is direct and unsparing. It was good, he says, but not good enough. Plenty of work to do in the lineout. Got to get that right. Other teams won’t go so easy on us. Let’s not get carried away. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Some big games coming.
He hands on to Wayne Smith, the other assistant coach. Smithy is a taut, lean man with a shrewd, lined expression. He’s a man who knows men, how they think, how they work, how to get the best from them; the guts of this team. He makes a few incisive points and hands on to ‘Gilly’, Nic Gill PhD, the conditioning coach, who hands on in turn to Graham Henry – ‘Ted’, the headmaster of the team, the head coach. A small, witty man, Henry’s dry humour doesn’t always carry on television. He is the boss here, the Svengali, the ringmaster for this roadshow.
The challenge is to always improve, to always get better, even when you are the best. Especially when you are the best.
Henry congratulates McCaw on becoming the most successful captain in All Blacks history. Then he tells the team there’s work to be done. A lot of work to be done.
Muliaina reminds the players to remember the sacrifices they have made to be in this room. Finally, he proposes a toast to McCaw.
‘To Skip!’ he says.
‘To Skip,’ the room replies.
‘Well done, guys,’ he says. ‘Let’s go.’
˜
This is when something happens that you might not expect.
Two of the senior players – one an international player of the year, twice – each pick up a long-handled broom and begin to sweep the sheds. They brush the mud and the gauze into small piles in the corner.
While the country is still watching replays and schoolkids lie in bed dreaming of All Blacks’ glory, the All Blacks themselves are tidying up after themselves.
Sweeping the sheds.
Doing it properly.
So no one else has to.
Because no one looks after the All Blacks.
The All Blacks look after themselves.
˜
It’s an ‘example of personal discipline’ says Andrew Mehrtens, former All Blacks fly-half (what New Zealanders call a first five eight) and the second highest All Blacks points scorer of all time.
‘It’s not expecting somebody else to do your job for you. It teaches you not to expect things to be handed to you.’
‘If you have personal discipline in your life,’ he says, ‘then you are going to be more disciplined on the field. If you’re wanting guys to pull together as a team, you’ve got to have that. You don’t want a group of individuals.’
‘It’s not going to make you win all the time,’ he says, ‘but it’s certainly going to make you better as a team over the long run.’
A collection of talented individuals without personal discipline will ultimately and inevitably fail. Character triumphs over talent.
˜
Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers American football team, inherited an outfit that was down on its luck. It had foundered at the bottom of the NFL for years and even the fans saw no way back. Lombardi took over the team in 1959. Two years later they won the NFL, and again in 1962 and 1965, followed by the Super Bowl in 1966 and 1967.
His success, he said, was based on what he called the ‘Lombardi Model’, which began with a simple statement:
—— Only by knowing yourself can you become an effective leader.
For him, it all begins with self-knowledge, with the great ‘I Am’; a fundamental understanding and appreciation of our own personal values. It was on this foundation that he built his teams and his success.
From self-knowledge, Lombardi believed, we develop character and integrity. And from character and integrity comes leadership.
Jon Kabat-Zinn (In Wherever You Go, There You Are) tells a story about Buckminster Fuller, the visionary architect and thinker.
Depressed and considering suicide, Fuller asked himself some questions that revolutionized his life:
—— ‘What is my job on the planet? What is it that needs doing, that I know something about, that probably won’t happen unless I take responsibility for it?’
These questions, in turn inspired Lombardi, and might in turn inspire us. This might mean taking responsibility for a team, for a company or for the lives of thousands; or it might be something as simple as sweeping the sheds. Either way, it begins with character, and character begins with humility. At the start of each season, Lombardi would hold up the pigskin and say, ‘Gentlemen, this is a football.’
˜
Under coach John Wooden, the UCLA Bruins basketball team won the US national collegiate championship for seven straight years, starting in 1967. At the start of each season, writer Claudia Luther reports, he would sit his team down in their locker room and, for a long time – for a very long time – they would learn how to put on their socks:
—— Check the heel area. We don’t want any sign of a wrinkle about it . . . The wrinkle will be sure you get blisters, and those blisters are going to make you lose playing time, and if you’re good enough, your loss of playing time might get the coach fired.
The lesson wasn’t really about blisters, or playing time, or whether the coach got fired. It was about doing the basics right, taking care of the details, looking aft
er yourself and the team. It was about humility.
‘Winning takes talent,’ John Wooden would say. ‘To repeat it takes character.’
Like the All Blacks head coach Graham Henry, John Wooden was a teacher. Which is no coincidence.
˜
Another remarkable man was American football coach Bill Walsh, who also considered himself a teacher first, a leader second.
Between 1979 and 1989, Walsh coached the San Francisco 49ers from an underperforming bunch of also-rans into one of the great sporting dynasties in gridiron history by employing a similar philosophy. He believed that, ‘You get nowhere without character. Character is essential to individuals, and their cumulative character is the backbone of your winning team.’
Create the highest possible operating standards, develop the character of your players, develop the culture of your team and, as the title of Walsh’s book proclaims, The Score Takes Care of Itself.
‘Walsh knew,’ Stuart Lancaster, the current England rugby coach, told rugby writer Mark Reason, ‘that if you established a culture higher than that of your opposition, you would win. So rather than obsessing about the results, you focus on the team.’
‘The challenge of every team is to build a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another,’ said Vince Lombardi. ‘Because the question is usually not how well each person performs, but how well they work together.’
Collective character is vital to success. Focus on getting the culture right; the results will follow.
˜
Owen Eastwood is a man of many talents. A lawyer for clients including the All Blacks, he has also worked as a consultant for the South African Proteas, NATO Command and other organizations on culture creation programs. Eastwood uses the equation:
