by Kerr, James
First we shape our values; then our values shape us.
Words start revolutions.
Vocabulary
In Chapter VII, we looked at the Florida Effect – the way that priming works and the effect that the language around us unconsciously affects our experience of the world. Advertising agencies know this, of course – the word ‘new’ in a brochure has the power to increase readership. ‘For a limited time only’ can create almost unlimited enquiries.
Within the All Blacks, as within other high-performing environments like the Marines, the Red Arrows and Apple, there is a similar obsession with the formative power of language.
° ‘Outstanding’
° ‘Accuracy’
° ‘Clarity’
° ‘World class’
° ‘Red hot, we were red hot today’
When Wayne Smith joined the Chiefs after the All Blacks, he helped mastermind a linguistic revolution in the team. ‘We started establishing a vocabulary, a mindset and an attitude,’ he says, and Māoritanga – Māori culture – became part of the common language. Attack became paoa, meaning ‘to strike’, and defence became tainui, or ‘surging tide’.
The pre-season activity retraced the steps of local Māori tribes as they settled in the North Island – a tough, physical journey. This vivid, metaphorical language became the beginning of a rugby revolution.
Words start revolutions.
Mottos and Mantras
As we see in the Black Book, mottos and mantras are a key part of the road-map to the All Blacks’ mindset. These linguistic heuristics go straight to the heart of the belief system, becoming shorthand for the standards and behaviour that is expected. Likewise, the spirit of Apple is captured in the language around the Cupertino campus in California:
° Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
° Why Join the Navy when you can be a Pirate?
° Insanely Great
° Think Different
° ‘Click. Boom. Amazing!’
Even the address of the corporate headquarters is infused with the Apple spirit:
—— One Infinite Loop.
Similarly, the spirit of the Marines is captured in their mottos and mantras:
° Once a Marine Always a Marine
° Ductus Exemplo – Lead by Example
° Doing the Right Thing
° Held to a Higher Standard
° First to Fight
° Whatever the Nation Asks
° Semper Fidelis – Always Faithful
Common to all these elite teams and organizations is the use of smart, sharp, easily recognized and understood code-phrases to define and declare their essential spirit. This is not empty sloganeering – when done properly, this kind of compressed thinking in a sentence is one of the leader’s most powerful tools. It aligns companies, countries and cultures behind their distilled essence.
Think about the best corporate slogans:
° Just Do It
° Nothing is Impossible
° Impossible is Nothing
° The Power of Dreams
° Think
° Invent
They capture character in a sentence, change minds with a turn of phrase, and distil essence into a few words. The best teams – the All Blacks, Apple, the Marines, Nike, Honda, Adidas – harness the power of these mottos and mantras to reflect, remind, reinforce and reinvigorate their ethos, every day.
The wise leader would do well to follow.
Words start revolutions.
Metaphors
The word metaphor comes from the Greek metaphora. Meta means ‘over or across’ and Pherein means to carry. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is overlaid on to something to which it is not literally applicable – in which an idea carries over and transforms meaning.
Metaphors are a powerful and often unappreciated leadership tool. Some would argue that they are the basis for our understanding of life itself. In fact, if we believe Friedrich Nietzsche, all language is a metaphor – ‘What strange simplification and falsification mankind lives on!’ For him, words and language are separate from the thing they describe, an analogy of reality, a simulacrum. ‘We possess nothing but metaphors for things,’ he writes, ‘metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities.’ Though there may well be metaphysics – a substance to reality – in his worldview, we are unable to process and understand it, so we take a stab through language, metaphor and story.
Metaphors are where we recognize ourselves in stories – a way we attach personal meaning to a more public narrative. They create a visceral response, and force us to rethink meaning.
We, literally, re-cognize.
This metaphorical nature of mind is essential to understand what drives human action. ‘It is precisely through metaphor that our perspectives, or analogical extensions, are made,’ says American literary theorist Kenneth Burke. ‘A world without metaphor would be a world without purpose.’
‘The greatest thing by far,’ said Aristotle in Poetics, ‘is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblance.’
So then, a story.
One November evening in London, Wayne Smith was attending the theatre, his mind ticking over. When the show finished, he hurried back to his hotel and wrote something down.
The Story of the Black Plague
‘I thought . . . I must get the numbers off the jersey and place them on a black background – and it looked like a plague smothering England and I thought it was a magnificent thing to see . . . I decided to name this the Black Plague.’
The Black Plague became the nickname for – and the distillation of – the All Blacks’ defensive attitude and approach. ‘The boys understood the irony of it and the power of it as well,’ says Smith, ‘how the Black Plague hit Europe and there were so many victims . . .’
—— The Black Plague started in Asia last year then it devastated Europe . . . destroying everything in its path
. . . the small, the sick, the slow and the fast.
. . . It was 366 minutes of tryless tests
. . . the disease that has devastated Europe is re-emerging worldwide
. . . what will it look like?
. . . fast, pressure through set pieces, clarity of roles . . .
‘It creates an image, doesn’t it?’ says Smith. ‘That’s what we want in defence; we want to smother them and swarm them and destroy them. That’s what the All Blacks are about – getting up and helping each other and smothering the opposition and giving them nothing.’
It’s a visceral, visual metaphor that helped Smith turn his defensive vision into physical action, to ‘operationalize’ the purpose; to turn purpose into practice. It was easy to understand, to remember and apply under pressure, and it could be tailored across all aspects of training, briefing and even socializing.
And it led to a World Cup.
Based in strong, resonant values, using a common language that employs mantras, mottos and metaphors, storytelling helps leaders connect their people’s personal meaning to their vision of the future.
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The key criteria for creating a change story is fourfold.
° The story must be credible and relevant – in Aristotelian poetics, it must have ethos (an authority and understanding of the subject) and logos (it must make rational sense).
° It must be Visual and Visceral – appealing to the auditory, visual and kinaesthetic receivers in our brains. It must seize our hearts as well as impress our heads. In terms of Aristotelian poetics, it must have pathos (it must be felt).
° It must be flexible and scaleable – as easily told around a campfire as across the boardroom table. This implies the use of simple, everyday language and ideas.
° And it must be useful – able to turn vision into action; purpose into practice – acting as a transferor of meaning between one domain and another, between �
��your’ world and ‘mine’, between the ‘leader’ and the ‘led’.
Whether visual or verbal, motto, mantra or metaphor, language creates revolutions.
Invent Your Own Language
Strong cultures need a system of meaning understood by everyone, a language and vocabulary that binds the group together. This must have as its foundation the values of the group; in this way the story stays credible and relevant. Shrewd leaders invent a unique vocabulary as shorthand for communicating new cultural norms and standards, using specific words, phrases, mottos and mantras. Then, using metaphor, the leader begins to bring the story to visceral life across as many channels as possible. In this way, language becomes the oxygen that sustains belief. In this way, leaders rewrite the future.
Invent Your Own Language
Sing the world into existence.
—— He aha te kai o te rangatira. He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. What is the food of a leader? It is knowledge. It is communication.
XIII
RITUAL
—— ‘We’re not all Māori. We’re not all Polynesian . . .’ Wayne Smith
RITUALIZE TO ACTUALIZE
Create a culture
New Zealand vs. South Africa, Carisbrook, Dunedin, 28 August 2005
The anthems are over, the crowd quietens.
They know it is time.
The All Blacks cluster together, creating a wide scything arc across the field. A lone voice cries out.
It is Tana Umaga, the first Polynesian to captain New Zealand. A man of great mana.
Taringa whakarongo!
‘Let your ears listen!’
In unison, his team crouches behind him. Umaga paces, his chest out, the silver fern, the black jersey, the chant continuing, momentum building.
Kia whakawhenua au i ahau!
‘Let me become one with the land!’
The team join the challenge.
Ko Aotearoa e ngunguru nei!
‘New Zealand is rumbling here.’
The team, advancing, advancing, stand tall and draw their thumbs across their throats.
A new haka is born. ‘Kapa o Pango’. A new legacy.
Au, au, aue hā!
It’s our time! It’s our moment!
And the All Blacks win, 31-27.
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‘People just don’t realize how close we were to kicking the haka out completely,’ says Gilbert Enoka. ‘We were that close to losing the whole thing because we lost connection and understanding.’ The senior players were saying, ‘The TV cameras are shoved in our faces and all we want to do is get the thing over so we can play . . . and it’s not for us, anyway, it’s for the Māori people.’
‘New Zealand society has changed,’ says Graham Henry, ‘it’s not just Māori and European . . . the All Blacks team is made up of Tongan, Samoan, Fijian, European, Māori . . . and so the new haka encompasses the new culture and I think that is hugely important.’
‘We would stand up and talk about Fijian culture,’ he says, ‘and talk about Samoan culture . . . we might have a Samoan meal after that talk.’ It led to a ‘greater understanding of the guys you are playing with’ and a better understanding of ‘New Zealand society’.
‘They deconstructed it all,’ says Anton Oliver. ‘They asked, how are we going to create a legacy?’
‘We had to manage the transition between Māori and Pacifica,’ Enoka says. ‘It wasn’t until we sat down and said, tell us what it means to be a New Zealander and tell us what it means to be an All Black . . . then all of a sudden it came from a place inside them and had a connection and meaning and . . . the whole notion of your parents, your tīpuna, buried in the soil and you have a connection to the land and you put the jersey on and you’ve got a fern on and you’re all connected.
‘So all of a sudden your Fijians and the Tongans and the Samoans . . . could connect with the fact that, yes, this is our time, and this is our moment, and this is my time, and this is my moment.’
To help them in their quest, Henry, Smith, Hansen and Enoka brought in Derek Lardelli, a leading tā moko (Māori tattoo) artist, kapa haka (Māori dance) performer, cultural consultant, tohunga (wise man), teacher and artist.
He sat down with the leaders and began a conversation; a process of enquiry into the culture of the All Blacks, past and present. ‘These conversations,’ says Enoka, ‘were the genesis of Kapa o Pango.’
‘It was about ‘using metaphors and multiple language’, says Anton Oliver, ‘and it was a huge renaissance. Massive. It was reconnecting with the Māori but it was actually even more reconnecting; it was actually reconnecting people from all different cultures into something, into one thing. The players could say, “I understand this. I made these words. These are my actions. It’s my country. It’s my land.”’
And performance on the field of play? If you map the win/loss ratio against this newfound sense of collective identity, there’s a direct and positive correlation.
Ritualize to actualize.
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‘Culture,’ says Owen Eastwood, ‘is like an organism, continually growing and changing.’ Identity and purpose, he says, need to be continually renewed and reinterpreted to give them meaning. ‘This cultural milieu is constantly changing,’ agrees Anton Oliver. ‘It’s not a static thing.’
‘Building trust, developing people and driving high-performance behaviours are never-ending tasks,’ says Eastwood. ‘Rituals are key for reinforcing the emotional glue.’
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.
‘It becomes absorbed,’ says Enoka. ‘Because with the power of the rituals, they’re so strong, you don’t have to spend two or three hours sitting in a room . . .’
It’s what Wayne Smith means when he talks about connecting to the central story, and what Enoka means by connecting to the core. ‘I think in the All Blacks’ culture,’ says Oliver, ‘that’s how it’s passed on. So much of the legacy we have,’ he says, ‘is done through ritual.’
Ritualize to actualize.
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Though the haka is the most famous, it is by no means the All Blacks’ only ritual.
When Jonah Lomu received his first black jersey, it was handed to him by John Kirwan, an iconic predecessor in the same position.
‘OK, you’ve made it,’ said Sean Fitzpatrick, ‘you’re an All Black, enjoy it.’
‘But,’ added Kirwan, ‘this is only the beginning. What you now have to do is be the best All Black ever to wear number 11.’
Ritualize to actualize.
When the All Blacks travel across the halfway point of the Severn Bridge on their way to play Wales, they stand up in the bus and shout, ‘We never lose to Wales!’ Once in Cardiff, the team will visit the Angel, the pub in which prop Keith Murdoch was involved in a scuffle that led to his being sent home in disgrace – he jumped the plane in Australia and disappeared into the Northern Territories, never to play rugby again. ‘We have a beer to the fallen, right?’ says Oliver. ‘We lost one. We should never have lost one, it was ridiculous. So we pay recognition to him and what happened and the story gets passed on.’
The story gets passed on.
Meanwhile, there’s a tiki, a carved Māori figure, buried on one corner of what was Cardiff Arms Park; there’s the initiation ritual, flags on the wall, your place on the bus, anthems and caps, and a hundred other tiny rituals, some personal, some public: ‘All these little things,’ says Henry, ‘they just add up and add to the mana of this group of people and their respect for each other and wanting to play for each other.’
Ritualize to actualize.
Rituals reflect, remind, reinforce and reignite the central story. They make it real in a vital, visceral way. From induction ceremonies to first caps, the haka to the hierarchies – they are the framework that holds the belief system in place. When the All Blacks perform the haka – or stand up on
the bus to Wales and shout – they are connecting to something greater than themselves. They are making the metaphor their own, connecting their personal story to that of the team.
Sport, like business and diplomacy, is warfare by other means: a way for a band of ‘warriors’ to ‘fight’ for their side in ‘battle’ against an ‘enemy’. So it’s unsurprising that the All Blacks culture of ritualization, symbolism and narration is both relevant to business and also reflected in elite combat groups like the US Marine Corps.
Just as the All Blacks with its silver fern, the Marines have their ‘Eagle, Oak and Anchor’. Just as the All Blacks say ‘Once an All Black, always an All Black’, so the Marines say, ‘Once a Marine, always a Marine.’ Just as the All Blacks have the Black Jersey, so the Marines have their Dress Blue. Both the Marines and the All Blacks ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’. Both are the very best at what they do.
These rituals, symbols and mottos are the welt and weave of elite teams and organizations – the fabric that binds people together. Though the individuals change, the rituals remain, and these rituals are the structure that maintains belief.
Ritualize to actualize.
It need not be as obvious as a haka.
Opening an Apple product is a ritual, as is removing the cigar band from a Montecristo. Whisky brands wrap their bottles in velvet. The Law Courts understand the implicit power of swearing on the Bible. We give gifts at Christmas.
It’s not a coincidence that perhaps the most durable brand in the notoriously fly-by-night advertising business is Leo Burnett. The company’s ritual began on the day it first opened for business – 5 August 1935, in the middle of the Great Depression. To brighten up an unfurnished reception area, someone put out a bowl of apples. The criticism wasn’t long in coming.
