Oct 14, 2015

Anyone that knows me well enough is aware of my passion for rugby, and it was heartening to see the Wallabies demolish the English in a preliminary pool match for two reasons:

1. Because they are the English and beat us by 3 points (a field goal) in extra time in the final, on our home turf in 2003. So it’s a bit of a poor sportsman “ha ha” but it also knocks out a generally strong competitor from the semi-finals, making our road easier
2. It also says a lot about the Australian team and what it is capable of

…and that is the point of this blog. For anyone in a people leading capacity, how do you get a group of people living up to their potential?

This Wallaby team has virtually the same group of players that the last coach had and many of the players that the coach before that had. Yet, both of those coaches had patchy success and apparently team morale was pretty low with the last one.

So what’s the difference? Well, you could say that maybe the players are a bit more seasoned and canny. But most evidence points to the coach.

Sure, Wayne Bennett lost the NRL Grand-Final by one point but to get his team to the grand final within one year of assuming the reigns, is a pretty tall order and I am not a Broncos’ fan. His career record speaks for itself.

So too, Michael Chieka, the Wallabies Coach. He is less than a year into the job and getting wonderful results. Granted he had worked with some of the team in his capacity as the Waratahs Coach but he had also brought that team of players to finals victory when others had failed before him.

I don’t want to jinx him at this stage, but I do want to analyse how a person, such as Cheika or Bennett can get the best out of others. How can they have them live up to their potential, especially in a team environment, because that’s what we are often faced with in the workplace?

Cheika has a charisma about him, but Wayne Bennett appears to have had a charisma by-pass, at least around the press. The latter is reported to take a very paternal approach to his players but not in a way that protects them from accountability in the game, more about protection from the harshness of being in the spotlight. Cheika does this to an extent as well.

Both are extremely humble, at least to the public, and they groom this in their players. In fact, they seem to breed a quiet confidence rather than cockiness. Hey, Cheika is even breeding it in their fan-base…well, me at least.

Cheika, definitely avoids being drawn into making derogatory comments about the opposition and has instilled this in his players. The team focuses on improving on their own performance. In our Smarter Selling program, participants do an assessment and are asked a series of questions which determine whether their orientation is “My best” or “Better than You”. Those in the former category are focused on improving themselves; those in the latter are more focused on others (competitors).

Of course, it would be foolish not to have an eye on competitors and want to beat them but you run the risk of playing to their game rather than dominating with your own. In the League Grand Final, the Broncos played negatively toward the end, trying to contain the Cowboys, rather than still attacking. They paid the ultimate price.

There are many subtle things that position Michael Cheika differently to his predecessors, but I think the biggest is ‘courage’. This quality is one the top ten ‘Leadership Characteristics’ to emerge from the survey of 75,000 people over 20 years, conducted by James Kouzes and Barry Pozner. We refer to this heavily in our Effective Managers program.

Whilst ‘courage’ can be thought of as bravery – boldness or determination in facing danger – it can also be defined as “the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty or danger without fear”. The former definition is ‘grit’ or determination which is highly desirable and necessary for leadership. The latter is almost like a coolness in the face of danger; a sangfroid.

Cheika has grit but so did his predecessors; Deans played for the All Blacks, McKenzie played for the Wallabies and Cheika for the Waratahs. In relation to sangfroid, I believe one of Chieka’s distinct advantages over the others is that he is a self-made multi-millionaire who does not need to think about how he survives if he were to lose the job. This potentially allows clarity to make better decisions but I speculate that it also means he probably doesn’t inadvertently shovel his anxiety onto his team, allowing them to have their quiet confidence.

When managers are measured on the performance of their team, which most are, they can run the risk of transferring their anxiety onto their team. This can cause all manner of issues, but the one big one is the thwarting of potential ‘synergy’ – where the sum of the parts produces more than the sum of the parts.

P.S.: The Wallabies had a dogged win against Wales to become the winner of their Pool. Anything can happen in the Rugby World Cup, but I am quietly confident that it will be a third Bledisloe game for the final.