High Performing Teams Down Under

As I write, the All Blacks have just completed the rout of Tonga in a powerful, polished team performance in Auckland. 41-10 the score – pretty emphatic. With the heritage of the Kiwi team, hardly any great surprise. But ask any member of the New Zealand Rugby set-up, past or present, it’s not about history or pure talent. The All Blacks work hard – damned hard – on building high performance and highly motivated teams, made up of high performing and highly motivated individuals. A few years back I heard ex captain, Sean Fitzpatrick, talk about the All Blacks being a major sporting brand – perhaps the greatest sporting team ever. Central to this brand was the unswerving focus on creating and maintaining brilliant teams. According to Sean such teams:

• Lived the values
• Inducted new members into the culture
• Took nothing for granted
• Shared ideas
• Had huge (good) attitude
• Communicated
• Cared for each other
• Were great mates and had fun!

In the same vein, this month’s M&IT (Meetings & Incentive Travel) magazine ran a feature on the value of Team Building. The article featured an interview with Sir Ian McGeechan, Performance Director at six time English champions Bath Rugby Club. The first team, coaches and support staff (numbering 40 plus) held a team building event in Wiltshire. He was quoted “It really helps the players to get away from the training park sometimes, especially in the middle of a tough season…They have to work together as a team to get through the exercises, and to support each other throughout, which will come in handy as we get to the crunch time in the season.” Substitute ‘training park’ for ‘office’, ‘season’ for ‘year’, and I don’t think anyone could disagree.

Last week, as the England team made their final preparations for this weekend’s opener against Argentina, they took an afternoon off training for a team bonding event – sailing ex-America’s Cup yachts across Waitemata Harbour in Auckland.

One caveat though – getting your team to strip naked and pump up rugby balls in a freezing lake isn’t team building – just ask the South African Rugby Team of 2003!