Leadership Lessons

M/F:                Male/Female Speaker

M:                    The concept of team is a really interesting notion.  I’ve had the privilege of spending the last ten years working with one of the world’s best sports teams, the New Zealand’s All Blacks, and it’s been a privilege.  And through that particular time I’ve witnessed some things about the notion of team and how we pull them together, I think, that are very, very valuable and insightful for business.  Now, not too long ago the All Blacks introduced a new haka called “Kapa o Pango.”  And the genesis of this particular haka derived because people were looking for a new way of expressing what it meant to be a New Zealander and what it meant to be an All Black. 

                                   Now, in the All Blacks we have a whole range of different cultures coming together.  We have Fijians; we have Maori; we have Samoan; we have Pakeha.  We have a whole range of different cultures, and they come together, and any one particular day or campaign and unite under the New Zealand Silver Fern and are able and asked to perform for that country on that given day.  So bringing those different cultures together is huge.

                                   Now, we got some expert advice from some Maori elders in the country and we began to get an understanding that once you live in New Zealand then you come from a different culture.  When you are buried in that soil, whether you are Fijian, whether you are Samoan, whether you’re a Tokelauan, whether you’re a Tongan, whether you’re a Pakeha, you become part of that earth and for that reason you unite under Aotearoa, and so all of a sudden, when you pull that All Black jersey on and that silver fern over your chest, you become a new Zealander.  And having this explained in a way, and having it composed into a new haka was a wonderful unifying experience for the All Black team, and it generates a wonderful power for the unit and for the individual because they feel connected so dearly and so deeply and so earthly to that country.

                                   Now, when I see and I look at the corporate world, and I look at the business world, I see wonderful parallels between those two, because an organization has people from different cultures, different backgrounds, different experiences, and what the role of the leader is, in those particular occasions with those teams, is to unite them in a common way that enables them to mobilize to commit their tasks to make that particular organization and that particular team function and perform wonderfully on their stage. 

                                   So how do we deal with individuals in a team who are going through the motions and doing their tasks in what we could sort of consider mundane?  I think the best definition of motivation that I’ve ever heard or that I’ve used in my work is giving someone a reason for doing something.  And I think that quite often when you are just going through the motions you’ve lost sight of what that reason is.  So as a leader, when I’m looking at individuals in my team, I’m quite often asking myself, “What is their reason?”  And if I want them to do something, to take on a new project, to do something a different way, I’m always saying to myself, “What’s the reason I can put out in front of them that will make them hop into their car or hop onto their bike and work away in a committed and passionate way at those tasks?”

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