ALL BLACKS LEGACY BOOK NOTES

                                                     

I think we're all well-aware of the collective excellence of the All-Blacks culture on and off the field and I picked up this book from the op-shop a little while ago and here are my notes from it with PLENTY of takeaways for individuals and teams alike.

• Only by knowing yourself can you become an effective leader
• What is my job, what needs doing and what do I know about that probably won't happen unless I attend to it
• It begins with character and character begins with humility
• It’s not how well each player performs, but how they perform together
• Capability + Behavior = Performance
• When you’re on top of your game, change your game
• Stages of Organisational Change x a case for change, a compelling picture of the future, a sustained capability to change and a credible plan to execute
• Growth Cycle x learning phase, growth phase and decline phase
• OODA Loop x observe, orient, decide, act
• 100 Day Plans x list 10 things you need to achieve in the next 100 days starting each plan with an action verb and no more then 3 words, making sure each plan is measurable and that each one is a stretch and simply tick them off
• Purpose relates to an overarching goal beyond the practical missions that are pursued every day and drives individual's intrinsic motivation and gives a reason to belong/sacrifice
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs x beyond fulfilling basic needs you are no longer driven by extrinsic motivation and can turn your attention to deeper needs finding a loved one and making a family then things like esteem, self respect, the respect of others, being recognised for our talent and our capabilities/behaviors
• Extra Dimension x core values/purpose beyond making money and is what drives companies from good to great
• If you want higher performance then you need a higher purpose
• People don’t buy what you make, they buy why you do it because the way we feel about something is more important then what we think of something – we follow our gut
• What gets you up everyday that you do, yet has a cost (financial, mentally etc)?
• If you hire people that believe what you believe then they’ll work for you harder then anyone else
• Whoever has a why can bear almost any how
• After a lot of petty youth crime, 1 bloke created the teenage kicks program, a 5-a-side tournament to turn gangs into teams to create a structure of meaning/purpose/teamwork/responsibility by entrusting them with responsibility for the success of the team – all in a low social-economic community – where organisers set everything up then let the youth make it all happen with alpha males encouraged to become managers who needed to find a captain and then the captain needed to find a team (pass the ball) and the the team needed to turn up for every game on time and 1 miss and they would be kicked out of the whole thing until next year (no team did though) and it’s still going 10 years later
• Form leadership groups with key senior players given a distinct portfolio of responsibilities from on-field leadership to social organisation to new player mentoring to community relations
• Shared Responsibility = shared ownership as a sense of inclusion means individual's are more willing to give themselves to a common cause
• Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders and arm their subordinates with intent and then step out of the way
• Instill in your players a sense of self-worth that any given time they can be the most important player out there
• Motivation x purpose, autonomy, mastery
• Excellence is a process of evolution/cumulative learning/incremental improvement
• Marginal gains x 100 things performed 1% better creates a noticeable improvement
• High Performance Environment x select on character, understand your strategy for change, co-write a purpose, devolve leadership, encourage a learning environment, turn standards into action
• A strong dislike of not being good enough is healthy
• Muhammad Ali called himself the greatest before he was even close to being so and this repetition of reaffirmation leads to belief and once that belief becomes a deep conviction then good things start to happen
• A message that is not immediately rejected as a lie will have the same effect on the associative system regardless
• Even with the most unrealistic goals, the aversion to not reaching it is mush stronger then the desire to reach it - if you can conceive/believe then you can achieve, visualise to actualise and fake it until you make it
• Anchoring x supermarkets saying it was $20 but now $5 and the perception of a bargain
• Priming x the suggestion of something altering our behavior to the stimulus around us, a response to a story
• Practice with intensity to develop the mindset to win
• Decision making within training should be harder then the game
• By throwing in random problems to solve, there’s better long term learning
• If you’re not over-extending then there’s not much learning happening
• It’s not the physical but the psychological they have mastered x randomness/unpredictability/constant questioning combined with pace/physicality to stress the brain/test decision making capacity
• Control of Attention x red head (heated/overwhelmed/tense = poor decision making) v blue head (clarity/awareness/analysis = good decision making)
• Blue head means to remain on task allowing you to ACT x /alternatives (options/adapt/adjust/overcome) + consequences (risk/reward) + task behaviors (stay on task/execute tactical/strategy)
• Most have the will to win but not the will to prepare to win
• Focus on technique, then add intensity, then add pressure and then drop intensity and get back to technique to consolidate
• Pressure is expectation/scrutiny/consequence and when under pressure then your attention is diverted/overwhelmed (red) or on track/clear (blue)
• When diverted then instead of just doing the skill unconsciously, you start doing it consciously which is mechanical/disrupts your smoothness
• Where we direct our mind is where our thoughts will take us – thoughts create an emotion, emotion defines behavior, behavior defines performance – so if you can’t control attention/thoughts then you can’t manage emotions to enhance your performance
• You need to recognise when you’re red and have strategies to get back to blu
• Brain x instinct/thinking/emotion and under pressure thinking shuts down so you’re relying on instinct/emotion but they can’t pick up informational cues to make good decisions
• Mantras are a way to tell ourselves a story for effective thinking and can be a mental road map out of pressure
• Controlling outr attention is about getting back to the present – what is over what ifs x how can I manage my energy v what I run out of energy?
• Authenticity can be thought of as a bridge that is secure from foundations of personal skills/friends/family so if all you’ve got is that your an All Black then you’ll come unstuck pretty quickly
• Leaders who fail do so from a lack of a strong identity/self belief/self respect and when they disrespect other, it’s usually starting with themselves
• Delivering Feedback x in the belly, not in the back
• You must be able to say to another player and just being a matter of fact, not pass personal judgement, that you need to do this to help me out with my job or what can I do that helps you do your job?
• Integrity x our thoughts/words/deeds are as 1, an alignment of our values/purpose/beliefs/behaviors all flowing in 1 direction
• Integrity is a central leadership tool where everyone does what they say they’ll do which builds clarity/productivity/certainty/momentum
• The more slippage there is, the less that gets done
• If you’re not early for a meeting then you’re late
• Authenticity is the alignment of head/mouth/heart/feet
• There are no crowds lining the extra mile, you’re on your own and the challenge you’ve set yourself
• Begin at the end at your own funeral – who would be there? What would they be saying? What would our life have meant to them? Did they cry?
• If we’re going to lead a life and going to lead anything then we should know where we’re going and why
• Leaders are storytellers and all great organisations come from a compelling story and this central thought helps people understand what they stand for and why
• Stories help us understand who we are, what we want, what we stand for/against and why we do things
• Values cannot be adopted at a conscious level – they are something that we are, but they can be captured into a living document that makes a difference
• Words start revolutions
• Successful cultures are organic/adaptable, they change/flow yet always maintain their foundational values
• Establish a vocabulary/mindset/attitude that builds a common language
• Mottos/mantras go straight to the heart of the belief system, becoming shorthand for standards/expected behavior
• Capture character in 1 sentence, change minds with a turn of phrase and distill essence into a few words
• Some would argue that metaphors are the basis of our understanding of life itself and all language is metaphor- they are where we recognise ourselves in stories and a way of attaching personal meaning to a more public narrative
• Based in strong resonant values, using a common language employing mantras/mottos/metaphors, storytelling helps leaders connect their people’s personal meaning to their vision of the future
• Creating a Change Story x story must be credible/relevant (authority/make rational sense), must be visual/visceral (appeals to all senses/must be felt), flexible/scaleable (easily told in any setting) and useful (turn vision into action/purpose into practice)
• Building trust, developing people and driving high performance behaviors is never-ending and rituals are the key to for reinforcing the emotional glue
• Rituals x reflect/remind/reinforce/reignite
• Rituals tell your story, involve your people, creates legacy, makes the intangible real
• Large or small, informal or formal, corporate or creative, personal or professional, conscious or unconscious, rituals create meaning with embedded deep values/purpose of the person/project
• By enacting a ritual we embody the belief system of our community/culture and acts as a psychological process – a transition from 1 state to another, taking us to a new place of being