Tommy Freeman of England scored England's fourth try in a thrilling game against France … [+]
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If productivity in UK workplaces is not as high as it could have been today, it might be wise not to assume this is due to the Monday blues. Instead, employees may simply have been exhausted from a wonderful weekend of sports.
Yesterday, Manchester United defeated their arch-rivals Liverpool in a thrilling FA Cup match that even the former's most loyal fan would not have expected them to win due to the alleged differences in quality between the two clubs. The passion and drive shown by some of the young players in a United team destined for another unremarkable season was extraordinary and rendered such comparisons moot. Now that they have shown what their under-pressure manager Erik ten Hag called their “strong belief”, the big question will be whether they can maintain that belief. But for now, they can rejoice in the fact that they implemented a bold plan and restored hope – the most important asset in the workplace or on the sports field.
Meanwhile, Saturday was all about the final day of the Six Nations Rugby Union Championship. Although it rarely features the best teams in the world (you usually have to travel to the southern hemisphere to see them), this annual competition between England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy is always full of surprises – and Although the pre-tournament favorites ultimately prevailed, their path to the title didn't go entirely smoothly. Not least because they were derailed last weekend by an English team who, like Manchester United, had been given little chance of winning and who, despite taking advantage of a favorable draw at the World Cup last autumn, finished third took place – fell short of expectations at some point. To be fair to Ireland, they could not have imagined this achievement. So how did it happen?
Oddly, it seems to have its origins in a flawed defeat against Scotland. In such circumstances it would have been understandable for the England coaching staff to have responded to the team's apparent inability to play attacking rugby with a more limited, safety-focused policy and attempted to contain an Irish team that seemed unstoppable. Instead, they gave themselves and the players the courage to put aside their mistakes and perform as the coaches believed they could.
That they did it is what makes the sport so compelling – and also so instructive for other aspects of our lives, especially business. As Bob Skinstad, a former captain of the South African Springboks national rugby team and now a partner at management consultancy Elixirr, says, the business lessons from sport are not the obvious ones that can be gleaned from rousing speeches and leadership from the front lines. There are much more nuanced messages about teamwork, accountability and responsibility, especially when things go wrong. He points out that the relationships between sports teams and their fans are similar to those between a company and its investors.
It is not clear whether England head coach Steve Borthwick sees things that way. But some of the things he and Jamie George, who took over as captain following Owen Farrell's decision to retire from international rugby, have done in recent weeks suggest a similar mindset. George led his players through the crowd at one of the home games in a clear attempt to reconnect with the fans, while Borthwick welcomed fans who not so long ago were far from connected to the team. described as “great”.
But the real difference that Borthwick and his coaching staff appear to have made after a slow start is a focus on progress and learning from mistakes – again, things that are important to the business. Professional athletes often talk about fine margins. So, yes, there were a lot of mistakes in the Scotland game, but they came from trying new things. Another week on the training ground and the victorious performance against Ireland were the result. Just how good these margins can be was shown at the weekend when England couldn't quite keep up against a French side who also had a lot to prove. Just as sports teams are rarely as brilliant as their admirers claim when they win, and often not as bad as they seem when they lose, companies need to understand that perceptions of them need not endure. If they put in the effort and work hard on the right things, they can go from high achievers to high achievers.
How they do this is crucial. Companies are increasingly talking about values, mission statements, purpose and the like. But these things are worthless if they are just words and not principles to live by. This is another area where sports teams can teach business a thing or two. In the best teams every player knows their role – in rugby this is more obvious than in some other sports due to the diversity of body types involved, but the idea applies across the board. And on the best teams, every player – even or especially the stars – knows that they are not bigger than the team. Skinstad provides an example of this when he talks about the policy introduced by the South African players, which was that if you couldn't train on Monday you couldn't play the following weekend. When coaches tried to change the rule to allow key players to return from injury, the players themselves rejected the suggestion – citing the need to maintain team unity, he says. This showed that the principle was now ubiquitous. Compare that to the companies that continue to promote people who make a lot of money but don't live the values that their employers claim to represent.
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