It has been interesting following the trials and tribulations of the All Blacks recently with several losses that have hurt the team and no doubt the rugby public. It can’t have been a lot of fun being the captain or the coach or indeed any of the players. I think it is unfair to say that because they had won for so long, they became complacent, but you could argue that sums up the average All Blacks follower. There are some obvious parallels between elite sports and the business world, with one of the lessons to draw upon for businesses being, that we must keep reinventing ourselves in business to remain relevant and competitive.
Recently at Sales Syndicate we had Vincent Vuillard join us to speak to the groups, on keeping pace in a fast-changing technology driven world. He began by sharing the story of Team NZ winning in Bermuda. The journey had begun 4 years earlier, following the heart-breaking loss in San Francisco to Oracle, who turned around a seemingly hopeless campaign to win 8 races in a row for a 9-8 cup winning performance. This was a humbling experience for Team NZ, and one which any team would struggle to come back from. They did however win the next event in Bermuda when they turned up with cyclists instead of grinders. That took immense courage as they could have looked like absolute fools if it didn’t go well. More importantly this wildly successful team 4 years later decided to throw that piece of ingenuity out of the window, proposing a completely different strategy to go on to win again 4 years later. A key message here for me is that if we sit still and remain unchanged for too long, we will be surpassed.
There is however another critical element involved when looking at the journey both teams undertook to achieve success again – reflection. After competing unsuccessfully, rather than simply commiserating and accepting loss, both teams worked through a robust process of reflection, review, and analysis.
I think it is important to remember that we are typically in 4 modes of business:
- BAU mode - we are travelling along well but we know we can’t get complacent
- Self-reflection mode - our instincts are telling us that it is time to take stock and ask some hard questions of ourselves
- Innovation mode – a process of changing how the business, its people and technology operate
- Crises mode - i.e. the AB’s 2 weeks ago & something drastic was needed to turn around the fortunes & quickly
The key to success is to recognise the modes, learn to identify the signs associated with each, make regular assessments, know where you are ‘at’ in any given time, be deliberate about when it is time to switch up the mode/gear
If we use Team NZ as a case study we can easily highlight the modes that they are in. They were in crises mode over their loss in San Francisco, they reflected, they innovated by moving to cyclists (among other areas) but pretty quickly went about their business as usual by winning races.
Which mode are you in right now?
Whichever mode you are in right now, know that you can’t stay there too long – you are either going forwards or going backwards. There is no middle ground.
