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—— Exceptional success requires exceptional circumstances. Wayne Smith, former All Blacks assistant coach
—— Waiho mā te tangata e mihi. Let someone else praise your virtues.
SWEEP THE SHEDS Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done
Successful leaders balance pride with humility: absolute pride in performance; total humility before the magnitude of the task.
The challenge is to always improve, to always get better, even when you are the best. Especially when you are the best.
A collection of talented individuals without personal discipline will ultimately and inevitably fail. Character triumphs over talent.
‘Winning takes talent,’ John Wooden would say. ‘To repeat it takes character.’
Collective character is vital to success. Focus on getting the culture right; the results will follow.
Waiho kia pātai ana, he kaha ui te kaha. Let the questioning continue; the ability of the person is in asking questions.
Humility does not mean weakness, but its opposite. Leaders with mana understand the strength of humility. It allows them to connect with their deepest values and the wider world.
St Augustine said it best: ‘Lay first the foundation of humility . . . The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.’
Sweep the Sheds Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done. —— Kāore te kūmara e whāki ana tana reka. The kūmara (sweet potato) does not need to say how sweet he is.
Four Stages for Organizational Change: ° A Case for Change; ° A Compelling Picture of the Future; ° A Sustained Capability to Change; ° A Credible Plan to Execute.
The role of the leader is to know when to reinvent, and how to do it.
When you’re on top of your game, change your game.
When poked at with a stick, the tuatara will emerge. (A problem is solved by continuing to find solutions.)
He rangi tā Matawhāiti, he rangi tā Matawhānui. The person with a narrow vision sees a narrow horizon, the person with a wide vision sees a wide horizon.
Shakespeare’s Henry V: ‘for he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother’.
‘What man actually needs,’ argues Frankl, ‘is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.’ ‘Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself,’ he writes. ‘The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is, and the more he actualizes himself.’
‘Reason leads to conclusions,’ Canadian neurologist Donald Calne says, ‘Emotion leads to action.’ If
Leaders create leaders by passing on responsibility, creating ownership, accountability and trust.
The mission command model requires the leader to provide: 1. A clearly defined goal 2. The resources 3. The time-frame
In Drive, Daniel Pink lists the three factors that he believes creates motivation in a human being: mastery, autonomy and purpose.
Excellence is a process of evolution, of cumulative learning, of incremental improvement.
‘Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence,’ wrote Tom Peters in Thriving on Chaos, ‘only in constant improvement and constant change.’
‘Races are won by a fraction of a second,’ wrote John Wooden. ‘National Championship games by a single point. That fraction of a second or a single point is the result of relevant details performed along the way.’
Marginal gains: 100 things done 1 per cent better to deliver cumulative competitive advantage.
‘It’s not the mountains ahead that wear you out,’ said Muhammad Ali, ‘it’s the pebble in your shoe.’
‘What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments,’ to paraphrase the Greek statesman Pericles, ‘but what is woven into the lives of others.’ Your legacy is that which you teach.
Te tīmatanga o te mātauranga ko te wahangū, te wāhanga tuarua ko te whakarongo. The first stage of learning is silence, the second stage is listening.
‘A great player can only do so much on his own,’ said Jackson in his book Sacred Hoops. ‘No matter how breathtaking his one-on-one moves, if he is out of sync psychologically with everyone else, the team will never achieve the harmony needed to win a championship.’
For the Strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
The being of team begins from inside. High standards must come from within. Leadership works best when your team takes the lead.
An old Arab proverb says: —— It’s better to have a thousand enemies outside the tent than one inside the tent.
He iti wai kōwhao waka e tahuri te waka. A little water seeping through a small hole may swamp a canoe.
Whāia te iti kahurangi; ki te tuohu koe, me he maunga teitei. Aim for the highest cloud, so that if you miss it, you will hit a lofty mountain.
We make poor decisions. And we choke. In Gazing parlance, we are H.O.T. ° Heated ° Overwhelmed ° Tense They call this ‘Red Head’.
To have a Blue Head means to remain on task, rather than diverted, and Gazing’s parlance allows us to ACT: A. Alternatives: to look at our options, adapt, adjust and overcome C. Consequences: to understand the risk/reward ratio of each alternative and to make an accurate assessment of what is needed T. Task Behaviours: To stay on task and execute the tactics and strategy
‘Pressure is a privilege,’ says Gilbert Enoka – it means you’re playing to the highest level.
Bad decisions are not made through a lack of skill or innate judgement: they are made because of an inability to handle pressure at the pivotal moment.
It’s what tennis coach Nick Bollettieri calls the ‘centipede effect’. If a centipede had to think about moving all its legs in the right order, it would freeze, the task too complex and daunting. The same is true of humans.
Mā te rongo, ka mōhio; Mā te mōhio, ka mārama; Mā te mārama, ka mātau; Mā te mātau, ka ora. From listening comes knowledge; From knowledge comes understanding; From understanding comes wisdom; From wisdom comes well-being.
‘To know how to win,’ goes the saying, ‘you first have to know how to lose.’ For the All Blacks, to know how to lose, you first have to know who you are.
There’s an old story about J. P. Morgan, the banker and philanthropist, who was shown an envelope containing a ‘guaranteed formula for success’. He agreed that if he liked the advice written inside he would pay $25,000 for its contents. Morgan opened the envelope, nodded, and paid. The advice? 1. Every morning write a list of the things that need to be done that day. 2. Do them. Honesty = Integrity = Authenticity = Resilience = Performance
‘There are no crowds lining the extra mile.’
As the Italian proverb says, ‘At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box’.
As Kevin Roberts says, ‘Revolutions start with language.’
First we shape our values; then our values shape us.
Why Join the Navy when you can be a Pirate?
Ductus Exemplo – Lead by Example
