Alexx Zarr is one of Biznews.com’s more prolific bloggers with the rare ability to pull together disparate events into something we can learn relate to, can learn from. He has another winner here. Inspired by sport, specifically rugby, he compares the Number One team with the rest and concludes that we can all apply these principles. Planning, logic, calm assessment. His piece jogged my memory of the recent test between the Springboks and the All Blacks at Ellis Park. The Green team was full of fire, passion, “doing it for Madiba” and willed to win by 65 000 fans. The team in Black was calm, unemotional, clinical. We know who won. Who always tends to win such contests. On the sports field, in business, in life. – AH
By Alexx Zarr*
I am always keen to understand what it is that separates the winners from the others, particularly #2 and #3. In so many endeavours, it is milliseconds, or millimetres, or grams, or a few dollars (or a few milligrams of Erythropoietin – EPO!). Of particular interest are those who endure at the top of the podium, rather than the once-off winners. Sustained excellence has different ingredients than simply having a good day with a bit of fortune thrown in.
It is not a world sport, by a long ways. There are only eight or ten first tier competitors, then maybe the same number in tier two and same at tier three. The rest are off the radar. The International Rugby Board (IRB) lists 101 countries in their men’s ranking. But, I bet most hardened rugby union followers do not know that Finland and Monaco have national rugby teams.
Compare this to football (or is it soccer?), that has 210 ranked countries for men and 179 for women. For the life of me, I could not find a ranking for women’s rugby, although it is played under the IRB umbrella. Perhaps its conspicuous absence is another measure of its stature.
Due to definitional variances, there are 196 countries in the world, so football is doing splendidly. (Note. There are over sixty Territories, Colonies, and Dependencies of independent countries, which is the prime reason for the count to differ. For example, Guam, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands are on the FIFA rankings, but are not independent countries.)
If we use the metric of player numbers, it is pretty much the same result. FIFA reckons there are about 260 million people who play football and the IRB estimates between four and five million rugby players. Different sources indicate that the Rugby World Cup is the third or fourth largest sporting event, after the football version, the Olympics and the Tour de France.
Football players get paid about eight times more than the highest paid rugby icons – in the range of R480 million versus R63 million.
Whatever metric ones uses, rugby is somewhat behind football as a world sport or a money-making machine. Nonetheless, rugby is a major sport and business.
Arguably, the giant feature of international rugby is the New Zealand (NZ) team, the All Blacks (AB). Every other team seeks to be as good as they are. They seem always to be ahead of the innovation and excellence curves, while others are trying to catch up. Not only have they won the World Cup twice, they are almost permanently the number one ranked team, by a long margin. Since the performance rankings were introduced on 8 September 2003, the ABs have held the #1 rank for 80%. They ended 2013 with 93.81 points, followed by South Africa (89.34) and Australia (86.88). If the points were linear, then the ABs are almost double the points better than South Africa is of Australia. That is a wide margin.
The history of results between South Africa versus New Zealand is not a pretty sight. SA has won almost 63% of all games; NZ, a shade less than 76%. These two countries have played against each other 87 times; South Africa has won 39%, NZ 57%. That is a massive difference, a 46% gap. This number means that on average, the ABs have an almost 60% chance of beating the Springboks.
With the above as a background, let me turn to what I observed in a video clip of a Springbok change room. The game – South Africa vs. British and Irish Lions. The second test; half time.
The Springboks were down 10 points to nil after eight minutes. On 12 minutes, they score an unconverted try. The teams head for the half-time change rooms with the score at 8 – 16. The Springboks had played like one-legged somnambulists for 40 minutes.
But wow, did they wake up in the change room. Everyone is animated. The captain exhorts his charges. The vice-captain interjects. A senior backline player makes a speech. The coach squeaks amidst the babble. I hear another voice; I think it belongs to an assistant coach type.
They are all there, coaches, captain and his lieutenants, water carriers. However, no one is there too.
It is clear to me they have identified they are in a pickle from the numbers on the scoreboard. What is also clear from the lack of order and structure, the absence of standard operating procedures, their panic, and the content of multiple monologues, is that they don’t have a clue about why they are in deep trouble, and importantly, what to do about it.
I hear no identification of why they are eleven points down and playing poorly. There is no assessment of the game plan, if there was one. There are no insights into what the Lions are doing to place them in a winning place. There is lots of ‘doing it for the country’, ‘for each other’, ‘not regretting,’ and so forth. I ask, what is it that they are going to do for country, each other, and so forth?
While there were many voices, none took leadership. There were people with formal positions, but that is all.
The Springboks went on to win a game that looked lost, so the answer may be that the half-time babble worked. My view is that despite the chaos, they won. I sense that if we had a peek into the ABs change room, in any game, but especially when they have a deficit on the scoreboard, we would find a very different dynamic.
No theatrics. No babbling. Order, structure, solution development, clarification of the game plan, belief in the system. The All Blacks are beyond exhortations to flag, king and country. This is a hygiene factor. That is why they win, with bigger margins and so often manage to pluck victory from apparent defeat. The Boks should not have been in such a predicament, but finding themselves there, if they had done what the ABs probably do, they would have had a 76% chance of winning.
The difference between #1 and #2 can be what happens in half-time change room situations. It is about doing all the little things well that make the sum perfect. The principle applies to business, public service delivery and any other endeavour.
* Alexx lives in and works from Centurion.  He has degrees in economics, politics and strategic studies.  In the recent past he has been managing director of a mutual fund company, a pseudo banker managing wealth and transactional products and currently runs a specialist research and consulting entity.  Before that he did a stint at National Treasury and at a Constitutional entity, managing its research division. He has travelled extensively, studied offshore and done a stint of work for the IMF.  More than most things he loves to mountain bike, let his dogs walk him and write – just write.
