As the end of a mixed year for Welsh rugby comes close, former Sport Wales chief executive Huw Jones argues Welsh rugby’s culture and internal workings still need to change if success is to be achieved in 2017.
Following the summer tour to New Zealand, my old friend Gareth Davies was asked what he’d learned from the trip. The headline in WalesOnline read ‘Everyone has a pop at everybody else… WRU boss Gareth Davies slams lack of alignment in Welsh rugby’. Putting aside the emotive headline, his response was very illuminating:
“The one big word I take out of what New Zealand do well having sat down for talks with their Chief Executive, Chairman and performance guys is alignment. Everybody knows exactly where they fit into the equation and I think we have to set out to do that” he said to the BBC. He went on to say “We need to get everybody on the same page talking together…we’re putting a plan in place”.
In other words, the culture of Welsh rugby needs to change if we are to be a highly successful sport. But, of course, the big question is what does this look like and what needs changing? What makes New Zealand Rugby a high performing sport backed by a high performing organisation?
It’s apt that we were then immersed in the Rio Olympic Games where we saw numerous sports that have developed a culture which delivers success. Yes, lottery funding has enabled athletes to train full-time and coaches to be employed but that’s also the case in other countries. What culture exists top to bottom which makes them successful?
When I was Chief Executive of Sport Wales we identified five elements of a high performing organisation (see A Vision for Sport in Wales). These don’t just apply to sports bodies but also businesses generally:
- Setting unreasonable ambitions. To quote Captain Cook, ‘I had ambition not only to go further than any man had ever been before but to go as far as it was possible for a man to go’. The best organisations and elite performers have vision beyond most people’s expectations. They don’t want to win one championship or gold medal they want to ensure they can do it over and over.
- Developing strategies, informed by performance insights to deliver this vision. There is little point have ambition and vision if you don’t know how you’re going to achieve your goals. British Cycling and the RFU, to name but two, adopted the principle of the ‘aggregation of marginal gains’. In other words, if we get lots of small things right they’ll add up to significant improvement.
- Distributed leadership, where there are clear roles and responsibilities set out for all involved in delivering the vision and people are accountable for their contribution. Everyone needs to know where they fit in and what is expected of them. Delegating responsibility and explaining what is expected of them but not telling them how to do it; let them decide and then be pleasantly surprised that they can do a good job. Every member of the team is crucial because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
- High quality feedback to enable improvement to take place continuously. No, this isn’t about sending out a questionnaire asking people what they think and then ignoring the bits you don’t like! It’s about a desire to continuously get things right both internally and with partners. ‘That’s not important’ is not an acceptable excuse if people feel it’s affecting them.
- Working as One. If you get some people undermining the vision then the system won’t work. People need to believe in what they are doing.
Underpinning the above, all high performing organisations have a culture of ‘High Challenge, High Support’. In other words, challenging people to achieve and deliver but giving them the best possible support through advice, guidance, mentoring, training and encouragement all the time.
These five principles are what I believe Gareth Davies’s ‘alignment’ means in reality. Of course, the easy bit is stating them; the difficult bit is delivering them. And the reason it’s difficult is because people create cultures. It’s not created by systems, structures and procedures. People are our greatest strength but they can also be our biggest weakness. So fundamentally decisions have to be made about how we want to work with others and how we should behave.
I grew up in a hierarchical culture. My father told me what to do and what not to do; teachers did the same; my first manager operated this way and when I became a manager I copied them all. In the words of the Faces in their great song Ooh La La, ‘I wished I knew what I know now when I was younger’. I might not have made the mistakes I did in my early days as a Chief Executive.
The average employee can deliver more than most people believe and more importantly want to deliver more. As General George Patton said ‘Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results’. This leads to the most crucial reason why most organisations fail to become high performing and it’s obvious – a lack of trust and confidence; either internally or in its relationship with others. Does this sound familiar? Yes, it has bedevilled the WRU, and Welsh rugby generally and they are not unique in this regard. A hierarchical culture, with none of the 5 principles set out above in place. Some part of the rugby pathway was bound to fail and that’s not acceptable. Sometimes it will be clubs, other times it will be pro-teams other times the national team or God forbid, all three at the same time. Remember the pathway is a chain determined by its weakest link.
‘Ah’ I hear you say but how do we develop trust and confidence if that’s the starting point. Well, when you want to change you can’t tell anybody that’s what you’re going to do as an organisation. Just imagine Gareth Davies or Martyn Phillips standing up and saying ‘we’re going to develop trust and confidence’! Every person in Welsh rugby would be saying ‘so go on them, we’re watching’. It would be doomed to failure.
There is only one way to develop trust and confidence and that’s through your own behaviour. How you engage with others is crucial as is delivering what you’re say you’re going to do. It results in respect and from what I can see that’s beginning to happen with both Gareth and Martyn. But how do you get everyone else to have trust and confidence in each other?
I once attended a seminar where Harvard Fellow Shaun Achor was speaking. He gave a fascinating lecture on how difficult it is to change your own behaviour. I asked him how you can change the behaviour of others. He was clear, you can’t. They have to want to change and the only way they will do this is by copying your behaviour.
In the above quote to the BBC, Gareth said they were now developing a plan. How they go about this is actually more important than what is in it. The key will be how they engage with others. As Tom Peters the management guru once said:
‘Everyone in an organisation should be involved in the strategic planning process. All thoughts should be collated and priorities and objectives decided. And the day before the plan is due to be published it should be ceremoniously burned!’
The best organisations are now learning that ‘how’ you do things is just as important, if not more so, than ‘what’ you are doing.
So now you can see the challenge that Gareth and Martyn face in creating a high performing organisation and a culture of success in Welsh rugby. They want to change Welsh rugby but they can’t tell everyone they must change. This is why we all have responsibility for our own behaviour and the way we respond or react.
Currently, people are too quick to blame and look for fault. What each of us should be doing is asking ‘how can I help’ and ‘what do I need to do to improve’? Because if we are not part of the solution then we are part of the problem.
I will leave you with one of my favourite quotes from Leo Tolstoy:
‘Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself’
Think about that and think about what positive contribution you can make to Welsh rugby.
This article first appeared on the website of Llanishen RFC.
Huw Jones was Chief Executive of Sport Wales (previously the Sports Council for Wales) for over 15 years. During this period the organisation was named in the Sunday Times Top 100 Places to Work in the UK (Public/Voluntary Sector). He led the organisation through a high performance change process resulting in the Vision for Sport in Wales. He retired in 2013 and is now a volunteer in sport as well as a season ticket member at Cardiff Blues.