1. The NZRU’s planning was thorough and professional

2. Winning the World Cup was however over-emphasized

3. The team was underdone due to the conditioning programme, weak warm up opposition and weak pool opposition

4. The management team of 19 was too large

5. The on-field leadership model failed at critical moments

6. The referee and touch judges had a ‘significant adverse affect’ on the outcome of the game

I find it interesting the report the commissioners Don Tricker and Mike Heron produced outlines little more than a few of the differences between this campaign and previous campaigns, but because the AB’s recorded their earliest exit since the tournament began, they have presumed these differences to be the ‘cause’ of the failure.

The only thing the report sheds any meaningful light on in my opinion is the fact the authors appointed have insufficient knowledge of the principles that govern human performance to conduct a comprehensive review.

As I suggested would be the case (Issue 1, October 2007), this report has failed to provide any meaningful insight as to what really went wrong inside the All Blacks outside the realm of common sense and so, for the sake of continuing the conversation, I have provided an alternative synopsis of each of the above mentioned points.

Alternative ‘Craig Steel’ synopsis

1. Whilst the planning may have been ‘professional’ it certainly wasn’t thorough otherwise the AB’s would have at least made the final. My reason for this comment is based on the fact that the AB’s were the best rugby team in the world for the three years leading up to the World Cup (hence the reason they were favourites to win).
2. The only reason to suggest winning the World Cup was ‘over-emphasized’ was because they didn’t win it. The reason they didn’t win was because they didn’t cope with the so called pressure and as a result, capitulated mentally (i.e. they were unable to access their considerable and recognised physical capability/potential).
3. To say the team was ‘underdone’ due to the conditioning programme and build up is in my opinion misleading however it is the closest the commission gets to providing an accurate answer. The AB’s did not fail due to a lack of physical preparation. They failed because they were incapable of creating an appropriate mind-set (as was evident in all of their pool games and indeed the entire campaign). The reason this critical ‘insight’ has been left out may be for the following reasons 1) they do not understand nor appreciate its significance and/or 2) because the experts tasked with the responsibility of teaching the All Blacks ‘how to think’ in order to win failed to deliver what was required of them yet again.
4. To say the management team was too large is an automatic response to the recorded failure. If members of the management team either doubled up, created uncertainty or confusion amongst the team fair enough, however they must have had sufficient understanding regarding their specific roles prior to departure otherwise they wouldn’t have been included or, at the very least, one would imagine concern would have been raised and yet all players (virtually without question) said the campaign (build up) was, in their opinion, exceptional hence the reason they couldn’t understand what went wrong (it is possible the size of the management team added to the so-called pressure). Whilst 19 managers may seem on the face of it to be an over supply, I would like to think AB management had sufficient reason to justify their inclusion and proceed with it.
5. The on-field leadership did not fail at critical moments (during this particular game). It was lacking from the outset i.e. evident from the moment the AB’s arrived in France.
6. It is fair to suggest the referees did not have their best game however the AB’s lost because of the way they played, not because they were consistently, deliberately or wrongly denied.

In my opinion the failure was not caused by the above mentioned points. The reason the All Blacks failed was because of their complete inability to create the necessary mind-set required to win the tournament (interestingly enough, it is the exact same ‘issue’ that derailed their three previous campaigns but not surprisingly, because of the way the reviews were conducted, the vital lessons that needed to be learned were not).

We only need look at the All Blacks’ performance over the 24 to 36 months leading into the campaign to highlight this point. During this time they were virtually unbeatable. Their skill sets and physical capability didn’t suddenly disappear when they arrived in France, they were simply unable to create the right mental state required to use them.

Needless to say, I believe the team was well prepared for the tournament physically. I accept the conditioning programme proved to be extremely costly but not in terms of the impact it had on their chances of winning the World Cup, but rather because of the impact it had on the Super 14 and 2007 rugby season in general.

This being the case, why are we not hearing more about the mental side of things? I believe it is because those commissioned with the responsibility of assisting (and incidentally, those who would otherwise be considered qualified to make comment on this matter) must be either too embarrassed to admit they failed again or they remain at a loss as to understand why they failed again.

It may be worth explaining two key factors which I believe need to be considered in order to make sense of this debate; 1) athletes cannot ‘outperform’ their mental state and 2) most coaches, sport psychologists and technical advisors continue to make the mistake of assuming that if athletes ‘appear’ happy and/or confident, everything must be in order and yet, as the campaign results illustrate, it shows how inaccurate this assumption is.

The criteria most professional coaches use to justify psychological intervention (as outlined above) is completely inadequate and yet it is still in use today. The only criteria that should be considered is how efficiently and consistently athletes can access their potential.

There has also been speculation the All Blacks appeared ‘complacent’. It is important people realise their apparent response (complacency) didn’t provide any accurate indication as to the level of their commitment. The All Blacks wanted to win, they desperately wanted to win. However, the reason they couldn’t up the anti when they needed to was because they were severely hindered (psychologically immobilised) by what by then had become a deeply seated fear based state. This is the reason why they didn’t, or more importantly, why they couldn’t use the many opportunities available to them during the course of the game to reset their state and therefore alter their approach or game plan (I suspect this is what the commissioners meant by the term ‘leadership failed at critical moments’).

The questions we need to ask are; did they not do this (reset their state) because they were not aware the ‘cause’ of their lackluster performance was psychological or was it because they knew it was psychological but they had no idea how to correct it? It would be interesting to know if the commissioners asked such questions.

There has also been plenty of discussion regarding the ‘pressure’ the All Blacks were under and that it played a significant part in their demise. It is important we understand any pressure athletes ‘feel’ is self induced. Pressure is not caused by (and is never caused by) external influences. It is an internal state caused by a person’s (team’s) fears about their ability/inability to perform. People only ever experience pressure when they know there are high expectations regarding a particular result i.e. they know people expect them to perform, they believe they should perform, but if they are fearful they may not be able to perform, they naturally experience pressure. Pressure, as experienced by the All Blacks, is caused by an inappropriate ‘fear based state’ but must be supported by the misinterpretation of expectation in order to be sustained (experienced) i.e. if athletes fail to use public expectation as confirmation of their capability and therefore additional leverage to excel, they will almost certainly experience pressure. In other words, people and/or teams do not experience pressure if no one expects them to perform. As we all know, most New Zealanders, and indeed most of the rugby world, believed the All Blacks had the potential to win and the players themselves knew this. This provided the necessary disposition required to create (experience) pressure.

At the risk of repeating myself, I believe the reason the All Blacks didn’t perform (win) was not because they lacked physical capability or suddenly ‘lost’ their ability (potential) to perform. It was because their state of mind was completely inappropriate for the task in hand (i.e. their state of mind proved to be nothing more than hopeful, wishful thinking. As I mentioned in Issue 1 – this was a case of blind optimism at its best).

Firstly, what is performance capability? Performance Capability is the term I use to explain a person and/or team’s current ‘capacity’ to perform. As such, the term ‘building performance capability’ simply means increasing/improving an individual and/or team’s ability (capacity) to perform.

To ensure we give this topic the commercial consideration it requires, we need to go back to basics. As we all know, profitability is primarily a by-product of productivity and productivity is governed by performance (i.e. the quality and appropriateness of a person and/or team’s actions). The better people perform, the more productive they will be meaning the organisations they work for will have a greater chance of becoming or remaining profitable.

The only way organisations will remain profitable in the future (given the rate of increasing international competition in the market place) is by continually improving their productivity (output). The way companies generally think about improving productivity is to:

1. Provide their people (workforce) with better, more advanced tools (technology) to help them produce more with the same degree of effort and in the same amount of time
2. Ask their workforce to work longer hours (i.e. based on the theory that more man hours worked will produce more output/product) and/or
3. Hope their people work harder (better/smarter) when they are at work.

It is interesting to note experts believe virtually all productivity gains achieved in the past 100 years can be directly attributed to technological advancements alone. Whilst technology will remain critical to growth, companies need to figure out how they can improve their productivity from their existing model. This of course necessitates companies asking themselves the question - how can we encourage/enable our people to produce more (increase their productivity/output) without increasing their working hours or upgrading the tools (technology) they are using?

Whilst it may on the face of it appear to be an easy question to ask, research shows it is proving infinitely harder to resolve. In fact, New Zealand’s productivity performance over the past twenty or so years has fallen so markedly compared with other OECD nations that we are, in David Skilling’s words, ‘poised to take on Antarctica’.

To give you an example David, who was until recently the head of the NZ Institute, recently released figures showing NZ’s productivity (output per man hour worked) was just under 80 units compared to the OECD average of 100, and yet the hours we worked to produce that output was 110 units against the OECD average of 100.

What this means is we New Zealanders are working longer hours than virtually any other OECD nation and yet our output per man hour worked is considerably less than virtually every other OECD nation. To put this into context, David says France produces around 145 units (remember NZ produces just 80) per man hour worked but because of their high levels of productivity, they only work on average 75 units a week compared to our 110.

Needless to say, this is a very serious issue and one we as New Zealanders must resolve if we are to remain competitive on the international stage. So getting back to the purpose of this discussion, how can we improve the productivity of our workforce?

All commercially focused managers know the obvious answer to this question is to increase/improve the ‘performance capability’ of their workforce. However, this naturally leads us into what is proving to be a perplexing and debilitating debate amongst management teams the world over. The reason for this is because the issues companies need to address is whether their particular performance ‘issues’ are caused by a lack of available skills or whether they are more to do with workforce (personal) attitudes and behaviours.

To examine this further let’s consider the following; if a person in your organisation isn’t performing the way you would like them to (i.e. delivering what is required of them), is it because they don’t have the necessary skills to complete the particular task or is it because they have the skills but for what ever reason they are not using them (i.e. they don’t care enough to do their job professionally or perform the task correctly)?

I have come to the conclusion most business leaders believe the majority of the performance issues they face that are inhibiting their growth and profitability are of an attitudinal nature rather than core skill deficiencies.

If and when we need to respond to a performance issue we must, if we are to ‘add value’ as a business leader, ask ourselves the above question i.e. is this a skill issue or is it a performance issue? If we do not ask ourselves this question, we will never place ourselves in a position where we can address or resolve the problem.

If the issue proves to be skills related, you need to ‘up-skill’ the individual concerned. This is why ‘skills based training’ needs to be managed (considered/implemented) on an ‘individual as and when needed basis’ unless new technology is rolled out across a team/department in which case group training is best.

If however the issue proves to be attitudinal, what then? Firstly, you need to ensure your have a robust and meaningful mechanism to engage and align your team (refer Issue 3, February 2008 for further information or refer to our Strategic Performance Template on our website). Secondly, you need to establish a mandate (and implement the supporting process/framework) that gives managers, supervisors and team leaders the ability to challenge people’s performance.

It is important your managers understand the ‘mandate’ they require to challenge people doesn’t come with the territory. It is not an automatic or propitious right that is given to them as a superior and yet this assumption is, in my opinion, one of the fundamental reasons as to why so many seemingly competent managers fail to become effective leaders.

Improving the performance capability of a team is without question, one of the primary responsibilities of leadership. Unfortunately however most leadership teams are unsuccessful in this area and as a result, end up blaming their people (and their respective attitudes and behaviours) for their lack of growth or achievement.

To improve workforce performance, we must improve leadership performance. I believe it is wise to consider your ‘current’ workforce performance (productivity) to be the best indicator of your organisations leadership (management) performance. The reason for this is because the way your manager’s communicate, interact and perform (act and behave) sets the standards and approach your employees will inevitably follow and almost certainly adopt.

You may recall me asking the question in the March 2008 issue of Performance Talk, ‘do you believe your workforce is the key to your organisations success, or are they a resource you simply have to have?’

I suggest you ask your management or leadership team this very question in the context of ‘building performance capability’ to find out how committed they are to this particular aspect of their role and therefore gain greater insight as to how successful you/they are likely to be if you decide to pursue it.

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