What we can learn from watching the Black Caps
I was all lined up to write something more on feedback after my post the other week about the mud run that is leadership. But I’m a cricket tragic. A few late nights culminating in a victory and maybe a tear or two splashing into my 6am coffee as we brought it home last week makes me think the occasion can’t go by unacknowledged. If you don’t love cricket, you don’t have to read, but I reckon there’s a lesson or two for us in what the Black Caps have achieved in building teams for success.
I’ve been drawn to cricket since I was a young kid and for those of you who have no interest in this head-scratcher of a sport, it’s been a long journey as a fan, with our team spending more times in the mud than leaping the obstacles. When we’ve had success, New Zealand cricket teams have always been talked about in that most condescending of ways we often hear about New Zealand in general – we do well for a country of such a small size and limited resources. I had a reaction to that while I was driving home with my son a few days ago. Yet again, we were hearing on radio how under-resourced New Zealand had done so well against the almost limitless resources of the Indian cricket set up. It suggests that resources = success. Let’s be clear – New Zealand Cricket is not bereft of high calibre people and facilities to develop the game. They didn’t have to somehow find their way out of a shed on the back grounds of the local school, sleep sitting up in economy class and turn up with borrowed gear for the game. Resources are important, but we too often fool ourselves that success depends on having the biggest, newest, fanciest stuff. There’s a word I’d use for that, but it might not get past your email filters, so let’s just say I disagree.
Don’t get me wrong – I know that resources can make a difference to growth and performance. There’s no doubt that missing essentials like food, warmth, clothing, shelter and belonging means a person is far less likely to direct their energy to learning, taking on new challenges, or finding the reserves to keep going when things are tough. But, as Dan Pink’s work has demonstrated, once we take the issue of essentials out of the argument (for example, by making sure people earn what they need to cover those essentials), motivation to succeed is hugely influenced by the intrinsic stuff.
So what made the difference for the Black Caps, and what can we learn from it about leading our own teams? The stuff below is my take on what I’ve seen work as a keen follower of this team’s journey.
What do we want to be known for? To kick off NY celebrations in 2013, the NZ cricket team turned in one of its worst ever performances. All out for 45, the third lowest total in its history. The event was a turning point. It prompted a conversation amongst the leaders of that team that asked, “What do we want to be known for and, right now, what are we actually known for?” The answers weren’t pretty, including things like being widely regarded as whingers, finger pointing the blame, and trying to be something they weren’t. Admirably, this group sat with the problem and let it hurt for a while, then decided the team they wanted to be. In that period, they got very clear about what they wanted to be known for. Then they got to work on bringing it to life. If you want to have a crack at this yourself, here’s a piece I wrote earlier this year about it: What do you want to be known for this year?
Belonging: This is one of the clearest attributes of this team. Connection, care and clarity are the big 3 that teams need to pay attention to if they want to create belonging, and the work of this has to be done before you step into the arena. Members of this team often talk about their deeper relationships with each other beyond the game. That’s connection. They talk about the buzz of seeing others succeed, because that in turn helps them succeed. And about how they can turn to others in the team for help to become better players. That’s care. And they talk about knowing the role they are out there to do on the field, and knowing what they can expect of every other person in the team. That’s clarity. Having endless resources at your disposal doesn’t guarantee anything about a sense of belonging, but creating an environment where people are connected, care about each other’s success, and have clarity of expectation – that’s where belonging thrives.
Challenge: This team came from near the bottom of the heap in test cricket to last week’s world-beating result. To make that happen, everyone in the group needed to bring a growth mindset. A recognition that what got them their spot in the national team wasn’t going to get them to the top. The most experienced members of this team talk constantly about always learning more and developing their game. These are players with some of the best records in New Zealand’s history – they could point to their record as a way of proving they don’t need to be doing anything different. But they are hungry to learn, to stretch, to improve. And by saying out loud, to anyone who’ll listen, that they are always looking to learn and improve, they have set an environment where anyone new who comes into the team is expected to keep learning, stretching and improving.
Accountability: If there’s one thing that’s true about cricket, it’s that you’ll fail more often than you succeed. It’s what makes the successes so memorable (my best bowling day was 5 wickets in a game back in fourth form. I have no plans to stop reliving it at any point). So if you want to succeed, you better make a point of extracting as much as you can from the stuff that goes wrong. What goes wrong isn’t usually the result. The result is almost always right (I’m side-glancing at you, 2020 world cup final), because it’s the outcome of a whole bunch of controllable moments from both teams. Moments like bowling to a plan, fielding to a standard, and deploying a deliberate batting technique. This Black Caps team talked openly about the way they wanted to play, and were transparent about holding themselves to that standard. I’ve always been fascinated by their response to any result. Win or lose, the reaction was almost always the same – a focus on improving what’s in their control to in turn improve the likelihood the result will go their way next time. Getting that right takes open feedback, measuring the controllables, transparency about how each person is contributing, and the courage to have the conversation about what’s getting in the way when things aren’t going right.
Getting accountability right creates a virtuous cycle in your team: it reinforces belonging because it tells each person that their contribution matters and is having an impact – that they are a critical part of the team’s success. When belonging is strong, your people are more likely to step into challenge. They’ll look to learn, stretch and improve. And when they’re doing that, it’s accountability in the form of measurement, feedback, and honesty about what’s getting in the way that fuels your people to keep going.
None of this has anything to do with limitless resources. It’s got to do with creating a human environment where people can bring their best, most daring, most creative selves. And that takes brave leaders who take responsibility for setting up that environment.
So love cricket or not, this fine team has given us four questions to think about in building outstanding teams:
What do we want to be known for?
What’s our sense of belonging?
How does the current environment encourage people to challenge themselves to learn, stretch, and improve?
How well does the current environment show people that they are noticed, they have an impact, and that their impact matters?