01 May Why the Springbok coach’s performance challenges are not dissmilar to those faced by SA’s ceo’s
May 2012: The recent comment by newly-appointed Springbok Head Coach, Heyneke Meyer, that one of his greatest challenges will be to have the country’s Super Rugby franchises on the same page in order to execute his long-term strategy, has many parallels with corporate South Africa and the challenges faced by many leading CEO’s.
Traditionally, high on the agenda of CEO’s is the ability to execute their strategies effectively by creating a sustainable culture of focus, self-discipline and accountability, which results in performance excellence over time. Although CEO’s are accountable for their company’s performance, most find this to be a tall order as they can only be accountable on ‘remote control’, similar to the position of a rugby coach sitting in the box while the game unfolds below him on the field. For this reason, it is crucial that senior managers ensure that the architecture of people and operations is designed so that execution capability is created for sustained performance.
To be successful, from a cost, quality and service perspective, a company must have the capability to remove operational obstacles and improve continuously. However, these obstacles can only be removed if the right culture exists in the company.
A company’s culture can be summarised as the collective attitude and behaviour of its people, but is heavily influenced by appointed, elected and informal leaders. A leader’s attitude and behaviour are determined by their views that have developed since a young age and are influenced by role models and the historical context in which they grew up.
People’s views can be changed. However, this can only be achieved if each person’s understanding of the company, the wider business environment and social factors is deepened. This implies that employees should work on continuously deepening their understanding of one another, the business environment, business principles and those aspects unique to their organisation’s brand and business. Ensuring that this changed understanding manifests in sustainable changed behaviour is a function of consistent, strong and effective leadership.
The way people are led and organised and the way they think determines an organisation’s capability to manage and improve costs, quality and service. People won’t act differently if they don’t think differently – which requires an organised and structured communication strategy. Again, referring back to Meyer, he recently outlined that communication would be key in sustaining a good working relationship with the coaches of SuperRugby franchises in order to buy in to his long-term rugby philosophy. He essentially assumes the role of a leader and will need to engage and spend time with other province’s coaches regularly in order for his messages or rugby ‘culture’ filters through to existing and future Springboks.
The first objective of this communication strategy is creating clarity of purpose and direction, which refers to the translation of high-level plans into goals and metrics. Communicating the context of “where we are going, what is important and what we stand for ” to everyone in the organisation will ensure that they start to see the golden thread linking what they do and how it adds value to the organisation. Through regular communication and always linking individual contributions to the bigger picture, a purpose is created for each individual in the organisation.
Following from this, translating the overall direction of the organisation into high-level roles with goals and metrics and clarifying roles and responsibilities, thereby creating the basis for the high-level structure, helps to create focus and alignment. For example, Meyer’s overall direction or vision for South African rugby is for all provincial team to adopt a similar playing style (like they do in New Zealand, which has enjoyed significant success with this approach), but this will take time and constant endeavour.
From a corporate perspective, the architecture of business processes and systems play a crucial role here. Properly defining the required competencies per role assists individual development and competency delivery systems. Recognition and reward systems need to support the behaviours required to achieve goals and targets.
Finally, consistency in leadership practices and behaviours is necessary in order to create credible leadership throughout the organisation. People do not follow leaders who lack credibility. There is thus a definite link between the leadership philosophy, assessment and development of leaders.
The aspects mentioned above are all prerequisites for effective and lasting engagement. The quality of this engagement is dependent on the right things being discussed, at the right frequency, with the right people, in the right way.
If the key elements of direction, alignment, leadership and engagement are effectively put in place, chances are that employees will be so focused and inspired that they will generate ideas that will bring about improvements to costs, quality and service. At this point, when individuals volunteer continuous improvement ideas, it is the ideal time to provide them with further continuous improvement knowledge, skills and techniques.
As a coach would, at some stage you also have to take out the stopwatch and measure performance against set goals and targets. Measurement and feedback happen at an organisational, team and individual level with the aim to hold employees accountable and manage consequences. The consequences of good performance are recognition and reward, while the consequences of substandard performance are support, correction, coaching or replacement of the employee if all else fails.
Probably the most difficult aspect of implementing these elements is that not one of them can add real value in isolation. The real value is only unlocked if they are integrated and become part of the way CEO’s run a business – not as ad hoc initiatives, but as part of an integrated management system with proper sequences, linkage and interdependencies. Not many organisations (or national Springbok coaches) get it right, but if they do the value creation is exponential.