THE VALUE OF LOCAL

As large organisations drive to centralise their logistics and bureaucratic processes they are pushing against an increasingly evident ecologically focused drive to reduce environmental footprints as the public becomes more aware of the issue.
Not only is the general public becoming greener in it’s conscience but decisions in personal procurement are starting to be influenced by this phenomenon. So what is the value of local?
Community and a sense of it is becoming more valued particularly in the more rural areas and also in townships. Empty shops, the demise of a post office, school, local shop, and youth club all directly affect an individual's life. How good does a retail street look with lots of "To Let" signs on the windows of empty shops? Communities revolve around areas where the locals collect. Communities come to the fore in times of hardship and do not prosper in times of plenty or large urban communities. A lack of a sense of community instils the sort of values that led to the wanton destruction witnessed during August this summer in the London Riots. Local is about community!
Environmental issues are affected in terms of a farming economy, a local wholesaler to a local retailer, if the complete production and retail process is controlled in a purely capitalist way. Locals go out of business, money is removed from the area and jobs are lost. Local facilities that drive local economies are vital to maintaining smaller communities.
Purely in terms of carbon footprint local involves less fuel, less machinery and therefore less carbon, less carbon means less carbon tax and less pollution. Local production is generally far less industrial and returns income to the local community. It helps our precious environment and maintains communities. Local prevents large retail organisations from killing the farming industry as they control prices in their focus on profit.
Next time you venture to a retail outlet just think of the damage you are doing to yourself and your community as you purchase a product that can be but has not been resourced from your local area.

WHAT ENGLAND RUGBY CAN LEARN FROM NEW ZEALAND

It seems incredible that a nation of only 4 million people can become the Rugby World Cup winners against teams with national populations of  England 50,000,000, France 65,000,000, South Africa 50,000,000  and Australia 22,000,000. How can such a small nation be so dominant and produce such a great team even without their top two game shapers- their fly halves. Some basics are required such as skill, brawn and athleticism but those are available throughout the professional rugby world. Discipline is key in terms of self discipline but again with the exception of England most world cup sides seemed to possess that.

I believe there are three areas that professional sport ignores at its peril and they are Vision, Leadership and Trust. With these three nurtured and developed over a considerable time comes global success and even dominance if they are maintained in a spirit and ethos of continuous improvement. All too often sport, like business, is so entwined in the engrenage of the here and now and not in the continuation of  a sporting cultural ethos. Just look at the way the media drives us to focus on the players within a  particular team rather than the genre of the sport as a whole. Players come and players go. Most successful sporting organisations focus on the future continuously and not on the here and now. New Zealand Rugby identifies its All Blacks early and nurtures them within the all black Culture. Manchester United do the same where possible. Look at the story of British Cycling. In 2001 British cycling set out to improve its standing in world track cycling and  it is now considered the dominant force in world cycling. At the Athens Olympics Great Britain came third in the cycling medal table. From 2004 to 2009, it came top of the medals tally for three out of six World Championships The team has vision which cascades through all its activities from equipment, psychology to performance and that success has naturally emigrated to road racing and downhill mountain biking.

Vision is key to long term sporting success for it fosters belief and drives athletes to greater performance. Seeing success and believing it is achievable is key to gaining that success. New Zealand set their sights on World Cup Success in 2011 four years earlier and delivered it. The whole nation bought into that vision and supported the team. Nacho Hernandez studied  New Zealand rugby and describes it as a "nation-wide passion for the sport, tradition, and a very proud sense of having a legacy that has to be protected, All this combined since the early days with a population mix that seems designed on purpose to make great rugby teams. Rugby is lived more as a religion than as a game. Prayer day is Saturday, and the temples are the hundreds of rugby fields across the country, filled from the earliest hours with families sharing their passion.It is this passion, I believe, that ultimately sets New Zealand rugby apart from the rest. Ultimately, I think that any player at the top level, or any kid who starts playing, dreams of playing one day for the All Blacks. The passion for rugby, the sport, in New Zealand goes hand in hand with the passion for the All Blacks, its trademark. The All Blacks are the tip of the iceberg; below them there is a very well organized pyramidal structure with a huge base of kids who start playing rugby at around the time they learn how to walk. From there, the best continue improving and going up the ladder, until the very best crop reaches the top," Vision and belief creates the environment of success.

Leadership in sport is strategically vital and again one has to compare the English Rugby Football Union and its current difficulties with the way that The New Zealand Rugby Union has embraced the professional rugby era. But leadership is required through all the tiers of the game and leadership needs to be exercised in a consistent and coherent way from on the pitch, through the club management, to the regions and the national committees. Examples need to be set and the higher the profile the more influential the example is.  For leadership behaviours generally migrate to lower levels as they cascade through an organisation. Leadership is also a tactical requirement on the field and the judgement calls and flexibility and freedom of action are critical to overall success particularly in tight games. Just look at the calmness and self belief of Richie McCaw in the final alongside the captaincy of Lewis Moody when under French pressure. Leadership is omnipresent and behaviours on and off the pitch are the ones that influence teams and team mates.

Trust is paramount to team cohesion and success and trust is key on any gladiatorial field that involves teams. Each member of a team has a part to play and each member must play that part and be trusted so to do. For it is when that trust breaks that teams break and begin to try and cover for each other. When that is happening a player cannot focus on their own role. Trust applies as much with coaches and players and coaches have to allow players to play. You don't drive a Ferrari like a tractor so don't try to. Let your stars perform as stars or don't pick them. Trust has to be earned it is not a given and trust has to be developed  through effective communication. Effective communication is about honesty and it is about respect for each other. Effective communication delivers results and does not shy away from any aspect that requires debate or feedback. Once it is there in place trust comes and with trust comes cohesion and with real cohesion comes success.

THE IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Effective communication is vital to success in modern business. Without it organisations fail and individuals go astray and become inadvertent saboteurs.
Effective communication involves moral courage, honesty and  the ability to give and receive feedback. Meetings that do not involve challenge and two way discussion are ineffective. The information passed may as well have been placed on a noticeboard. And yet all too often leaders waste such opportunities to benefit their organisations and develop their teams as effective communication is often misconstrued as challenging  a leader's authority rather than supporting it.
Leaders have to accept that their ideas and concepts will be challenged if they are to develop and improve those ideas and achieve greater outcomes. If a challenge can be rebuffed by the leader then the concept is strong. If a challenge causes the leader to refine the concept rather than doggedly pursue a failing concept then the concept is improved and the leader better respected for their judgement. So why avoid effective communication? It is only when such challenges become personal that the effect becomes negative in its orientation. If it is depersonalised then either way a challenge is positive.
Followership also requires  followers to be prepared to challenge a leaders plans and concepts for the betterment of an outcome. To sit and watch a leader fail or not deliver an outcome in the most effective way is tantamount to negligence and yet how many times have we seen it happen and indeed been involved in it ourselves? Followers just like leaders need to be honest and require the moral courage to challenge their leader's ideas and plans in order to improve them if they want their organisation to achieve greater things.
Effective communication is a two way street and a street that will only work if it is based in trust. All too often opportunities are missed because of a lack of trust and openness.  As humans are naturally competitive and some are more ambitious than others they use information as a source of power and control to the detriment of operational effectiveness. It is is the strong man that knows and exposes his weaknesses and it is the even stronger team that truly works together to ensure their individual vulnerabilities are not exposed. Mutual support ensures that the team is stronger in its completeness than the sum of all the strengths of the individuals who form it. Such a team has to derive its strength, honesty and openness from truly effective communication.

NEW BUSINESS LEADERSHIP

As businesses overcome the travails of the current economic downturn and as the world we work in becomes more complex and quicker, there is a strong need to review current thinking on leadership.  Leadership can no longer be just about an autocratic individual who heads up an organisation. And yet even the most successful organisations such as Hewlett Packard are still recruiting CEOs from without on reputation to try and lead the organisation. New leaders bring with them new cultures and new ways, they bring their past successes with them as baggage. However each situation, each organisation is different and it is the ability of a leader to impact and influence an organisation now that is so important ,not their previous record. We have to start considering a leader on the outcomes they have achieved through their followers rather than through their personal attributes. Leadership success is all based on gaining Followership.
Followership is about outcomes, it is about the leader, yes, but it is also about the organisation's culture and ethos, it is about the environment, it is about the situation, it is about anything that impacts on any outcome. Great leaders often pale and fade when they are removed from their most natural leadership environment. Look at Tony Blair, Winston Churchill before and after the war. History is littered with great men that have achieved because the time and environment is right for them. Yet in other environs they appear like fish out of water
A leader must fit the social identity of the group he or she leads. They must fit in and this is achieved most easily if they originate from within the said group. To impose a leader from without takes time and can cause a change in organisational ethos and culture. Trust is key for effective communication and effective communication is critical to good leadership and trust comes only when mutual understanding is present.
Trust is vital in the development of an organisation to its true potential. Trust allows the fettles of control to be released and hence the frees up each individual's potential within an organisation. Without trust the necessary speed of action required in modern business becomes impossible. With it an organisation can thrive and challenge itself into a cycle of continuous improvement. Leaders must create and preserve trust for it is with trust that the environment within an organisation enables true consideration of the environment without.
Protecting the natural environment we live in is a real tenet of modern business. It will not be long before disposing of a particular item will be more expensive than purchasing it! The social conscience of the developed world is awakening in a way that will challenge many of the ways we do business and leaders need to match that conscience if they are to create longevity within their organisation.
Profit will always be king, but profit may be measured in social equity rather than cash and it may soon be that the environmental costs are considered just too much for a market to bear.
Leadership development in such a changing and dynamic environment becomes awfully difficult. If an organisation is really to develop leaders for the future, rather than for the present, it has to give its leadership talent the skill sets to match the many different challenges and environments that may become reality in the future. No longer is leadership about just autocratic inspiration and individual attributes it is far more about inspiring and influencing those around you through trust and empowerment. Only then will an organisation maintain its competitive advantage over the long term.

ENGLISH RUGBY AND LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP

England against France in the quarter finals of the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand. Expectations high after France's dismal performance against Tonga, so what happened? I believe English sport has yet to learn some real leadership lessons that are applicable to business as much as they are sport.
The first one I call leadership and it is interesting in several perspectives when it comes to this performance. The coach was one of the best on field leaders English Rugby has produced. Martin Johnson was a true leader someone with presence who commanded respect from his players. He is still a character who is held in high regard within rugby circles and it is perhaps his presence that has had a debilitating effect on the development of pitch leadership. Leadership has to be present at every level within a team and players need to know when to follow and when to lead. There was a distinct absence of leadership on the pitch that disastrous match.
I saw a lack of passion amongst the England players that certainly was not evident amongst the French. Passion is inspired by vision; a vision of victory that drives belief and frees up players. It is key to an outstanding performance and that belief belonged to France on that day. I saw little evidence of the emotion and passion from the English team before, during and after the game which I believe was caused by their lack of belief.
For me sport is about dynamism it is about seizing the initiative and making your opponents react. For when they are reacting they are not focusing on their game and therefore not able to seize the initiative. England became predictable. England lacked that dynamism as they were constantly   reacting to the French and therefore unable to play their game. They were predictable ball out to Tuilagi and let him break through. He never did.
Pressure played its part as it caused some crucial mistakes in terms of decisions and handling errors. England lost several opportunities to score as because of such errors. Good leadership and mental toughness ensure that control is exercised in all areas of the game. I believe from the evidence in front of me that desperation came into England's game. Players must learn to handle international pressure through experiencing similar pressure in other environments!
Selection is always going to be controversial and it is here that I believe Martin Johnson needs to learn the Alex Ferguson lesson of knowing when to let players go and when to blood new talent. I believe despite the arrival of Tuilagi, Lawes and Youngs this side was picked too much on sentiment and old allegiances. Every boss needs to know how and when to nurture talent and when to let it go. For me Wilkinson, Moody and Tindall had gone a tournament too far.
Self control comes from self awareness and self control is key to team cohesiveness and victory. If each member of a team maintains that control and awareness they maintain their role in the team at that moment, if they lose control then the team begins to disintegrate. The second French try is a perfect example three players to one French attacker leaving an unmarked Frenchman and a gap for the try. Self awareness and team awareness in terms of what is my role for the team now are essential in international sport one error can be fatal.
My last comment is flexibility if something is not working there is no point in pursuing it. If you do what you always do you will get the result you always got. Match tactics and plans have got to be adaptable to the situation players have to understand several options if a team is to have the inherent flexibility to win major  tournaments. I thought England were one dimensional and that was the power dimension. When they came up against an equally powerful team they had nowhere to go.
So the key lessons for me for Rugby are:
Develop leadership at all levels,
Develop a winning vision,
Maintain the initiative,
Understand and minimise the impact of pressure,
Learn when to let go of players,
Develop player self awareness and role awareness
Maintain flexibility.
These are all lessons that are as applicable to business as they are sport and I believe the English Rugby Football Union needs to take a good hard look at its leadership development throughout the game.