I was fortunate to witness the rugby team I support win the premiership title at Twickenham on the 26th May, a joyous time for all involved with the club, players, staff and supporters.
It was a first premiership title for Harlequins, a team with a fine history that had gone through a difficult period over the last five years. A win that seems a long way from the days of “Bloodgate”, and the sacking of Dean Richards. A truly dark day for rugby and the club, one from which it seemed recovery would take a very long time and today the club are champions.
Post the win (and my own recovery) it was interesting to read the acknowledgements made by the players and coaching staff about the road to the tremendous success the club had achieved. Most of them relate more to mood and attitude they adopted to achieve success rather than accounts of the specific training regimes they adopted. Conor O’Shea the head coach talked about the teams “spirit” and “We have a great squad and great coaches, a great stadium and great support staff, and we have great supporters”
His captain Chris Robshaw said of his coach he has established a culture at Quins of hard work and togetherness allied to pastoral care. “Conor is the most positive guy you will meet,”
Certainly this is not uncommon most successful people talk about passion, drive, teamwork, culture and values when they have won. The question as a business leader is what can you learn from this, what can you replicate in your business to achieve the outcome you desire.
I believe there are 3 lessons we can take from the Quins story
Get on with it.
The “Bloodgate” situation for the small business owner has been the economic climate; these have been some of the most difficult circumstances to run a business. It is tough out there but it is going to get better. The lesson here is to accept what has happened, you are where you are, deal with it. Blaming others is not going to work, take responsibility to create a different situation. So the first thing to do is to acknowledge yourself for still being in business, and then acknowledge your staff, and then decide what you are going to do differently. Remember doing the same thing usually brings the same results.
Play a bigger game.
Knowing where you are going is a great motivation, not only for yourself but also more importantly for your staff. Creating a clear vision to create something bigger than you have today will take the business out of the day-to-day minutia and create a different energy in the business. Think about how to create true wealth, working day to day to make money is ok; it’s more fun to work on the wealth creation. Get someone who can help you formulate how to create true wealth for yourself.
Take the team with you
The foundation of every successful team and business is a defined and lived culture. A business that truly lives it’s stated values that have created an environment where staff, clients and suppliers all love to be related with the business will always win out over the competition. Once you have decided on your “bigger game” work with the staff to define how you want to be with each other on your journey. Values driven from the top won’t work because they don’t own them; it needs to come from the bottom up.
This has been a great week for me personally, the trials and tribulations of Bloodgate are far behind me and I am once again wearing my Quins shirt with great pride. It’s up to you if you want your staff, suppliers and clients to wear your shirt with pride.
For more information about thriving in the current economic climate visit the www.shirlawscoaching.co.uk website and download the Thrive not survive free eBook or the More time, Less stress, More money eBook for CEO’s.
The next Shirlaws event in the region is called New Business Perspectives, a fresh view on wealth creation for business owners taking place at Hotel Du Vin, Winchester on the 16th July and the Royal Southampton Yacht club on the 23rd July. Register here.
