Kevin Roberts believes mental toughness has become the All Blacks key weapon.
KEVIN ROBERTS IS CEO WORLDWIDE OF SAATCHI & SAATCHI AND AN ASTUTE OBSERVER OF OUR GREAT GAME.
“Winning is not a some time thing, it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately so is losing.”
COACH OF the century Vince Lombardi said this 50 years ago.
Steve Hansen, Grant Fox, the coaches and the All Black players have taken it to heart and are the world’s leading exponents of it. “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is,” said Lombardi. And this squad has a will to win that runs deep in their very being… with Richie McCaw and Kieran Read the totems of this unshakable will.
A will that will be tested to the very core a year from now when we skate through a super soft qualifying group to confront one off challenges from France or Ireland, a desperate South Africa and probably England in front of 80,000 passionate Poms at HQ.
This will be the toughest Rugby World Cup ever.
Teams have been preparing for two years. The coaches are smarter and have analysis and statistics running out of their ears. Support staffs are super equipped for every contingency. Players are hungry to express themselves and determined to prevail.
The All Blacks are the bulls- eye for everyone to aim at and make a name against. The world will be watching. The All Blacks are ready.
Grant Fox told me in 1991 that the key to winning test matches was to have ‘ fire in the belly, ice in the mind’. The language may have gotten more sophisticated 25 years on but the sentiment and insight remains at the core of the All Blacks’ psyche.
Test rugby nowadays is closer than it’s ever been to the top of the heap. The top six sides are all close, as evidenced by the All Blacks’ last two seasons where we have found ways to win several tests which previous All Blacks sides ( and all competing teams) have been unable to do.
Since Cardiff 2007, the All Blacks have invested totally in developing mental toughness throughout the squad, as much as they have worked on skills fitness, strategy, selection etc.
And it is mental toughness that is giving us the edge when it matters most; in adversity, when the pressure is on and the chips are down aka a one off test match against a top five nation.
So what is that much talked about mental toughness? I’ve spent years studying it and have developed a programme around it we use at Saatchi & Saatchi for our top leaders… we define it as ‘ The natural or psychological edge that enables you to cope better than your competitors’, or ‘ Always finding a way to win’.
It is about being superior in performance levels and outcomes through consistency in focus, determination, resilience, confidence and control under pressure. Sounds familiar? Ireland in Dublin with the final whistle having been blown?
For a team to be truly mentally tough they must share a real tangible goal, and be clear, resolute and unshakeable in their purpose and direction. Read James Kerr’s brilliant book Legacy - 15 Lessons in Leadership – where he outlines the hard core truths that our All Blacks have embraced and practised since Cardiff 2007 and which have resulted in a record number of successes.
Mental toughness is a combination of five Cs ( mental capacity) confidence, concentration, composure, control and completion and five Ps ( toughness capability) practice, precision, problem solving, positivity and performance.
Keep this in mind as you watch the All Blacks respond to adversity/ pressure. Every player knows how their teammates will respond and how they will respond personally.
They trust themselves and each other. And they bleed for the jersey. Our jersey. The final word to Lombardi and to Twickenham, October 31, 2015:
“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfilment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle victorious.”
Wearing Black.