Click to watch the Haka!

My son is a huge rugby fan. And more specifically, he is a huge New Zealand All-Blacks fan. He comes by this honestly as his grampa is a big All-Blacks fan as well.

The All-Blacks are the most successful rugby team on the planet – they are a dynasty. They are also known for more than exceptional play: their pre-game “Haka”, a Maori war dance, is a fan favourite everywhere. When our sons were young they would actually do the Haka for their grampa when he came to visit.

I have become a rugby and All-Blacks fan through my son’s enthusiastic influence. You see, I was a football guy. I played it, I coached it. The game was good to me.  I understand the game, it makes sense to me. But rugby, I just didn’t get how it works.

There are two critical aspects of any game that are important to understand: 1. How do we score? 2. What rules do we have to keep on our way to scoring? When it came to rugby I didn’t understand either, so my son began to educate me on both these aspects of the game. The scoring is similar to football, but not the same.

You score 4 ways in rugby:

1. You score a try when you run the ball over the goal line and touch it to the ground – 5 points.
2. You kick a convert through the goal posts after a try – 2 points.
3. You are awarded a penalty kick by the referee and you kick the ball between the goal posts – 3 points.
4. A player in the course of play drop kicks the ball between the goal posts – 3 points.

The most critical question any fan wants answered when tuning into a game part way through is, “What’s the score?” That’s what the scoreboard tells us.

During my intensive rugby education I got thinking about how this relates to leadership. Every leader and his/her team needs to know two important facts about the game they are playing:

1. How do we score?
2. What is the score?

In other words, what are we driving towards? What’s the goal line? Where are the goal posts we are aiming for?

And, how do we measure success? How do we know we are winning? How do we keep track of our progress and our wins?

Any good leader knows where the goal line is and what they are driving towards, and has ensured the team is aware of this and is wholeheartedly engaged in the game plan to score. In addition, a good leader ensures the team knows what the score is, how they measure success and what they need to accomplish to win the game.

Clearly profitability, your financial bottom line, is an obvious goal and a method of keeping score, but there is far more to good leadership than simply defining that. Is every person/position in your organization aware of their goal line? What they are driving toward everyday on an ongoing basis? And, do they have a mechanism for keeping score? Do they have a measurement metric to determine if they are scoring and winning the game?

Keep in mind, profitability is only one of three bottom lines you are driving toward. Don’t forget your social and environmental impact as well. Great companies are cognizant of and contributing to their triple bottom line – financial, social and environmental.

So my simple questions to you are the following: 1. Do you and each player on your team know how to score? 2. Do you and every player on your team know how to keep score, and what the score is?

What and where are your goal lines? Where is and what’s on your scoreboard? Is your team relentlessly driving toward the goal line, or are they aimlessly running around the field hoping to do something right to score some points.

A critical role for leaders is to define the goals everyone is driving towards, and how to keep score so everyone is aware of their progress.

Leadership is an understanding of goal lines and scoreboards, and making sure the team gets it too.