Black days and silver linings
Principles guide us, discipline drives us and passion fires us. If John Hart had to pick one of these three attributes as having more importance or dominance than another, it would be passion. Hart is a man of discipline and principle, with a monstrous dose of passion mixed in. Stir it up with a healthy dose of balance and this, he believes, is the recipe for winning.
Sandy Galland talks with one of the most controversial All Blacks’ coaches in modern history. But, as is so often the way, that’s just a tiny part of the make-up of this man, for John Hart is much more than the sum of his parts.
His time with the ABs forms only a segment of his colourful and successful career. Albeit it was the most public and hotly debated few years of his life and while he left with a dark cloud overhead after unexpectedly losing a 1999 World Cup semi final, Hart amassed an unprecedented 87 percent unbeaten record in the 175 first class matches he coached.
He was the recipient of an ONZM in 1997, voted New Zealander of the Year in that same period and has published two best-selling books. As a mover and shaker in the corporate world he continues to make waves as a management consultant, motivational speaker, as a board member for numerous companies including Sky TV and Bayleys Real Estate and most prominently, as director of football for the New Zealand Warriors. While Hart often refers to discipline and standards, his over-riding emphasis is on achieving and maintaining balance. “One of greatest challenges we have in life is to get balance. I see a lot of people in business never get it. They just throw themselves into work and forget about their family lives, their social lives and the extra things they should be doing.”
Hart talks of focusing on family goals, learning goals — goals which expand you as a person. And it is often through adversity such as marriage breakups, illness and death where change becomes more important, more personal, he says. “We are only here for a short time, my older brother died 10 years ago and my younger brother is dying as we speak, so it brings home the importance of living for today and enjoying every moment.”
The experience of being ostracised by factions of the media after the ‘99 World Cup was a valuable lesson for Hart. He went from hero to zero in 80 minutes and difficult times followed.
“I lost a lot of confidence because of what I got put through. I found that really hard as I had given my life to rugby. I had had a lot of success in the game and I found that criticism and some of the reactions pretty difficult. So there were two to three years where I virtually did nothing. I pulled back a lot from a lot of the things I was doing.”
Now, stronger then ever, Hart believes time management is one of the most important things we have to do. “We plan a lot of things, but we don’t necessarily plan our time. I do an interesting exercise every now and again; I sit back and ask how I have spent my time this week. I used to do it in business and I used to find a lot of time was given to things I needn’t have been doing.”
For 30 years Hart worked his way up the ranks of Fletcher Challenge, with his last decade there heading the human resources team which oversaw 30,000 staff around the world.
It was his strong, visionary and motivational management style which saw Eric Watson approach him to help turn around, the then, highly disorganised Warriors. “I said no,” laughs Hart. “Because my passion was rugby. Then I thought about it and realised that really my passion was New Zealand and my passion was sport. So I thought if the Warriors are successful it is good for us as a country. And while I didn’t know much about league, that didn’t matter because I was being asked to go in at a management level. It was about looking at the organisation and trying to reshape it.”
With the mess he found the organisation in, there were times in the first 12 months that he may have regretted his decision. Not one to shy away from a challenge, he set about getting the right people in the right positions and turning around the organisation’s governance and culture.
Lead by example
Today to stand still is to go backwards, he extols. On leadership, he says you have to create an environment where everyone can flourish. “I believe people will do so if they are well lead and self motivated and I think the crucial thing is communication. People need to know what they need to do and get regular feedback on how they are doing.
“As managers we need to realise people will be motivated by different things from what motivates you or me, or anyone else. The key to successful communication is knowing and understanding people. I don’t believe you can help a person grow, or motivate the person, or create the environment for growth unless you actually know the person.”
While a lot of leadership is an innate quality you are born with, there is much which can be learned. One of the prime lessons, according to Hart, is the importance of creating shared leadership.
“As a leader you delegate the responsibility to grow and develop people. The person at the top creates a vision, creates the environment and empowers others to grow that vision.”
This, of course, raises the issue of having the right people in your team. According to Hart, it is not a science but something that can be measured and planned for.
Hart’s selection tips on getting the right person:
- Make sure you understand the person
- Make sure when you reference check them you are talking about the role you have — not what they have done
- Go with an open process — involve lots of people. Bring in the prospective newbie — are they a fit with your team, your values and culture?
The key here is knowing exactly what you are looking for when you begin the recruitment process.
“The worst thing we can ever do is appoint people to a role where they don’t fit. The cost of getting the selection wrong is enormous, not just financially, but it’s culturally a real problem for an organisation. The same applies to a sporting team; if you make a mistake it has effects which reverberate far wider than just off the person themselves.
“What I learned in my time in the ABs and in business, is it comes down to identifying exactly what you want in each position. In the rugby sense it meant having a game plan and then breaking that plan down to each of the positions, then breaking this into the skill sets you require.
“Then it is collectively saying, what are the cultural things we are looking for? What are the standards and disciplines we want within the team? What are the values we have? So when you are out selecting, you are actually looking for these things.”
Continual learning is also critical to success. “We have to have a drive to continue the learning process, both individually and at the organisational level. You need a performance based culture where you reward success. Successful teams thrive on measurement systems. And importantly, have fun in what you do. That is fundamental to everything you do. That is vital to success. I think it is awfully important at a sporting level, at a business level and a community level.”
As a society he believes more discipline wouldn’t go astray. “Discipline never hurt anybody and we have erred away from that.
“I’m not talking about bringing back the birch. Leadership should be leading with standards and discipline and creating a society where people respect these standards and disciplines. These are key ingredients which we go right through our lives with us. Through our families, our schools, sport, government, business — the whole thing.
“We have got a bit soft and as a result we are not as motivated to lead and do the things we should do.”
In recent times he believes we have been too focused on mediocrity — especially in education. “We have to be more aspirational as a country. It concerns me. The growth of leadership right through society at all ages is something we really have to challenge ourselves with.
“It concerns me that a lot of our role models are sports people. They should also be business people, politicians, educators — people right across the board. We will be far more aspirational when we get that. We focus too much
on sport as a measure of our success. We get carried away with it.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says. “Sport is really important and brings us together and I never underestimate its power to do so.”
Celebrating success and having fun are at the top of Hart’s radar now and he encourages all businesses to adopt this mantra. “If you are not having fun you shouldn’t be doing it.”
While he stays actively involved in business and sport, a lot of his time is dedicated to his other true loves — his family, his partner, the horses he owns and golf.
At 63 he is doing the things he wants to do and putting his energies into the things he enjoys doing. “I’m living for today and enjoying every moment.”
