Good teams know how to disagree

High-performing teams in sport, business, personal relationships, or any avenue of life, are not the ones that shy away from disagreement; on the contrary, they encourage disagreement because it’s the teams who know how to disagree that achieve optimal results. This is such an important point made in ‘World Class: How to Lead, Learn and Grow like a Champion’ – published by Penguin Books in September 2021. The authors are Will Greenwood MBE – former England rugby World Cup winning star – and Ben Fennell – brand guru. In a recent online panel discussion hosted by Durham University Business School they spoke about the fact that so much is written about leadership but what we often find is the skills of teamship are not explored. In many cases, organisations have leaders who got to the pinnacle because they are good at what they do, but too often they are not great team people. In the authors’ words, “the world doesn’t need another book about leadership, what it needs is knowledge about ‘teamship” and hence their book. They spoke about the many similarities between successful businesses and successful sports teams, and the lessons that businesses can learn from sport. As a team, they complement each other: Ben is strategic and has a strong ability to think ahead; Will is more operational and can look at what went wrong and how to fix it so that it doesn’t happen again. Together they explore the characteristics for successful teams. Both are alumni of Durham University, as am I, so I particularly enjoyed the online panel discussion and the references that were made to South Africa (see later). Accelerated digitalisation during this COVID-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to participate in these types of panel discussions with eminent people with whom we would not otherwise have direct access. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO30R0tWpC8

Will Greenwood is a former England rugby star with 55 international caps and who played a key role in the historic 2003 Rugby World Cup finals when England beat Australia. After his rugby career, Will became a journalist, presenter and analyst for Sky Sports and The Telegraph. He is also a successful businessman who established Legend Holiday & Events and is Chief Customer Officer for the UK arm of Afiniti, a software company that specialises in artificial intelligence. Ben Fennell is the Chief Executive at The Growth House and has spent over 30 years in creative and commercial agencies helping some of the biggest brands in the world to grow, including Audi, Virgin Media, British Airways, Barclays and Tesco, LinkedIn and Tesco. The Growth Houses focuses on teamship, leadership coaching, and growth consulting. Their thinking and strategy is structured around three dimensions and they strongly advocate that a strategy isn’t a strategy until it is written down.

1. CELEBRATING DIFFERENCE

This has tremendous relevance to the South African context about celebrating difference; it’s about acknowledging that great teams are comprised of people who are different in a variety of ways, be it race, culture, gender or different types of skills set, different thought processes or different backgrounds. The starting point for any successful team in sport or business is to celebrate the difference; you lay the foundation from here. Without the difference, the team is doomed from the start.

2. FORGING TOGETHERNESS

Teams forge togetherness around an aligned purpose, with specific team goals and targets. Greenwood says that promising sports team players are generally told that they must aim to be number one, but in his mind, this can only happen alongside team members who complement one another and forge togetherness around an aligned purpose, with specific team goals and targets. He says he has always been very comfortable in teams, sometimes stepping away from the limelight and at other times having to step up to be the lead singer. He adds that throughout his life a lot of his personal growth has come from being part of a team. The ‘how’ part of forging togetherness is a critical dimension and it is extremely important that in working towards this, the team strategy is written down to make sure that everyone is clear about it. As mentioned at the outset, a huge point they emphasise is that good teams are not the ones that don’t disagree; it’s the ones that know how to disagree. Fennell says all teams, irrespective of the nature of the team, need to create a “collision-rich environment”. The issue then becomes how do you engage with this? How do you deliver feedback? They say it is all about going hard on the issue, even attacking the issue, but not the person. Don’t say ‘John, that’s a ridiculous idea’; say ‘what does everyone think about this?’ and allow the team to share their opinion. Nobody has a monopoly on knowledge. Dissect and discuss every suggestion or proposal as if it could have come from any of the team members, no matter how junior or senior. Greenwood explains that when he played for England they would have ferocious arguments between themselves about how to beat the All Blacks, and they thrashed it out until everybody had had their say and they had fine-tuned their strategy down to knowing what needed to be done. He says this was achieved through the power of these ferocious arguments. That’s the essence of what makes for great teams – where you have a whole variety of ideas and opinions that everyone can freely express and you debate them until you create unity of purpose, not only on the field or in the organisation but also outside. This way, when you are exposed to outsiders who want to know about your team’s strategy, you speak with one heartfelt voice.

3. GROWTH ACCELERATION

Celebrating and encouraging diversity and difference of opinion, multiplied by forging togetherness equals growth acceleration and sustained growth. Greenwood explains that when the England team was training under coach Clive Woodward who took them to victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup, they had preparation sessions with the Royal Marines. High-performing teams do this a lot now, where they are put in challenging situations, often military-style, because it’s about preparing for battle, which is mentally and physically demanding. After the session with Royal Marines, the officer approached Woodward and said that there were six guys in the squad with whom he would not go to war with; and that made Woodward sit up and take notice. It was not about kicking them out, it required reflecting long and hard about forging togetherness and making sure that each team member was allowed to play to their strengths. Fennell explains he has had a lot of experience with people, who, in the course of their careers focus on aspects that they are not good at, and end up compromising their strengths. So it’s important to never lose sight of what you are good at. Another aspect that struck me is the fact that Greenwood made specific reference to South Africa and the 1995 World Cup. He spoke about the impact of Nelson Mandela on team performance – the magic it brought to the performance that helped lead South Africa to victory. In the same way, the huge support and spirit that the majority of South Africans brought to the 2019 Rugby World Cup, played an important role in South Africa’s triumph against England. In their book Greenwood and Fennell also speak about Dr Sherylle Calder, the former South African international hockey player who went on to become renowned for her ‘EyeGym’ programme – her hand-eye coordination and reflexhoning training. She was recruited by Woodward to be part of the England coaching team ahead of the 2003 Rugby World Cup, and he talks about how she spent time observing the team and then exposed them to exercises that none of them had ever done. She taught them techniques to quickly scan the environment mid-play so that they could react quicker and move into spaces they might not otherwise have seen. Some rugby analysts go as far as to say that without her they may not have achieved the success they did. After Woodward’s term ended, Jake White snapped her up and she helped South Africa conquer the world. Then back to England, she went at the behest of Eddie Jones – she is known as “Eddie Jones’ secret weapon” – as an article in The Guardian explains: ‘Potentially the most successful coach in the history of rugby union is hiding in plain sight. Maybe it is because she is a woman and gives relatively few interviews. ’So what can we learn from all this? I sense that in South Africa we are still not sufficiently embracing the success that difference can bring us. Greenwood and Fennell offer an integrated holistic way of creating an environment where we can work together in all areas of society, and I highly recommend that as many people as possible read this book. I want to emphasise what they say again: Good teams aren’t ones that don’t disagree, they know how to disagree but they agree on the method of how they disagree. Once you reach a consensus you then have to write down the method and strategy and be clear about the parameters. Keep up the commitment to carry on learning and applying critical thinking skills; keep learning as a person and group; keep inspiring each other. This is what gives teams the energy and motivation to move forward in a constructive, productive way. This is what South Africa needs more than ever.