Legacy by James Kerr
“The challenge is always to improve, to always get better, even when you are the best. Especially when you are the best.”
3 Main Quotes:
“For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.” Rudyard Kipling
“It’s better to have a thousand enemies outside the tent than one inside the tent” Arab Proverb
“The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses, …well before I dance under the lights.” Muhammed Ali
I have a clear message about this book: if you lead a team, you need to read this book. If you want to lead a team, you need to read this book. If you are part of a team, you need to read this book. If you love rugby, you need to read this book. If you don’t like rugby, you need to read this book. If you play team sports, you need to read this book…
You get the idea. This is a book about how (arguably) the best team in the world became just that and is full of guidance about how it can be replicated.
It is also full of quotes, and anyone who knows me knows that I love a memorable quote! In fact Chapter 12 is all about The Black Book - a book full of mantras which specify how players need to think and be. This guide to All Black mentality and behaviour is a “common sacred language” and an excellent example of compressed thinking. When expected behaviour is clearly explained, it is easily understood.
What James Kerr has done is open a window into the inner workings of the All Blacks, quoting leaders and players, and seeing how their highly effective model can be replicated in businesses, schools, and any place where people are striving towards having a “collective passion and purpose.” He takes each of the first XV principles that the All Blacks adhere to and creates a chapter on each of them, turning them into the “First XV Lessons in Leadership.”
Starting with ‘Character’, Kerr links to the All Blacks mantra of ‘sweeping the sheds,’ where you are “never too big to do the small things that need to be done.” He writes that “successful leaders balance pride and humility,” taking great care in the small measurable and immeasurable tasks, which accumulate to create progress. It encourages curiosity and a desire to always improve in terms of knowledge, self-knowledge and skills. There is a huge amount of personal discipline required and a shared understanding that each player has the responsibility to look after themselves as well as to look after the team.
Adding into this humility is the awareness that every player is one in a line of players and that their responsibility is to continue the legacy of those who have gone before and leave the shirt in a better place for those who are to follow. This shared understanding of connection, and how individual behaviour has a ripple impact, ties into the principles of Ubuntu and interconnectivity. Kerr writes: “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
Anyone who has moved up the ranks will know that holding others to account can be the hardest part of leadership. In the same way that Kim Scott calls for Radical Candor and Brene Brown tells us that “clear is kind,” James Kerr demonstrates how “High performing teams promote a culture of honesty, authenticity and safe conflict.” By agreeing on the core values and behaviors of the team and creating ‘locker-room leadership’ where everyone is expected to hold others to account, there is no room for sub-par attitudes or behaviour.
Most of us are familiar with the concept that a team is only as strong as its weakest link. The All Blacks also buy into the Mãori belief that “A little water seeping through a small hole may swamp the canoe” and so must be addressed and fixed. In fact many of the core principles and values driving the team stem from the Mãori mindset: a shared set of values that unites the individuals of the team.
There are so many questions raised by this book and this way of being, which teams would do well to reflect on. Some I would suggest might be:
What are our core, shared values?
What is the work we need to do in the dark to be able to shine in the light?
What does ‘leaders create leaders’ look like in our setting?
Where are the gaps in our field that we can pivot towards?
How does the work we do benefit future generations?
As I look at my dog-eared copy of Legacy, with circled quotes, underlined phrases, turned down corners, notes in the margin and leaves coming loose, I’m asking myself some of those same questions. One of my core values is connection: connecting with people, connecting people with others and connecting people with ideas and resources. So perhaps today, part of my legacy is to HIGHLY recommend this book to you.
