#sinextgen Leadership: What Can Politicians Learn From Sport?
Alastair Campbell gives a run down of the 20 things politicians and business leaders could learn from the sports stars interviewed by the author for his latest book, Winners and how they succeed. The writer, communicator and strategist is also on the Judging Panel for the Sport Industry NextGen Awards, a new initiative to identify tomorrow’s leaders, reward their potential and nurture their talent. Find out more here.
I started out writing a book about how to win political campaigns, and ended up writing a book that is more broadly about winning. I looked at winners in sport, business and politics, and discovered that business has a lot to learn from the best of sport, and politics has a lot to learn from the best of both.
Like what, for example?
1. Lessons in teamship. Sport does teamship so much better than politics. I kind of knew this anyway, but why is it so? I mean, there are big egos in sport too, especially today when the potential fame and riches are so great. But athletes seem to understand the value of teamship more than politicians, whose personal agenda is never far from the surface. The key is understanding that teamship doesn’t just happen, it has to be created. Respect is the key. Ben Ainslie told me that it did not matter if team-mates didn’t like each other, but there has to be respect, and a clear understanding of roles. Bonding exercises can work, too.
2. Strategy means different things to different people in different circumstances. Jose Mourinho was fascinating to interview. He and I argued about the meaning of strategy. In my world it is the central driving plan to meet an overall objective. In his, it is the thinking you bring to bear in the moment, when your tactical model is not working. His strategy is his tactical model, that he builds for tactical supremacy in every game.
3. Chess maestro Garry Kasparov is one of the most strategic minds I ever came across. He told me that strategy should only change when the fundamentals change. (David Cameron take note.) I totally agree with Kasparov, yet Mourinho got me thinking in a different way.
4. Defeat is a great teacher. This was a common theme. Of all my interviewees, only Floyd Mayweather said he never contemplated losing – ‘why would you do that?’ But with 47 wins in 47 pro fights, he is unique. From Dave Brailsford to Tanni Grey-Thompson, baseball legend Joe Torre to Aussie rules Player of the Century Leigh Matthews, top sports achievers spoke of how fear of defeat drove them far more than any joy in winning.
5. Always focus on the next win, not the last one. Brailsford gets criticised by his staff for not wanting to celebrate wins. Tiger Woods ticked off his wife when she suggested a special celebration of his first tournament win after their marriage. ‘It is what we do,’ he said. Australian surfer Layne Beachley won seven world titles but told me she did not really enjoy any of them but the last.
6. Winners are resilient. Beachley had a very tough background. She was conceived by a rapist, adopted, lost her adoptive mother as a child, later learned she was adopted and vowed there and then ‘to be a world champion at something.’ Her fellow Aussie Shane Warne says ‘the three most important words in the language are “never give up.”‘ I have written a whole chapter on the winning Aussie mindset, which many of the country’s great winners stems from their history as a dumping ground for England’s unwanted, convicts and the like.
7. Everyone can benefit from psychological support. Sportsmen and women dominated the mindset section of the book more than I expected them to; because that is where I found the best examples of real winning mindsets. Nearly all of them worked on their mental side as well as the physical. There is an irony here. Sport is predominantly physical, yet most top athletes now have psychological support. Brailsford told me ‘psychiatry’ was the other area of life from which he learned most. However, politicians and business leaders, though their work is mainly mental and intellectual, shy away from having proper psychological support. They are letting themselves down.
8. Pressure is a good thing not a bad thing. Gary Lineker was fascinating on how much he loved taking penalties. Ben Ainslie says he lives for the high pressure moments. The key is embracing the pressure without letting it overwhelm you.
9. Visualisation is important. I learned about visualisation from Diego Maradona no less, when playing in a charity match. Since then I have worked with Andy McCann, Wales’ Grand Slam winning mental skills coach, who has helped me through some tricky periods in my life, not least through visualisation techniques. He explained that when we imagine something, the brain operates in the same way as if the experience were real. So visualisation is a vital part of preparation.
10. ‘Will to win is not the same as wanting to win.’ That one came from Wasim Akram. That resonated a lot with me. Too many people in politics say they want to win but don’t actually do the things needed to win. The comfort zone is just too, well, comfortable.
11. Winners innovate constantly. Mourinho told me ‘there is no such thing as copyright,’ because the sport is played under such an intense media microscope. So new thinking is required all the time.
12. Data is only useful if it has predictive utility. I loved meeting Billy Beane of Moneyball fame. Not only is he a legend in baseball, but he is a fantastic bloke, and very humble for someone who changed the world of sport so much. His hard-headed approach to data – look at what it says rather than what you want to hear from it – is a lesson many in politics and business can heed. Think of that the next time you see all the parties after a by-election saying the result was ok, really.
13. Formula One is the daddy of data and innovation. I have never got F1, but from Woodward to Brailsford, Ainslie to Beane, they all told me that I had to study F1 if I wanted to understand data and innovation. So I spent time with Mercedes and McLaren and was blown away by it. David Cameron and Ed Miliband could do worse than send their teams to take a look at what a data-driven winning mindset factory looks and feels like.
14. ‘The training runs are every bit as important as the race,’ says Haile Gebrselassie. He said that a long and lonely run in the hills could be the run that wins the race. It is all about the work you put into preparation.
15. Talent development doesn’t happen by chance. I’ll be honest, we were so focused on Tony Blair, on winning, on winning again, on governing as well as we could, we did not focus enough on bringing on new talent. We assumed it would just happen. Aussie rugby league star Jonathan Thurston says looking after the next crop of stars is now a vital part of his job.
16. Pain is not a bad thing. So many of the great sports stars spoke about this, saw the endurance of pain as something of a badge of pride. Leigh Matthews, who went from being a top player to a top coach, described to me the utterly brutal fitness tests he inflicted on his players. Better they break down in preparation than on match day, he said.
17. Reputation is a very powerful weapon. Sachin Tendulkar told me that once he was established as a top player, he could feel the extra pressure on the bowlers as he went out to bat. In his psychology and his body language, he used it to his advantage.
18. Obsessive is good. Clive Woodward said it was his favourite word. Tanni Grey-Thompson said had she not been obsessive, she would not have been successful. Obsessive is not about firing off emails at 3am, says Woodward. It is about focusing on the what and the how to win, and really working on the detail.
19. Perfection doesn’t exist. You can always improve. Nadia Comaneci told me her first reaction on seeing the Montreal Olympics’ judges award her ‘the perfect ten’ was not to believe it and tell herself she had done better in training, and could do better still.
20. Don’t dwell on mistakes. Nick Faldo spoke of ‘the mental bin.’ When you make a mistake, analyse it, fine, but don’t dwell on it. Learn from it then dump it in the mental bin.
Alastair Campbell is also a Judge for the Sport Industry NextGen Awards, find out more here.
