My client, Eastside Insurance, recently brought back some great memories when they shared footage of me scoring on my debut in Ireland. It was an experience that I will never forget, not only because I lived every Welsh rugby supporter’s dream in scoring the only and winning try, but all these years later I am able to reflect on a number of other lessons that stayed with me from that time.
The parallels between sport and business are well documented, and there’s good reason for this. They are very real, albeit you may not appreciate them at the time.
When I was made captain of Swansea RFC in the amateur days of 1991, my then boss presented me with a bottle of champagne and suggested that having the honour of leading one of Wales’ leading teams would hold me in good stead in my professional life.
Whilst I greeted his words with just a brief acknowledgment, and was far more impressed by the fact that I was in possession of otherwise unaffordable ‘bubbly’, he was, of course, right. Leadership and management demands surfaced almost immediately, as did coping with my own ‘promotion’ and the challenges that can bring.
It was around this time that the national selectors began taking an interest in me. It still felt like a pipe dream though, since every side seemed to have a quality player in my position, and there was quite a pecking order. Before too long though, the choice for the first game of the 5 Nations had boiled down to being between me and a couple of others. Ahead of one particular press conference close to the side’s announcement, my coach Mike Ruddock took me aside, knowing that my natural disposition was to be quite self-effacing. He stressed however, the importance on this occasion, of telling everyone that I was ready for international rugby. He recognised the need for me to appear confident and ready, and not just to be feeling it, even if it went against my natural instincts to announce it. This would have been for the benefit of the selectors, the coach and my prospective team mates, and I learnt that sometimes it is necessary to make a statement that ordinarily you would not be comfortable making.
Perhaps it worked, because I ‘got the nod’ and my debut was to be against Ireland in Lansdowne Road. Aside from the physical and tactical preparation, being selected for Wales brought a huge mental challenge in so many ways, akin I suppose to a big promotion in work. Self-doubt would certainly have been one of them, which wasn’t helped by the extraordinary amount of scrutiny from a hungry press and opinionated Welsh public. Did I deserve to be in this company? Was I good enough? How would I be perceived, or judged even, by my new team mates? Again, Ruddock was a source of inspiration and reassurance, reminding me that all I had to do at international level, was what I’d done to get myself selected in the first place. More good management.
To say I was out of my comfort zone would be an understatement, but the memories are vivid all these years later. Gareth Llewellyn, nothing more than a brutal Neath adversary until my selection, was now my ‘roomy’. And you know what, he was more than ‘alright’; we got on great – and another lesson there for me about making judgements too early, after all, he was only doing for Neath what I was doing for Swansea, just a bit more ‘physically’ perhaps! That said, I recall him being very unimpressed with me using the courtesy hairdryer on the morning of the game! (Therein lies the difference I suppose between playing for Swansea and Neath!)
As for the game itself, I remember the first time I was tackled; it was like running into a brick wall. And the pace of the game, oh the pace really was quicker like everyone said it would be. And I remember thinking ‘how am I supposed to perform with all this noise and emotion around’? And then a breath, a moment to take stock, and begin believing that I could cope, contribute and maybe belong here. Then, Anthony Copsey playing his ‘enforcer’ role on his opposite number with great effect and much leniency from the referee, thank goodness. And of course, a sniff of a chance for glory. My perfect distance as well, 2 yards out, and the rest as they say, is history.
In terms of parallels though, and back to good management, playing for Wales was a pressured environment with selection being a very public and cut throat affair. The days after games would be loaded with opinion and conjecture about who should be playing the next game. My coach in Ireland was Alan Davies, himself a management consultant as well as a top coach as it happens. Ahead of the game, he found me in the tunnel just before we walked out onto the pitch. He tapped me on the backside and whispered in my year that whatever happened in the next 90 minutes, I’d be playing the next game.
This was a superb bit of management, and absolutely what I needed to hear at that exact time. I have no doubt it impacted positively on my performance, and it was a great example of how good managers say the right things at the right time.
The rest of that weekend is all a bit hazy. Not through concussion, just celebration, which was how it was ‘back in the day’.
There is an ‘epilogue’ to this story I suppose, in terms of lessons learned, although this one surfaced a few weeks later. As you can imagine in the circumstances, the press wanted my thoughts on the game, and I was well versed with such things through my Swansea role. The last question I fielded was what did I think about international rugby. With an obviously ironic smile on my face and a delivery that screamed light heartedness, I said that I didn’t know what all the fuss was about. It didn’t quite translate into print though unfortunately, and after England beat us at Twickenham in the next match, Wade Dooley, their giant second row shook my hand and suggested to me that there was probably more to international rugby than I might have thought!
Note to self, if good communication is more about tone and body language than content, be careful what you say when the first two of those are missing!