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In a move rather like the moment I left the Church of England or when I switched from PC to Mac, I stopped following rugby nearly 20 years ago when I took the solemn oath of allegiance to Aston Villa Football Club. Little did I know at the time the immense heartbreak this would bring my children who touchingly followed me into this… well it’s not an obsession. But it gets close some times. I have many examples from my Villa experience of defeats and posted an earlier blog about the then Villa Captain Micah Richards showing leadership and courage when things were going very very badly wrong. But mercifully things are generally better at Villa Park so my re-visit to the challenge of defeat on leaders needs to go elsewhere. And to the Rugby World Cup.

It is a matter of record that England lost the final and were comprehensively outplayed. But amongst all the frankly wonderful images and words about South Africa, the one I picked up on is at the top of this blog. It is the England team who have exceeded expectations to arrive at the final only to be found wanting. Disappointing hardly covers it. I guess it is at least at the level I felt when I realised my business – the one I had remortgaged my house against – was not going to work. I would guess that everyone has those sort of events in life. But at this particular very public moment, England captain Owen Farrell has decided to put his own feelings to one side and gather the team around and say something. He didn’t have to. But he did. And I would LOVE to know what he said. My bet was he was thanking everyone for their work, suggesting everyone sits with the crushing feelings of disappointment and then moves on to a new season where they can hopefully one day start to enjoy the game again. Perhaps he said that although rugby is important, it isn’t the only thing and this was only one day in their lives and that one day they would come to appreciate that.

Is this of any relevance to leaders in less public arenas? Well actually I think it is far more important what is said in defeat than in success. To be realistic about the defeat and yet positive about the future. To reinforce what went well whilst owning up to where the failure came from. No blame. But taking responsibility. Balancing accountability without wasting effort accusing others of being the reason for the failure. Thats where the leader can set the tone one way or the other. It is about the leader taking responsibility for their position at the front of the charge. As the one who would either raise the cup in triumph or gather the bloodied team in defeat.

I have learned my most important lessons from failure. And whilst the England rugby team will have a huge amount of regret and disappointment to overcome, in the long run it has the potential to serve them well. I hope the team recuperate and in time, learn the lessons. Oh, and I don’t mean the technical stuff which does of course need to be analysed.

I mean how this moment could well be the making of them as people.

So much nonsense talked and written about teams. A whole industry rose and (mercifully) more or less disappeared to do with creating teams using outdoors activities. So often these totally missed the point about teams. It is something of an obsession of mine to cut through crap and find ways that people can work together in ways that are productive but also enhance the lives of people involved. The key thing is to find ways that are meaningful for the whole team so everyone contributes, everyone want the team to succeed beyond their own success.

So why the macho photo?

As a former soldier, I know about some aspects of this having lived it for nearly 10 years. Two things I learned early on were (1) the Royal Marines do teamwork better than anyone and (2) I was nowhere near tough enough to join them. But the fascinating thing to me is that being tough isn’t enough for the marines. What they are after is something else. Something to do with being thoughtful, genuinely working together and stretching everyone. This photo I believe encapsulates this perfectly. Just look at the group in the centre of the shot. They are attempting to run as a squad to break a record. Clearly the man in the middle was struggling and so the others immediately jumped in to help. And look at their facial expressions. It is about determination to get the whole team over the line. They aren’t judging the man who needs help and he is far from giving up.

Now of course very few of us work in places where we have to do this type of physical team activity. But …. look I don’t think I really have to join the dots. What if you worked in a team like this? How much could you all achieve together?

I’ve seen it. I’ve helped organisations achieve it. And I have to tell you it is fantastic for all involved. So many other problems fall away – performance management, disciplinary, retention, stress, illness…. But don’t worry. If you want to know more about how to do this, I won’t make you run like this. Not unless it’s your job!

(thanks for the idea for this from a tweet by ex-Royal Stuart Elms @elmsy1664 . Photo from The Telegraph)

I was gazing out of the window of one of the lovely cafes we have on campus at the University of Warwick having just finished my lunch. I was finishing my tea and enjoying the view across a sunny path outside with people coming and going. I noticed a Very Senior Person walking briskly past with a file of papers and a purposeful look on her face and I could tell she was off to an executive meeting. Suddenly she stopped, bent down and picked up a piece of paper that had somehow been blown into her path. She walked over to a bin, deposited the offending item and carried on her way. I noticed that she was smiling.

This person I know to be business like, committed and on top of both strategy and detail. But this small action told me more about her than I had learned from the occasional meetings we had had. She was clearly in a hurry but still wanted to deal with this small piece of litter. Nobody was watching and hardly anyone would have even noticed this small piece of litter. But it mattered to her.

Leadership? People talk about role modelling and demonstrating behaviours and this was a perfect example of it. We also talk about what people do when they think nobody is watching. I really don’t think she cared if anyone was watching or not, it was natural. It showed commitment and perhaps a deep attachment to her workplace.

Well I now do the same. Not because I think anyone important might be watching but because I realised the effect that small action had on me. Far stronger than any inspiring speech, it showed to me that this person was committed to high standards.

OK. I think I know what you expect me to say. Perhaps something about snowflakes. Or maybe wondering why some people talk about an epidemic of mental health issues in the young.

But I’m not.

I was prompted to write this blog after reading advice to senior managers to be mentored by someone under 30. Yes. Not to be a mentor FOR a young person but be mentored BY them. One of the very many delights I find working in a university is that I tend to be surrounded by people far younger than me. This is, for example why I joined Facebook in the early days because I discovered the students had set up a “Fan Page” about me but I could only read what they were saying about me by joining. It means that I know that none of them is remotely interested in Twitter, that there is no point in buying CDs and that watching live TV is only for sports. I am also reminded week by week that these are only superficial differences between the generations. There are some environmental context differences over the years to do with what sort of jobs are available, whether buying a house is a realistic prospect or how wealthy we might feel. But there remains a fundamental truth:

there is no such thing as a generation.

Yes. The industry that springs up periodically claiming a new label for a group of people who only have chronological age in common. This is complete nonsense. There are way more differences between people than between generations. Some insist that the world is changing faster than at any time in our history. Others say there are more pressures on the youth than ever before. And commonly people talk about the snowflake generation. But I am here to tell you there is no evidence whatever that any of this is true. My favourite de-bunking of these myths comes from a surprising source – former head of US Special Forces William H McRaven who said recently “Anyone who calls millennials ‘soft’ has clearly never seen them in a firefight” (full article from Task and Purpose is here) . And that too is my assessment despite mercifully never seen millennials in combat. In the students I meet, I see decency, ambition, drive, compassion, ethics, fun, rigour, intellect, curiosity, commitment. I guess there are some who aren’t like that. But my “generation” had that too. And we had dreadful fashion to contend with and mass unemployment … oops. I just fell into the trap myself for a moment.

I’m sorry to keep a military theme, but there is another great example of this being used by the British Army at the moment in its latest recruitment campaign. In recent years there have been challenges to recruit into the forces which are due to a number of factors about its role in the world, pay, conditions and many veterans leaving sooner than before. The latest advertising campaign has played on this perception of the youth and used these slogans:

There was a predictable backlash against this campaign from populist press and from some retired officers. But the recruitment figures were transformed as the image of the forces was presented in this new way. But surely this is an argument for the existence of generation differences? I would say no. The message was that the press talk about millennials as being somehow lesser than previous generations whereas this campaign quite rightly highlights that you people today are just as capable of serving and having a great experience in the forces as previous ones.

I would recommend thinking about that mentoring idea though. If you are in your forties or fifties and don’t spend much time with the under 30s, I suggest you find ways of doing so. It may remind you of things about yourself you might have forgotten.

Finally, if you haven’t already seen it, Admiral McRaven’s Commencement speech at the University of Texas is one of the best of the genre. Well worth 19 minutes of your time and is online here.