Don't use a crisis to avoid honesty and accountability

It was 2013 and I was playing at the Queensland Reds in the Super Rugby competition.

We had suffered back to back defeats on our 2 game tour to South Africa and were coming back to Brisbane to play in a decisive game against the Melbourne Rebels, our last game before the break for the British and Irish Lions tour.

Whilst it obviously can’t be compared to Covid 19 and what companies and organisations are going through, at the time it was a somewhat concerning and stressful period, a mini crisis, in terms of preparation for a professional sporting team with high expectations.

It was interesting to observe how Ewen McKenzie and the leaders responded to the scenario that unfolded.

After losing to the Stormers in Cape Town, the next day we flew up to Johannesburg to board QF 64 departing Jo’burg at 19:10 and arriving back in Sydney at 14:55 before our connecting flight back up to Brisbane.

We sat on the plane for 2 hours, before being told that there would be further delays that the engineers would be working on.

Finally at 2am we were informed that the flight had been cancelled and they would be aiming to put everyone on the QF64 flight on the Monday.

So we were back to the luggage carousel to take off all of the team kit and check in to a new hotel, by the time we got to sleep it was near 4am.

All the while, whilst obviously frustrated, McKenzie kept his cool, as many of the players started to get frustrated and irritated with our situation.

I’ve seen other ‘leaders’ in these positions absolutely lose their cool and this has a massive knock on effect on the rest of the team, and everyone becomes restless and agitated.

Do you realise the impact that the your attitude, communication and general demeanour has on your team during Covid?

The next day at back at the airport and Ewen again found himself addressing the team about the situation.

It’s important to keep the communication levels up during times of uncertainty to your team.

Coming back from South Africa to Australia is exhausting at the best of times with jetlag, more so than going to South Africa, we were drained and fatigued by now.

“This isn’t ideal, but there’s not much we can do about it. The coaching group has had a meeting and all weights will be optional for the rest of the week upon our return. All training sessions will be in the afternoon to ensure that you can sleep for as long or as much as you need to during the day as we understand you will be trying to get back into the Australian time zone.”

He had communicated with us and given us clarity around the new plan. We were all now confident in knowing the new plan.

And then he made it quite clear. Just because of what we were going through, wasn’t an excuse to not achieve or succeed.

“We will NOT use this as an excuse. I don’t want to hear anyone using this or even mentioning this to the media. We’ve made it as easy as possible to prepare the best you can as we go into this game so do what you’ve got to do, but don’t think about using this as an excuse not to win.”

Calm, collected and confident. And that had a knock on effect to the rest of the group. We got on with it. It was less than ideal, but it was what it was. Control the controllable.

We would go onto defeat the Melbourne Rebels 33-20.

Whilst the goal might have changed as a leader due to Corona, the honesty and accountability can’t afford to.

Now more than ever you need everyone performing to their potential.

Are they?

If not book a call to discuss how they can.

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