How psychological advantage tipped the scales England's way, and the lessons it has for all leaders

Whether you follow Rugby or not, what happened on 26th October 2019 has powerful lessons for every leader. Especially, but not only, those in business. 

"I think the psychological approach to any game is increasingly becoming important, there is so little difference between the teams the ability to try and understand and what gives them energy and try and take that away from them and then for your own team what gives us energy what makes us play to our strengths”

Eddie Jones -- post-match press conference 26.10.19

First - an acknowledgement. I know nothing about rugby tactics and have never coached or played a game of rugby. But I am a coach of a group of elite players who compete on the global stage. They just happen to be leaders of companies, not rugby teams. And Eddie Jones' comment is not only true, it is true across any competitive field: when you and your competitors are similar, your understanding of psychology and energy is what makes the difference to your performance. 

So how did Eddie Jones do this? He certainly wasn't going to reveal this to anyone. But I can tell you what I believe he did.

There are 2 goals a team must achieve in order to beat the All Blacks. 

1. break down the mystique/indomitable aura of the All Blacks, or better still, use that as a weapon against them

2. "smash the All Blacks up front, creating uncertainty and slowing down their speed of ball to the backline"

Eddie Jones' master-move was not his strategy (that's the easy bit, and almost every coach facing the All Blacks tries to adopt this strategy). 

His master-move was that he came up with a way to execute this strategy. And in each case, he made it possible for his team to execute through his deep understanding of psychological advantage and energy. 

Psychological advantage #1 : know your enemy

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If you are a leader, your enemy is fear. If you are a tech-entrepreneur or elite sportsperson - your enemy is fear, and your closest competitor. One year out from this match - Eddie Jones recruited Jon Mitchell: the former All Black coach. The stated reason was his excellence as a defence coach. The more nuanced truth was that Eddie Jones' vision was to win the world cup. To do this, he would almost certainly have to beat the All Blacks. To do this, he would need to understand not only the likely attack-mindset of the All Blacks, but all the psychological weaknesses of that team. 

The single most effective way to break the indomitable aura of the All Black is truth. And what is truth? That the All Blacks is just 23 guys - all of whom have doubts and insecurities and fears. But showing is 10x more powerful than saying. Eddie Jones was not the right person to share this message with players. But Jon Mitchell was. And you can be absolutely assured that Jon Mitchell would have been brought in to reveal the inside truths of the off-stage mindset of the All Blacks, pin-pointing any psychological vulnerabilities. This was vital to Eddie Jones achieving goal #1. 

Psychological advantage #2: Find the gasoline that ignites your team's full energy

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Eddie Jones quickly understood that nothing fired up the England team more than being disrespected, or under-rated. Steve Hansen is a master at respecting teams, so that he cannot fan the fires of this powerful motivator. So Eddie Jones had to work extra hard to create the story to his players that the All Black's were not respecting them. 

Here's the crumbs I believe he would have used to create this story anyway. 

a. Reminding them of how in their last game, one of the All Black stars failed to name any of the English forwards correctly. 

b. Showing the interview footage of when Steve Hansen is asked if England are the All Blacks greatest rival. He replied that South Africa were. While the context was that the All Blacks didn't play England enough for true rivalry to emerge - that was enough - he had his sound-bite to allow his players to feast off "they don't even seen us as great rivals" 

c. Steve Hansen slipped in that last time the All Blacks played England (a narrow loss to England), the All Blacks had been at the end of a long season. While true, it was something Hansen didn't need to add - and would have been used to show Jone's England players "See - they believe the reason they almost lost was because they were tired, not because we played great rugby." 

d. Steve Hansen after an emphatic victory over the Irish was lavish in his praise of Keiran Read and assistant-coach Ian Foster. Why? We can only speculate that because he wanted to help each of them. Mindful Read was retiring, he wanted Read to be regarded as a great captain. Mindful that he (Steve Hansen) was retiring, he wanted to help Ian Foster's cause to become the next coach. But whatever the reasons, this was more fuel for the "they don't respect us" narrative. I can easily see Jones sharing this with his players and saying "Whether Foster becomes next coach and Read goes down as a great will be decided by what happens when we play them. Not by what Steve Hansen says to the media. That tells me he's not expecting to lose to us and he's already got one eye on the future beyond beating us."

By using these 4 prongs to support the story "they don't respect us", Eddie was able to not only understand but fuel what gives the English that extra energy. 

Psychological advantage #3. The power of neuroassociation---------------------------------------

Here - Eddie Jones used two masterstrokes

Neuroassociation 1: Listen to what Coach Jamie Joseph said of his team Japan's huge upset win over favourites Ireland after the game. 

“The Irish are a quality side and we have been preparing for this game a hell of a lot longer than the Irish have. The last year at least, if not the last three years. The Irish have been thinking about this game since Monday.”

Now compare that to what Eddie Jones said to the media pre-game. 

“We are ready for the game, we’ve had two-and-a-half years to prepare for this game so we are ready to go.”

The similarity is not a coincidence. The extra prep-time the Japanese gave to their game over the Irish was accepted as one of the reasons behind their win. 

So the neuro-association is clear: Eddie Jones is saying "in this game - we are Japan (the underdog who's been preparing for years for this game) and New Zealand are Ireland (the clear favourite who perhaps has not). In other words, he's neuro-associating his team with the Japanese who beat Ireland.

This message served the purpose of creating a suggestion to all the All Black players that their fates would be similar and they should fear England's level of multi-year preparation: a tactic used to create doubt and uncertainty, which robs the opponent of energy. 

Neuro-association #2: The Haka

The English response to the Haka was a master-stroke for 2 separate reasons. I'll deal with each in turn. The first reason was that it provided another powerful neuro-association: the English crossed the half-way line during the haka, which they are "not allowed" to do. 

The last time anyone did this was the French in the 2011 World Cup final. While the All Blacks scraped through against what was in all fairness a much weaker French side, they lost composure at many times during the match and almost panicked but for the heroics of their skipper - no longer playing. Here, the English were neuro-associating themselves with the stoic refusal to play by the rules laid down and adversity the French brought which caused them to play above themselves 8 years earlier. 

Psychological advantage #4. Energy Diffusion: 

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Eddie Jones enacted two main energy diffusion techniques against the All Blacks

Difusion #1. Haka-nullififation: 

Eddie Jones talked of the importance of taking energy from the opponent while adding energy to your own area of strength. This played out tactically on the field. But it also played out at a mindset level. 

Four years ago the All Blacks used the arrow-head formation for the first time at a World Cup for their haka. It is a strong battle formation, and other teams would stand in a line facing it. When an arrow hits a straight line, it pierces it - with all the energy of the arrow directed at the centre of the opponent. By adopting a V-formation to face the Haka, the arrow formation is nullified, because the energy is diffused equally across all parts of the opponent's line. 

It also marked an innovation: something unexpected and unanticipated. Psychologically, I am pretty certain what he directed his players to think : "Will them to expend their energy the haka, while we save our energy for the game." This is exactly what happened. 

Sure enough, at the press conference, Owen Farrell talked openly about the line-formation being weak, and them seeking an alternative that “would let them come straight at us”. 

Diffusion #2. Presenting the story "they are under more pressure than us" 

Eddie Jones told the Media that the All Blacks would be under much more pressure than them and went into the specific reasons why. He then added "Gilbert Enoka will be working overtime this week". Steve Hansen did not offer a counter-narrative to this, probably thinking "there's no need. Our players won't buy that." They probably didn't. But that wasn't the reason Eddie Jones said it. He said it because he wanted to take diffuse the negative energy caused by pressure away from his own team. 

The media picked up this story and even commented "Eddie Jones has taken the pressure off his team and put it on the All Blacks." He couldn't have asked for a better headline to present back to his own team as evidence that they had every reason to feel not only confident but calm. 

Psychological advantage #5. Mental Skills 2.0

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In the early 2000s the All Blacks started innovating their approach to the psychological aspect of the game. Mental Skills coach Gilbert Enoka was key to this transformation. The approach brought many benefits. But the rest of the world has not only cause up, it has now at least in England's case surpassed the mental/psychological mastery of the All Blacks. When Owen Farrell was asked post-match how he felt, he simply said "I feel calm". He looked it too. 

With the App "Calm" now having mainstream appeal, and over 20Million users, I would be completely unsurprised if England hasn't had said "If the All Blacks are using Mental Skills 1.0, what's 2.0?" The answer is pretty clear: meditation and mindfulness. 

This is the point I'm most speculative about, but I have a strong intuition they were doing something more powerful than the All Blacks were to stay relaxed and calm. And why wouldn't they again out-innovate the All Blacks and go for the most powerful tools available, knowing that this wasn't yet part of the All Black's culture. (from my experience, New Zealand is around 10 years behind the rest of the West when it comes to the normalisation of meditation and related stress-elimination techniques). 

Perhaps you're thinking "well these things may be contributing factors to the win, but they are secondary to tactical superiority". I used to believe that too. Back in 2003, I too believed that tactics and strategy was what got you ahead in business. I learnt through experience that I was naive. Tactics and strategy is the easy bit. 

Execution is the hard part. And when you and your competitors are similarly matched in capability - the differentiator is always mindset. 

Well done Eddie Jones. You delivered a master-class in this area. 

I hope we can all learn something from this and apply it to make our own leadership more enduring and endearing.