It's more than a team - Continual Learning

For those that are new, this is a series of articles that look at what makes up high performing teams and how can businesses outperform the competition. All this came about from my conversations with the High-Performance Manager at St Kilda FC, Matt Hornsby.

Continuing on, we want to look at what kind of impact having CONTINUAL LEARNING has on high performance. 

I recently heard the Captain of the 2019 AFL Premiers, talk about the culture that exists in the Richmond Football Club. Essentially they have only have two states: “we’re winning or we’re learning.”

This is not bragging, because they have won two of the last three premierships. 

They exist to win games. That is a key driver of the organisation’s mission. So they do that, or they don’t.

To me, it speaks about the mindset of how successful teams approach their business. When they lose, they don’t seek to blame others or ‘catastrophise’ the loss. They LEARN, continually and consistently. 

Reflect, refine, reinvent, practice, revise….relentlessly! 

They do this openly and honestly and because they live the other attributes of High Performance including SAME PAGE, OPEN COMMUNICATION, TEAM FIRST, DIVERSITY of THOUGHT and INTEGRITY of ACTION. 

I believe that a genuine assessment of defeat is not possible without these attributes being in play. Someone might hold back one vital piece of information or not take on board a critical piece of feedback that might gain them the extra 1% of performance.

Many times, that is the difference between the next win or loss. 

It is knowing that there are always opportunities to learn. None of us are perfect. None of us needs to be perfect. We are part of a team. 

Together our nuances and talents can be harnessed for the achievement of team success. 

For CONTINUAL LEARNING to be entrenched in a team’s dynamic I believe the two major areas are the;

• physical and technical skills needed to play our role better
• individual and collective mindset  

In most elite performance environments it is recognised that the physical and technical capabilities are often very similar across the competition and are evolving consistently with advances in sports science. 

The second area might be summarised as How do we develop and frame our individual mindset and apply it in our reaction to feedback, challenges and opportunity to develop a cohesive team mindset.

This is where there is still massive potential.

How we then apply that mindset to engage with teammates is where the gains become a major performance differentiator. All the individual skills in the world don’t on their own make a good contributor or a good team. 

If people cling to a negative outlook, individual-only mindset or have a poor communicative style, that cohesion and success will prove elusive. 

The ability to consistently get the best out of each other by honing skills and mindset are massive success contributors. Cohesion in a team is fuelled by honest Communication & Connection across divisions.

In the 2017 AFL Grand Final, Richmond players noted at half time that they felt their opposition had lost connection with each other. Despite being underdogs that year, Richmond’s connection was unwavering and contributed to them running away in the contest to taste ultimate success for the first time in 37 years. 

We’ll look more into the impact Communication & Connection has on high performance in future articles. 

The ability to look at ourselves from the perspective of what can I take on board to get better. And do that every day is the cornerstone of living CONTINUAL LEARNING. 

The system of how that is delivered is important; the mindset to accept and seek it ruthlessly, creating learning opportunities, is CRITICAL. 

It is what sets apart the elite from the rest of the competition.  

How does your team rate against this quick checklist?

1. Does your team outperform the competition? 
2. Does everyone in your team ruthlessly seek feedback in their pursuit of CONTINUAL LEARNING? 
3. Does your team proactively share insights that can uncover an opportunity for skill development? 
4. Do all team members Reflect, refine, reinvent, practice, revise….relentlessly? 

What do we need to stop, start and do more of to ensure our team really values and shows CONTINUAL LEARNING?

Let me know in the comments below and happy to have a chat if you need help facilitating this conversation with your team.

Go Team!