Playing a Higher Game

Why are the New Zealand All Blacks the most successful professional sports team in the world?

Why is Apple the most valuable company in the world?

Why does Harvard University consistently rank as the world’s finest academic institution?

Sure, the All Blacks play a pretty mean game of Rugby; and since its founding in 1976, Apple has demonstrated its ability to ‘think different,’ continually creating innovative leading edge products the world didn’t know it needed; and in 2036 Harvard will celebrate four-hundred years of academic excellence. But these real-world observations don’t openly reveal what makes them the best in the world.

What makes all three organisations the best in the world, is a clear set of non-negotiable values, ethics and behaviours that underpin an uncompromising high-trust, high-care, high-performance culture of excellence ... a culture committed to Playing a Higher Game.

The good news is that the respective culture, values, ethics, behaviours, purpose and principles of the All Blacks, Apple, Harvard, and countless other successful business, not-for-profit, educational and sporting organisations are not a secret … they are available for all to see, understand, and apply to your own business, organisation, or team.

So, what are values? … the foundation stones, the bedrock, that support an organisation’s culture; the deeply engrained principles that guide & motivate an organisation’s internal conduct and behaviours, as well as its relationships between customers, colleagues, partners, shareholders, and other stakeholders; the filters through which organisational choices and activities are considered, assessed, and either implemented or rejected.

Values are non-negotiable standards of behaviour ... never to be compromised for either convenience or short-term gain.

Values are your organisational DNA ... your genetic code.

"The standard you walk past is the standard you accept." - General David Hurley (27th Governor-General of Australia)

What is culture? ... the why & the way we do things around here; the cumulative result of the interplay between an organisation’s mission (purpose), vision, values (principles), ethics, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, beliefs, and habits; an organisation’s only truly unique identifier; it’s like a fingerprint, it may be similar to others, but it is uniquely distinct to your business.

Culture is the SOUL of your business.

“The only thing we have is one another. The only competitive advantage we have is the culture and values of the company. Anyone can open up a coffee store. We have no technology. We have no patent. All we have is the relationship around the values of the company and what we bring to the customer every day. And we all have to own it.” - Howard Schultz – Chief Executive Officer, Starbucks

What is behaviour? … the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others, inside and outside the workplace; on and off the field of play.

Playing a Higher Game starts with an overwhelming desire and a commitment to mastery, to be the best you can be; and a non-negotiable commitment to understanding and executing what it takes to reap the bountiful rewards of raising your business/organisation/team to a higher level of excellence and performance by establishing and implementing your own unique set of cultural values, ethics, and behaviours.

Playing a Higher Game also requires Playing Above the Line, a concept of operating from an internal locus of control (accepting agency), versus an external locus of control (relinquishing power), by having all members of your team accept personal agency, accountability, and responsibility for what it takes to be the best version of themselves.?

The benefits of developing a high-trust, high-care, and high-performance culture of excellence by Playing a Higher Game awaits you … it’s simply a matter of knowing what it takes to clarify, establish, and live by your own set of values and behaviours in order to access those rewards.

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else” – Albert Einstein.