20 Years with Rugby's Best: Darren Shand's Leadership Odyssey

Yeah, we turn the leadership model upside down. If you can't lead self, how do you expect to lead others? Great leadership defines great organizations. Others don't have the answers. Does create a selfishness in you? Do I fake it today or do I just be me? Shame's horrible place. We arrive on a Monday, we're beaten up physically. You just lose the sense of worth for a day. Sometimes you can feel under attack, and I enter the danger. Meant to be, really. Probably had a couple of dark years where I was faking it to her. If I'm being honest with you. I was really, really, really struggling. How can I lead this in a different way? I don't want to see her suffer anymore. It's just a myriad of ways you can lead. It's nirvana. That's what.

The first episode with the All Blacks manager, Darren Shand was so popular, and we got so much amazing feedback that we've got a second episode. You're about to sit down and get an insight into one of the greatest.

Leaders on the planet.

Darren's phenomenal at what he does. And today we're going to talk about vulnerability. We're going to talk about legacy and how the All Blacks have created legacy and how we can do that in our lives and. And also in the teams and organizations.

That we're a part of.

So please sit back and enjoy the show.

Darren, I want to say a huge welcome back. In our first episode, there was just so much gold, and I'm like, we can't capture this. It's going to be hours and hours and hours.

We need it.

We need to come back again and reconnect in. So I want to continue the conversation around your experience in the all blacks. It's been 20 years as an All Blacks manager. Phenomenal. So in that time, obviously, we naturally, we would expect things might change economically, things might change at a country level, at a cultural level, we all change in that time. But let's just focus in on leadership because most of the listeners listen in because it's around building self leadership, leading teams, leading on purpose. So what do you think about leadership and how it has changed? What have you noticed or has it not?

Yeah, well, I think.

I think the sort of theme for this chat was really about, you know, in leadership, everything has changed, but nothing has changed. And so nothing has changed in that. It's critical. You know, it's great leadership defines great organizations. It defines great success. And I guess in the performance space that we work, leadership along with culture drives performance. My humble opinion, those Two factors matter more than anything else, either more than the technical and the tactical. And because the sense of brotherhood, connectiveness in our sport matters, you know, and whether we all get along and that under pressure we've got people that can lead and make great decisions. That sits at the absolute base of our fare. So I guess what I've noticed is when we started back in 04, like.

World Cups are our pinnacle event every four years.

New Zealand won the first World cup in 1987 and then went a long time before we got the next. And we also had a group of players that felt that.

Playing for their super rugby team was more fun and better than playing for the All Blacks. That was the environment that we started with. So we really quickly identified that we needed to upweight the ability of our players to lead.

And so we started on a very sort of theoretical basis, you know, like leadership, traditional what the books say.

Yeah. And looked a lot at, you know, personality profiling and who we are.

But while that was great and it took us a certain, certain way forward, it didn't actually address where we needed leadership, which was in the moment on the field under pressure. It actually took us another loss at a World cup in 07 to recognise that. And the most vivid memory I have of that particular match against France in the quarter final that we lost raging hot favorites and lost quarter final was sitting on the bench, you know, we were just pounding the French line in the second half to get up a score. We couldn't. And I remember Richie McCaw who was second year captain, you know, pretty new, looking across to the bench saying, I just don't have the answers, you know. And in that moment I didn't feel like.

It was his fault. I felt like, well, we've let you down, you know, we haven't given you the tools that you need.

So I think that really drove this whole concept of leadership being shared, you know, and that the essence of it was how do we our nibbana had to be with our leadership, that people could be one self reliant so they could self lead. And that had to be the first stage. If you can't lead self, how do you expect to lead others? Of course. So that became really critical.

Then obviously the decision making and working under pressure, they became the other two aspects of building great leaders in our team. But I think that aspect of you've got to get me right first before we. To me it was almost the polar opposite of how I'd seen leadership or how was leadership was from the front and it was loud and it was told and directed. And suddenly I was like, actually, there's another way here, you know, And I started to believe probably in myself that I could be a quiet, influential leader. That one on one conversations were more important in shaping and moving people than standing in front of everybody. I learned as the chief of operations that if everything flowed, I didn't need to talk because. And actually, the less I talked, the better, because then everything was working, of course.

So that sounds simple when you're saying that, but to get to that point, that must have been challenging.

Yeah. Oh, it was. But it was like that became my challenge, you know, it's like, well, how do I. How do I make all this happen without having to. How can I lead this in a different way, you know, and how can I enable things to happen versus telling or, you know, and very quickly learned that it became about selling not telling, you know, and that like, that sort of shaped my approach. And the more I did work on myself and did some individual profiling, found that that was my effective style, you know, So I was like, well, actually that can exist. There's lots of ways that you can lead. And it's just finding that. So that's why I go back to the statement around and leadership, Everything changes. Nothing changes. When we look at great leaders, they tend to be people that were direct. If you go back in history, very much so. But I think the power now, and we still have a head coach who has to make it most of the citizens, but what he says is actually a collective representation of a lot of people's ideas that have shared. And he's our voice for that collaborative leadership, the collaborative leadership approach to it all. And, you know, the power of many outweighs the power of one every time. And sure, we have a senior leadership group of four of us, and sometimes we get to two all, I bet.

And we got a goodest challenge.

Yeah. Then you've got. That's where the vulnerability and the knowing each other and the ability to take that conversation further can continue 100%. That's leadership in its own right.

And we go back to our previous episode when we talked about trust and respect and then that independence of people knowing the roles. That's why the leadership team of four, there can be agreement, disagreement, but in the end, it's about informing the person who has to make the decision.

And it's also then coming back to what's driving, you know, what. What is the raison d' etre for this decision, you know, what's it all about and holding each other to account to that, you know, and that's why it's so beautiful having a really strong vision and a really strong way of how we want to behave. Because thus set in stone like they're our ten Commandments, you know, and it's very easy to say, oh, hey, no, sorry, this is what we're about. That's a me, this is a we, you know. And so I think that's been infinitely important for our leadership model and the way we've approached it. And the fact that one of the other great things I've really seen in terms of that is how we manage the leadership influence in a week. Because if you think about we're a Monday to Saturday organisation, we arrive on a Monday, we're beaten up physically, we then got to recover physically and, and then sort of re energize ourselves to do another performance. So when you're beaten up, you can't do much physically, but you can use your mind. And what we do in terms of the leadership influence, if you look at, if we graph the leaders, the player leaders and the coaches, for example, over a week in terms of influence, at the start of the week, the coaches take most of the influence because I've done all the homework, done all the research, they've got all the data and they create the strategy with the players, but they, they'll take all that information. This is what we see. What do you guys think? What do you want to add to it? So they've got a very strong influence. Now, as the week progresses, as we get to the middle of the week, if we divide the week into three, let's say the first part's about clarity. We can't do much physically, but we can get really clear about what we need to do strategically, in terms of tactically. But then we've got to add a little bit of intensity because we've got to test the clarity at a level that it's going to be played at, you know, and ultimately when we get to the game, we've got to be accurate. So CIA becomes the way. So in clarity, the leadership is very much about the coaches. And so they hold the, they hold most of the leadership responsibility. The players are here, they're learning, but as the week goes, those paths cross.

That's amazing.

And so as more intensity is that and as the accuracy of it, that sits with the players because it's about what happens on the field and so we step back.

So I imagine that I don't tell the Coaches, this. But they have Friday, Saturday off.

The job is done. Oh, yeah, but it is. And that's. But that's leadership in its own way. Because that's. It's allowing and knowing that they're the ones in the arena, you know, of course. And they've got to. I've got to own it and they've got to know it. And, you know, when we've chosen leadership groups in the past, people go, how do you do it? I say, well, it's very easy. You just ask the player, who will they turn to when things go when, When. When the pressure's on.

And that helps you define who that person is. Then.

Yeah, it's not much more, isn't it? That's what leadership's about, isn't it?

Yeah, of course.

People look to.

Yeah, that's who. When people. When someone's talking and everyone looks and starts nodding, you know, you find your natural leader.

Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't have to be loud. Some are, some aren't. There's lots of different ways and that's what I've loved. And, you know, people can. There's just a myriad of ways you can lead. And that's what I've enjoyed exploring that notion and seeing how. And actually I love now is actually empowering others to lead. You know, if I look at my circumstances now with the team, where we've become a huge brand, so the whole commercial and the business side's just grown instrumentally, but I've still got the whole operational side. I've just had to trust my group on that, you know, because I know it inside out and I know they know it. So it's like, it's yours. Here's the rope. Go for it. You know, and I've got to input into here because this is going to have a real. This could be a real distractor for us, you know, so it's been. Yeah, it's fascinating to see that and watch, Watch people elevate and share your journeys with them in terms of how their style develops and what. How they become as leaders, too. So that's what I've loved the most. And here is that just. It's an ever evolving sort of path that you're on. You know, you never made it.

Yeah, there's no destination in leadership.

No, no, no. You just never. And you. You're constantly exposed to different ideas and new thoughts and gosh, even just the other day I was on YouTube having to read something for a meeting and anyhow remembers what you read and Next thing, this Steven Sinnett thing popped up about the diffusion theory. Do you know about that? So talking about influence, if you're trying to influence culture and shift change and how in a normal, you know, in a normal bell shaped curve that you have a group which are the early adopters, then you have a group in the middle who unsure in the other group you'll never shift. But he was just talking about how as a leader, put all your energy into the early adopters because they'll become all your other leaders that will then influence the masses, you know, and he calls that diffusion, you know, like you diffuse their knowledge across everybody. And so yeah, using their influence. And I think we have a leadership team of seven, eight players and we know we're always going to need four or five of them on the field because we need eyes all around the field. You know, one, one person can't do it all. And that, that becomes a, you know, I guess one of the sort of inwards in sport is the spine, you know, the team and they become your spine. And, and interestingly we were, we had a discussion as a coaching group and management group the other day about some of the talk on field and we were talking about some moments in the match we just played last weekend where it was very tight and we behind and then turned it around. And interestingly, everything that the coaches were sending as messages has already been translated by the players.

That's amazing.

Yeah. And that's nirvana. That's what you want.

It's like a oneness, like a shared thought process, a shared understanding, shared purpose.

What we do know is that Saturday doesn't happen by mistake. And everything you've done to that point, it should just be a dress rehearsal.

To the big performance. So you shouldn't be surprised by what you're getting. Yeah, but you still have to learn and adapt in the moment.

Going back to 07, Richie's on the field, he's looking over at you guys going, I don't know the answer. I don't have all the answers. I don't know if I can shift things. What I really was fascinated by was you saying, I feel like I didn't or we didn't equip him with the skill sets or the leadership support. That takes a lot of ownership, self awareness, social awareness, situational awareness. You've got a lot of self awareness. So you walk away from that going, I need to level up me. But then I also need to equip the key decision makers on the field. So you've been there for 20 years. How has your self leadership changed? Has it been a, hey, I've just stuck to one principle and I've just maintained that. Or have you continually challenged your status quo for your leadership?

Yeah, I think more the latter.

Quite quietly driven.

But also so much about team like find it really hard to make decision that's just about me, you know, because I'm so caught in the team ethos, you know, so I believe in it. So.

My drive's probably really been because my remit's really wide. One thing I really struggled with was the whole.

Notion that you sometimes you can feel under attack when you have such a big. That nothing's quite right, you know, and it can become very personal, you know. And I struggled with that, really struggled with that, that if something was raised in my area, I'd feel like personally responsible for it, in fact. And so that probably the last three years just understanding that that's not the case, you know, and that can I look at that through a different lens and say, well that's actually about what the team needs me to do, not what it needs me specifically to do, but what does the team need here? And just depersonalizing the issues.

That'S been a life changing move for me as a person personally in terms of leadership and it's probably allowed me to lead better with others knowing that they also feel that too. So like when the coach, if things don't work on field it's actually. Well actually he's probably feeling, he's really feeling that, you know, so how do we, how do I interact with him? Today for example, is this the right time given he's probably dealing with that emotionally or so it's shaped a lot of how I think and behave.

I also know.

The other big lesson that I've learned in that space would be around understanding the difference between task and relationship. In that often as leaders we get so stuck in what we've got to achieve that we just become so task oriented and we forget the relational aspect of the people we work with. And so again that's really shifted my thinking around how when I bring my group together, how we engage, you know, like got a whole lot of people that are, you know, box tickers and they're just so determined to get all that task driven. So task driven. But it's like actually how are we going?

You know, we're doing this through people and with people, right?

Yeah, yeah. And how are we getting on? How we feeling things? What's tomorrow looking like? Just bringing it back to the people versus the process, I think, has been amazing learning. And you see the value in that because others see that a lot more than they see all the boxes ticked, of course. You know what I mean? And they see the influence of that a lot more and they feel it a lot more. And the trust grows and it grows and it grows. And suddenly people are coming to you with things that they would never have in the past because there's that. This guy's got me, you know, I know if we. If we talk this will. There'll be a shift here, there'll be movement here.

So that would be the. Probably a couple of the biggest lessons I think I've learned. And I think off the back of that came that whole notion that we always have a certain lens that we look through. But keep challenging myself to look at the other lens first, you know, like, listen first and try and take myself away from my perspective.

How do you do that?

Just listen. Yeah, I become a really good. Like a lot of people say to me they'll talk for quite a bit and I'm sorry for venting. I say, hey, I love people venting because I love listening, you know, and because I'll hear a lot, you know, and. And I'll just let. Doesn't impact me personally anymore. It's just. I'm just hearing it, you know, and I'm hearing what it is.

Observer.

Yeah. Yeah. And I like that.

But then I can pretty quickly come. Because of experience, I can pretty quickly come to. Oh, yeah, I can see the issue here, you know, and I got quite. Talk. Quite talk quite early. It's about, yes, if you find. Being able to define and see all the issues, but then it's a guy that can find the solutions that really matters. The person that can execute under pressure, which was what Richie was struggling with, he just couldn't. He could see all the issues but didn't have the solutions back in that time. So, yeah, we turned the leadership model upside down at that stage and said, hey, we're too theoretical here. We've got to find what is the critical ingredient here is people under pressure understanding what that's like. And we're really fortunate to get Carey Evans doing some work by us at that stage. It was a forensic psychic, presented a beautiful model of how we react under pressure, fight, flight or freeze. And gosh, suddenly it's like, oh, okay, well, that makes sense. Just about where my attention is. So if I'm under pressure, I'm either diverted or I'm not. If I'm not diverted. I'm on task.

Fine.

I am diverted. Problem. So it's like, it was so simple, you know, that's what the brain does. Of course. And so then the skill became. Okay, how do we. We know in the game that there's periods where we're going to have our attention diverted, but the skill will be, how do I. How fast can I return to the process?

Because you will get diverted. It's not that you can't ever prevent that.

No, you can't.

But it's the.

The recovery.

Yeah.

Aware.

Like the actual awareness.

I'm diverted because some people aren't aware. No, no.

So the awareness and then the recovery.

But then if your leaders can understand the people and see, oh, he is diverted. How do I bring him back? Yes, you know, and, you know, some beautiful stuff. Some players develop their own cues. Like, I remember Brad Thorne, who played for us for a long period. He was. Yeah, just a physical beast, you know, but he. And he. What he used to do to get himself out of that space. He'd get a water bottle and just tip it on himself, even if it was a cold day, break the pattern. It was just a. It was just a ritual that he did to say, hey, come on, I'm hot here. I've got to come back to where I need to be. Richie said to me, he always knew if he was in that space, he looked where he was looking, and if he was looking down, as soon as he looked up, it's like, oh, I can see. It's crazy. But how simple. Yeah. And those sort of, I guess, those understandings of yourself in terms of how you lead become. I know myself. I walk into a room and people are looking at me in terms of what temperatures they're in today. What's his mood? They're just assessing me constantly, you know, and so do I fake it today or, you know, or do I just be me or, you know, so it's. It's a test every day, 100%.

And over the years, have you committed to certain things that have helped to grow your leadership, whether it's reading or mentorship or people that, you know, have guided you?

Yeah, I've had a real mixture of things. Some reading, some great books. The four agreements was one book that particularly really pk'd a change for me, just in terms of behavior before. Agreements are about, you know, speaking your word, not taking things personally, being the best you every day and never making assumptions. You just make those agreements with yourself. And it comes from Mexican history. I think the Toltec people. It was simple. And I was like, wow. I really. The depersonalization was so good and the, you know, sometimes the leader, you know so much, but you've got to hold your word. You know, there's times you just got to be careful. Clever. So it just resonated with me so much. I worked with a leadership coach who had no idea about Wrigley whatsoever, which.

Is a great thing, right?

A great thing. Yeah. He was a business lecturer and he. I used to take case studies to him. I say, I've got this problem, you know, and we'd sit and talk for an hour or two, and he'd never give me the answer, but he'd ask lots of questions and I'd find the path eventually, you know, but it was great just, you know, having those. I'm dealing with this person. This is a problem. How do I do it? And. And I've now been able to do that to others and help them with the same challenges. You know, in sports, I've had a couple of people, you know, in high performance sport who have said, I've got this issue. And we've just sat and talked it through A given created a situation that they can drive themselves to move. Move someone and move a behavior. And it's really. It's very cool to. To know that. But, yeah, as I said earlier, the big influence of Jim Collins, Patrick Lanzioni particularly, and the four agreement sides are probably my stables, you know, that I've. I've kept coming back to and. But always like, exploring around the edges. I've had others say as well, that's incredible, all that.

Patrick.

No. So Patrick and I kind of duke it out every week for. On the podcast charts and love what he says. There are five dysfunctions of team.

Yeah.

Brilliant book. Yeah, absolutely outstanding.

Yeah. He's good at what he does. Yeah. And, you know, so much in that book that's so rich, you know, around.

One of the cues he used to use, you know, you talk about having courage and conversations. When we were talking about when I started with Sir Graham Henry and how scared of him, you know, and how do I. How do I break an issue with Ted? And one of the lens? The only sayings is, can I enter the danger? You know, and I used to always go, graham, can I enter the danger? And he had a little snake would come on his face, you know, just. It was a beautiful icebreaker.

100% seeking permission.

Yeah. But also taking away the personalization. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like there's A problem. Can we work together on this? I love that and the whole notion of artificial harmony, you know, like I can just feel it now. Like I'm like ah, no, this is wrong. You know, like we've got to bring this back. Let's get some vulnerability here. Let's get some, some real openness in this conversation. Otherwise this is just. You're just telling me your cognitive all up here. Yeah, yeah. Because it's only in that that you'll really get buy in and you'll get. That you'll get yourself to the top where you know, the team usurps the individual because very easy the more you've done it to see individual thinking versus team thinking. Yeah, of course. When you're in a team.

Oh absolutely.

That's very obvious. So. And it's.

Yeah, it's good seeing high performance because any high performer, high performing organization, there's pressure, there's expectation, there's an almost obsessive focus on an outcome and it be over a very short period of time. It puts pressure on all aspects of life. What have been some of your greatest challenges on field or off field in life with your role?

Family life's been tough. Yeah, been really tough. You had had a really tough time having kids and that, that was hard, you know, like watching. Watching my wife go through what she went through to have the kids at a pretty late stage of her life, that was, that was, that was tough going and really hard to. So hard to be connected to it because it's not physically something you're connected to, you know. And it was almost so hard that I didn't want it in the end, you know, if that made sense. It was like I don't want to see her suffer anymore. You know. She's like the most resilient person I've ever met. She does hung in forever and you know, we end up with two beautiful kids. But that was tough. The.

You'Re right around high performance does create a selfishness in you to some degree because you become so obsessed with the, with the outcome and the constant delivery and requirement to. And so just balancing that with other needs in your life is hard.

And so yeah, I went through a marriage breakup that was tough mentally. Really probably had a couple of dark years where I was faking it to be. If I'm being honest with you, I was really, really, really struggling. I was really unhappy and I couldn't hide it. As much as I tried, I just couldn't hide.

Was amazing to come out of that. Like the growth I'VE had from that experience is.

Amazing. Really. Just.

In the last two years, what people have said in terms of energy and what I am and how I am, it's been amazing. Really, really sad to have finished a pretty long marriage. But in the end, we only have ourselves. And if there's joy, there's happiness. You're just a better person for it. So, yeah, I think, yeah, everyone's journey is different and it's. I don't know, too many people in sport that have had the perfect ride, you know, it's.

If anyone.

Yeah, anyone. Yes. It has its challenges, and I want to stay intact and want to come out of it better, and that's what it does allow you to do. Because the challenges we face in sport are not sport challenges. They're life challenges.

Human challenges.

Human challenges, yeah.

And coming out of it, if you don't mind me asking, I really appreciate your openness and courage, vulnerability to share that, because personally, I've been through marriage separation as well, and I don't think anybody does that in a smooth fashion. There's always challenges and speed bumps, but the coming out of it and getting back to the light rather than the darkness, I mean, that's truly the goal there. Do you have anything that you would be willing to share in terms of these things helped me actually move forward and come out of the darkness and into the light?

Yeah, I think there was probably a lot of things, like you just lose the sense of worth for a day.

Darkness is horrible. I don't know. I've been such a motivated person for so long, you know, like, I just overreact. Probably not ADD but, you know, I'm just super active with sport and maybe do everything to the extreme, you know, and suddenly that then the desire to do that stopped, you know, I was like, wow, I've lost. Lost who I am, you know, what I love. And so I had to reconnect with COVID was actually quite good in a way, because I was stuck at home. And we were lucky because we lived out near the coast so you could just get out and walk. And it was, I don't know, spiritual in a way, because you felt like, contained, but you could get out. And despite all the fact that there was an epidemic on in the world, you could sort of.