Phil Glasgow explains how Irish Rugby built a repeatable performance system by bringing together leaders from different disciplines in workshops to identify five core pillars: body, mind, people, place, and research & innovation. The system works because stakeholders helped design it and recognize themselves in it.
And I think about that system. You talk about the performance system with Irish rugby. So obviously I'm sitting here in New Zealand. I've got a number of friends who play professional rugby and some of them for New Zealand. And there's a great admiration, and there always has been, and I've been here 15, 16 years, and there's a great admiration for what goes on in Ireland and the level of rugby and the level of professionalism. The depth that Ireland has, really, particularly over the last five and six years, the depth is starting to show. So in terms of that, developing a performance system. So if there's somebody listening right now who runs a professional sports team or who runs an organization in a corporate setting, how would they go about approaching creating their own performance system?
Yeah. So I can share with you a little bit of the process of how we've gone about it, I think, is that. I think the first thing I'd say is that in Cross Irish rugby, as there is in many other systems, whether they're sports teams or businesses, there's lots of really good people doing lots of really good work. And from time to time, the secret sauce happens and you maybe work really well together and do something great. But the question is then, how do you make that the norm, the habitual thing? So I guess that was the same with Irish rugby. Lots of really good people wanting to be good, et cetera. But how can we, you know, pull together and ensure that we're all aligned in the right way? So I pulled together a group with all of the heads of all the different areas together to really start to review and reflect on what have we done to date. Let's look at previous strategies, for example, let's look at the best examples within and outside of discipline and around the world. Can we see any key themes or key areas emerging that we think are really important? And so we identified five key pillars on that, which I can come back to. But then the key thing with this, and I think this was the really key bit around creating a program that was off the organization and that then had greater chance of success. What we did was pull together people from across the whole system. So every team, so all of the four provinces and national teams from every discipline, so whether that was a nutritionist, coach, whatever, and at every level. So a new, relatively novice nutritionist, for example, and a head coach sitting. And we created subgroups and adopted a very intentionally a dialogic approach, which was, how can we get in and have a conversation? We had the group facilitators to Facilitate good conversations and allowed around each of these core areas all of that information to emerge. And then the job of facilitators was to start to identify where those areas of convergence, where's their key points, can they probe with good questions, questions to really get sort of from that, get our teeth into it. And I guess then in that what we find is that there's a real richness and what we found and if we start talking about getting that cognitive diversity in the room, so we're really getting from every area. So our five pillars were body, mind, people, place and research and innovation. And so how can you do those things really well? And then from that, I guess my job then was to synthesize all of that information back together and then create, you know, so what are some of the big themes? So there's common themes coming from everyone around how we do things. But then what would that look like then if we put flesh on the bones to try and live it and then create a, rather than a strategy or a, or a specific linear process to say, okay, we're not allowed on what we do, how do we do it then? Now what does this mean when we live it out along with specific tactics? So I think that's a very long answer, James, but in that what it says, take time to understand what are some of the things that seem to be important for you in your area? You know, so for us with body mind, people place, research, innovation, then engage with the group with get that cognitive diversity. Don't go in with an agenda, but allow the information to come and facilitate it with good dialogue. Allow to emerge, look for trends and convergences and similarities, identify those and then build a system around that. Because then when you present it, people go, yeah, I recognize that because it's ours. And so as you try to develop a system, it's the system of the group rather than one person saying, I've looked at everything, this is what I think you've got to do, which are two very different things. So that's a very long winded answer there.
That was beautiful and really thank you for sharing that. And I truly believe that really good self evaluation is the seed of self mastery and really evaluating on those pillars. So if we took those pillars, what does that look like in terms of going back and revisiting and measuring oneself or the organ organization against those pillars?
Yeah, and, and it's, it's a really good point. I would agree with you. You know, it's, you know, the, the better we know ourselves and, and can reflect on that and, and learn to pay attention to what's important. So we learn what's, what are the things that we got to give our attention to and the things that actually we think might be important but aren't so important if, if you like. And so when in going back into that, then thinking around those pillars, what we did was identified. We asked each of the subgroups as we went through that to identify, you know, key recommendations or key tactics to start to develop. What we wanted to develop and embedded in that was, you know, for, let's take something really straightforward like the body part. Body isn't straightforward but you know, so you know, what does a world class rugby player look like? So we've got that now how do we develop world class rugby players? What systems required to provide that? Things like, do we have aligned clear performance program planning for each player with clear physical outcomes that we want them to achieve? And targets, have we got an integrated approach between national and provincial staff there? And so when we reflect back we'll say, well, let's see this person's plan. What are their targets? How are we monitoring their progress over time? And is there clear integration between national and provincial teams as well of reflecting where we are? And if there isn't, well, why is that? Is there a very good reason for that? What's going on? So that's a really simple example, but then you just got to expand those principles and apply it into each of the other areas too.
