Creativity helps Brave Blossoms bloom
England have beaten the All Blacks to secure a place in the Rugby World Cup (RWC) final.
The British Bulldogs prevailed against all odds. There have been quite a few surprises in the RWC 2019, but the current runs deeper than just a few upsets. The game is changing, and I think Japan is making it so.
Who’d have thought? I’m certainly no expert at rugby analysis and my playing skills are at best described as clumsy by mates who ran out onto the field with me for internal league games at university.
Rugby has forever been the game of brawn, played by real men, hairy and strong — no weird hairstyles, no Alice bands, no nylon shirts, no chin pads — none of that soccer stuff.
Though the Japan Rugby Football Union was founded 93 years ago and there are about 3,600 clubs and 125,000 players in Japan, they’ve never before got through to the quarterfinals or been ranked in the top 10.
That all started changing four years ago when they shocked the rugby world by beating the Springboks 34-32 in Brighton. Thankfully we gave them a 41-7 lesson in the pre-2019 RWC warm-ups and then successfully defended our line against their inspiring new style to win 26-3 in the quarterfinals.
Japan have done themselves proud in RWC 2019, both as a team and as host nation — filling the stadiums with enthusiastic local support and pride and then beating Russia, Ireland (nogal), Samoa and Scotland to boot. Well done, Japan!
The Brave Blossoms made the established teams stop and rethink their game plans.
There are many interpretations of the Japanese word “konjo”, ranging through discipline, sacrifice, endurance, sincerity, courage and strength
— the attributes of the Samurai warrior — to being smart and creative, in the Amharic interpretation. We are seeing so many of these traits in the current world cup, and in the Japan side in particular.
Sport embodies so many lessons applicable to success in business. Japan had partners invited into the solution because of skills and experience gained elsewhere. More than half of the Japan squad were not born to Japanese parents. Their coach is a former All Black.
Partnerships, within the rules, are a necessary ingredient to the success of any venture into an internationally competitive environment. We surely all know that by now.
To break into new markets or get ranked in the top 10 players, you have to do something different.
Established capital, institutional knowledge and conventional wisdom cannot be easily replicated, but it can be challenged, unseated.
You have to know who you are, what you’ve got and what’s missing. That requires a deep understanding of the economic model of your business — from client desires through competitive offerings to fully costed production capacity.
It requires investing for the long term. It requires action.
It requires a clear mind, uncluttered with past baggage, and, above all, it requires leadership — to persuade the sceptics and to bring your team with you — through the inevitable mistakes and hiccups. It requires an attitude of encouragement, not just punishment.
Those well-established rugby teams and businesses that are not prepared to continuously visit these constructs will eventually be ousted.
Ask Kodak, IBM and the taxi industries throughout the world, who hadn’t factored in the overwhelming influences that technology and individualcentric focus would have on consumer behaviour and buying patterns.
As it turns out, there are enough pixels in digital photography to challenge the celluloid film first made commercially available by Kodak more than a century ago. It is possible to put computer power, stored in buildings only a few decades ago, in your pocket today. It does make sense for your ride to come to you rather than for you to have to go looking for it.
It is these rather simple and obvious developments that moved us from celluloid to bitmaps, and founded Apple and Uber.
It was a different style of rugby that got Japan to where it is now — not strength, but creativity.
The application of these principles is even more acute when facing turnarounds.
Failed business models cannot be fixed by those who broke them.
It requires original, unbridled thought and new, brave leadership. You can’t take out your own appendix, as the saying goes.
Let us get the right leaders and thinkers into the turnaround seats, and let’s do it now. And then let’s give them space to breathe.
Next Saturday is bound to be a little tougher and rougher —I can’t wait!
JAPAN HAD PARTNERS INVITED INTO THE SOLUTION BECAUSE OF SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE GAINED ELSEWHERE