James Kerr Legacy Quotes

Leaders create leaders by passing on responsibility, creating ownership, accountability and trust.

The challenge is to always improve, to always get better, even when you are the best. Especially when you are the best. Henry

Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is a nightmare.

society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they will never see’.

Humility does not mean weakness, but its opposite. Leaders with mana understand the strength of humility. It allows them to connect with their deepest values and the wider world.

The fight is won or lost,’ says Muhammad Ali, ‘far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, well before I dance under the lights.

Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence,’ wrote Tom Peters in Thriving on Chaos, ‘only in constant improvement and constant change.

Just because it’s common sense,’ he says of the process, ‘doesn’t mean it’s common practice.

Successful leaders balance pride with humility: absolute pride in performance; total humility before the magnitude of the task.

The training, decision-making wise, should be harder than the game,’ says Wayne Smith. ‘So you try an overlying principle of throwing problems at them – unexpected events – forcing them to solve the problems.

No one is bigger than the team and individual brilliance does not automatically lead to outstanding results. One selfish mindset will infect a collective culture.

Most leaders who fail,’ Bill George says in an interview with Pamela Hawley, ‘really suffer from a lack of a strong identity, belief in themselves and, to be frank, respect for themselves.

Personal meaning is the way we connect to a wider team purpose. If our values and beliefs are aligned with the values and beliefs of the organization, then we will work harder towards its success. If not, our individual motivation and purpose will suffer, and so will the organization.

To be able to work together, communication is the biggest thing,’ says Smith. ‘And I think that comes from a team that has good links from off the field . . . a team able to spend time together and talk to one another and be honest with one another. It’s incredibly important.

Porque la fuerza de la manada es el lobo, y la fuerza del lobo es la manada.

Successful leaders look beyond their own field to discover new approaches, learn best practices and push the margins. Then they pass on what they have learned.

It should be our acts that remain after us, the whakairo remind us, not our vainglory. Humility is seen as a vital part of a well-adjusted character.

No son las especies más fuertes ni las más inteligentes las que sobreviven, sino las que saben dar una respuesta mejor al cambio. CHARLES DARWIN

«Si me lo dices, lo olvidaré; enséñamelo y lo recordaré; involúcrame y lo comprenderé»,

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments,' said the Greek statesman Pericles, 'but what is woven into the lives of others.' Your legacy is that which you teach.

In his seminal paper ‘Destruction and Creation’, the military strategist John R. Boyd created a theory with direct applicability to a fast-changing environment. ‘To maintain an accurate or effective grasp of reality,’ he argued, ‘one must undergo a continuous cycle of interaction with the environment to assess its constant changes.’ He asked himself, ‘how do we create the mental concepts to support decision making activity?’ His answer was the Decision Cycle or OODA Loop. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. It is quick to apply, and useful for everyday decision-making.

Create the highest possible operating standards, develop the character of your players, develop the culture of your team and, as the title of Walsh’s book proclaims, The Score Takes Care of Itself.

Level 5 leaders, Collins argues, ‘channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. Their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.’ Pass the ball.

If you think of physical conditioning, technical understanding and tactical appreciation as forming three legs,’ Wayne Smith tells writer Gregor Paul, ‘the stool isn’t balanced unless you have psychological strength as well.

Pass the Ball Enlightened leaders deliberately hand over responsibility in order to create engaged team-players able to adapt their approach to suit the conditions. ‘Command & Control’ in a VUCA world is unwieldy and increasingly uncompetitive.

—— The key to strong peer-to-peer interaction is a high level of trust. This is trust in the sense of safe vulnerability. The leaders need to create an environment where individuals get to know each other as people and gather insight into their personal story and working style. This needs to be supported by the leader’s role-modelling behaviour around admission of mistakes and weaknesses and fears . . . This is essential for safe conflict and safe confrontation, where the most important interaction often occurs.

Marginal gain can be technical, physical, practical, operational, and even psychological. In the film Any Given Sunday, the Al Pacino character calls it ‘Inches’: —— You find out that life is just a game of inches. So is football. Because in either game, life or football, the margin for error is so small . . . On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that inch . . . Cause we know when we add up all those inches that’s going to make the fucking difference between WINNING and LOSING.

RED HEAD Tight, inhibited, results-oriented, anxious, aggressive, over-compensating, desperate. BLUE HEAD Loose, expressive, in the moment, calm, clear, accurate, on task. It’s what tennis coach Nick Bollettieri calls the ‘centipede effect’. If a centipede had to think about moving all its legs in the right order, it would freeze, the task too complex and daunting. The same is true of humans. Red is what Suvorov called ‘the Dark’. It is that fixated negative content loop of self-judgement, rigidity, aggression, shut down and panic. Blue is what he called ‘the Light’ – a deep calmness in which you are on task, in the zone, on your game, in control and in flow. It applies to the military; it applies to sport; it applies to business. In the heat of battle, the difference between the inhibitions of the Red and the freedom of Blue is the manner in which we control our attention. It works like this: where we direct our mind is where our thoughts will take us; our thoughts create an emotion; the emotion defines our behaviour; our behaviour defines our performance. So, simply, if we can control our attention, and therefore our thoughts, we can manage our emotions and enhance our performance.

This questioning is as applicable to business as it is to rugby. No one person has all the answers, but asking questions challenges the status quo, helps connect with core values and beliefs, and is a catalyst for individual improvement. After all, the better the questions we ask, the better the answers we get.

Wise leaders seek to understand how the brain reacts to stress and practise simple, almost meditative techniques to stay calm, clear and connected. They use maps, mantras and anchors to navigate their way through highly pressurized situations, both personal and professional, and to bring themselves back to the moment. In this way they and their teams stay on top of their game and on top of the situation.

Pressure is expectation, scrutiny and consequence,’ says Gilbert Enoka. ‘Under pressure, your attention is either diverted or on track. If you’re diverted, you have a negative emotional response and unhelpful behaviour. That means you’re stuck. That means you’re overwhelmed.’ On the other hand, if your attention is on track you have situational awareness and you execute accurately. You are clear, you adapt and you overcome.

What man actually needs,’ argues Frankl, ‘is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.’ ‘Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself,’ he writes. ‘The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is, and the more he actualizes himself.’ ‘Self-actualization,’ he concludes, ‘is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.’ Of ‘getting over yourself’. Of sweeping the sheds. And it begins with the question

First, we put ourself in a resourceful state: calm, positive, clear. Then we ‘anchor’ that state through a specific, replicable physical action – something out of the ordinary, like scrunching up our toes, stamping our foot, staring into the distance, throwing water over our face. Repeat, and repeat, and repeat – until it’s automatic. Then, when we recognize the symptoms of pressure – when our focus closes down, our vision narrows, our heart rate lifts, our anxiety increases, our self-consciousness rises – we can use the anchor to reboot. And return to our centre. Like a doctor using paddles on a cardiac arrest, the ‘jolt of recognition’ reactivates our more resourceful state and returns us to the moment.

So, fast forward from Cardiff 1997 to Auckland 2011, from a Rugby World Cup quarter-final to a World Cup final, from a team heading towards defeat to a team heading towards victory. It’s the same two sides playing: New Zealand vs. France. It’s just as tight, but this time New Zealand lead by one point. Read the body language. Richie McCaw breathes, holds his wrist, stamps his feet – reconnecting with himself, returning to the moment. He looks around. There are no glazed eyes now. No walking dead. Brad Thorne throws water over himself, cooling his thoughts. Kieran Read stares out to the far distant edge of the stadium, regaining perspective. New Zealand, the stadium of four million people, is less calm. The dread casts a long black cloud. The spectators can’t help but flash back to the bad pictures. They are in the Red, but the All Blacks stay in the Blue. The clock counts itself down, slowly, slowly; until finally . . . the whistle blows. 8-7 New Zealand. ‘We smashed ’em,’ says Graham Henry. And in their heads, they did.

The word character comes from the Ancient Greek, 'kharakter,' meaning they mark that is left on a coin during its manufacture. Character is also the mark left on you by life, and the mark we leave on life. It's the impact you make when you're here, the trace you leave once you've gone. Character rises out of our values, our purpose, the standards we set ourselves, our sacrifice and commitment, and the decisions we make under pressure, but it is primarily defined by the contribution we make, the responsibility we take, the leadership we show. [...] John Wooden said, 'Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.' Character is forged by the way we respond to the challenges of life and business, by the way we lead our life and teams. If we value life, life values us. If we devalue it, we dishonour ourselves and our one chance at living. THIS is our time. Leadership is surely the example we set. The way we lead our own life is what makes us a leader.

Los líderes crean líderes. Dotan de intención a sus subordinados. Y se quitan de en medio.

«Vuestro tiempo es limitado —dijo Steve Jobs en su famoso discurso en Stanford en 2005—, no os quedéis atrapados en el dogma… Y, lo más importante, tened la valentía de seguir vuestro corazón y vuestra intuición. De alguna manera, ellos ya saben en lo que os queréis convertir. Todo lo demás es secundario.»

Te das cuenta de que la vida es un juego de pulgadas. También el fútbol. Porque en los dos juegos, el de la vida y el del fútbol, el margen de error es tan pequeño… En este equipo luchamos por esa pulgada. En este equipo, nos destrozamos por esa pulgada… Porque sabemos que la suma de todas esas pulgadas marcará la diferencia entre ganar y perder.

Walsh knew,’ Stuart Lancaster, the current England rugby coach, told rugby writer Mark Reason, ‘that if you established a culture higher than that of your opposition, you would win. So rather than obsessing about the results, you focus on the team.

Collective character is vital to success. Focus on getting the culture right; the results will follow.

El Departamento de Cirugía del Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, un hospital universitario de la ciudad de Nueva York, ha desarrollado algo llamado el «disparador de habilidades laparoscópicas», un «videojuego» basado en la intensidad para el entrenamiento de los cirujanos. Los cirujanos laparoscópicos que durante tres horas a la semana entrenaron con ese vídeo consiguieron bajar sus errores en una tercera parte. Y llevaron a cabo su actuación un veinticinco por ciento más deprisa que quienes no entrenaron.

are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

A winning organization is an environment of personal and professional development, in which each individual takes responsibility and shares ownership. It

A collection of talented individuals without personal discipline will ultimately and inevitably fail. Character triumphs over talent.

Walsh knew,’ Stuart Lancaster, the current England rugby coach, told rugby writer Mark Reason, ‘that if you established a culture higher than that of your opposition, you would win. So rather than obsessing about the results, you focus on the team.’ ‘The challenge of every team is to build a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another,’ said Vince Lombardi. ‘Because the question is usually not how well each person performs, but how well they work together.’ Collective character is vital to success. Focus on getting the culture right; the results will follow.

— Exceptional success requires exceptional circumstances. Wayne Smith, former All Blacks assistant coach

Sweeping the sheds. Doing it properly. So no one else has to. Because no one looks after the All Blacks. The All Blacks look after themselves.

The challenge is to always improve, to always get better, even when you are the best. Especially when you are the best.

an active focus on personal development and leadership would create capacity, capability and loyalty.

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments,’ to paraphrase the Greek statesman Pericles, ‘but what is woven into the lives of others.’ Your legacy is that which you teach.

The key criteria for creating a change story is fourfold. °  The story must be credible and relevant – in Aristotelian poetics, it must have ethos (an authority and understanding of the subject) and logos (it must make rational sense). °  It must be Visual and Visceral – appealing to the auditory, visual and kinaesthetic receivers in our brains. It must seize our hearts as well as impress our heads. In terms of Aristotelian poetics, it must have pathos (it must be felt). °  It must be flexible and scaleable – as easily told around a campfire as across the boardroom table. This implies the use of simple, everyday language and ideas. °  And it must be useful – able to turn vision into action; purpose into practice – acting as a transferor of meaning between one domain and another, between ‘your’ world and ‘mine’, between the ‘leader’ and the ‘led’.

Laszlo Bock, Work Rules (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2015) David Brooks, The Social Animal (New York: Random House, 2011) Arie de Geus, The Living Company (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2002) Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Perseverance and Passion (New York: Scribner, 2016) Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (New York: Random House, 2012) Amy Edmondson, Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer, 2012) Adam Grant, Give and Take (New York: Viking, 2013) Richard Hackman, Leading Teams (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2002) Chip and Dan Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard (New York: Broadway Books, 2010) Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging (New York: HarperCollins, 2016) James Kerr, Legacy (London: Constable & Robinson, 2013) Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002) Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (New York: Portfolio, 2015). Mark Pagel, Wired for Culture (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012) Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009) Amanda Ripley, The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013) Edgar H. Schein, Helping (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009) Edgar H. Schein, Humble Inquiry (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2013) Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline (New York: Doubleday Business, 1990) Michael Tomasello, Why We Cooperate (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009)

Champions do extra.

Find something you would die for and give your life to it.

From listening comes knowledge; From knowledge comes understanding; From understanding comes wisdom; From wisdom comes well-being.

At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box’.

If you’re not growing anywhere, you’re not going anywhere.

From ancient theology to contemporary psychology, our words shape our story and this story becomes the framework for our behaviors; and our behaviors determine the way we lead our life and the way we run our organizations.

De ouvir vem o conhecimento; Do conhecimento vem o entendimento; Do entendimento vem a sabedoria; Da sabedoria vem o bem-estar.

si estableces una cultura del esfuerzo más elevada que la de tu oponente, ganas. Así pues, en lugar de obsesionarte por los resultados, te concentras en el equipo»,

Nadie es mejor que el grupo, y el brillo individual no conduce automáticamente a unos resultados sobresalientes. Una mentalidad egoísta puede infectar el espíritu colectivo.

La visión sin acción es un sueño. La acción sin visión es una pesadilla.

Nunca se es demasiado importante para hacer las pequeñas cosas que deben hacerse.

El lenguaje que utilizamos se integra en nosotros y se convierte en acción, así que es importantísimo respetarlo, darle forma y utilizarlo de forma estratégica.

El desafío consiste en mejorar siempre, en avanzar siempre, incluso cuando eres el mejor Especialmente cuando eres el mejor.

Una sociedad se hace grande cuando los hombres viejos plantan árboles cuya sombra nunca verán

No eres mas que una chispa en el momento del tiempo situado entre dos eternidades, el pasado y el futuro

Leaders create leaders. They arm their subordinates with intent. And then step out of the way.

St Augustine said it best: ‘Lay first the foundation of humility . . . The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.

As Nietzsche said: ‘He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.