{"id":1009,"date":"2015-02-04T01:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T01:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/?p=1009"},"modified":"2015-02-06T19:39:10","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T19:39:10","slug":"talent-v-character-the-crusaders-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/?p=1009","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Talent v. Character&#8217;: The Crusaders Way&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Talent-Character-Grid-The-Crusaders-Way.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1013\" src=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Talent-Character-Grid-The-Crusaders-Way-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"Talent Character Grid The Crusaders Way\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Talent-Character-Grid-The-Crusaders-Way-300x224.jpg 300w, http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Talent-Character-Grid-The-Crusaders-Way.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The graph creates 4 quadrants:-<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Someone with NO Character and NO Talent<\/li>\n<li>Someone with NO Character and Talent<\/li>\n<li>Someone with Character and NO Talent<\/li>\n<li>Someone with Character AND Talent<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Talent:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Natural aptitude or skill.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(http:\/\/www.oxforddictionaries.com\/definition\/english\/character)<\/p>\n<p><b>Character:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual;<\/li>\n<li>The distinctive nature of something;<\/li>\n<li>Strength and originality in a person\u2019s nature;<\/li>\n<li>A person\u2019s good reputation;<\/li>\n<li>A written statement of someone\u2019s good qualities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(http:\/\/www.oxforddictionaries.com\/definition\/english\/character)<\/p>\n<p><b>So who would you pick in your team&#8230;the\u00a0&#8216;best&#8217; player or the &#8216;better&#8217; person&#8230;?<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In the high pressure cauldron of sport who would you want next to you by your side&#8230;? Who could you trust to do their job in the team&#8230;? Who could you rely on to be there at the right place&#8230;at the right time&#8230;? Who could you lean on to help find a solution to solve a problem&#8230;? Who could you depend upon when the chips are down and things are not going your way&#8230;? Who could you count on to push themselves that bit further during a tough &#8216;team bonding&#8217; conditioning session&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p><b>&#8230;the &#8216;best&#8217; player or the &#8216;better&#8217; person&#8230;?<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Team Philosophy&#8230;Team Ethos&#8230;Team Culture&#8230;Team Spirit&#8230;Team &#8216;Rules&#8217;&#8230;all play their part into the type of player&#8230;the type of person&#8230;a team would pick&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This approach\/philosophy came to me during my time with the Canterbury Crusaders during August 2009&#8230;in particular my discussion with Matt Sexton, Academy Manager 2005-2011, for the most successful professional rugby franchise in Super Rugby history to date.<\/p>\n<p>The Crusaders Honours Board in Super Rugby:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Victories in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008<\/li>\n<li>Finalists in 2003, 2004, 2011, 2014<\/li>\n<li>Semi-finalists in 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.crusaders.co.nz\/\">www.crusaders.co.nz<\/a>)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1996-2001: P72 W40 Win-rate 56%<\/li>\n<li>2002-2014: P194 W139 Win-rate 72%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In 1996 the Crusaders finished bottom of the Super 12 ladder&#8230;so what led them to such unprecedented success in the Super Rugby Competition and a change in fortunes&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p><b>&#8230;who would you pick in your team&#8230;the &#8216;best&#8217; player or the &#8216;better&#8217; person&#8230;?<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On return from my trip to the Southern Hemisphere; from 2009-2013 we applied this principle to the Denstone College 1st XV (Staffordshire, England) and it stood the team in great stead&#8230;with an unprecedented run of success never seen at the College dating back to 1899&#8230;the first unbeaten season in 43 years&#8230;2 unbeaten seasons in 3 years (only the 4th &amp; 5th unbeaten seasons in the history of the College)&#8230;with a playing record of P43 W35 D3 L5&#8230;PF 1201 PA 361&#8230;Tries for 171&#8230;Tries against 46&#8230;with the fixture card getting tougher each year&#8230;an 81% win-rate across 4 seasons.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">(In comparison: 2005-2008: P53 W19 D1 L33&#8230;PF 830 PA 1179&#8230;Tries for 130&#8230;Tries against 181&#8230;a 36% win-rate across 4 seasons.)<\/p>\n<p><b>&#8230;who would you pick in your team&#8230;the &#8216;best&#8217; player or the &#8216;better&#8217; person&#8230;?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Now to 2013 when:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;The result? An incredible win-rate of just over 86%, and a Rugby World Cup&#8221; (James Kerr, Daily Telegraph article &#8216;The All Blacks guide to being successful (off the field)&#8217;: 14th November 2013)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The 2011 World Champions&#8230;the All Blacks became the first International team to go undefeated in the professional era in a calendar year&#8230;P14 W14&#8230;PF 454&#8230;PA 239&#8230;Tries for 51&#8230;Tries against 19&#8230;against the\u00a0best teams the world of rugby has to offer&#8230;&#8221;Better People Make Better All Blacks&#8221; is one of their mantras.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;The All Blacks select on character as well as talent, which means some of New Zealand&#8217;s most promising players never pull on the black jersey &#8211; considered dickheads, their inclusion would be detrimental to the &#8216;whanau&#8217; (meaning &#8216;extended family&#8217; in Maori)&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">(James Kerr, Daily Telegraph article &#8216;The All Blacks guide to being successful (off the field)&#8217;: 14th November 2013)<\/p>\n<p>James Kerr\u2019s Telegraph article on \u2018The All Blacks guide to being successful off the field\u2019 can be found here:-<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/men\/active\/10427619\/The-All-Blacks-guide-to-being-successful-off-the-field.html\">http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/men\/active\/10427619\/The-All-Blacks-guide-to-being-successful-off-the-field.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>&#8230;who would you pick in your team&#8230;the &#8216;best&#8217; player or the &#8216;better&#8217; person&#8230;?<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Chiefs Super Rugby franchise won back-to-back Super Rugby titles in 2012 and 2013 after so many years of being one of the also-ran New Zealand rugby franchises. The coaches empowered the &#8216;right&#8217; players with the &#8216;right&#8217; mindset&#8230;They created their own haka&#8230;they extended their logo and gave &#8216;their&#8217; Chief legs&#8230;they out-reached to all parts of their community&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1996-2011: Average position = 7th<\/li>\n<li>2012-2013: Average position = 1st<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>&#8230;who would you pick in your team&#8230;the &#8216;best&#8217; player or the &#8216;better&#8217; person&#8230;?<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">You can easily teach\/coach a &#8216;better&#8217; person to become a &#8216;better&#8217; player with plenty of time, effort and commitment&#8230;BUT it is much harder&#8230;takes a lot more time and effort&#8230;drains a lot of energy to teach\/coach\/mentor the &#8216;best&#8217; player to become a &#8216;better&#8217; person&#8230;and sometimes that &#8216;best&#8217; player does not become a &#8216;better&#8217; person after all the time that you put into them&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Now a long way from &#8216;home&#8217;&#8230;after 12 months of intense rugby in the legs&#8230;and travelling to and fro all round the world to play&#8230;with 50,000 passionate fans against you&#8230;and 15 highly committed, physical players ready to smash you (with their own chance to make history and beat the All Blacks for the first time ever)&#8230;with\u00a019 seconds left on the game clock&#8230;you are 62m from the Irish try line in your own half&#8230;and 17 points to 22 points down&#8230;an unbeaten record on the line&#8230;with a chance to make history in the professional era&#8230;you have a penalty awarded to you&#8230;needing a try to at least draw&#8230;with the conversion to create the victory&#8230;who would you have in your team&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p>The link to the final try of the 2013 All Blacks season against Ireland can be viewed here:-<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/nV5zndjlv7w\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/nV5zndjlv7w<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>So who would you pick in your team&#8230;the &#8216;best&#8217; player or the &#8216;better&#8217; person&#8230;?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>In summary:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Crusaders Way&#8230;Talent <b>AND <\/b>Character;<\/li>\n<li>\u201cBetter people make better All Blacks\u201d;<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">You can coach\/teach a better person to become a better player&#8230;BUT it&#8217;s much harder to teacher\/coach a better player to become a better person.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Closing thoughts:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/BETTER-Performance-Pyramid.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1012\" src=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/BETTER-Performance-Pyramid-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"BETTER Performance Pyramid\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/BETTER-Performance-Pyramid-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/BETTER-Performance-Pyramid.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Over the last 2 years I have created and developed the \u2018BETTER Performance Pyramid\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>How do you create a BETTER Team&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p>The first question to ask yourself is: What makes up a BETTER team&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">BETTER Players make a BETTER Team&#8230;as they are more skillful&#8230;have a BETTER understanding of the game&#8230;and train BETTER.<\/p>\n<p>Then ask yourself this question: What makes BETTER Players&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">BETTER Athletes make BETTER Players&#8230;because they are fitter&#8230;faster&#8230;stronger&#8230;more powerful&#8230;more agile&#8230;BETTER conditioned&#8230;and BETTER prepared.<\/p>\n<p>Then what makes BETTER Athletes&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">BETTER People&#8230;because they turn up at the right place&#8230;at the right time&#8230;are fully committed&#8230;and want to be the best that they can be&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>So which factor is at the very CORE of producing a BETTER Team&#8230;?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The &#8216;best&#8217; player OR the &#8216;better&#8217; person\u2026?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Wooden-on-Leadership.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1011\" src=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Wooden-on-Leadership-201x300.png\" alt=\"Wooden on Leadership\" width=\"201\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Wooden-on-Leadership-201x300.png 201w, http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Wooden-on-Leadership.png 458w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This concept was very much a part of arguably the most successful sports team EVER and of the teachings of arguably the most successful coach EVER: The UCLA College Basketball team under the tutelage of Coach John Wooden. The Bruins won 10 NCAA National Championships in 12 years from 1964 to 1975, including 7 straight from 1967 to 1973, of which 4 were perfect seasons in 1964, 1967, 1972 and 1973. including an 88 game winning streak.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/NZ-All-Blacks.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1014\" src=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/NZ-All-Blacks-300x205.png\" alt=\"NZ All Blacks\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/NZ-All-Blacks-300x205.png 300w, http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/NZ-All-Blacks.png 836w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This concept is also at the very heart of the most successful professional sports team EVER: The New Zealand All Blacks: \u201dBETTER People make BETTER All Blacks\u201d. The All Blacks have won 85% of matches they have ever played and they have a win rate of over 75% in all Test Matches. From 2004 to 2014 they have P145 W126 D2 L17 recording an 87% win rate, they have won the Tri-Nations\/The Rugby Championship 8 out of 11 times and they have been the most consistently ranked No.1 team in the IRB\/World Rugby Rankings having held the No.1 ranking for more than 80% of the time during this period, and they were crowned World Champions in 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The graph creates 4 quadrants:- Someone with NO Character and NO Talent Someone with NO Character and Talent Someone with Character and NO Talent Someone with Character AND Talent Talent: Natural aptitude or skill. (http:\/\/www.oxforddictionaries.com\/definition\/english\/character) Character: The mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual; The distinctive nature of something; Strength and originality in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,50],"tags":[44,45,42,43,46,49,48,41,47],"class_list":["post-1009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mindset","category-talent","tag-better-people","tag-better-performance-pyramid","tag-character","tag-mindset","tag-performance","tag-selection","tag-success","tag-talent","tag-winning"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1009"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1021,"href":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions\/1021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nickhillcoaching.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}