On the first year anniversary of South Africa’s Springbok rugby team winning the 2019 Rugby World Cup, I published an article I wrote on the parallels for achieving exceptional results, between the victorious Springbok rugby team and arguably the most successful team in the history of the planet (literally!), the African lion pride. 

With the Rugby World Cup tournament taking place every four years, once again we are at the one-year anniversary of what many experts have described as one of the greatest sport performance highlights of all time: the Springbok team becoming World Champions again –for an exceptional record fourth time- when they beat the New Zealand All Blacks 12-11 in the final match to win the 2023 Rugby World Cup in Paris! And once again, there is so much to be learned from the parallels between the victorious Boks and the African lion pride.

Like the Boks’ tournament quarter-final and semi-final victories, that final match was an epic encounter filled with never-say-die lessons of tenacity, grit and determination, fitting of the occasion, nail-biting right up until the final whistle blew, with only one point separating the final two teams on the full-time scoreboard.

Watching the post-championship press conference with Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber and captain Siya Kolisi, sent shivers (the good kind) down my spine and -I have to admit- brought a few tears (the happy kind) to my eye. I was again struck by some more powerful parallels and success lessons from these two great teams -the lion pride and the Springbok rugby team-  that we can apply in our teams and organisations to achieve our own exceptional results. 

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  1. RELATIONSHIPS – TRUST

In a lion pride all the team members have each other’s back; they look out for each other; they trust each other.

Every time Africa’s Big Cats hunt, there’s massive risk to them of injury or even death. With every hunt lions risk getting pierced by the horns of the antelope, the tusks of a warthog, or the quills of a porcupine; being gored by a massive, unbelievably aggressive buffalo; or being kicked by a giraffe or zebra. One kick to the head or chest from the giant giraffe will kill a lion instantly. If a zebra’s powerful kick connects and breaks a lioness’s jaw, she cannot survive. Lions die from infected wounds sustained from the horns, quills or tusks of its prey. Lions get killed by buffalo…all the time.

Why then are lions willing to risk death, let alone injury? Because a hunting lion knows and trusts that its pridemates are right there, running in to back up and support them. WHERE THERE’S TRUST THERE’S CONFIDENCE; WHERE CONFIDENCE THERE’S PERFORMANCE. That trust and synergy is exactly what gives the lion pride the competitive advantage to be able to hunt prey no other predator can. The only thing that matters is how well they help each other to hunt together. So the relationships between the lions of the pride is everything

 

For the Springboks too, it’s all about relationships. When Bok captain Siya Kolisi got a yellow card and was sent off the field early in the final, the Springboks had to play with fourteen men while Kolisi did his time in the ‘sin bin.’ In the post-match press conference, Kolisi simply acknowledged how relationships and trust are everything in an exceptional team and when facing adversity: “We [the Springbok team] are a family. Everyone’s wives and kids are there around [the Springbok compound] all together. We care for each other. This is what pulled us through… When I got the yellow card, I trusted the guys around me, that they would fight regardless.” And that’s exactly what they did. Until the very last minute. Literally.

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2. NO EGOS

The lion pride has a flat leadership structure. There’s no place for egos nor enemies within. The only thing that matters is how well they can work together to hunt. So lions’ success is all about their relationships. It doesn’t matter which lion makes the actual kill. No individual gets the credit. The lion pride succeeds together and every member of the team contributes to the hunt and shares in its spoils. 

Lions will even support a pridemate that gets injured, or switch hunting roles on the fly as needed. Today one lioness in the pride might chase the prey down, with her pridemate sister running in to inflict the final killing suffocation blow. Tomorrow the roles might be reversed. And no one role is more important than another. Every role performed in the hunt is absolutely vital and so the contribution of every lion on the team is critical. The lion pride achieves its hunting goal as a team, and the whole team benefits. One’s success is everyone’s success.

 

During their World Cup campaign, the Boks also brilliantly adapted to their immediate context. They sustained many injuries, some of which kept key members out of action. When the highly specialised Springbok hooker Bongi Mbonambi was injured only two minutes into the final and could not play further, veteran Deon Fourie, actually a Flank who has played Hooker before, stepped in to cover for Mbonambi and played the match of his life out of the comfort zone of his usual position. Ego could have gotten in the way of Fourie taking -let alone performing in- this role, but he did it without batting an eyelid. Because it was all about what the team needed at the time.

Rugby is a team sport. Every point scored is the result of the efforts of all fifteen players on the field, each filling a different but equally vital role. The forwards grind hard for possession, occasionally scoring themselves, but typically getting the ball into the hands of the backs who then put the points on the scoreboard. But regardless of which individual actually scores the points, it takes the contribution and support of every member of the team, and every role and function. Just like the lion pride…Again, one’s success is everyone’s success. As Kolisi poignantly and powerfully said in the post-match press conference: “When we work together, all is possible, no matter in what sphere.”

 

Instead of blowing his own horn in the press conference, or basking in glory to the Press reporters, Kolisi rather gave the credit away. He openly praised and thanked Nienaber for the way the Bok coach treats everyone – not as a player but as a person. Kolisi refused to take credit for his own remarkable leadership, saying: “I have no ego – I welcome the leadership that the other guys contribute.” To paraphrase Harry Truman: Great things can be accomplished when no-one cares who gets the credit.

On match day only 23 out of the World Cup squad of 33 players take the field: 15 of whom will start and 8 reserves who (might) get substituted on as the match progresses. 10 players in the squad will completely sit out each match. Of this Neinaber immediately paid tribute in the press conference to the whole squad: “There are 33 players who all accept their roles, don’t have egos, and buy into the [big picture] strategy.”

Both Kolisi and Nienaber followed the great leadership by example of the 2019 World Cup winning Springbok coach, current SARU Director of Rugby, Rassie Erasmus. Erasmus’s achievements as a coach and a leader would alone justify some ego and a bit of a swollen head. But on the contrary, Rassie has consistently been the epitome and model of humility, always staying in the background, letting everyone else be in the limelight: a great leader, raising other great leaders.

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3. PURPOSE – MISSION – MOTIVATION

If lions don’t kill, they don’t eat. When they hunt they could die, but when they don’t hunt they will die. Survival on the African plains is brutally unforgiving. Lions’ success is literally a matter of life and death. 

So why do lions hunt? They hunt because they’re hungry. And in a lion pride, every member of the team is hungry. And so every member of the team is on board and 100% committed. Lions have a healthy respect for their prey. They can never be complacent. Complacency kills. They know how dangerous and difficult hunting a buffalo is. But a buffalo will feed the whole pride for several days, and they know they’ve killed a buffalo before and know and believe they can kill a buffalo again. Together.

 

A rugby team can never take its opponent for granted. The South African Springboks have always shown a profound respect for the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. But the Boks also knew that they’ve beaten the All Blacks before, that they’ve won the World Cup before – multiple times- and they could do it again. Together. They put their lives on the line to win the RWC trophy. There was adversity. But they gave everything… in every match of the tournament that they played. Because, as Nienaber said in the press conference, everyone on the team wanted it desperately.

Nienaber credited and thanked the fans for their support. It gave the team purpose. Kolisi was again humble about the Springboks’ profound motivation and mission: “There is so much going wrong in our country, we [the 2023 Springbok World Cup rugby team] are the last line of defence … There are so many people who come from where I come from who are helpless, and there is so much division, but we can show that with people from different backgrounds that it is possible to work together. We have a lot of problems in South Africa, and we give the country hope. We are the hope for the country. We have the privilege to inspire people from different walks of life. For me not to give my 100% would be cheating all of those people. So motivation isn’t something we lack. It’s all around us, all the time. We’re playing for each other and for the country. [We knew] we are here to win, we believe we’re good enough to win, so we will win. When we come together for a common goal, nothing can stop us.”

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And that, friends, is how exceptional teams get exceptional results.

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