James Laughlin 00:00
Welcome to lead on purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven-time world champion, musician, and night executive coach to global leaders and high performers. In every episode, I bring you an inspiring leader or expert to help you lead your life and business on purpose. Thanks for taking the time to connect today on investing yourself. Enjoy the show
James Laughlin 00:39
How much time do you invest in your brain? Well, look, our brain dictates so many things. It's our largest asset. We've got to look after it, right? But often we're putting things on our skin and we're doing all these other things that care for our bodies, but our brain dictates so much. I came across a product a week ago called Flow State and it's made such a difference. And look, they offer functional mushrooms that sharpen cognition, they really boost energy and definitely strengthen immunity. And they actually use one of the key ingredients, it's lion's mane. Right? So, the lion's mane is popular among really peak-performing athletes and those wanting an edge. It's known as the brain mushroom. And it's currently being studied extensively for its nerve growth factor potential as a means to ease the symptoms of Alzheimer's and for treating inflammation in the body. Look, the thing I love about these products, they don't taste like mushrooms, you can mix them in with your tea. They're a great replacement for coffee, but I actually love the P.M. Mushroom Blend, the evening one. It helps me sleep. And to know that my brain is getting extra nutrients is just the next level. The one thing that's really important for me is what's in there. So, they've tested heavily at Hill laboratories for heavy metals, pesticide residue, and microbial, and also at Massey University for active compounds. So, I urge you, if you love your brain, and want to go the extra mile to nurture it, head on over to flowstate.nz and you can use the coupon code lead on purpose to get 15% off.
James Laughlin
I don't know about you, but sometimes I get home. And I think what I am eating tonight is the last thing I want to do. I don't know what to cook, I don't know what's in the cupboard or in the fridge. And it often leads to poor choices like ordering some takeaway. So recently, Carolyn and I started eating green dinner table, and it's absolutely amazing. After a long day, when I'm knackered, I know that when I get home, there's going to be a great recipe and all the ingredients I need right there in the fridge. And look, I absolutely love it. I've been doing it for several months. And it means I don't have to think at the end of the day. And I just know that I'm going to get good, nutritious, wholesome food. And look, it's plant-based, which has so many benefits. So, if you're a meat eater, perhaps you might want to start on maybe just three, a three-day plan. So, you've got three evening meals for you and your partner or you and your family depending on what option you want to go for. But the food is delicious. It's so nutritious, and it means we don't need to think. And as leaders of families, teams, and organizations, what we put in our bodies is just so crucially important, so I urge you to go and check it out and I want to give you 20% off your first order. So, you can go to greendinnertable.co.nz and use the coupon code purpose.
James Laughlin 03:51
You're in for such a treat. We have one of the world's greatest of all time leaders and coaches. Sir Steve Hansen was the head coach of the All-Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby team. He was head coach from 2012 to 2019 and won the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Steve is arguably one of the best head coaches that New Zealand has ever seen. The successes during Steve's eight years in the role are too numerous to list, but among them are eight Bledisloe Cup wins, six rugby championship wins and of course the World Cup. Steve was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honors. Look, this episode was recorded live in front of an audience of leaders from all over Australia, and New Zealand. They came together for my high-performance leadership program in October 2022. And Steve shared so much. It was incredible. So please do enjoy it. And I want to take a moment to say a huge thank you heartfelt thank you to our Platinum partners VVV real estate and Brannigans. We hugely appreciate your support of the high-performance Leadership Program. And if you would like to come and join us for HPL live 2023, we will be opening the doors soon and we will sell out really quickly like we did last time. So, if you'd like to know before everybody else and get that seat at the table with some of the most incredible leaders, then please head over to jjlaughlin.com. And go to the training and leadership section, and you'll see that you can add yourself to the waitlist for 2023, and you'll be the first thing to hear about the event. But for now, I sit back and enjoy the show.
James Laughlin 06:00
We're so fortunate, so lucky to have Sir Steve Hansen come and join us today. And I'm excited to talk about what I geek out on and that is leadership. And I think we can all agree here that Steve is a phenomenal leader and has an incredible track record. And looking forward to unpacking that and having a bit of fun. So welcome.
Steve Hansen 06:22
Thanks very much, great to be here, and good to see everyone enjoying themselves. Hopefully, you are finished.
James Laughlin 06:31
I love it. So, Steve, I thought maybe we could start off by just talking about leadership. So, when you think of good leadership, what comes to mind?
Steve Hansen 06:42
I guess the first thing for me about leadership is being able to lead yourself. I think that's where it starts. So, for us any of the teams that I was involved with, I expected everyone to be a leader. You know, and that looked like being able to organize yourself, being able to prepare well, to be able to just do the things that were expected on and off the field that was expected. We didn't have a lot of rules in the All Blacks, but we had high expectations. And some of them were non-negotiable, and others were but once you start to be able to lead yourself, then you can start to think about leading other people. If you've got that. The ability to do that. Now not everyone does. You have to grow that one of the greatest leaders we've had was Richie McCaw. But he also was accused of being one of the worst, we lost the World Cup in 207. Nothing to do with how he played but a lot was how we conducted our preparation for that World Cup really. But because we weren't successful, he was seen to be not successful, what came from that adversity was he was determined to be the best he could be. So, as he grew he became more demanding. Lead is set in an environment. So, if your environment is good, your talent can blossom and grow. If your environment is a little bit stagnant or a bit rotten, you know people aren't going to grow on it. So, I think the key thing is to lead yourself. When you are given the opportunity to lead others, make sure you have a plan for how you want to lead. And it sounds pretty simple. But I was in the police for a number of years, and we'd have sergeants. I never went any further than a constable, but we have sergeants who are brilliant sergeants, and then they became senior sergeants, and they were terrible. Because they thought they had to be different. And what made them great leaders and sergeants was still going to make them great leaders as a senior sergeant, but they thought they had to be different. So having a plan on how you want to lead. So, do you want to be a dictator? Do you want to be an emperor? Would you want to be a combination of both? Have you got flexible thinking? That's not always important, that it's your idea? Can you be flexible enough to hear other people's ideas? How good are you at adapting at the moment? or adapting to what's happening around you and the conversation you're having I often hear people say oh, you know, I've got an open-door policy. And then you speak to the staff, and they go we don't own there because one person went in and he or she's screaming their heads off so shit, we're not going back there. So, you know, and reflect on it to earn good leaders will take the time to reflect how did I go and leading the people on trying to lead, and when I say you empower them, like for me my job in the All Blacks is pretty simple. I just sort of helicoptered over the top. But we had a whole station of different groups. So, we had the player's group in which Dan and Richie were the two captains during my time were the main captains. We had a mental skills group which included the medical and so forth, and Gilbert and Oka ran logistics and commercial, which Darren Shan ran. And then we had the coaching team. And I wanted Fonzie to run that, rather than me run it because I wanted him to grow a voice and my job was to make him better. So, he could come over and at some stage, maybe take over the team. So, in that, my responsibility was to make sure everyone was taking along quite nicely, and not interfering too much. So, my plan, or my theory was okay, I don't need to do anything until such time as I can see something that's not going to help the team be better. So, everything I worked on was, is this going to make the team better? If you could do something during the week that wasn't having a massive risk or reward for Saturday, then you didn't have to tell me about it. If you were going to try and change something that we'd never done before, which could have a detrimental or positive outcome on Saturday, then I wanted to know about it. Because I wanted input on that. I had to know or have enough knowledge about having conversations with all those people. So, your leader, your top leader needs to understand the business or the game they're in. As an example, our strength and conditioning guy, a guy called Nic Gill, was probably the best I've ever worked with and been lucky enough to work so well one, so he was really great. But we had a player called Dan Carter, you might remember him. He started pulling a calf all the time, and we couldn't work out why. And so, a bit of my background is horse racing. I grew up on a farm and my father was a trainer as well as a dairy farmer, so understood the mechanics of horse racing. So biomechanically, Dan's not the greatest. So, I knew that from horses. If they weren't, they could still run faster. They had bent knees, but they just couldn't do it for a whole lot of years. And they couldn't carry extra weight. So, I went down. So, what, when was the last time that you didn't pull your hammock or your calf? And he goes all back to such and such a date night? Oh, yeah. What Wait, were you guys, I was only 93. Guys. And you've all seen him in the jockey heads. He's not carrying any extra. So, I said, well, what are you now? And he said I've put a bit more muscle on 95. So yeah, so Okay, so then I went to Gilly, and I said, why don't we take 2k off him and see if he stops following his calf? And we discussed it. So, we did, we took the two kg off me before his gaffing. So that was my job, to have enough knowledge to be able to be a nuisance, but also be a help. And, you know, you get a lot of accolades for what we did. But it was a team, a total team. What's the word I'm looking for? A team effort, you know, to get that that group of people to play as well as we did. And it's the same in business you can be the head honcho, but you're not going to be any good if you don't let your other leaders lead. And you do what you do.
James Laughlin 13:38
Well, thank you. And in terms of leading self like I firmly believe leading self allows you to lead others but when you're leading yourself and send your younger year, so we rewind a few years and your leadership with the leadership hat on how did you develop yourself? What was personal development, and professional development like for you?
Steve Hansen 13:57
Well, luckily enough for me, I've always been a reasonable, simple sort of a bloke and I find that the simpler you can give the message, the easier it is for people to hear it. And I think, you know, the thing I want to know is do you care about them? Do you value them? Can you help them? And can trust you. So, they know all those things that you'll do. Then they'll take the times when you have to be a disciplinarian, and sometimes we have to because it's no different than our children. If there are no consequences for bad behavior, then the bad behavior is just going to continue. And so, you know, as I said, we don't have rules, but we have expectations. So, when those extracts' dictations are broken, then there's a consequence. However, if, for example, you have Got an athlete, and we had one. Throughout my time he was hard to work. But we loved him. And, and he, he knew that we had his back. And he allowed us to help him to change and become a better person, we had a theory of change the man or change the man. So, if you can't change him, you go. But he changed. And we were prepared to give him time to change. So, I think that's something else too. That's your job as the leader is to say, right, oh, have we given this person the best opportunity to be better? Or are we just saying that you're gone? And I guess sometimes there are times when you're gone, but your job is to actually make them better. That's why you've been given the opportunity to lead. That makes sense. Yeah. 100%. And the vulnerability, I think, no, that's how you get trust. Like I didn't ever feel I probably did. When I first started coaching, I felt I had to know everything. And, but I didn't, I still don't. But what What's better is, if you get asked the question, well, how do I do this? Actually, I don't know. But I'll find someone that does. And we'll get that sorted. Give me some time. And then it's okay for them to come back sometimes and say, well, you know, I don't know, we'd often have excused discussions, around the role, the key thing for us to be able to perform well is everybody knew their role and did their job. So, it's quite simple. However, sometimes guys didn't understand their role, because we hadn't taught them well. Or they hadn't been braving enough to say, I don't understand. So, if you've got people in your organization who aren't brave enough to say, look, I don't understand what you're asking me. They just go Oh, yeah, right out, and then they go away. And they perform the task terribly. It's because there's a breakdown between you and them in trust. Now, if you get to the point where you spent quite a lot of time teaching that human being how to do the job, and they still can't do it, well, comes back to what I just said before, we can't change the man, you change the man. You just may not be the right person for the job. But first and foremost, have a look at okay, why isn't he or she feeling brave enough to say to me, I don't understand. And when you get that relationship, then you're hammered. Because no one's going to go out and make a mistake, because they don't know their role.
James Laughlin 17:33
And Steve, who would you say sets the tone for the culture of the team or organization?
Steve Hansen 17:39
The head man does a top-down and top and like your culture, everyone talks about culture, and there's really, it's not that difficult culture. It's either good or bad. It's as simple as that. And when it's good, it's being lived from the top down. When it's bad, the top thinks the bottom should do it, but they don't care about it. So, like, don't think that you're the boss, and people don't see what you're doing. And one of my worst traits, as I'm hopeless, was timekeeping, absolutely hopeless. So, I could arrive sometimes late. And I knew I'd been late to a couple of meetings, so no one had said anything. And, you know, I'd come in and say, sorry, you know, means nothing, you know, because you were late. And so, I got Keven Mealamu who was probably the most respected guy on our team, and I said, Keven, next meeting, today's meeting, I’m going to come in a bit late, and I want you to give me a, you know, absolute bollocking. And he said, Steve, I don’t think I can do that. And I said, yes, you can, you will be alright. And anyway, so I came in about two minutes late, and he didn't hesitate. But it was brilliant. Like everybody in the room asked to move from the back of the chair to the front of the chair and like everyone's on bosses getting up. And then my reaction to getting it was while you're right, Kibby and I've got a salt machete. And as a result, you know, okay, well, we didn't have too many people late from then on, and I certainly wasn't.
James Laughlin
And you were early today.
Steve Hansen
Oh, I was, yeah.
James Laughlin 19:30
Love it. And if we could go back to the earlier days of coaching, were there any moments or years or seasons that were particularly memorable because they didn't go well? And you learned a lot from those times.
Steve Hansen 19:42
These were two moments that stand out in my career. One was the second or third year I was coaching Canterbury, and the first year I coached the backs. In the second year, Robbie Dean took over the team and was head coach. When I wanted to do the back side then had to learn how to be a Forward coach. And I know I looked like a prop, but I played in the back. Anyway, I became a forward coach. So, I had to learn a lot about it. And lo and behold, we won that competition. The first year, Robbie and I were together. And that winning made me want to win more, I'm probably the most competitive person on the planet. I asked the kids if half our family would play cards with me because I cheated. I won't play any games. But well, I've tried to change but it's hard. And I've got an alter ego called Stanley because he comes out. I will talk about that. But what happened that year is I became outcome-focused, because I thought it was important that we had to win again, and, and I treated people poorly. Because of that. I lost the care and value and empathy side of my coaching. Luckily enough, I recognized that at the end of the year, sat down with the group and apologized to them, and said look off stuff this year up. And that happened again. In 2000, when were the lines here 2007 really wanted to beat the lines. Because we were playing what I thought was probably one of the great lions’ teams, they had a New Zealand coach coaching them. And you know, when you're playing against your brother, you always want to beat your brother. And it became quite personal. And I allowed again the outcome to affect how I coached. So same scenario worked it out. And funnily enough, my wife told me about two-thirds into the season that I didn't listen to her. Which was stupid, because she's very good. Anyway. At the end of the year had to sit down with the boys again and say, hey, listen, I've stuffed this up. And look, well, it was hard to do, it was the right thing to do. And you get the boys back again because I think there's we lost for a year but he's back. And as I said, Yeah, you know, you'll get them to run through brick walls, if they know you care about them, that you love them, that you value them as human beings. And yet, they're quite happy to get a growling if they need a growling. But they know that you've got their back. You know, when the proverbial hits the wall in, they'll come with you. So, when you're treating them poorly because you're worried about winning all the time, you know, it's not right. So, we sorted that out, and we got back on it. And we're just saying before, World Cup 2019 Everyone tells me we had a poor World Cup. And I look at them. And I really want to tell you what we didn't. What we did do was five teams during that period just before and after the World Cup who were number one in the world. We were one of them. And we played the other four. And we beat three and we had one bad week and lost to England. So, do we have a bed to wake up to? No, we didn't. We had a bad week. And there's a reason why we had a bad week. You know when in hindsight, hindsight is a wonderful thing. However, you know, it's part of the learning process, isn't it? You know, you grow, and you get bigger, but I retired. So, we didn't get to use that, but the team did. And this is a team that had gone hardly with any adversity over a long period of time. And I think adversity is necessary because you become a little arrogant, you become complacent. You become expectant, of all that will happen. We don't have to turn up and it's only like a like I talked about the windows you clean the windows, but you haven't done the corner bit, so the windows look clean but they're not the five percent not just been done right. And when you get one on you know on the chin, you get the corners clean. And there's a thing called inconvenient facts. We had five talking about the five lanes that we had, but the number three lane was inconvenient facts. And there are things that are happening in your team in your environment that will have an effect on the outcome at some point. If you don't address that because you're being successful. You're papering over and no one wants to talk about, you know, it's the elephant in the room but no one wants to feed the elephant and obviously, we were no different to any other team, we had that because we when you are successful, you do get to a point where you believe you're going to win. And you forget that you actually have to put in the work and the one and that we didn't get it right. However, you know, I consoled myself by saying, well, we got it right, a lot of other times. And that sport, you can't change it. You can learn from it.
James Laughlin 25:34
Thanks for sharing that. And you and I chatted prior just about decisions. And we have the last day and a half talked about decision making. And I love that you said Hey, it's easy to make decisions when you sit on your armchair there's no pressure but making good decisions under pressure. That's the true test. How did you approach that?
Steve Hansen 25:52
Although the first thing I had to work out was what caused pressure for me what caused pressure for other people in the team coaching group, and it's different for all of us. So, once we established that, well, there is pressure like that, that's the one constant thing, if you're in the All Blacks, it's just every day, you know, whether you're walking down the street, whether you're playing a game, people are watching what you're doing. And long as he's not walking very well what's wrong with him? You know, he scratches his nose when he should be using his right hand instead of his left hand. And then if you're watching, then I did my right hand, and then my left hand has got them around a long way. You know, but everybody's watching. And that's okay. You know, because everybody cares. And you want everyone to care about our game. Because if they don't care, they don't turn up and you don't have all the things that we have. So, they do. But we have to acknowledge to ourselves that that's just constant. So, get over, now the sky is blue, and the grass is green, and you're under pressure. So what? So, once you get that, it's actually not so heavy, then the next step is right, let's have the awareness of what makes me feel pressure. And then from that step, the next step is what's my plan? What am I going to put in place when I feel this happening? And I recognize this happening, bang, I'm going to go to this. Okay, because if you go like that, without a plan, you will never find one. Again, give you an example of that. 2007. Everyone's Why didn't you go for Drop Cam? Yeah, well, it was the obvious thing to do. But I go back to them and go, well, when was the last time you saw anyone, and the All Blacks do or dropped out? And prior to 07, we haven't done any? So under the most pressure? Why would you pull out of your backside, something you've never done before? Or shed, I'll do a drop go. Okay. And by the way, I'll be successful. So, you've got to plan for those things. And we would talk a lot about it in our preparation, right? This is what we want to happen. But what if this happens? What are we going to them and have a plan for that? Individually and collectively as a group. So, you know, players, when I say know your role, do your role. That's all part of it. preparing yourself for an event on Saturday, that's the fun part I'd still be playing at 63. I'll still play rugby on Saturday. Now, if I didn't have to do all the training.
Steve Hansen 28:38
Why? because I love the game. But unfortunately, we don’t do all that training, you're going to get smoked.
Steve Hansen 28:46
And two things, I'm very competitive, and I don't want to get smoked. And also, I'm 63. And I don't want to get hurt. What I apply, however, you know, that's just part of the parcel. So again, it's no different in business, if you're preparing for something that's, you know, a big part of the calendar year, then you got to make sure that you get it all right, and don't expect it to just roll down and happen for you. Like what one life does that whatever and once. If you're lucky enough to live to 80, it might happen once this roll down, there you go, you can have it. It's a freebie. For the rest of it, you just got to there's going to be bumps and road bumps all the time. And you have got to be prepared for those things. And how you react to those road bumps as a leader. Everyone's looking at you. Oh, he's okay. He's calm. He's cool. No biggie. We'll just carry on doing what we need to do. And getting people to understand that the difference between fact and feeling is massive. Boom, they're feeling pretty good. Okay, and what I mean by that is when things aren't going right, your emotions come on board. And you feel all this emotional stuff. That's not actually true. Because the facts are, this is true. And being able to separate those two things allows you to go back to Okay, well, as an example, opposition, you've been on the attack, they get an intercept try. The School Board says it's now 12, three to them. And you were all behind the goal line. Allah has beaten us. Well, actually, we've played all the rugby. And if we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to get a reward for it. But if we allow ourselves to surrender to that, and we start thinking about the scoreboard or how we're emotionally feeling because of the score, then we lose our momentum. And I think that's massive to be able to do that.
James Laughlin 31:04
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James Laughlin 32:16
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James Laughlin 33:22
You mentioned a minute ago about their non-negotiables so there are not as many rules. You know, some societies and cultures and teams don't do this. And we can't do that. You have these non-negotiable high expectations, what were they?
Steve Hansen 33:35
Start off, why we didn't have rules is because if you have rules someone's going to break up. And if someone breaks the rules, there's got to be a consequence. That might mean I can't pick somebody. So, I don't have any. Rules for me to guide the brave and inhibit the foolish. And I've spent the last couple of years in Japan and worked for a company called Toyota and they're very traditional. And everything's rules, their society is rule-based. So much so that there's a wee red line that points up the stairs and the green line pointing down. And it's doing what didn't hit and I had to tell the bosses that are got to go. And I like the fact that we're big enough and smart enough to work out if someone's coming down the stairs on the left-hand side. All got to go on the other side. Can we do that? Anyway, we have so we've progressed really well and the reason why they're coming on board with it as a company is that they're struggling to keep young people, generations dead kids don't want to be told what to do. They want to be given the opportunity to work it out for themselves. So, they're bright young Japanese kids who want us to always want to get it too I don't want to go there will stay. So, they're slowly changing and I'm fortunate enough to have a little bit of communication with their HR department around that, but what was I talking about?
James Laughlin 35:03
Those are non-negotiable.
Steve Hansen 35:04
Oh, non-negotiable this question Yeah, sorry, I'm getting away with old. For me, the non-negotiable things were to team first. And individual second didn't mean that we didn't care or value or have empathy for the individual. That was far from the truth we did. But every decision we had to make was about making the team about the team. So, if this is a decision that is going to make the team better then we have to make it. And, you know, always found that great for me as a coach, because I got really close to the players. And a lot of people told me oh, you can't get to close them, because you can't sack them when you have to. And I go, well, if I get close to them, I then understand them, and I can help them be better. And I can help them make their team better. And but I've, I've got a sack them, I'll sack them because it's right for the team. So, if you can feel the difference there. That was the one non-negotiable. Number two was that we would be aligned as a team. So, everyone would be aligned together being given the opportunity to debate to discuss whatever things we were sitting down for our goals, values, etc., etc. And that would start with me and the other coaches, me and the other management in the management, and the leadership group, which was deemed senior players. And then we would then take it and give the rest of the team the opportunity to discuss it. An example of that was the big, audacious goal for when I took over the team, we just won the World Cup, and we were number one in the world. And then my presentation on the wall, you know what, we're going to take the team, they're going to ask you that. So, what are you going to say? And I thought, well, let's be a little bit uncanny. Like and we'll say, right, I will just be the most dominant team in the history of the game. Now, we don't even have to answer that the people out there will answer it if we are. And if we're not, well, we'll keep striving to do it. So, I took those other coaches, and oh, yeah, they liked it and then talked to the management and a couple of people. Oh, do you think that's possible? And I don't know. But it's not going to happen if we don't try. And we had good discussions around it. And I'm trying to simplify it for you. So, I got through the story. And then we talked to the leaders, and you could tell the leaders, some of them didn't believe it initially, that we could do it. But they were excited by it. Because all of a sudden, we had these conversations starting to ramp up a bit. So, they bought into it. And we didn't change, it just stayed the same wording. And then we took the players and bang, there it was. And we found that to be able to do that we had to understand a few things about ourselves. And you often hear people talking about the legacy of your books. You know, we sat down in the Leaders Group one day, and I said right, are we talking about earlier legacy in our identity? What is it? And no one could answer? No, no, I would challenge you to go back to your company and say, right, what is the legacy of this company? What's our identity? What are we about? And can I answer that question? And if they can't, I would suggest you make sure that you do something to change that so they can, what we did, we went and we spoke to all the living all blacks. Everybody in the current squad, but all the past living all-blacks that were there and asked them what attributes they thought made a great call, but it took some time. But we got some amazing answers. And we split it up into four or five different categories won't go into them, but they then formed out, okay, that's our identity. So, we need people like this. And that's what we strive to do. And we went through a period where we were dominant, I think. However, we didn't win everything. But no, no sportsperson does like the greatest tennis player in the world. Roger Federer, doesn't want everything. Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer of all time, didn't win every boxing fight. No sportsperson will ever win everything and that's why it's called sport. That's the beauty of it. However, that's where we got to so our alignment was really important. The next thing that was non-negotiable was that the leaders would drive it so I wanted people that were in the park, they would be the people that would be driving this team. And we would just be at the back, push here, we push there we nudge because it's the atoned. And I can't come out of the grandstand and play the game wasn't good enough anyway, to be able to do that, so but they're out there, they're in that moment. So, they have to drive during the week. And so that they were non-negotiable after that. Everything was negotiable. And, you know, there were times when it was always about the majority. And there were times when I didn't agree with what we were doing. But I disagreed and committed, because the majority said, that's where we want to go. And when we did that, it wasn't really important that the rules were if you disagreed, and you had to disagree and commit, but if it didn't work, it didn't then get up and do we haul and flings. I told you when my idea was all their idea. No, no, we're all in this together. And the same of it did work. You know, you couldn't turn around for a while you didn't want that idea. It was just okay; it's worked for us, or it hasn't worked for us. And the whole goal of that was to be able to get rid of all the poor ideas and get the good ideas and turn them into great ideas. So, everyone, you know, like sometimes we had people chuck stuff in. Wow, why would you think that that shit, that's a good idea will add that? And it might have been the physio, it might have been the nutritionist. We didn't care where it came from. Might have been, you know, the guy that had only been two minutes on the team. So, robust discussions were really important.
James Laughlin 41:48
And that's not an idea, meritocracy, or like everybody in the room, you've got validity to speak up and be yourself.
Steve Hansen 41:55
I'm pleased to see that last but because of the first one, I didn't understand. I told you I was a simple man. But no, that's right. I mean, you just want people to feel like they're part of it. As they feel like they're part of it, they own it, and they own it, they'll take responsibility for it. And then you can fly.
James Laughlin 42:16
You mentioned a little bit, just around expectations are there so what well, you got external expectations, whether that's through media, whether it's through New Zealand Rugby when that's on you in the heat on you. And we've seen that in recent months, where it's just been borderline atrocious. How do you manage that personally? And then how do you carry the team through all these outward expectations?
Steve Hansen 42:38
Well, you talked earlier about some of the areas that are improved on my media sort of improved away, but I had the attitude that A, I didn't trust them. B, I didn't like them. So that's not a good combo. And C, my job was to protect the plaques. So, when I was assistant coach, I followed the lead from a head coach and, so sometimes, you may not have agreed, but you've disagreed and committed to that lead, so I just didn't want the media picking on the players. You know, like half the media and got no idea about the game anyway. And the other half know nothing about it. So really, who would either be, you know, making these big, audacious statements about players? And it came to a head in 2009, we wouldn't want to line out we were changing how we're doing our line and whenever you're changing it, there's always a dip before it gets better. And we had to line out jumpers or Jerry Collins who magnificent rugby player but didn't care about line out so didn't know the calls. Had Richie who couldn't jump at that point. And we had Rodney So'oialo who could just jump but really if you're the opposition, Mark and Mark M that's the only two people I can chuck in. When we played South Africa, we have a story. They've beaten us twice already. We're playing them for the third time in Hamilton. And they took our first two-line outs off us, and we won the third one and possibly the Conrad and the Vilnius intercepted it and scored under the posts, and Bertha who was a lock, and Victor Matfield Who was the other lock there were the two best locks in the world at the time. Backers go past victor, hey victor do you think we should let them win another line out? So, that's where things were so they weren't great and you know, always covenant left, right, and center and I don't mind that like I rather they were picking on me than the players. So, I didn't care too much about that. But we ended up getting to Wellington. We're playing Australia and we just change things up enough to know. Okay, we've now got an extra jump on, we're okay. And I didn't say any of this to the media because they can work it out themselves. And I go into the meeting, there's Andrew Savile and Jim Kayes Jim Kayes has just been a journalist, and he just started doing TV for TV Three. And Savile has got a beard and Jim Kayes is just Jim Kayes. Anyway, save said all, you know, what are you doing about the line? So, have you thought about bringing in so and so and so and so on? We bought all these people. And so, I said, well, we've done that analysis, there's no point keeping bringing them in. We just got to us understand what we've got to do. And we just got to get better at it. And we have to be patient. And so, we get good at it. And he goes to me, so I didn't you can look yourself in the mirror. And I am clean-shaven. So yes, if you are looking at it every morning, whenever shave, I said what about you? And then and then I'd sort of come to him to appear to be a smartass. And Jack Gibson was a famous league coach and his dryers shut. And I quite liked his humor. And he had once said that you know, they don't build statues for critics. So, I thought all checked in and today. So, I go, well, you know, look at some of the critics, something came up, I said, look, I understand people are losing their patience, but they just asked him to be patient, you know, because at the end of the day, they're not going to build any statues for critics, are they? And Jim guys got himself and he goes, well, do you think they'll build one for you? So, me being me, I know, Jim, I don't. And I definitely know that I won't be building one for you either. And I understood that all they were really for me was an opportunity to send them the messages I wanted the fans to hear, to the point where if they asked me a question, and I didn't want to answer it, I talked about some other stuff that I wanted to talk about. And inherently they're quite lazy. So, they'll just write what you don't. So, I just told them what I wanted. And a couple of times someone asked me questions, and I just blanked them and went straight into some other things. Like they would have thought, Geez, he's a moron. He didn't even answer the question. What was he doing over there, they wrote it. And after the first time, we're away here. So, but yeah, I tried to be as honest as I could with him too. And when I couldn't be honest with them, I just said, I can't tell you. It's not because I don't want to us just out of respect for what we're trying to do, I can't tell you. And then there were other times when I would say, right, I will. Here's what we're trying to do. Right, what, whatever you want. But I want you to be informed. So, here's what we're trying to do. So, you understand what we're trying to do versus what you think we don't know, right what you want. And that's often them a lot too because I got to understand the game a bit better of how we were trying to play so because I change in nature. And people often talk about your perception. And one thing I have learned is that perception is someone's reality. So how someone sees you is how they see you. And if you don't like how they see you don't ask them to change because they can't. What has to change is you. I can only change your perception of me by me changing the things that I'm doing to make a view if you have a negative perception then I have to change those myself. I can't ask you to change well, why would you change you know, you're not invested. But if I want you to think that I'm a nice man and then I have to act like a nice man. If I act like a weirdo, then you're going to have that perception. I'm not by the way.
James Laughlin 49:10
You're a good man.
Steve Hansen 49:11
Oh, I'm not sure that I’m a good man. But I’m okay.
James Laughlin 49:15
Steve, I'd love to talk a little bit before we wrap up about being a high-performing leader over a long period of time and how that has impacted positively or negatively on your family life.
Steve Hansen 49:34
A bit of both really. On the positive side of things like being very proud, I get to make some good money I suppose, and off that they get good things, good opportunities to travel and see the world and but there are negative things too.
James Laughlin 50:22
It's interesting, as we were chatting today, I think we all feel less as leaders, as parents, or siblings, that when we're committed to our work, there are big sacrifices that have to be made sometimes and it's tough. It's really tough.
Steve Hansen 50:38
Yeah. Like, you just hit it on the head, though. They make all the sacrifices. I got to travel the world staying in five-star hotels. And when you're the head coach, you get the big rooms, get all hands, drinks. But they're at home having my wife particularly having to do all the hard work. Yeah. You miss a lot of birthdays. You miss a lot of things that your kids do. Just lucky, I guess. We're a blended family. So, my wife's been great at bringing the family together.
James Laughlin 51:18
Well, Steve, we talked earlier. And it was beautiful to hear you talk about your children and what they're doing as adults, and how proud you are of what they're doing. So, I would say that your career has impacted a lot on what they do. And you know what your children are up to these days?
Steve Hansen 51:32
All six of them were the Brady Bunch. Oldest daughter Whitney's catching the Black Ferns. incredibly proud of her. She's a teacher. A really good human being. Jess, she's an officer in the army. She's a psychologist in the army and is starting to dabble in sport psychology. Jonty is excellent, he's 24. He's in Brisbane. He went over there wanting to be a professional league player. Didn't have the talent to do that. But wasn't for us to say you don't have the talent. He had to go and work it out himself. And he's worked that out. But he's fallen on his feet. He's a really good people person, and he's working in HR for recruiting accountants and having a ball at 24 Brisbane lost pretty coolly. Funny story about him. He lives basically on his own. There's him and another bloke and. And we went over and his mate was away on holiday. And we saw well, we'll come around for a Barbie. So, I don't have a barbecue. And I said, Okay, well, we'll sort one out. So, we bought him about you know, because the kids back home get a lot of incidentals, and he's over there on his own. So, we bought the barbecue and put it together. And anyway, we'll come around Monday night to have a barbecue. Yeah, that'd be good. So, it's all on your revenue. You could pick up some meat. juvie is on the way. So not only did we buy the barbecue, but we also bought all the food that made all the salads. And the beer, we bought them here and he cooked the steak and then I go to him or any chance of getting a beer. Or do you know the fridges now I couldn't help myself? It gave it to a boy, and I said, you know like, You're the host. I said I don't mind paying for everything but wouldn't mind getting off your ass and getting me a beer. Oh. So, he's, he's doing okay. The next one is Riley. She's in her fourth year of university law. So, she's flying. Taylor and Ali are both 20, About a month apart. Right? Their tails are down and Denise and she's going to save the planet. She's a greeny that ended up in Raglan making coffee, but she's a pretty, very, very chilled individual and loves events. And Ollie has just left the army. He was a carpenter in the army during his apprenticeship, and he's moved back to Christchurch and taken up his apprenticeship here. So, they're all doing well. And, you know, as I said before, before, I got all emotional, very tight as a family and Tasha has done a wonderful job blending them.
James Laughlin 54:40
Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for sharing your vulnerability. And I think that's really an important thing for us as leaders is to see iconic leaders that we look up to and aspire to be authentic themselves and show that vulnerability. So, I really appreciate that, Steve.
Steve Hansen
Yeah, no problem.
James Laughlin
And just one last question before we throw it over to some q Rene, I always ask this at the end of an interview and want to fast forward. And Steve, this is many, many years into the future. It's your last day on earth. You've got five minutes left, and you got a really young person that's in your family. And maybe it's a grandchild, four or five years old, and they come up and they ask Steve or granddad. How can I lead my life on purpose? What advice would you have?
Steve Hansen 55:24
How can I live my life?
James Laughlin 55:27
How can you lead? How could they lead? Lead their life on purpose?
Steve Hansen 55:31
Well, I think there's a, you talk a little bit about understanding who you are and what your identity is. I think one of the problems we have with our young people today is that our identity is made up of so many different things that we focus on one I often think of as an old wooden bridge, you know, and okay, at school, I want to be a rugby player. That's all I can think about. And my life is successful if I'm good at it, or if I'm unsuccessful, be no good. Yet, I'm still a brother, I'm a student, I'm Uncle, I'm a son, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla. So those other planks are really important that we understand what they are and what they mean to us. So, getting my advice would be I'd talked through that process. And then the last thing I'd say is, Well find a purpose. You know, what's, what's your purpose of being on the planet? And you know, we've all got one, sometimes we don't know what it is, but we've got one and then go for it. You know, and, and enjoy every minute that you breathe in because you spend a lot longer being dead than you do living. So, don’t waste any minute on it.
James Laughlin 56:51
Steve, I just want to say a heartfelt thank you for sharing your wisdom and taking the time to connect with us all today. And just before we do go to Q&A, I think it's time for us to put our hands together for Steve Hansen.
James Laughlin 57:28
Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button. And I'd love it if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks. And leaders. It's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.