THIS WEEK ON The42′s How To Win At Dominoes podcast, Shane Keegan dials up one of the best minds in the Irish game right now: Leinster senior coach, Stuart Lancaster.
Lancaster is renowned not only as a deep thinker on the game of rugby itself, but also as a dedicated student in the arts of coaching, leadership and management.
Over the course of a fascinating hour, he shares insights from a playing career that was ended by injury, his life outside of sport and his time as school PE teacher, his experience of the biggest job in English rugby — as national team head coach for the ill-fated 2015 Rugby World Cup – and, more recently, his role as right-hand man to Leo Cullen at Leinster.
“The more the players can understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, the more they’ll buy into it and the more they’ll commit to it,” Lancaster explains as he outlines one of the cornerstones of his coaching philosophy.
“If you imagine three circles: you’ve got a circle with ‘Why?’ in it in the middle, and then you’ve got another circle on the outside of that, the ‘How?’, and the ‘What?’,” he says
What a lot of people do is they start on the outside and work in – they talk about what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it, but they never talk about the reason why we’re going to do it. I see it time and time again, and it’s a Simon Sinek book, Start With Why. If you start on the inside and work your way out, you’ve got a better chance of success. If you start with the reason why we’re going to do this, and this is how we’re going to do it, and this is what we’re going to do…
“So if we’re talking about my time with Leeds Tykes or my time with England, why are we all going to commit to this project? Why are we all going to work hard for Leeds? Why are we all going to work hard for England? What’s the reason why we want to commit to this team?
“I would find ways, write to the parents, former players coming in, talk about the history of the club etc etc – talk about the reason why. We’re all in this room together. Why?”
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