WORKPLACE NOW E-ZINE - FEBRUARY 2013
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Creating ‘One Team’ with Sir Clive Woodward

A group of Johnson Controls' customers were recently addressed by Sir Clive Woodward, who spoke to them about his ‘One Team’ concept. This is the management philosophy that he developed while in charge of the England team that won the Rugby World Cup in 2003 and later used on a larger scale in his role as Director of Sport for Team GB, which surpassed all expectations at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

 

Sir Clive Woodward’s ‘One Team’ management concept is based on extensive business experience, both with Rank Xerox and running his own IT leasing company, as well as operating at the very pinnacle of international sport. It underpins his reputation for attention to detail and preparation that gives his teams an edge.

 

Sir Clive Woodward

“Creating ‘One Team’ is how I operated with Team GB and the England Rugby team, but it was all based on business experience. In building a team it’s important to you try and create an environment that’s so good that each individual wants to be part of it and nobody ever wants to leave. ‘One Team’ applies to companies, but also teams within teams and partnerships between organizations,” said Sir Clive Woodward.

 

At the heart of his ‘One Team’ approach is collaborative leadership, managing people and gaining a consensus for performance, by getting them to agree a code of conduct and standards for the benefit of both the individual and group. In the case of the England Rugby team, these rules created an extremely detailed code for behavior both on and off the pitch, such as timekeeping, dress, off-field behavior, the use of mobile phones, dealing with the media and book writing.

 

“When we wanted to discuss anything that was incredibly important, I would explain its importance to us as a team first and then ask the team to discuss it without me being in the room. Importantly, you couldn’t have a teamship rule unless there was 100 percent buy-in from everyone. They would then present the proposed rule to me and, if I agreed with them, we’d document it. The great thing about a teamship rule is that it’s not a contract. It’s a group of people shaking hands to agree how they are going to operate, which is far more powerful as long as everyone has had the opportunity to input.”

 

This level of detail, he argued, makes a huge difference in both sport and business and ultimately helped England to become the first and only northern hemisphere team to date to lift the Webb Ellis Cup.

 

In 2006, Sir Clive Woodward became the Director for Sport at the British Olympic Association (BOA) for Team GB. As part of his role at Team GB he, supported by the BOA, instigated the ‘One Team’ concept across 26 sports, all of which operate unilaterally when not at an Olympic Games. He worked with the Performance Directors and Team leaders to create a shared team ethic and values with the 524 athletes that competed for Team GB at the games. He stated the importance he placed on collaborative partnerships, both throughout the preparation for the games and the Olympic Games themselves. Extensive partnerships were formed including corporate sponsors and other key stakeholders, such as the media, the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), the Olympics Organizing Committee (OOC) and UK Sport.

 

“Within Team GB my role was to try to help people to understand how their actions could impact on others and to convince 26 sports that they could operate as one. We ended up creating five values – responsibility, unity, pride, respect and performance,” he said. 

 

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One example cited by Sir Clive Woodward was the use of social media by the athletes. Despite London 2012 being the first “social media games”, not a single athlete breached their agreed rules on the use of social media, such was the high level of commitment from the teams and their athletes to ‘OneTeamGB’. 

 

“The standards the members of Team GB set for themselves were a reflection of the quality of the team in terms of their performance.”

The results speak for themselves. Team GB became the most successful British Olympic Team of the modern era by winning 65 medals including 29 golds at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

 

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