Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
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44 APRIL/MAY 2018 www.vanguardcanada.com bookshelF Yogi Berra, Maurice (The Rocket) Rich- ard, Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, and Derek Jeter. Five elite athletes who led champion- ship teams. However, there's a difference between them – a critical difference – that could be important to government execu- tives seeking to be more effective at work. Three of those stars – Berra, Richard, and Russell – exemplified traits that were the hallmark of leaders of the best sports teams ever, while the other two were magnificent players and on hugely successful teams but didn't display those traits and their teams failed the test of all-time greatness. Those are the findings of a fascinating book by Sam Walker, the Wall Street Jour- nal's deputy editor for enterprise, which combines an intriguing bit of sports schol- arship with some helpful management ad- vice. It's therefore of interest to govern- ment executives, whether sports fans or sports agnostics. He set out 11 years ago to answer two questions: which were the greatest sports teams in history? What distinguished those teams from other cel- ebrated but not quite so excellent teams or the even weaker ones? There could have been a lot of possible reasons, notably money or unusually adept players, but in the end he determined it was the team captains — and seven traits they shared — that explained the differ- ence between all-time greatness and the rest of the field. The book bringing his research together is broad in scope but he writes that it's about a single idea, "one that is simple, powerful, and can be ap- plied to teams in many other fields, from business and politics to science and the arts. It's the notion that the most critical ingredient in a team that achieves and sus- tains historic greatness is the character of the player who leads it." The first step was to determine the best teams. Fans will often develop top-of- the mind lists but he went about it with the rigour of a good government policy analyst, even grappling with what was a team and, vitally, what era and sports to consider. He defined a team for this ef- fort as having five or more members, so no single individual could be too influen- tial in performance, and they had to work together, rather than compete separately for total team victory, as with the Davis and Ryder Cups or the Canadian Olympic team. He looked at major sports, wanting teams whose dominance extended over many years against top competition, and went well beyond the modern era to the 1880s. He found 122 standouts but, the assessment criteria he developed knocked that back to 16 in what he calls Tier One. Twenty-eight teams, for example, fell be- cause they didn't have a major opportu- nity to prove themselves against top-flight opposition – in the early days of sport that was difficult, and for teams in sports like field hockey and water polo, that was a factor. Their record had to stand alone being an exceptionally long or concen- trated burst of success that went beyond the accomplishment of every other team that played the same genre of sport; that eliminated 66 teams. The top teams, listed by time period, were: • The Collingwood Magpies, Australian rules football, 1927-30 • The New York Yankees, major league baseball, 1949-53 • Hungary, international men's soccer, 1950-55 • The Montreal Canadiens, NHL, 1955- 60 • The Boston Celtics, NBA, 1959-69 • Brazil, international men's soccer, 1958-62 • The Pittsburgh Steelers, NFL, 1974-80 • The Soviet Union, men's international hockey, 1980-84 • The New Zealand All Blacks, interna- tional rugby union, 1986-90 • Cuba, international women's volleyball, 1991-2000 • Australia, international women's field hockey, 1993-2000 • The United States, international wom- en's soccer,1996-99 • The San Antonio Spurs, NBA, 1997- 2016 • Barcelona, professional soccer, 2008-13 • France, international men's handball, 2008-15 • The New Zealand All Blacks, interna- tional rugby union, 2011-15 So what made them tick? Money? A super- lative coach? Team chemistry or culture? A superstar or collection of superstars? Noth- ing he investigated seemed to fit each situa- tion. Studying the Boston Celtics, he noticed that their dominance began when Bill Rus- sell joined them and ended when he retired. Russell was a superb player but he also for much of that period was team captain. On a whim, Walker made a list of the primary player-leaders of the 16 teams. Eureka! "The results of this little exercise stopped me cold. The Celtics weren't the team whose Tier One performance correspond- ed in some way to the arrival and depar- ture of one particular player. In fact, they all did; and with an eerie regularity that person was, or would, eventually become the captain," he notes. Many, it should be stressed, weren't the best player on the team, but they were what he calls "glue guys," holding the team together; and although coaches mat- tered, the captains were the main factor. In fact, the coach's key contribution was gen- erally choosing the right captain. As he dug deeper, reading about the teams and their captains, he delineated seven key traits: • Extreme doggedness and focus in com- petition. They were relentless, as when Maurice (The Rocket) Richard left a 1952 playoff game with a concussion and bloody gash on his head but returned in the third period to score the winner. In a 1986 rugby match in Nantes, France, Buck Shelford of the New Zealand All blacks took a sucker punch that cost him three teeth, received a concussion, was kicked in the scrotum, ripping that vulnerable spot open, yet still played to the end. On a tamer level: Captain and catcher Yogi Berra was so committed to learning about his pitchers he and his wife moved to the new Jersey neighbourhood where those pitchers lived so they could continue their conversations over dinner. • They play to the edge of the rules, tak- ing intelligent fouls. The captains were not angels. "They sometimes did nasty things to win, especially when the stakes were the highest. They didn't believe that being sportsmanlike all the time was by harVey sChaChter The Captain Class By Sam Walker Random House, 332 pages, $37.00