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Stuart Lancaster on Culture

Stuart Lancaster sharing his words of wisdom about creating a performance culture.

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Why do you think culture so important to Elite Sports Teams into a league Rugby teams? I think it's important in any sport. But I think it was more like Ruby where you need a huge level of personal commitment and that commitment has to work through the team. You can't win a game of rugby. If if one of the 15 players on the field isn't truly committed to the cause. You can't have a strong Team without having a strong culture and everyone buying into that and being part of the team. I honestly believe that the the players at the club's wouldn't come through their systems if they weren't good team player. So as a consequence, it makes my life easier because I know I'm picking good people who want to add value who want to contribute to the team who want to making successful what and whose influence your that view of yours that culture is so important and I think my beliefs of born out of lots of different things. I think it's brought out the way I was brought up the experience of had to going through school going through my teaching career and leading into my coaching career. I think all those things have helped me grow as a coach. I've looked at great coaches and great teams and studied them and looked at what they believe and how Operated under the consistency about the best the best the best of the ones who have the strongest cultures who have the team ethic and desire to work hard for each other. It's all those things have shaped what I believe and what new thing you need to do immediately at your start point in January 2012. Well, the start point was really to sort of get the team looking ahead to the World Cup in 2015 and get people excited about that and pick a team that I felt we could grow and develop so that it would Peak for 2015 so made the decision early on that side with the new group of players, but reminded them of the reason why I play in bringing the special and focused all my energy and effort on that and get them committing to the team to the shirt and to each other since then we've continued to grow it and develop it to a deeper level with the talk about what it means to be English and being bit from your front foot about being from England. So we're stages. You think it's he needs to go through to get to ultimately self sustaining culture. It's a layered approach, you know, you've got to get the base layer right the foundations in place of good culture good. Right people in the right jobs all focusing on the reason why I play with this team is special and then you build up and then beyond that the players then we're going to take ownership of it, but they'll only do that if they trust it. It's a environment that's motivational that they know that it can do things without fear of failure or getting dropped without any reason. I mean so that there's a security in the team and then ultimately you're looking for is the place to drive the culture themselves and use the coach to become the the organizer and I think we're stepping towards that everyone within the management team has their part to play and then you see any players you Captain clearly, you know, cause Rob short, um, would Dylan Hartley those guys? Oh and ferrell Brad Barrett all the nines play a key leadership role Mike Brown's developing that rule Alex goods and a great job and Betty 12 Trees as well. You know, someone whose companies club team. So all these younger leaders are developing I think into more experienced international players and more experienced leaders, and they They're the guys who we build a team around. They're a good group. You know, we get on well and I enjoy the company enjoy trying to develop them and I enjoy watching them succeed. How much time do you spend thinking about the culture and how important it is and how aware of you of actions around the camp that might affect that positively or negatively I would say, it's what I think about most I think it's more about it in screams and lineups and rocks and walls and I've got my team coaches that do that the detail obviously I get involved in it. But you know, I spend a lot of time with the non 23 players making sure that they've got feedback as to why they're not getting picked and how to get picked because I think they're important I spend time with the senior players to help direct them and motivate them and give them some leadership. I'm constantly looking for things that take energy away from the team, you know, or could cause damage to the culture in and could be an incident of the field. It could be negative media. It could be a person that's been dropped and he doesn't like it and he's begun to change the mindset one or two other players around him because he's not that happy. So I'm always looking out for body language and I use also the physios the conditioners the master all the people on the ground who see the players on a regular basis to assess mood and the mental state of players because often they will naturally probably manage their image to me a bit more because I'm the coach of the makes the decisions. So how therefore does a culture absorber Maverick player or nonconformist player do certain things become long ago sociable. There's definitely no negotiables in my mind, you know, there are probably wouldn't like them on a list but it the Fairly obvious in terms of team. I don't think a sport like rugby can accommodate some like that if I'm being honest because I think if you've got 14 players all committed to a cause and an individual plan on his own, Agenda then the team will be successful pretty much the players will deal with it probably but if a player's don't deal with Coach deal with it and not picking this tour then have great significance on and off the field in terms of what I'm to show something about your culture by going there and merging with a great deal of respect. Yeah, definitely to test, you know, you call to get tested and it is a good test in that regard, you know, Win Lose or Draw, you know, we need to come back as good ambassadors for England good ambassadors for the country and leave with the respect of the New Zealand Public and if we don't achieve that then you know, but it's appointed because it'll be a step backwards, but I'm pretty confident. We will I'd say respective the results will come back a better team and stronger team for the experience.