The Turnaround episode 4 - How culture can beat complacency

0:00This is Britain's growth moment. Do you want to be part of it? On 26th of March, 750 of the UK's most ambitious founders, CEOs and investors will gather in London to shape the future of mid-sized business. The company's driving our nation's success. The Business Leader Summit 2026 isn't just another conference. It's a day built around the three forces that define growth, ambition, policy and capital. And as one of our valued podcast listeners, you can be there in person. To secure a discounted ticket, visit the events section of our Business Leader website and use this code. BLPODCAST, all one word, all uppercase.

0:41We look forward to seeing you there.

0:47From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction. You must stay at home. Looks like these Olympics will be postponed. London is now cancelled. It's the London Marathon. has just confirmed that the Prime Minister... 8 ,958 have sadly died. Prevention is better than the cure. I don't think I'm so different. I don't think there's one more... Good afternoon and welcome back to Downing Street for the daily coronavirus briefing. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

1:28I'm Josh Dornbrack and this is The Turnaround, a podcast that lifts the lid on organisational change. In this series, we look to the world of sport and the remarkable story of how a team in Devon went from playing in front of a handful of spectators at a small ground to beating the odds and making it into English rugby's top flight, suffering unbearable heartbreak on the biggest stage, and finally conquering all in the English and European competitions in the same season. I meet with coaches, players, and those who follow the journey along the way, as well as organisational psychologists to analyse the moves they made to truly understand the anatomy of a turnaround, and how you can apply these lessons to your organisation.

2:13Through visionary leadership, strategic decisions and a relentless pursuit of excellence, Exeter Chiefs rewrote their story just as any organisation can. In the last episode, we heard about how resilience had put the team on the cusp of winning the club's first Premiership title and how honesty and self-reflection can be turned into a superpower. This time, we look at how a strong culture can negate complacency, how focusing on what they could control got Chiefs through a major scandal and the COVID lockdown, and much more. We pick up the story on the week of the 2016-2017 Premiership Final. The stage was set.

2:52Exeter Chiefs vs Wasps. Twickenham. May 20th, 2017. The winner would be crowned kings of English rugby. Wasps had narrowly overcome Leicester Tigers to book their place in the final, whereas Chiefs had beaten their bitter rival Saracens in a hard-fought semi-final game. This was the second time in two years that Exeter would be making an appearance in the big game, and the team was looking to prove that they'd learned from their previous disappointment. The team's director of rugby, Rob Baxter, acknowledges that one of the mistakes was around the mindset going into the final, and he was keen to correct it this time round.

3:29What we always do after big emotive games is say to the lads, you've got to be quite careful you don't try and shut yourself down too soon, because all you do is bottle it all up. And you don't feel like you enjoy anything that you're achieving, and you don't remember it. So we always kind of talk to them, like, do what you need to do now to kind of decompress, get today's game out of you, and have a few beers, go and talk to your family, you know, do what you need to do. But tomorrow, just start the process of restocking your emotional batteries, recharging yourself. Now, whether that's going out for a walk, going for a swim, the physical recovery as well, but make sure you are genuinely starting to think about how you can recharge all that emotional energy you've just expended.

4:10The preparation wasn't just mental, but logistical too. The year before, the hotel was far away from the stadium. They arrived to the ground late, and the players couldn't help but be distracted by the sight of the bus being enveloped by thousands of fans. But this final would be different, as Chiefs player Jack Knoll recalls. The year after was completely different, you know, different hotel, which we knew was closer. We knew the route in, we left the hotel earlier. No one had their phones out on the bus recording the fans and recording the chants. Everyone was pretty much sat in their seats, pretty focused.

4:44We walked in like we had been there. We experienced it then. We already knew what it was like to play in front of 80 ,000 people and play at Twickenham. For a lot of the boys, this second time they'd ever played at Twickenham. As kickoff edged closer, the importance of this day to Exeter came squarely into view. The man commentating on the game that day was Nick Mullins. It was a romantic story. And we all love romance, don't we? And we all love fairy tales. And this was a club that 30 years previously was relatively unknown in rugby terms beyond the borders of Devonshire. In 1996, they were playing National League 2 South, which for those of you who don't have rugby's rules and regulations in front of you, was the fourth division.

5:32They were not on anyone's mind in terms of the big English powerhouses. And in a very short space of time, within 30 years, 20 years to really start to challenge and 30 years, they were playing in the greatest domestic day that English rugby could offer. And also allied to that, they were nice blokes. They were easy to like. Rob Baxter was easy to fall in love with. Jack Knoll was the cheeky chappy from Cornwall. Who wouldn't want to go for a beer with Jack Yendall or introduce Henry Slade to your dad if you happen to be dating him? These were guys that we felt, even if we didn't know them, we would like.

6:10So they were brilliant at rugby. They were upsetting the traditional order of things, and they were doing it with smiles on their faces. and so many reasons why they became everyone's second favourite team. Another person in the stands that day was the Times Deputy Rugby Correspondent Will Kelleher, although not in a strictly work capacity. So I actually wasn't covering this match, but I went with a couple of my mates because I have a slight bias here because I went to Exeter University and the season I was a fresher was the season that Exeter got promoted and we got coached and trained by a few of the Exeter Chiefs players while we played for the uni rugby team.

6:52So we thought we've got to go. If they're in the premiership final, they might have a chance of winning it. It's not Saracens this time, so they've got more of a chance. My first memory was that it was a baking hot day. Often those premiership finals are in May and June, but this one was a hot one. Chiefs coach Ali Heifer and club captain Jack Yandel recall a feeling going into the game. At the time, obviously facing Saracens one year to then, you felt you were a little bit more on an even keel with Wasps. An unbelievable game of rugby for the neutrals as well, but there was just this feeling that it was our time, it was going to happen.

7:27And there was no way we were going to lose this final. Probably the big thing I remember as well is that Tomahawk drop just roaring around the stadium. It's just that roar just bouncing around. In cup final weather for the title, Wasps against Exeter. Just as in the final the year before, the man with the number 10 shirt for Chiefs that day was Gareth Steinson. We'd had a good year and we knew that the way we were playing would affect Wasps. And we stuck to our game plan. We nearly come unstuck in it, but we stuck with it the entire way through the game, which ultimately gave us the best opportunity to win the game.

8:02I remember the game being very like 50-50 in terms of not one team dominated it. We got off to a great start. I think it was Dickie and Nolsey had a nice little link up of a line-out move for Nolsey to get over in the corner. We got a couple of trick plays away and scored and got benefits from that. but then they they came very much back into the game we were on top and then i remember wady scoring and wasps coming back and it being a real good fight and there was that period just before halftime where we let them back in and it really sort of turned the game a bit and it was just it was just carnage but we we just backed ourselves physically on a fitness test we're probably not that much better but used to constantly playing at that high level of just get up, do it again, get up, do it again, it started to pay off.

8:46And whenever we had a scrum opportunity and we got ourselves a penalty, you were always back, Steiner, that man's boot was on fire. Chiefs found themselves 20 points to 17 down. But the team remained resolute until Wasps number eight, Nathan Hughes, gave away a penalty with time almost up. Gareth Steenson stepped forward to attempt the three-pointer and send the game into extra time. Oh, wow. Exeter were 90 seconds away from defeat last Saturday when they rescued themselves they were 90 seconds away from defeat when that penalty was awarded but this still has to go over to take us to extra time.

9:27Steenson down the middle of course down the middle it's Gerard Steenson and it looks like we need more time to conclude this extraordinary Premiership season. We kind of felt that fitness-wise we were in a pretty good position and that taking it to extra time would probably play into our hands. And I remember us going to the back of the stands because you obviously never really see rugby games going to extra time very often. So it was sort of like, what do we do now? Right, we'll get another pint and see what happens in the final 20 minutes. In the extra time, you go onto the field, you start to speak to the guys, and it can be very hectic at that stage.

10:08So just making sure you get across the clear message so there's a clarity to their performance. I think once we got to the extra time, we flicked on again, and I think we dominated both halves. In the extra time in the first half, we were camped in there at 22, didn't come away with any points, but the pressure was building. And in the second half of the extra time, it was exactly the same. We were in that 22, and we were either banging on the try line, we were having these five-metre scrums where the boys were dominating. Chiefs were camped on Wasp's goal line with a little over four minutes to go in extra time and the pressure was building.

10:41Not that it needs to be said, but fans from rival clubs, side by side, seat by seat, enjoying this. Just trying to get that left shoulder early. I think that was pulled down on the black side. Oh, penalty to Chiefs! the kick needs to be kicked for the second time in the match Gareth Steenson stepped up to take a high pressure kick to change his team's fortunes he takes us inside his thinking in that moment I remember looking around Twickenham when the boys were in the scrum so you've got to think for two minutes I'm kind of taking in that sort of atmosphere the noise, everything that goes with it but you kind of forget there's a whole other stadium behind you so as I look at it, you don't see the top tier but for me it was I'd had the chance to almost prep for it.

11:28Visually, I knew where it was going to be, so I'd got myself in that state of mind. So then it's about me going back to the things that I've worked on throughout my whole career, trying to relax. I'd felt pretty confident twicken him. At that point, we'd had a couple of years of being in finals, and thankfully I hadn't missed a kick in any warm-ups or anything, so I was feeling pretty good. Gareth Steenson, who left home, left Ulster all those years ago, to make a name for himself.

12:02The personification of this club, who this week said one more big job may well have just won the premiership for the Chiefs. Two minutes later, the game was sealed. Because this season is going to be about the team from the West. it's going to be about the Chiefs

12:31and the rugby story that brought a smile to every neutral space in the land has its happy ending pure joy just complete jubilation and just like there's so many tears it's what you've worked so hard for your whole career that whole season for some boys like 10, 12, 13 years, just absolute graft to be the best team in England. Former Chiefs player turned organisational psychologist Don Armand, who played in that final. It was a culminated effort of years that even before I'd been there and seeing how much it meant to the people that had been there for longer than I had, that was a real eye opener.

13:14Some of the people that you never thought would mean a lot were like a bit in tears. Then you have the celebrations after that. I remember travelling home with the boys on the Saturday night, obviously going out with the trophy and being around Exeter, getting home probably about 4.30am and then getting a taxi back to London at 5am to meet up with the Lions boys for my first ever Lions tour. So it was a whirlwind of a weekend. But for me, winning the trophy of Exeter, Champions Cup and the Premiership Cups is by far the best experience I've ever had in my life. And, you know, for me, it beats my first England cap.

13:53But that is very special in itself. But that feeling, if you could bottle it up, you'd be an absolute millionaire. But eventually, the reality of the next challenge hits home. and then the funny thing is when it comes to performance as much as when you make a mistake and you lose you move on it's the same with the final like it was off season you switch off you come back in and you try again obviously there's going to be underlying drivers that are changed and they're not going to be so obvious but is that's the one element that i find fascinating about high performance sport is like it's a very fleeting moment of celebration before you click into what's next and I think there's that duality of you're able to move through mistakes quicker but you also move through the glory quicker because you're on to the next thing that's why that bigger goal is more important because it's never going to be reached which means you've got something to tie into and you can keep going what if you could grow your business faster just by surrounding yourself with the right people at business leader we connect uk founders and CEOs with the support they need to scale fast.

14:58That means peer group forums with experienced entrepreneurs, one-to-one coaching, live masterclasses, and real world insights from our under the bonnet company visits. Whether you're stuck in the day-to-day or planning your next big leap, you don't have to do it alone. Our members include founders and CEOs you've heard right here on this podcast, and they're seeing real results. If your business turns over at least £3 million in revenue a year and you're ready to grow further, apply now for our next free growth workshop or book a consultation call. Spots are limited. Head to businessleader.co.uk to get started.

15:38Exeter Chiefs had won their first premiership title. However, the jubilation and celebrations had died down by the time the pre-season rolled around. Now they had to get used to life as the team that others would look to target. But while that threat was external, the internal threat was complacency. But Ali Heifer and the other coaches knew how to keep the team from feeling it. Goal setting. I don't think by that stage we'd actually finish top of the league. So that was a little bit of a factor, another driver. What was happening behind the scenes in Europe was a little bit, we were gradually improving.

16:15We were starting to pick up wins against Claremont at home whereas in the initial stages we were taking some quite heavy losses both home and away and then it was starting to then push ourselves can we get that French win away from home and can we then build on top of that so there was always plenty to to move on to and you do very quickly move on to the next thing especially when you know you've got a talented squad. Goals must be tied into the overall vision of an organisation and re-evaluated once they've been achieved. If you've kind of achieve the vision or the vision we should evolve anyway over time as the future changes and your situation changes then what is the vision now organizational psychologist graham norris and even the most successful sports people like tom brady or whoever you look at who is one and one and one and one again they still have a vision for their futures that maybe involves a different kind of success and so i think that's that's really the key is to make sure that there's always a vision there because that vision, if it's coloured in and vivid and vibrant, will always be compelling and motivating.

17:23And when you connect that back to what you're doing right now, yes, you can enjoy what's happening right now, but also you've got to be taking the actions and taking the decisions that are going to be realising that future vision. Having celebrated lifting the Premiership trophy in the 2016-2017 season, Chiefs turned their focus to winning the double, which is winning the Premiership and the European Champions Cup in the same season. Don Armin says that Ali Hefa and the rest of the coaches set the team up for focusing on that vision. You could turn around and be like, Ali, when are you going to let the guys just enjoy the win?

17:57And it's like, well, if he did, we would have enjoyed that win and never won another final. We've never gone to win the double. You have to have some element of recognition that at a high performing level, at that level, if you've got big things to achieve, the smaller things aren't going to give you as much reward, even if you try and fake it. So you do need to be able to switch through and have things that go, I know you're on this journey to buy in to the double. So this is great. Enjoy it for a couple of days, but move on. It's not just about refocusing the vision and communicating it. You also need to re-evaluate those on the journey with you.

18:32You've got to be aware as a coach, as a leader in business, when you achieve goals naturally there are going to be people that are that that was their goal that was their thing and you have to have the courage relationship built understanding to go is the next thing something you want to buy into if it isn't he has x recognition this is what we want to do but i need to get someone in that is fresh and wants to achieve it you still give them the opportunity but it's that how you create that honesty of belonging honesty of purpose honesty of buy-in is vital you know in the business sense is once you've achieved the goal it's almost rehashing that buy-in and it's like a circular goal buy-in understand your people communicate goal buy-in understand your people communicate and that's every time you reach a goal you've got to go through that cycle because you're gonna have some people that will fall off naturally because they might not suit high performing anymore because they have kids and they want to focus on their kids they might have a side interest in business that started to take off and that's great.

19:33You want to be able to encourage all of that. You want whole people. You want them to not think that they're coming into work as a sacrifice to something else because they will end up hating work and they'll make other people hate work. Keeping a handle on their team was something that the Chiefs coaching staff had a keen eye for. As the club's success grew, the players were beginning to get the international recognition that they deserved. Six players featured in England's summer tour of Argentina, one for Italy and one for Wales. Jack Knoll became the club's first ever British and Irish Lion when he featured off the bench twice during the 2017 series against New Zealand.

20:08This high acclaim and feel for the ego had the potential to throw off the dynamic of the team and cause disruption. But this was mitigated by the club's focus on recruitment and being tuned into the group dynamic, according to Director of Rugby Rob Baxter. I'll be honest with you, on the whole, we haven't had to do too much management, or I haven't had to do too much management, because making sure they understand what's good for the group is actually what's dealt with most of that. The culture of the group, probably in the early stages, we had to do a lot of it and rounding off and helping them along the way.

20:43Here's Ali Heifer. But as you go on, less and less and more the power, they understand the high standards that we set right from the off and now instilled in a lot of the guys that have been here a while. and then that high standard manages then other things and distractions that might happen. If there are slip-ups, then the group manages it and it becomes way more powerful if it's coming from their peers. Obviously, we've got to still drive it behind the scenes, but they kind of do know, you know, as a culture and as a group, what's expected of them and they'll often draw the lines or hold people to account and that's perfect for us.

21:21The truth of any good organisation, any good change room, any good group of people is the momentum of the group. So the momentum of the group is pretty good. What you get is strong characters who start the process of heading one way or the other. Now, one way can be positive, one way can be negative most of the time. You then have a middle layer who'll kind of go, well, I'm not quite sure, but there's a few more strong characters heading that way, then I'll join that. And then you've got another layer of people who'll just go, oh, they're going that way, I'll go that way. And that's a changing room on the whole.

21:54and that's most business organizations, that's most groups of people. And we've been fortunate, it's probably the wrong word, because we've probably made sure the senior players we've worked with make sure they maintain that understanding of what does a good group feel like. That's allowed most of the time the momentum in the group to head the right way because a guy who steps outside of that gets pulled back into it pretty quickly. Once that momentum or that drive in the group, the senior players in that group starts to disperse, starts to get spread, you lose that direction and once you lose that direction as a team it becomes bitty and difficult hard to coach hard for it to be fun hard to give it direction and I'll be honest with the guys who fight to stay outside that are the guys who've let go.

22:36When it comes to managing egos organizational psychologist Graham Norris says that once again it comes down to the vision. Definitely it's a case of making sure that you build in the incentives and create that vision whereby there's still challenge, that they still need to be humble to say, well, you haven't achieved this thing in the future yet. You still need to be working towards that. And how are you going to get there? You're going to do it on your own? No, you're going to be doing it with all these other people as well. Sometimes it can also include, okay, if you think you're that good, and maybe you are, how are you now going to take the whole team and take them to the next level?

23:14And so there's there's various tactics you can, you can use to either capitalize on their experience or to channel that energy that they have, that energy being, you know, their perception of themselves in healthy ways. You know, once again, you need to manage that depending on what kind of person it is. If there's someone who's dismissive of their teammates, then they're probably, they're probably, you know, you might have to think about saying, well, you're doing well, but you need to be in some other team. Now you, You're just going to be stuck in the life from this one. Or maybe you can say, well, great, you're so good, then you need to be taking a different type of ownership, a different type of responsibility for the success of this team going forward.

23:57Don Armand has another approach, and it's much more granular. How you keep your top performers humble is making sure that they're realizing the small things that got them there. Because I think that that gets forgotten. It's not a big thing of humbling someone. An ego is just something that takes over when we get inflated. everyone has that if we just think some people have a bigger ego constantly than others it's not it's just that they've forgotten the smaller things for example is whatever small things you were doing when you first started are you still doing them and if not why not because those small things are the things that keep you humble that make you realize that this is where we're starting this where to keep going so are they coming to all the meetings that they used to come to are they as attentive are they still doing those little things or they stopped and have you accepted that because if you accepted that you're enabling their ego to take over so as a leader you're not doing them any favors i was talking to a sales team about the importance of structure and how they would train someone else up and i said oh it's important to have a script and the one guy says i don't use scripts anymore immediately it's like ego pops up because he's too good to use a script understandably he is 30 years experience doesn't need a script and i was all for that but his teammates said ah but it's not about you not needing the script we are talking about having a script to make things repeatable to get to your level and he had forgotten that he would have started with a script or some sort of training that made it repeatable so that immediately humbled him because he was like oh yeah of course so you could tell when he now interacts with junior salesmen he isn't expecting them to oh why using a script you should just know this because he does he goes, right, I remember when I was at your stage, I used to do this.

25:36And that is the immediate way of humbling people, is by reminding them about the small things that were the foundation to where they started. After winning the Premiership in the 2016-2017 season, Chiefs finished top of the league table for the next two seasons. However, they were beaten in the final in both years by Saracens. Three Premiership final losses in four seasons for Exeter, all to the same club, had solidified the North London side's place as Chiefs bogey team. But then, news broke that shook English rugby. It was certainly the biggest scandal in the history of English professional club rugby.

26:13Veteran rugby journalist Alex Spink again. We flew back from the World Cup in Japan. England had lost the final heavily to South Africa, got on the plane pretty much the next day, flew home, everyone exhausted. We land at Heathrow and all the phones go off and there was a statement that's been put out saying that there was a salary cap scandal. Saracens had been found guilty of breaching the£7m salary cap in three consecutive seasons. Saracens had been unbelievably successful and frankly, Exeter had been the team who had suffered most from that success. The powers that be at Premiership Rugby said early on that Saracens would not have any titles taken off them.

26:56So what was left was an angry Chiefs fan base. Jack Nall gives an insight into the players' mindset surrounding the scandal. I think a lot of people were. I know a lot of the Exeter fans were bitter about it. And rightly so. Fans spend money to come watch your team win. And when they're not winning, it's frustrating, I think. But for us as players, there's nothing we could have done about it. You know, we'd lost those finals. It happened. You know, maybe one of the finals we were in a position to win it. But I certainly remember the second time we lost them in the finals. that we should never have won that game anyway.

27:30They were far better than us. We were pretty poor that day. So it would be very easy to be bitter on it and what happened. I'm good friends with a lot of the Saris boys. And it's one of those things. It's the club. They were deciding to do what they wanted to do. They thought they were in the right. And it is what it is. But there's nothing we could have done about it. As Graham Norris explains, how the team mentally reacted to the Saracens' salary cap scandal holds a key lesson for leaders. Focus on what you can control. Everything else is a distraction. When you're looking at the future, yes, you need to understand the environment in which you're operating, but not get hung up on whether you like it or not, or whether you don't like it.

28:10None of those things matter. What matters is that's what you're presented with. And then what am I going to do with that? How can I operate in that environment? We could all wish for some other kind of situation, but once again, all of that is pretty pointless. We need to focus on what we can control and how we're going to achieve that. And this is exactly what the Chiefs coaching staff did, utilising a sporting mindset that looked past the wins and the losses. As former coach Ali Heifer explains. Some of the losses you can take if you're just not good enough on the field at that point in time.

28:43I think the Saracens thing is the Saracens thing. But I would say if you always focus on yourself and get the best possible performance out of yourself, that's all you can ask. It's not actually the winning that's the key driver. It's the level of performance. If you get beaten by a great team and you've played the best game of rugby you've ever played, well, you can't be critical of yourself in that circumstance. Equally, if you're not performing to the highest level, even if you're winning games, that's the important driver. To strive towards that excellence is key. I can't change that they did that.

29:18At that time, we did our best. We could have learned a lot more. I can't change that. So what can we focus on now? What is our way forward? Former Exeter Chiefs player turned organizational psychologist, Don Armand again. If you're in business and you've been cheated, that's one thing. I'm really sorry. I can't really change that for you. And it's probably no bit of advice that I could give here or tips I could give are going to change that because there's a lot more money and risks involved individually as a business owner or a leader. But if you're currently going through it and you think it sucks and you've gone yourself into an unfortunate victim mindset where we can't do better because we don't have what they have, you're not thinking outside the box enough.

29:58You're not being innovative. So there's many, many bits of advice, some sages, some successful people that'll tell you the odds that were stacked up against them and they still succeeded is because they realized that every single resource they needed was at their grasp already. They just needed to learn how to look, where to look. Realistically, as a leader, you've got to go, you've got to be innovative. you've got to go against the grain. As an entrepreneur, you've got to think, how can we do this differently? Because that's where you start to get the magic. That's where you start to get different results.

30:26And then everyone looks at you and they go, oh, we're going to do that. The only thing we could do is look forward. And, you know, if we got another chance, we got into another final, you know, we do everything we can do to win it. In 2019, Tony Rowe named Natasha Pavis as the club's managing director. I met with her at Sandy Park, where she spent 13 years as the general manager before transitioning into a new role. Like so many people associated with Chiefs, she had a personal history with the club. I lived behind the county ground, so when I was growing up, the county ground was behind me, but I think I knew more of Speedway than an actual rugby ground.

31:03Moving into her new position, and having done a previous role overseeing the hospitality side of the business under Rose Watchful Eye, it was a smooth transition. One thing I would say for Tony, for want of a better word, he's probably nurtured me sometimes with an eye and fist but he's nurtured me over the years but I think kind of with all the best intentions to get me to where I am now and I think the very fact that he kind of decided to share an office with me before I became MD but that allowed me to get a real insight into every single conversation he has every decision that has to be made I understand obviously the the business side of things here but probably less so the rugby side of things but But that obviously feeds into the bigger picture.

31:47When Pavers took over in July 2019, the club was in a healthy financial place. Exeter Chiefs started the season on a tear in both the Premiership and the Champions Cup. The side lost just four of their opening 19 games until the world got turned upside down. 2019-20 season would have been our biggest year ever. I mean, we were flying. And it was flying since we opened in 2006. And then it crashed. Good evening. The alarming scale of the national emergency now facing the UK was made all too clear this evening in a national broadcast by the Prime Minister. From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction.

32:28You must stay at home. But for now, I send my thanks and warmest good wishes to you all. While the business side of the club scramble to figure out how to handle the financial reality of a global pandemic, the coaches encouraged the players to narrow their focus on conditioning, as Jack Knoll and Jack Yendall recall. It was one of those things where no one knew what the hell was going on. Once the news got out and once the rules were put in place, I think our gym was empty in like half a day. The message has gone out, lads come in and get as much gym kit as you can load in your cars. Some players who lived close to each other formed a bubble, including Yendall, Luke Cowandicki and Jack Knoll.

33:09It was me in the middle, Dickie on one side and Nolesy on the other side. And he'd just built a garage and then she locked down and was about to start and he's like, right, we're going to have it as a home gym. And then, yeah, we just started, gave ourselves a daily routine of smashing the gym. And he got all sorts of kit there. Fair play. I was very lucky to live where I was because he's like Mr. Red Bull as well. So Red Bull sorted him out. And I remember maybe like three or four weeks into it, Rob was like, look, I don't know how long we're going to be off for, but we will play these games, whether it's delayed whether we're playing two games a week we're going to finish the premiership and we're going to finish the champions cup so we're in very good positions in both competitions let's make sure we make the most of of this lockdown and make sure we come back in a very good like physical condition and mental condition fair play to the conditioners at that point so james parks deserve a special shout for this because he made a whatsapp group of like little challenges to do always doing what bike challenges and putting their scores up on on the group and you know there was programs individual programs sent out each week for everybody to to tick off and and it was a massive buy-in from the squad because it would have been it would have been very easy to to have done absolutely bugger all because no one was no one could come over and check up on you no one could make sure you were doing it it was it was very much like you if you want to do it you're going to do it and it genuinely brought the boys really close together like we couldn't go and see each other but we sent each other like videos or like different training challenges and different bits and bobs and i think every single person in that team bought into that and did their stuff.

34:36As chaos reigned in the outside world, and similar to the Saracens salary cap scandal, director of rugby Rob Baxter maintained a laser focus on what he and his coaches could control, which Don Armand says was the perfect approach. Initially lockdown was a week, then it was three weeks, and then it was a month. And all of a sudden you could have this narrative, oh we don't know when it's going to end, so therefore what are we going to do? And Rob was just like, I can't tell you when we're coming out, so I'm not even going to bother. It's be realistic about that but if it comes out next week we're the most prepared if it comes out in six weeks we're the most prepared and what can we do then what can you control do your gym program stay connected keep checking in and he just kept that was that simple communications like just keep focused on the things that you can control because as soon as you go into things you can't control you're giving away your power and i think for me that's a big lesson i try and do for leadership especially like personal leadership and how you show up, is don't get caught thinking about things you can't control because you don't have power over those.

35:37And if we want people to follow us and be inspired, it's like keep your mind on what you can control. The team's strong start to the season meant that they were in the running for both the Premiership and the Champions Cup titles. Rob Baxter's messaging to the team concentrated on what they could achieve when play resumed. The vision. Organisational psychologist Graham Norris says that reiterating this vision is an important motivational tool that a leader can use. You know, I often talk about a psychological concept. It's got quite a complicated name, but I call it the Magoo effect after Mr. Magoo, who was the, people don't remember, was the cartoon character.

36:12And he was very, very short-sighted. And so, and he couldn't see things further away and he'd get into all kinds of trouble because of that. And it's the same, the way we think about the future. So what we can see right in front of us right now seems real and concrete and important. But then when we think about the future, it becomes more abstract and less tangible, less relevant to us. And so the real trick is to try to make the future seem as concrete and as real as what we can see right in front of us right now. Because that future, that vision, because it's less tangible and less relevant, less important, then we're less likely to try for it.

36:52We might try doing those two reps less, or we might try to cut some corners or not really try to achieve it because, you know, it's tomorrow. You know, it's almost as we think about it, it almost seems like not quite, it can happen later. And so we get dragged into the noisy present of to-do lists and some other things that aren't really that important. It becomes a bit more selfish about all about us. But by creating that vision, by really coloring it in, when we think about the future, it's normally just a sketch but by coloring it and making it real and getting everybody involved into really seeing and feeling and I and I emphasize that it was really feeling that with the details of what that that vision is like then you can start to really get people involved in feeling that compulsion and that motivation to make it happen next time on the turnaround to watch almost like a six seven eight year plan come together in a game was massively fulfilling right guys we've just achieved one of the biggest things you can in the sport but you can achieve even more if you get this next bit right i think that's a really good analogy for business isn't it like you can rest but you can't rest on your laurels because then you get complacent this was the closing of the chapter they'd hit the top of everest and it was very difficult he felt to find different ways of getting them back up to do it again and i'll be honest with you guys who fight to stay outside that, I think ours would let go.