And the “last thing” he wants to do is to tell other people how to run their businesses.
“Often I wonder, especially in sport, you watch on TV all the results, you say ‘oh, that’s all been easy and straightforward’.
“I quite like to actually show that there was some periods there where you had to go through some things that didn’t go your way.
“And that’s when you learn most.”
The 2011 and 2015 Rugby World Cup-winning former All Blacks captain was in Dunedin this week to share lessons in leadership and resilience with members of the city’s business community, as part of a Westpac Smart Series event.
Running a business was not easy, Mr McCaw said.
“It’s all very well to stand up here and say this and that, but it’s not easy.
“At times you go, ‘jeez, am I getting anywhere here?’.
“At least for sport you knew on Saturday whether you had a tick or a cross.”
For businesses, the results of the day’s work might not be seen for another 6 or 12 months.
But if you did not put the time and effort in, “it will be poor when you want it to be right”, he said.
“It’s nice to be able to pass on ideas, but the last thing I ever want to stand up and say [is] ‘this is the way you should do it, and I know best’ — because I don’t.
“It’s just some ideas that sport gave me that I’ve tried to use, and that might be useful.”
Some of the lessons he had learned over his sporting career, such as how to deal with pressure in a team, were relevant to all parts of life — including in business.
Not all times were easy, and as much as you did not want to go through them, the way you reacted and what you took away could help build future success.
When the going got tough, it was often easy to get lost in the things outside of your control and to blame other people, he said.
It was important to stay focused on what was within your control.
“If you look at a business situation, you might have high interest rates.
“You can’t actually change that yourself.
“But what you can change is having a group of people all dialled-in to what you’re trying to achieve and how you’re going to go about things.
“If you keep your focus there, so when the worm does turn, you’re in a good position to make the most of it, whereas if you’re sort of all scattered and worried about everything else, you sort of lose that opportunity.
“In those moments, having leadership that actually keeps people focused on what you can actually have some influence over, I think that’s quite important.”
In rugby, you could not control the opposition, the weather, injuries or the referees.
“2011, in the World Cup, we went in with everyone fit then we lost three first fives in a row.
“It would have been easy to say ‘oh, this is all too hard, not our fault’, but every team deals with adversity.
“If we’d all just thrown our hands in the air and gone ‘oh, it’s not fair’, well, no-one would care, really.
“We couldn’t control that, but we could control our reaction to the situation and go ‘well we’ve just got to find the ways to make it as seamless as possible’ — which we managed to do.”
While he was not as hands-on with Christchurch Helicopters as he had been a few years ago — opting for some contract flying for them as he now lived in Wanaka — Mr McCaw said he knew what businesses went through.
“Things like fuel prices and all that, just those costs, what you thought a few months ago when you’re quoting for jobs, all of a sudden you’re like, ‘how do we absorb that?’.”
Among the lessons he had picked up was instead of dwelling on how to get business to come to you, “nail” the jobs you did have to build credibility.
Momentum would build from there and become the norm, he said.
“When you don’t have a long-term contract and you’re … going day-to-day, which is what a lot of businesses do, the key is then just to nail those chances you get.”
People loved the experience of going for a scenic flight in a helicopter, but the interactions with people and being a good host were also a part of that experience.
Different pilots tried to each give their own “flavour”, and it was sometimes easy to not perform at the level you wanted without a few reminders, Mr McCaw said.
The “art of a good business” was fostering a group of people invested in executing a vision.
“It’s like that in sport.
“Everyone has good players and good talent, but it’s the ones that can do it together and do it consistently are the ones that have success.
“You don’t need to be pulling magic out of the hat every day, but you turn up at a level of consistency, and you have everyone doing that, that’s when you start to see results.”
tim.scott@odt.co.nz
