Canadian Government Executive - Volume 23 - Issue 07

Y ogi Berra, Maurice (The Rocket) Richard, Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, and Derek Jeter. Five elite athletes who led championship teams. However, there’s a difference between them – a critical difference – that could be important to government executives 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 Journal’s deputy editor for enterprise, which combines an intriguing bit of sports scholarship with some helpful management advice. It’s therefore of interest to government ex- ecutives, 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 dis- tinguished those teams from other celebrated but not quite so excellent teams or the even weaker ones? There could have been a lot of possible reasons, no- tably money or unusually adept players, but in the end he determined it was the team captains -- and seven traits they shared -- that explained the dif- ference 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 sustains 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 effort as having five or more members, so no single individual could be too influential in per- formance, 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 domi- nance extended over many years against top compe- tition, and went well beyond the modern era to the 1880s. He found 122 standouts but, the assessment cri- teria he developed knocked that back to 16 in what he calls Tier One. Twenty-eight teams, for example, fell because they didn’t have a major opportunity 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 concentrated 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 foot- ball, 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, international rugby union, 1986-90 • Cuba, international women’s volleyball, 1991-2000 • Australia, international women’s field hockey, 1993- 2000 • The United States, international women’s soc- cer,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, international rugby union, 2011-15 The Leader’s Bookshelf Harvey Schachter The Captain Class By Sam Walker Random House, 332 pages, $37.00 24 / Canadian Government Executive // October 2017 “It’s the notion that the most critical ingredient in a team that achieves and sustains historic greatness is the character of the player who leads it.”