Clive Woodward
Hodder and Stoughton, 2004.
Paperback £8.99. ISBN: 0-34083-630-X.
Hardback £20.00. ISBN: 0-34083-629-6.

Winning more consistently, or improving the prospects of winning, is frequently the impetus underlying investment in coaching by organisations. And the investors or prospective investors commonly rely on conventional measures of ‘winning’, namely a higher number of scores than a competitor in a discrete time period, with rules whose application is adjudicated by referees independent of the players. In this title, Clive Woodward presents a story of his experiences of coach of the English international rugby union team for the six years up to their successful victory in the Rugby World Cup (RWC) Final in Sydney on 22 November, 2003.

Maybe a rugby buff could read this title and simply register the impact of ‘sports science’, for Woodward was a graduate of one of Britain’s leading degree courses in this discipline. Any psychologist who enjoys sport is likely to enjoy this book, for she or he may appreciate its implicit associations with teachings of John Dewey, George Kelly, David Kolb, Burrhus Skinner, Richard Lazarus, Edgar Schein, Fritz Perls, Eric Berne, Chris Argyris, E. Scott Geller and Marshall Goldsmith.

Perhaps also a psychologist with little interest in sport but simply curious about differences in behaviour associated with coaching interventions can find many interesting insights here. For example, a striking feature of Woodward’s approach to his work as a professional coach is his view of the aim of his work: his definition - to inspire - may raise smiles or frowns of puzzlement, until one recalls the enthusiasm displayed by the non-rugger English public during the coach tour by the RWC team he coached, around London displaying their RWC trophy; as well as the expansion in rugby participation and attendance across genders and social classes.

In this title, Woodward sets out a narrative about a systemic model of changes of thinking, feeling, communicating and strategy that a coach can set in train, and about the personal resilience, and at times courage, required for enduring hostility and tensions apt to emerge from such changes. Woodward’s cultivation of mental modelling is neatly illustrated in his three-page analysis of the blend of a ‘Zigzag’ ground-gaining positional strategy, of cognitive influences of the team’s vision coach and of their ‘think correctly under pressure’ collective mindset that culminated in a dramatic field goal in the fading minutes of extra time. Interestingly, this particular illustration of imaginative teamwork guided by mental modelling was later validated by the published account of this incident by Jon Wilkinson, the player who kicked the winning goal.

Anyone inclined to underestimate the character and scale of changes in dogmatic beliefs that controlled behaviour Woodward succeeded in influencing may benefit from reading his account of his experiences as coach of the rugby club where he worked prior to his appointment to the England team. Although his coaching of the London Irish team succeeded in rescuing the club from the Second Division, his iconoclastic thinking resulted in a backlash that reads unpalatably like racial discrimination. Woodward’s alleged ‘misdemeanours’ at the time? He pressed the players to adopt behaviour marked by experimenting with an innovative style of 15-role teamwork involving players playing out of their ‘normal’ positions and confusing their opponents. Oh dear ! Never mind that his proposals for change were in full compliance with the complex rules - and very similar to those being adopted gleefully by less hide-bound Japanese novices to the game, under the tutelage of Woodward’s own university coach, Scotsman Jim Greenwood.

Particularly attractive features of the book are Woodward’s little-varnished accounts of his own attitudinal limitations at particular stages of his career and of how he later drew on his earlier failings. One example is a delightful portrait of an episode about his bewilderment, as a dumbstruck Xerox sales manager working in Australia, when he heard one of his sales team blithely telling him at 5.27 p.m. that he wouldn’t be showing up the next day as he intended to maintain the custom of a day off to celebrate his birthday; as coach of the English national rugby team, right from day one, Woodward took a raft of actions to prevent his coaching effectiveness being blunted in ways that he recalled his management of a sales team had been.

Whatever the difficulties the English Rugby Football Union may have experienced,

and may still experience perhaps, in becoming a learning organisation, their leadership can take fair credit from displaying the foresight, patience and resourcefulness to appoint in Woodward a coach willing and able to learn and to support him during several years when he and they had to learn from errors.

As in many coaching contexts, the ‘magic’ set of relationships came to an end not long after the RWC success. Nonetheless, if you wish to read a fable about coaching and organisational change, then you are likely to relish the second half of Clive Woodward’s autobiography, Winning!. To the extent that you have followed Woodward’s entry into coaching in the world of football, you may also smile a little as you read his mantra, ‘Success doesn’t happen in a straight line’.