Leadership and the Commonwealth Games.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games and the team that organised the Games held a reunion to mark the occasion. After a fun night reminiscing about what most will tell you was the best job they’ve even had, I started thinking about some of the things I learned about leadership from working with the Commonwealth Games. There were many examples that came to mind but these are the three that I have found to be the most beneficial over the past 10 years.

 Leadership was everywhere: From the moment you entered the interview process to work with the Games you were encouraged to take responsibility for your own actions and act as a leader, regardless of the job title. Don’t get me wrong, the Chairman, the CEO and board members provided fantastic vision and leadership but they also empowered every member of the team to do the same. They trusted people were making good decisions and that we were communicating up, down and across the business. They allowed us to take risks, supported us when we failed and praised us when we succeeded. This was powerful stuff and created a culture of success, innovation, dedication and importantly of not making excuses.

 The how before the what: Respect, trust, open and honest communication – these are things that many aspire to have as their core behaviours in the work place. They don’t come easy and there is a price to pay. That price is you need to fundamentally put how you do things before what you do. This was unquestionably the case at the Games. The recruitment team and hiring managers followed a rule of behaviours first (the how) and skills / experience second. We understood that this may require a little extra training and initial hand holding for new starters but the benefits of knowing that you colleagues were choosing to turn up to work every day with a positive attitude, being 100% focused on the outcome and consistently behaving in a respectful and flexible manner was the reason the event was able to be delivered and to be regarded as the best Games ever, to date.

 Accessible and vulnerable: The Games was the first time I’d worked in a completely open plan office. Everyone, including the CEO, sat together and could see and hear each other on a daily basis. The benefits of the Leadership Team taking this hard decision to be visible and accessible was enormous and as most of modern offices now operate this way I probably don’t need to explain the benefits. However, the thing that struck me the most was what I think was an unintended consequence of this arrangement. The team could see and hear the Leadership Team at work. We saw that they interacted and communicated often and that their communication was up, down and across the entire organisation. We saw that the Leadership Team were prepared to be vulnerable and were comfortable saying I don’t know and asking for help. We saw that the Leadership Team were exactly that, a team and that they supported each other without compromise.

 There are some amazing stats that can be reeled off about the Games:
- 4,500 athletes from 71 nations competing
- Another 1,500 media and support staff
- 240 separate events held in 17 different venues
- 15,000 volunteers
- 1.5 million tickets sold
- 4 billion TV viewers around the world
- 100,000 tourists visited Victoria and spent an estimated $252 million while in the country.
- Australia won 84 Gold and a total of 222 medals, twice as many of the next best country, England, with 110 medals.

All of this cost $1.4 billion and the post Games economic impact studies indicate that the direct benefit was $1.6 billion, with the indirect benefits being even more significant. (I reckon this was a pretty good result for Victoria.)

 As I write this another lesson comes to mind and that is, as amazing as these stats are, they are all simply outcomes. The real success was the incredible people who worked to deliver the Games and who are still making great things happen, both in Melbourne and around the world. So today, ten years on, I’d like to tip my hat and thank the Leadership Team and the Games staff for teaching me these valuable lessons and helping me become the business leader I am today.