Real estate firms are big sponsors of top sports teams. But what can the property business learn from the psychology of competitive sport- Rebecca Kent gets in the scrum
There is no fun in losing. No popping of champagne corks, no fist pumps in the air, and no reward cheques to cash in at the bank. But winning, for all its fun, is so demanding. Especially when you are clawing your way out of a rut.
So how do you get a winning mentality – and then keep it? To find the answer, we revert to property’s old chum, sport.
Estates Gazette and a clutch of surveyors joined rugby union club London Wasps and former captain Mark Rigby, now chief executive of the team’s headline sponsor, CVS, in an intimate group discussion about what it takes to get that winning feeling.
“There has always been a fantastic synergy between rugby and property,” says Rigby from the Wasps clubhouse in Acton, W3. “Both are competitive, dynamic and exciting. But where the rugby players’ performances are declared every week for the public to see, we show ours only twice a year.”
At the time of meeting, the players were in danger of sinking into cripplingly low morale, having tasted defeat in three successive matches.
A surveyor will know the feeling well, with deals lost being as much a part of business as deals won.
Delancey chairman Sir John Ritblat, who has this year extended the firm’s 36-year sponsorship of the British Alpine Ski Team to include snowboarding, commented to EG recently that “property is a sport, and quite a dangerous one, too”.
He added: “We are highly competitive, risking life and limb and taking chances in our developments.”
His comments capture the sense that sometimes it can feel as if everything is at stake, even from the simple environment of the office desk.
So how do you avoid losing all hope?
As we reached into the headspace of the Wasps players, key points cropped up repeatedly: culture, role models, strong leadership and teamwork.
Ben Jacobs, who plays at centre for Wasps, explains: “The most important thing is the culture of a team. Ultimately, Premiership teams all have the same skills, but at the core are the culture and how much the head coach buys into it.
“There are so many personalities in each team, so controlling those personalities, controlling the team and trying to get the best out of each player is very hard. If you can get it all going in the same direction, that’s the biggest attribute a coach can bring.”
Strip away television appearances, packed stadiums and lucrative sponsorship deals, and Rigby has learned that you’re left with a crew at risk of crucial elements not coming together.
“That winning mentality doesn’t happen overnight,” he says. “It’s something that has to be worked on, and creating the right culture and the right environment is a key piece of that. Certainly when you go back to the workplace, environment and culture are equally as important – as is winning.”
Leadership was also high on the list for Tom Varndell, who has in his career played under and alongside rugby legends Martin Johnson, Lewis Moody and Lawrence Dallaglio.
Varndell has become a Wasps leader himself, steering club youngsters such as Will Taylor onto the road to success.
Taylor, in turn, reveals to his ?teammates how welcome he was made ?to feel when he joined the club, and how this has enhanced his commitment to ?the team.
After their unique insight into the ?minds of players, what did our surveyors learn about finding that winning feeling? “You see them on TV as these big professional athletes who are constantly on top of their game and very focused,” says JLL director Mark Smith, “but they do have a lot of ups and downs during what is essentially their day job.”
James Hurst, UK investment director at Savills, adds: “The overriding theme was that in order to achieve success you’ve got to work as a unit, not as individuals. We work in small teams and the most successful people in the industry are those that have a good team around them.”
Game on!
See the Wasps and surveyors in action.
Rebecca.Kent@estatesgazette.com
