I had never really thought about what Tiger Woods and the Rolling Stones could teach me about working in a team. But that changed recently when I attended a seminar hosted by consultant Redington and law firm Pinsent Masons where leadership and teamwork consultant Khoi Tu gave an engaging speech on the subject of ‘super teams’.
Tu’s presentation explored how from a very young age professional golfer Woods was subjected to ‘special forces-type training’ from his father, a retired lieutenant colonel and Vietnam veteran, while his mother taught him how to use his confidence as a weapon against his opponents. This razor-sharp edge and uncompromising focus has won him 14 professional major championships as an individual.
But when placed in a team situation, Woods is less prolific. A look at his patchy form in the Ryder Cup, a team event, is a good example. By contrast, Colin Montgomerie has never won a major title on the PGA Tour in the US and North America, but is one of the best team players on the circuit.
We also learned how Mick Jagger’s business-like approach to the Rolling Stones has led him to be the controlling force; Keith Richards just wants to play guitar and “see what happens”; Charlie Watts is only interested in drumming; while Ronnie Wood brings the band together as the peace negotiator – Wood allegedly spent £20m on drink and drugs, but is supposed to have once said: “It wasn’t all for me.”
So what has this got to do with pensions? Well, put simply, we all work in teams and the pensions industry is no exception. From the scheme member through to the asset manager and the UK government, everyone has the same goal: to see investors’ capital grow enough to be able to pay sufficient pensions.
But when we see unnecessary regulation, high fees, and complicated jargon (the list goes on) it often feels like the industry is not pulling in the same direction.
This lack of cohesion was adequately summed up during a ‘Pension CEO Room 101’ at the NAPF Conference last week when scheme CEOs had the opportunity to ‘banish’ their pensions gripes. RPMI’s Chris Hitchen chose previous chancellors of the exchequer who had “raided our pension funds” and quantitative easing, USS’s Bill Galvin banished the trust versus contract scheme debate, while HSBC’s Lesley Alexander opted for EU legislation affecting UK schemes – all valid contributions in my opinion.
But sadly Room 101 exists only in our imaginations and as the fictitious torture chamber in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. The reality is we are stuck with these issues and the only way the industry can tackle them is by becoming one big super- team.
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