OK Leader! - The ‘No Dickheads’ Rule

➔ Leadership in practice

Former All Blacks coach Graham Henry once reduced the team’s culture to a single, unshowy sentence: “Better people make better All Blacks.” 

Despite being the most successful international sports team in history, by the early 2000s, the All Blacks had a problem. They were still packed with talent. They were still winning most of their matches. Yet inside the squad, behaviour had begun to fray. The culture was toxic. Ego crept in. Trust weakened.

A cultural overhaul was needed, so the team formalised what became known as the “no dickheads” rule. If a player undermined trust, or looked likely to, ability stopped mattering. They were out.

The logic was simple. Rugby at that level moves too fast for second-guessing. If players hesitate because they don’t trust the person beside them, the system breaks. Passes arrive late. Support lines disappear. Performance suffers.

While slogans and quotes are useful communication tools, trust is rebuilt through behaviour. After matches, senior players cleaned the changing rooms themselves. “Sweeping the sheds” removed hierarchy. When captains pick up a sweeping brush, junior players are empowered to speak up sooner. Feedback travels faster. Problems surface earlier.

Even the haka serves this purpose. Before a ball is kicked, it aligns the group. Each player is reminded they belong to something larger and are accountable to it.

One person’s behaviour rarely stays contained. It spreads. Ego spreads. Humility spreads too. When someone breaks trust, others compensate or withdraw. When someone models care, others follow. The All Blacks learned that culture doesn’t shift through statements or values decks. It shifts through behaviour, repeated, until it becomes the climate everyone plays in.

The thread running through this week’s newsletter is Trust.

Enjoy,

Hugh

Go deeper:

• Former All Blacks performance coach Gilbert Enoka on how the "no dickheads" policy was born out of a toxic culture 

• The greatest haka EVER?

• Lawmakers use haka to protest in New Zealand's parliament

• 8 ways to create psychological safety at work

• Amy Edmundon’s research on Psychological Safety and Learning Behaviour in Work Teams 

Notes:

#1 The All Blacks’ motto, “Leave the jersey in a better place”, reminds players they are guardians of a legacy, not owners of it.

#2 The team invests heavily in mental skills, including mindfulness, breathing and emotional regulation, to help players stay calm under pressure.

#3 They encourage players to develop interests and identities beyond rugby, reflecting a belief that grounded individuals contribute to stronger team cultures.

OK Systems! - The Trust Battery

➔ Systems and frameworks for thinking

In a 2015 interview, Tobi Lütke, the founder and CEO of Shopify, offered a deceptively simple mental model for something leaders usually talk about in vague terms - trust. He called it the Trust Battery.

Every working relationship, Lütke argued, starts partially charged. Not full. Not empty. Roughly halfway. From there, it behaves like any other rechargeable battery. It charges through reliability, clarity, and follow-through. And it drains through missed commitments, hidden agendas, or careless decisions. Lütke's belief is that you can’t mandate trust. You have to earn it through consistent behaviour.

During Shopify’s rapid growth, leaders were forced to rely on people they barely knew. Instead of demanding confidence or loyalty, the Trust Battery gave them a shared language. When something broke, the question wasn’t Who’s at fault? but Did we just drain the battery and how do we recharge it? That shift matters. Trust stops being a personality trait and becomes a stock that can be built or depleted.

For creative leaders, this is especially useful. Creativity depends on people taking risks in front of one another. When trust runs low, teams become cautious. Ideas shrink to what feels safe.

The Trust Battery reframes the work. If energy is low, don’t ask for belief. Don’t give a speech. Change the behaviour. Charge the battery, one visible, reliable action at a time.

• Shopify’s Tobi Lütke chats to the Knowledge Project about the Trust Battery

• Paul Zak on the neuroscience of trust 

• Sketchpanations: the Trust Battery

Notes:

#1 Experiments by Paul Zak show that when people feel trusted, their brains release oxytocin, making them more cooperative and more willing to put in extra effort — even without additional rewards.

#2 Low trust creates bureaucracy. High-trust cultures move faster because fewer decisions need policing. Shopify’s bias toward autonomy and fewer meetings only works because trust does the regulating.

#3 Broken promises weigh more than kept ones. Psychologist Roy Baumeister has a blunt phrase for this: “bad is stronger than good.” One broken promise sticks in the mind far longer than several kept ones - especially when it comes from someone in charge.

OK Brain! - The Serotonin Edition

➔ Lifting the lid on what’s happening inside our brains when we do creative work

Imagine you’re playing a simple virtual game. Three players. One ball. At first, everything is friendly. Then, without warning, the other two stop throwing the ball to you. You’re still there. You’re just no longer included.

This is Cyberball, a deceptively plain experiment used by the social neuroscientist Naomi Eisenberger. When participants are excluded, brain scans show activity in regions normally associated with physical pain. Social rejection doesn’t merely hurt emotionally; the brain treats it as a genuine threat.

One reason is Serotonin. This neurotransmitter plays a role in mood regulation, social confidence, and our sense of belonging. When serotonin levels are steady, we feel calmer and more trusting. When they dip, vigilance rises. We become cautious, withdrawn, and more likely to assume bad intent.

This matters more for leaders than they often realise. Strategy and vision set the plan. But the smallest signals, like who gets the ball, can have outsized effects. Small, easily overlooked behaviours - who gets asked for input, whose work is acknowledged, who is interrupted or ignored - quietly shape the brain chemistry of a group. When people feel included, their brains move out of threat mode. Trust becomes easier. Cooperation follows.

The mistake many leaders make is assuming trust is built through grand gestures or stirring speeches. More often, it is built through the mundane mechanics of attention. So the next time you run a meeting, think about that ball. Who’s holding it? Who hasn’t touched it in a while? Leadership, at its most practical, is knowing when, and to whom, to throw it.

Go deeper:

• A conversation with Naomi Eisenberger on Social Pain

• Paracetamol or Tylenol cures Social Pain

• Serotonin’s Dual Role in Leadership: Confidence or Overconfidence?

Notes:

#1 Silence in meetings isn’t neutral. Studies show that being ignored or talked over triggers physiological stress responses similar to overt criticism. The brain treats lack of acknowledgement as a meaningful signal.

#2 When people feel socially secure, they show better working memory, impulse control, and perspective-taking. Exclusion makes thinking more expensive.

#3 Being quietly left out often produces stronger stress responses than explicit rejection. The brain struggles more with ambiguity than with a clean “no.”

➔ Things to read, watch, listen, and buy

How to spot high agency people - You know it when you see it, but here’s a list just in case. My fav is No. 14: “They pet the elephant in the room - If they sense an elephant in the room, they don’t avoid it. They talk to the elephant, feed it, and ask it why it’s there. They know the elephant in the room gets smaller every time they interact with it. In five minutes, they help shrink an enormous elephant you’ve been avoiding for five years into a cute baby elephant calf you can control.” (list)

Neurotransmitters of Leadership - A quick guide to how neurotransmitters influence your brain and decision-making processes. (5 min read)

The link between creativity, serotonin and bipolar - A fascinating read on the link between bipolar and serotonin that also contains this fascinating nugget: “The relatives of patients with neuropsychiatric disorders also tended to be more creative. Even though they don't share the illness, they have much in common genetically, suggesting that it is the underlying gene mechanisms, rather than the disorder itself, that is the source of the creative ability.“ (6 min read)

Brené Brown’s speech on the anatomy of trust - Brené gives an overview of her seven elements of trust: Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault, Integrity, Nonjudgment, and Generosity. (22 min watch)

Own your seat - I loved this idea from this interview between David Epstein ang Brad Stulberg ⬇️⬇️⬇️

The Rules - Nelly Ben Hayoun’s Rules for Creativity

➔ Rules for work, play, and life

This week’s manifesto comes from Nelly Ben Hayoun. Nelly is a designer, artist and filmmaker. She is also an exhibitor and keynote speaker who has worked with museums and design centres across the world.

My favourite rule is step into plurality. Disagreement, she warns, is inevitable, but should be seen as a strength rather than a weakness. “In the end, that’s what makes innovation happen: these moments of conflict, but also moments of understanding and curiosity.”

Bookshelf

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