Queensland coach Billy ‘Idol’ Slater is a great character, and the PM & Treasurer would do well to look at what this Queensland coach has achieved with his style of leadership.

At a time when the Prime Minister and his number one player, Queenslander Treasurer Jim Chalmers are holding a national roundtable to bolster the country’s productivity, all that our leaders have to do is look at the State of Origin rugby league decider.

After having a look at what was achieved by Billy Slater, coach of the Queenslanders, all Albo and Jim need to say is: “I’ll have what he’s having!”

As I glumly watched what the Maroons were able to do to my beloved Blues on our home ground, (which, of course, is Sydney’s Olympic Stadium now known as Accor Stadium), I looked at what experts called a near perfect execution by the Queenslanders, such that there wasn’t a dropped ball until the 70th-something minute!

It was both tragically emotional but powerfully inspirational to see what the team’s coach/leader was able to do to turn around his team that lost the first game 18-6 but just won Game 2 with a 26-24 scoreline. While it got it perfect by Game 3 running out 24-12 winners, the scoreline says it was close.

It wasn’t. Queensland had been transformed and never looked like losing and both coach and players had delivered on one of the greatest productivity escalations of recent sporting history.

As I watched the banana benders from the north deliver a systematically professional commitment to the sporting task at hand that put them in a class of their own, I reflected on Chris Evert, arguably one of the greatest tennis players of all time, who finished her tennis career with a 90.1% success rate! No other player has topped her results.

I have consistently used this quote in my business speeches to small business entrepreneurs and aspirational employees, who one day want to be in the top executive C-suite of a big company.

This is what Evert once said: “There were times, deep down I wanted to win so badly I could actually it to happen. I think most of my career was based on desire.”

That’s what we all saw on Wednesday night. Deep down, the Maroons wanted it badly but winning is not just based on desire. Joe Frasier, the boxer who beat the legendary Muhammad Ali, gave me words that haunt me when I’m honest with myself. They go like this: “If you cheat in the dark of the morning, you'll get found in the bright lights of the night.”

Right now, our productivity portrays Australia as a team of economic losers. The country’s top politicians and the coaches/bosses have to step up and give better leadership of their team and businesses.

The chart below shows the productivity problem we have.

Sure, while I know we have a leadership issue too, a lot of leaders are hamstrung by industrial relations laws that are too pro-employee, so the minority of poor performers are too protected. These means that good leaders in business are frustrated, which leads to poor results.
Albo (a blues supporter) and Jim (a Maroon lover) have to step up and do a Billy Slater and put their team (i.e. our economy) on higher ground or else our productivity won’t change.

Sorry, I might be wrong. Productivity will increase via Artificial Intelligence because frustrated employers will look to dump problematic workers. Production and productivity will rise with fewer workers! High unemployment will be the legacy of bad economic coaching.

Vince Lombardi, the great US football coach, once told us that “Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”