The greatest hockey player everImage source

In my 30s (that's a fancy way of saying "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away"), I was asked by our provincial minister for labour and development to serve on the board of an entity he had established, the Société Québecoise de Développement de la Main d'Oeuvre, or the Quebec Manpower Development Board. The board consisted of 18 (18!!) members, 6 drawn from the private sector, 6 nominated by organised labour and 6 nominated by the government (read: the minister. He could choose who he wanted for those 6 positions).

Why me?

I was an Anglo who was fluent in French, a woman engineer, well-travelled (besides the US, I already had some time in Asia and Southern Africa under my belt) and completely non-political. Seems that was quite a rare combination in those days.

Frankly, though, I was also the proverbial fish out of water, as I was completely unprepared for the resistance that the labour contingent would raise to, well, everything. And that's where I first learned that organised labour in Quebec treated itself very well, thank you very much - no three star restaurants or hotels for them. On the other hand, the business leaders - top names in Quebec's business stratospheres - seemed pretty down to earth. I got some traction in conversations with the government-nominated and business representatives, and even the women unionists, but struggled with the well-fed, loved-to-listen-to-themselves-talk union men.

Their view on strategy

The CEO did his best to rein in this team of 18 combatants, and had the board take a view on the SQDM's strategy. This is how he caught our attention: he gave us each a hockey puck. Not just any hockey puck, but one wrapped in inspirational quotes.

"I make sure I'm where the puck is going to be" - Wayne Gretzky (loose translation of a loose translation)

Yup, a hockey puck, wrapped in thick-stock paper, with a pithy Gretzky quote to inspire the organisation. Here's a look inside the wrapper:

"It's the team, not the player, that makes the difference" - another loose translation

Just so you know, I took these photos of the puck in its wrapper today. I've kept it since the mid-1990s somewhere on my desk or in my study where I can see it every day.

"Aim right" - my last loose translation

World's fastest primer on hockey and Gretzky for those not raised in the lands of ice and snow

As Quebec is about the most hockey-mad place in the universe (in Quebec, there's no question of calling it "ice hockey" - that would be silly, as there is no other form of hockey that matters), he decided to capture the organisation's attention, and that of the board's, by using a quote from Canada's greatest hockey player of all time, Wayne Gretzky. He was known as the greatest because he had the highest number of goals and assists in the entire National Hockey League.

Wayne Gretzky quoted for inspiration on strategyImage source

According to Wikipedia, analysts and commentators agreed that Gretzky's influence was because of his team-style of play:

Gretzky had a major influence on the style of play of the Edmonton Oilers and in the NHL as a whole, helping to inspire a more team-based strategy. Using this approach, the Oilers, led by Gretzky, became the highest scoring team in NHL history.

"He was, I think, the first Canadian forward to play a true team game", said hockey writer and former NHL goaltender Ken Dryden. The focus of the game prior to Gretzky's arrival, he said, especially among the Canadian teams, was on the player with the puck—in getting the puck to a star player who would make the big play. "Gretzky reversed that. He knew he wasn't big enough, strong enough, or even fast enough to do what he wanted to do if others focused on him. Like a magician, he had to direct attention elsewhere, to his four teammates on the ice with him, to create the momentary distraction in order to move unnoticed into the open ice where size and strength didn't matter. . . . Gretzky made his opponents compete with five players, not one, and he made his teammates full partners to the game. He made them skate to his level and pass and finish up to his level or they would be embarrassed."

Between 1982 and 1985, the Edmonton Oilers averaged 423 goals a season, when no previous team had scored 400, and Gretzky on his own had averaged 207 points, when no player before had scored more than 152 in one year. Dryden wrote in his book The Game, "In the past, defenders and teams had learned to devise strategies to stop opponents with the puck. To stop them without it, that was interference. But now, if players without the puck skated just as hard as those with it, but faster, and dodged and darted to open ice just as determinedly, but more effectively, how did you shut them down?"

Gretzky's influence on strategic thinking is legendary enough to inspire lots of Pinterest pins on strategy

Another of Gretzky's oft-quoted lines goes thus: "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

It's almost zen. It sounds so straightforward, but when you think about how he would know when, how and in what direction to take those shots - not so simple.

Apparently Gretzky's thinking inspired business leaders, including Steve Jobs, through their elegant and masterful simplicity.

Think about it - how did he know where the puck would be? He created the space.

Team South Africa banner designed by @bearone