Lessons in leadership for rugby legend Thierry Dusautoir
Even at the commencing of his rugby union profession, former France captain Thierry Dusautoir was wondering about the conclusion. “Being a specialist rugby player is good — it is the greatest matter that has happened in my everyday living,” he says. But it can cease at any instant, he adds, irrespective of whether because of damage or somebody superior coming up, so you “need more weapons, like researching, to have more options”.
It might now seem shocking that somebody so acclaimed at any time concerned about long term profession possibilities — or had time to. While Dusautoir, 39, did not enjoy rugby until eventually his mid teens, originally preferring judo, he turned specialist in 2001 at 19, heading on to enjoy a profitable profession with French golf equipment such as Biarritz and Toulouse.
In 2006, he was known as up to the French countrywide staff, earning 80 caps in an global profession that involved some legendary moments. In 2010, he captained the French facet to Grand Slam victory in advance of main them to the 2011 Earth Cup closing, which they shed to New Zealand’s All Blacks. He was also named Participant of the Year in 2011, the 2nd Frenchman to get the global title.
But Dusautoir also saw good friends struggle for a pair of years after leaving the sport while they worked out what to do upcoming. “I just wanted to be the learn of my everyday living,” he says. With an eye on ensuring he would without a doubt have “options”, in 2008 he invested in his very first corporation, All My SMS, a textual content and voice messaging assistance. He now works in enterprise progress and technique for the system, along with investing in other, generally tech, organizations with a husband or wife.
A discussion with former global teammates Frédéric Michalak and Sébastien Chabal — the famously hirsute “caveman” — opened up the upcoming solution. Michalak and Chabal both equally begun EMLyon’s executive MBA in 2019. Right after hearing what they were being up to, Dusautoir was captivated by the idea that an EMBA could enable him analyse the organizations to invest in, and superior assist his individual.
“I went to EMLyon because I wanted academic equipment to enable me get conclusions and have more self-self-assurance when [I was] heading to offer with somebody, chat about enterprise or do danger examination of a corporation,” he says. “I utilised to invest with my guts. Now I want to invest with my brain.”
A chemical engineering graduate, Dusautoir says it was “weird” heading back to faculty in September after fifteen years. But he is now having fun with the networking and peer learning that arrive with an EMBA. “It is seriously satisfying to meet up with individuals from various backgrounds who are beginning something with you,” he says.
The perception of cohesion struck a common be aware early on for the duration of the program. During the very first three-working day examine block, his bicycle was stolen while he was out with program mates for an evening. He was shocked that absolutely everyone wanted to enable.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I have recognised you for a person working day and it seriously felt like something that I knowledgeable in rugby — the solidarity,” he says. “I felt that something was beginning involving [us]. I would not say thank you to the thief, but it was a instant that confirmed me that it’s possible I was acquiring into a new staff.”
Dusautoir is now learning and reflecting on the lessons and his previous everyday living. The very first block was on management, a matter he is common with. He says he does not know that substantially about finance but “quite a bit” about management as the captain of a staff. It has been intriguing to contemplate irrespective of whether main a rugby staff would have been simpler with the know-how attained from the programme, he adds.
For instance, there was a hard instant in the 2011 Earth Cup when the French facet was just about knocked out. Though the way the staff bounced back alongside one another is a person of the proudest moments of his rugby profession, Dusautoir says getting the leader arrived at a particular charge. “I was wondering that it’s possible if I had recognised this [about management] at this time, would it have been simpler? Would I have had more electrical power for getting a superior player on the pitch? Mainly because I shed a lot of electrical power controlling the men,” he says.
Though his management research produced him mirror on his rugby profession, he intends to use his knowledge as an elite athlete to meet up with the needs of his EMBA. “I am heading to use the same recipe as when I was a player — so do the job tough and try out to come across superior organisation with the loved ones,” he says. “My spouse is with me: it is not my alternative, it is a pair alternative and a loved ones alternative. I think that is heading to enable me a lot in this, because you cannot do nearly anything on your own.”
Tests instances: Frédéric Michalak
“I do not have any regrets, so that is a superior matter,” says Frédéric Michalak, Thierry Dusautoir’s former teammate, reflecting on a rugby profession that spanned just about twenty years. It is effortless to see why: in 2015, he finished his global operate as France’s main factors scorer, with seventy seven caps, three Grand Slam victories and participation in three Earth Cups.
But in 2019 Michalak switched to costing, compliance and macroeconomics on an executive MBA at EMLyon. The past 12 months he co-launched a new undertaking, Sport Unlimitech, an initiative to bridge investigate, sport and entrepreneurship to create sport tech, and began to contemplate enterprise faculty. Aside from getting “curious”, he says he needed new equipment to development.
People competencies are now getting put to the check. As properly as learning a lot from fellow students, Michalak is putting his formal lessons to superior use. Just as the program coated disruption, Covid-19 struck. Even if your enterprise objective was three to 5 years ahead, he says, you had to act now.
“I was fortunate to be in faculty at the time,” he says, incorporating that he needed to respond and create a new enterprise design for Sport Unlimitech.
But his guidance is to fully dedicate to the EMBA. “Do it because you want to do it and put a hundred for every cent on that. It is heading to be tough,” he says, incorporating that putting some cash absent is a superior idea as it is high priced.
An open head is also practical. “Travel, be curious, chat with individuals, try out factors, do mistaken, discover about that,” Michalak says. “You can discover a lot when you are dropping.”