Truth behind “No Dickheads” Policy

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One of the All Blacks’ most famous rules is also one of the most misunderstood.

It’s called the “No Dickheads” policy.

If you follow rugby, then I am sure you have come across this.

It’s catchy, memorable, and it seems to have found its way into company values, team charters and slogans on walls. Except many teams that proudly tell me about their “No Dickheads” policy seem to miss the point.

As with many things in business, a great idea goes viral, gets oversimplified, and eventually gets applied without much understanding of where it came from and the problem it was designed to fix.

Today, we’ve turned “No Dickheads” into a simple litmus test about people and their behaviour, or about not hiring or tolerating certain types of individuals.

But was the rule really simply about stopping people from being dickheads?

Or was there something much more interesting and stronger about the culture that helped make the All Blacks one of the most successful sporting teams of their era?

Let’s dive in.

🧠 LEARN something.

Gilbert Enoka, the All Blacks’ long-time mental skills coach, describes a “dickhead” less as a type of person or personality, and more as a pattern of behaviour: putting yourself ahead of the team, expecting different rules, acting with entitlement, or making your contribution about you (not the team).

The policy wasn’t simply about excluding difficult people. It was about stopping “me” from becoming more important than “us”.

Later, James Kerr popularised the philosophy in his book titled Legacy, but the chapter that explores the “No Dickheads” policy wasn’t just about difficult personalities; it was about working together and the need to “Follow the spearhead.”

It’s a metaphor relating to birds flying together in formation. Individuals take different positions, but the formation works because everyone ultimately travels in the same direction.

“No Dickheads” isn’t simply about removing bad people. It’s about protecting the collective from excessive individualism.

The All Blacks weren’t trying to remove strong personalities. They had plenty, and still do. Instead, the challenge was creating an environment where individual talent served something bigger.

🤔 THINK about it.

This is where I think organisations often get it wrong.

Apply “No Dickheads” without understanding the intent, and it can simply become an excuse to exclude people or behaviours you don’t like. After all, who you consider a dickhead is pretty subjective. It can vary between people, cultures, generations and personalities.

If I ask you whether your organisation has any dickheads, your mind probably jumps immediately to someone difficult, arrogant or obnoxious. But what about the loveliest, most likeable person, who consistently chooses “me” over “us”?

For example, a leader protects their budget even though another part of the business needs the money more. A team hits its KPI by creating extra work downstream. A manager fights for their team’s priorities without considering the company’s priorities.

None of these people is necessarily toxic in the conventional sense, but their behaviour may still mean they aren’t following the spearhead.

Perhaps that’s why the original idea behind the “No Dickheads” policy is more useful than the simplified slogans we’ve adopted in business today.

✅ DO IT to get results.

Rather than asking “Who are the dickheads around here?”, ask a harder question:

Where does our organisation make it easier to choose “me” over “us”?

Look at what you reward, measure and celebrate.

Because perhaps the real test of “No Dickheads” isn’t whether you have any difficult people in your team. Rather, what’s the conversation you have, or don’t have, when individual needs start to outweigh collective needs?