Description
by Paul Steenkamp
Hardcopy: R389.00 incl vat • ISBN: 978-1-991272-85-0
Published: September 2026
A leadership and management book about what the rest of us can learn from one of the most successful team transformations in modern sport.
In September 2017, the Springboks lost 57-0 to the All Blacks in Albany, the heaviest defeat in their history.
Nine years later, they are back-to-back Rugby World Cup champions, British & Irish Lions series winners and, in September 2026, won the inaugural Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series against the All Blacks 3-1, closing it with three consecutive victories and a 43-28 win in Baltimore.
Many of the players who experienced the low point of 2017 became part of the team that transformed what followed.
Same talent. Different results. What changed?
That is where Stacked begins.
But this is not a technical rugby book. You do not need to understand scrums, lineouts or defensive systems to use it.
It is a book about leadership, strategy, organisational design, talent, culture, execution, performance and professional development, using the Springboks as a living case study of what sustained high performance can look like.
The book itself makes that distinction clear: the Springbok story is used to examine how organisations set strategy, plan and execute, hire people, develop teams, manage performance and grow the people who come next.
“An absolute must-read.”
“The analogy with rugby truly resonates. Each chapter provides simple and very effective tools, tips, techniques, exercises and experiments with helpful workbooks that you can immediately action as you read.” Dr Shirley Zinn, Chair and Independent Non-Executive Board Director: Sanlam, MTN (SA), V&A, Spur Corporation
WHAT DID THE SPRINGBOKS BUILD THAT LEADERS CAN USE?
The answer is not simply Rassie Erasmus.
Rassie is an extraordinary coach, strategist and developer of people. But one of the most important ideas in Stacked is that sustained performance cannot depend on one extraordinary individual.
Rassie did not change Springbok Rugby alone. He helped build a system capable of producing performance beyond any one player, coach or season.
Paul Steenkamp spent more than two years researching and studying that system and asking a different question from the one normally asked about successful sports teams:
What can a CEO, founder, HR leader, manager or professional take from this?
His answer is The Stack, a practical operating system for building organisations, teams and careers.
It is not a formula for copying the Springboks.
It is a framework for examining your own organisation.
RUGBY IS THE CASE STUDY. MANAGEMENT IS THE SUBJECT.
Behind the trophies sits a set of management disciplines familiar to every leader trying to build an organisation that performs consistently.
How do you create an environment where people can speak honestly?
How do you turn strategy into execution?
How do you decide who belongs in the organisation?
How do you develop talented individuals into a stronger collective?
How do you manage performance without destroying trust?
How do you develop the people who will eventually replace you?
And how do you build something capable of continuing when its current leaders are gone?
These are the questions Stacked explores. The book argues that some of the Springboks’ most important innovations are not tactical at all. They are systemic.
People are encouraged to think out loud. Difficult truths are surfaced. Responsibility is distributed. Experiments are run and assessed against evidence. Senior people are expected to develop those coming behind them.
The architecture is the platform. The tactics are what the platform produces.
THE STACK: FIVE LAYERS OF SUSTAINED PERFORMANCE
The Stack diagram gives you the whole book in one picture. Read it from the bottom up.
It begins with The Foundation, the behaviours that allow everything above it to work: self-awareness, honesty, trust, experimentation and learning.
Then comes The Organisation: strategy, planning for execution and hiring.
The Team examines team development and performance management.
The Career turns to professional development and the responsibility each person carries to build those who come next.
At the top is The Country, asking a bigger question about the talent, opportunity and capability organisations help build around them. The book deliberately structures these as interconnected layers rather than isolated management practices.
The Stack works at different scales: a leadership team, a department, a growing business or a large organisation.
You do not need a dedicated strategy department or a large HR function. You need a willingness to do the work.
THE PEOPLE COME FIRST
After winning the fourth and deciding Test against the All Blacks in Baltimore, Erasmus said: “We really care the most about South African people.”
He went on to say that there was one reason they did what they did: for the team and for South Africa. Siya Kolisi similarly spoke about doing it for South Africans able to attend the match and those watching from home.
That is not an incidental part of the Springbok system. Purpose runs through it. The book describes the Springbok purpose in terms of creating hope and happiness through rugby for a country that believes in itself again. Winning matters, but winning serves something larger.
That creates an important challenge for South African organisations too. What would change if more of our organisations treated developing South African talent, strengthening teams and building the people who come next as part of their purpose rather than an HR initiative?
One of Stacked’s central arguments is that South Africa’s diversity is not something high-performing organisations merely have to accommodate.
Recognised, developed and combined well, it can become a source of excellence.
The question for leaders is therefore not only, Who are our best people? It is also:Who are we not seeing yet?
THIS IS A BOOK TO USE, NOT JUST READ
Stacked has been designed as a working management book.
Chapters 2 to 8 include exercises and templates that translate the ideas into practical experiments for leaders and teams. The book also provides a downloadable workbook so the material can be used beyond the page.
The Stacked toolkit helps you:
- surface conversations your team has been avoiding;
- compare how you see yourself with how colleagues actually experience you;
- identify people whose greatest contribution is making others perform better;
- make it safer for people to tell the truth, including upwards;
- connect purpose and strategy with clear commitments, ownership and working rhythms;
- experiment, measure what happens and adjust;
- improve performance conversations; and
- make development and succession part of everyday work.
It is part leadership book, part management framework and part workbook.
Read it. Debate it. Write in it. Take the tools into your next management meeting and put them to work.
WHO IS STACKED FOR?
This book is for people building organisations, teams, careers and the people who will come after them.
For the CEO who wants an organisation capable of performing without every important decision flowing through the CEO.
For the founder discovering that hiring talented individuals does not automatically create a high-performing team.
For the HR or People leader who wants culture to influence how people actually work, rather than remain a set of statements on a wall.
For the L&D and talent professional who wants development to improve performance rather than sit alongside the real work.
For the manager who knows there are conversations the team needs to have but keeps postponing them.
For the senior professional beginning to think seriously about succession, contribution and what they will leave behind.
For the coach building a team in which people can compete fiercely without turning that competition against one another.
And yes, for the rugby supporter who wants to understand what sits underneath one of the most remarkable sustained-performance stories in modern sport.
But you do not need to be a rugby supporter to use this book. The Springboks provide the case study. The real subject is how people build organisations and teams that keep getting stronger.
WHAT LEADERS ARE SAYING ABOUT STACKED
“Most leadership books describe success after the fact. Stacked does something rarer: it gives you the operating system before you build. Paul has turned the Springboks’ transformation into something any founder, CEO or team leader can actually use.”
Michael Jordaan
Chairman of Bank Zero and former CEO of FNB
“Paul has distilled one of the greatest team transformations of our time into a practical blueprint for leaders. Stacked is not a book about rugby; it is a thoughtful and actionable operating system for building organisations, developing people and creating cultures that compound over time.”
Arno von Helden
Chief Information Officer, Business & Commercial Banking, Investec
