As one or not at all

As part of our 125th anniversary celebrations, we have been highlighting the ways in which our associates give back to their local communities, emulating the spirit of generosity practiced by our company’s founder, Robert Bosch.

Iain Jacobs, Global Sales Director at Bosch UK, spoke to us about his experience volunteering as a youth rugby coach, before touching on the life lessons that we can gain from sport.

How did you end up getting involved with the rugby club?
When my son turned six, we started looking for a sport for him to join with a good atmosphere, a strong set of values, and a sense of community. We found that in our local rugby club. Every year they depend on volunteers to coach new teams, which a friend and I volunteered for. The two of us have moved from under 6s to under 9s coaching as our sons moved up the age grades.

To be able to coach, we’ve had to be trained by England RFU through accredited courses on rugby skills, rugby technique, safeguarding, and headcase rules, as well as learning how to determine if there’s been any concussion. We also had to be trained as first aiders, and there’s a lot of administration involved when the young players start moving into contact rugby. It’s an important point at which a lot of children (and parents) are worried about the progression. The training that we’ve done allows us to take the players slowly through the steps, ball carrying and tackling, building this up until you have live tackling during a match.

It's tapped into a versatile skillset that I transfer between my work at Bosch and this volunteer role. In coaching, management techniques are often required, whether that be with children who develop their skills at a slower pace, or parents who may not know rugby and need to be comfortable with what their children are getting involved in. You’ve got to maintain regular communication so everyone understands what's coming, when it will be happening, and of course remain clear with the children about what you're doing and why you're doing it. It allows you to teach skills through demonstration by asking what went right, what could be improved, and how did it feel. A huge element of rugby and coaching involves instilling discipline, teaching leadership values, and encouraging responsibility – all traits that are also invaluable within a collaborative workplace.

What kind of benefit are there for the children when getting involved?
The club motto is "as one or not at all". It’s a brilliantly simple motto and one that encapsulates what we do. We’ve brought together children from many different schools, across a wide area, and despite that they’ve become good friends and a great team.

Their confidence has grown, and they’ve transformed that into excellent performances. Playing a team sport that you’ve never played before is a great way to push yourself out of your comfort zone. With rugby, it’s a full contact sport where you’re having to make sure your young players can distinguish between grappling with people in a sport setting and behaving like that in other areas of life, which involves demonstrating unfamiliar skills and growing within that environment. That’s great for friendship, confidence, and bridging across backgrounds.

In the past I’ve played a lot of golf, tennis, football, but since school, rugby hasn’t been one of my key sports. Through coaching rugby I’ve realised that the core set of values driven by the England RFU and embraced by the community game are very similar to my expectations within the work environment - Teamwork, Respect, Discipline, Safety, and Enjoyment.

Do you feel like you use any of the skills or talents that you've gained at the rugby club within your role at Bosch, or vice versa?
Whether it’s in an engineering, project management, sales, or a management role, you need to be able to break down complex problems into manageable pieces. You can't deliver a whole programme or engineer a product in one step. You have to break it down into a lot of smaller steps. In coaching rugby, you also have to break down the steps of how to be a ball carrier, how to be a tackler, bringing those skills together into each player’s game, whilst delivering the organisational elements of the team.

Coaching has further developed my skills, allowing to me to use the experience that I’ve built up over a number of years in business to truly give something back to the community. Seeing our young players grow in confidence both within the game and within the other areas of their lives has meant a huge amount to me, and what I may have given away in time and energy has been returned to me tenfold through the sense of reward that comes with helping children to grow and succeed.