Behaviours lesson Final

Tue, May 23, 2023 8:09PM • 21:09

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

behaviors, coaches, team, talk, players, athlete, conversations, great, standards, win, explains, work, interviewed, group, build, challenge, important, actions, head coach, individual

SPEAKERS

Paul Roos, Gary Kirsten, Dean Vickerman, Glee, Paul Barnett, James Wade, Bev Priestman, Thomas Frank, Andy Friend, Carrie Graf, Simon Jones, Danny Kerry, Tracey Menzies, Bill Sweetenham

Paul Barnett  00:00

Welcome to the lessons from the great coaches podcast. I've learned that you don't do it alone,

00:06

you learn so many different things from so many different coaches. That's an elite learning environment.

00:13

How you deal with how to be resilient, how important it is to infuse joy in the process of learning. To be a good candidate, you've got to do more than you take.

Paul Barnett  00:24

What an interesting way it is to be a leader.  My name is Paul Barnett, and you are listening to the great coach's podcast, where we explore leadership through the lens of high performance sport by interviewing great coaches from around the world to try and find ideas to help all of us lead our teams better. We started this podcast because we wanted to have better conversations with our families around the dinner table. In a social media world with the goal is often to be the star of the show. We wanted to change the conversation and talk more about selflessness, leadership and responsibility. And the people we knew who best exhibited these qualities were great sports coaches. As the podcast has grown, the great coaches we have interviewed have shared so much insight and wisdom that we decided to create episodes dedicated entirely to the lessons that have resonated with us the most. Today's episode is on the topic of behaviours. And it features audio quotes from a large selection of the coaches that we have interviewed on the podcast. And just before we go to the episode, if you're a first time listener, you can check out our library of interviews at our website, the great coaches podcast.com. And now, under the topic of behaviors, the lessons from the great coaches podcast from 2007 until 2011, I had the great fortune to travel regularly to India for work. It's a wonderful country full of contradictions, beauty, and an unyielding obsession with cricket. As you walk through the arrivals hall at Mumbai airport, there is a poster of Gandhi featuring his quote, be the change you want to see in the world. These words have always resonated deeply with me as they captured the very essence of the idea that our actions speak louder than our words. And in many ways, it's gone on to shape my approach to parenting and leadership. Many of the great coaches we have interviewed also talk about actions, or as they refer to them as behaviors. They describe behaviors as things you can see actions within the team. And they talk about them as being an indication of the standards that the group expects of one another. And they are also one of the main things that they talk to their athletes about here is the cycling coach, Simon Jones.

Simon Jones  02:35

I think a lot of the conversations you have as a coach around people's thoughts and feelings and behaviors, which then drive their actions. And then I think as a coach quite often you kind of a very poor, amateur psychologist. So I think the role of the cycling within a team like ours is twofold. It's to support the athletes directly, but also support the coaches and upskill educate the coaches because they're the ones that are having the majority of the conversations with the athletes. And the third thing is we've had a process for a few years now about what's our performance behaviors and trying to understand what are the those observable actions that we can take which are aligned to our objectives of winning.

Paul Barnett  03:12

What is also interesting is that behaviors are often a topic that is discussed more frequently and deeply than team culture. Cameron Schwab, who has worked in both the sporting and corporate world, explains how high performance behaviors are discussed in relation to the individual

03:29

in conversations I have with people. So are you comfortable in sport? Let's have a conversation about a high performance culture. And I often say well, we don't actually talk much about that. We talked about high performance behaviors, and high performance behaviors as it relates to the individual. So how do we get that person performing at a at a high performance level, and that is a different thing for each individual.

Paul Barnett  03:52

as a head coach, there is often the need to observe the athletes behavior, and then challenge them when there is a gap versus what is expected. Tracy Menzies coached the world record holding swimmer in thought. And here she explains this idea of challenge.

Tracey Menzies  04:06

The behavior walk past is the behavior except and I've always been, I've always walked that war, that I'm not frightened to call people out if they're behaving poorly or not doing something right. And the same in return you got to allow kids to, and I know I get criticized for it, but you can't allow kids to fall. That's a process of learning and put it in a way that you enable them to know how to develop from that, I think is really important. So that's one thing in teaching, we always do you you're setting an environment that's safe for learning. And part of that is you've got to fail sometimes to know how to move forward.

Paul Barnett  04:49

The importance of observing both small and big behaviors as the head coach was also something that English Premier League coach Thomas Frank talked about.

Thomas Frank  04:59

So a good accent. Hold, for example is that after we come home from our way match, it's very, very important for me that I take it back going off the coach, because yeah, I know that I'm the head coach, but I think we all in it together. The kid man, of course, normally, because he's a big part of that, physios and all that. And because we do it that way, and leading by example, the players, that means my captain, the top scorer, all of them, they are taking it back. I always notice, of course, I'm not standing there over watching them. But I'm noticing if anyone is shooting off early only taking one thing, it's just in the back of my mind to make sure if they are a team player. So I think that's a fantastic example of, and you don't create that overnight, because sometimes you need to remind some players, what your teammates, they actually watch you leave early, instead of just taking it back. And

Paul Barnett  05:52

Trevor Gleason is a championship winning coach presently coaching in the NBA. He builds on Tracy and Thomas's points by talking about the link between being in a new leadership role, and deciding what types of behavior you were willing to accept all that slide.

Glee  06:09

I think if you have some of those areas, when you first come into being a leader you willing to put up with or what would you let slide to be a leader and constant leaders that I've kind of researched and follow through, they're very consistent of doing the right thing over a long period of time. And normally, the scoreboard and the results come out of that don't chase results straightaway. Because you're not going to get there, you might get there for one year, and you're not going to get there the following years. It's how you build that up how you culture is how your organization is, then the relationships come then the trust comes and then the success comes out of that those things are controllable, when that's important to be successful.

Paul Barnett  06:52

The topic of compromising on your behavioral standards, comes up frequently with the great coaches. Here is WNBA championship winner, James Wade, talking about learning not to settle.

James Wade  07:05

I guess the thing that I learned about myself was, I had to put myself in a situation where I didn't settle. Sometimes you get into a situation and you don't want to fight every little fight every little detail. He's like, okay, that's not important. That's not important. But you have to identify the things that are important to winning for you, and the things that you've learned that are important to winning for you. And you have to stick to it. No matter how long it takes. You have to stick to it can't have any shortcuts. And it's so easier said than done. Because sometimes you feel like you're regressing and you're going backwards, but you're not. You're just building a pathway to winning. And sometimes it takes longer than other times.

Paul Barnett  07:49

Bill Sweetnam has coached 27 Olympic and World Championship medalists. And he is even more vocal on the need to avoid compromise. Here, he talks about the corrosive effect of compromising as a coach.

Bill Sweetenham  08:04

When every athlete retires, I go in and look in the mirror and ask myself, did I get the best out of that athlete? No excuses. I can't say, did I get the best out of that athlete to anytime six sessions a week. But I get the best out of the athlete who really didn't draw her. I can't do that I can't rationalize that. I have to go in and look in the mirror and prove to us of a 50 years of experience. And so did I achieve without rationalization without excuses without compromise? If that athlete their best result. And if I can't do that, then I'd file whether the highest talent in the pool of the least talent, provided they're both committed to the training system that you've asked them to do. So whenever I fall short, it hurts it leaves us

Paul Barnett  08:52

the premiership winning Australian football coach Paul Roos explains how behaviors are standards that unite the team. He also outlines how teams can be either talent or behavioral based, and that it is the ladder which produces more sustained performance.

Paul Roos  09:08

It's very hard to be great. It's not easy. And you have to set the standards. And what the way we did it at Sydney and we started Melbourne was the players involved in those standards. What do you want to stand for? You know, what's your brand, what's the Sydney brand, what's the Melbourne brand and drive those standards relentlessly. And on the back of that you've got to be have a really good technical game style that stacks up in finals. So you have to be a really good technical team as well. And then you have to build really good relationships and to get the players to really believe in what you're doing. You have to have to think you care about them and really understand that not the typical top down approach anymore. No coach yells at you coach screams eight Yeah, it's no we're in this together. We're building this together. And there's a lot of sacrifice that goes into being a great team. There's two types of teams. There's a behavioral based team And there's a talent base team. Now tell them by saying, can we win that talent is going really, really well, but they're not going to win over time, because all they are is based on talent. If their talent plays well, then they'll win. A behavioral based team is a team that understands their standards, lives and breathes them week in week out, one player gets injured another player comes in plays their role. They might drop a bit when their talent drops, but they don't drop anywhere near as much as the other team. Because they're really high on standards.

Paul Barnett  10:29

Gary Kirsten famously coached the Indian cricket team to victory in the World Cup in 2011. Here, he builds on Paul ruses thoughts on behavior based teams by explaining how it was a shift in team behaviors that drove the Indian victory.

Gary Kirsten  10:45

I think what really changed for us with the Indian team, we shifted our behaviors. We sat together as a group of people one day, and we said, okay, the Australians are arriving at the number one test team in the world, do we think that we could become the best cricket team in the world. And when we looked around the room and we looked at each other, as individuals, there was enough skill and ability in the room to say, there is no reason why we can't be the number one test team in the world. And then we said, well, that's great, because a lot of people can do that. You can do that, then your team because you have enough skill in the room to match the skill that's arriving on the shores in a few weeks time. But things need to fundamentally change in this environment for that to happen. And we started to articulate what were the things that would need to shift that would allow us to start building out a process to reaching our abilities as a group of people with a skill that sat in a room. And we realized that there was actually a lot of tangible stuff that we could shift the way we practice the way we spoke to each other, the way we took responsibility for things that weren't necessarily our primary role within the team, we started to talk about the name on the front of the shirt, not the name on the back of the shirt is more relevant to the individuals. So there was some really kind of stuff you could hold on to we wrote this all down. And it was brilliant, because as the players are writing it down and CO creating what they thought was the way forward for us as a group of people, it afforded me the opportunity, then to have some words that I could use for the next three years that just became daily words into the team environment.

Paul Barnett  12:28

As in the example from Gary, Kirsten, the importance of ensuring that the team is an active part of identifying the priority behaviors was also something that Paul Roos mentioned.

Paul Roos  12:41

The thing that I loved about the system, we created Sydney and Melbourne is it's a, it's a player's choice, not from a technical point of view. So I want to make that really clear. So me as the coach or Yeah, Nike as a shoe brand. Yeah, the technical people put the shoes together. But what we're talking about here is how we're going to act as a group of people within an organization. So there's the technical side, and there's the behavioral side. So we believe that we had a really good technical gameplan at Sydney and took that to Melbourne. And then the players themselves have to create, what do we stand for? What are we going to reward? What are we going to challenge. So they are slightly different because it has to be from the heart, it has to be what the players themselves want to create.

Paul Barnett  13:20

Once the priority behaviors have been identified, and folded into the standards, the team expects, there is also an expectation that they are reflected in the actual performance. Basketball Coach carry graph explains how they used behaviors to review performance during the actual game.

Carrie Graf  13:37

For example, in a timeout, you know if we'd had it's our, one of our goals in the in the pregame meeting was you know, we want to be relentlessly persistent or we want to handle adversity that we pose that question a timeout Well, what are we what's our score for relentless persistence on the on the boards, and we shut our hands and we use a scale of one to six six was World Class zero was a disaster and there was no half school. So it and it's a little bit old school, but we would say we'll put up your hand at halftime, you know, look at our goals. We said it's being assertive, we assertive put up your hand threes or twos are fives or fours in it. It will you are owning your own behavior for the team's performance. And you were looking at each other saying Yeah, well, I'm going to pick up my game because I'm a three not a four or, gosh, disaster. I'm a two or I'm a five. So it was I think that consistent evaluation of the themes and how they utilized through through everything we did, I think had a huge impact. And and I think, you know, those three in particular that I speak to that are sort of life specific are relentless persistence, the ability to handle adversity, and a way to which speaks to what I've spoke to before in terms of team chemistry and cohesion, and, you know, the ability to work together as a group that there's you know, the old adage there's no I in team and what does that actually mean? It means respect for Respect for difference that we're, we're not jealous of each other, we're not working against each other, we're working together for a common cause.

Paul Barnett  15:09

A universal theme that has come through in our interviews is the need as the leader to model the behaviors you expect from others. Here is gold medal winning English hockey coach, Danny Carey explaining this. And he links it to the need to be self aware as a leader, and to fuel that by taking the time to reflect.

Danny Kerry  15:30

Yeah, I think there are a number of strategic stroke tactical things you can do as someone who is serving to lead in a program, one of those is to model that behavior yourself. So being open about the journey, you've been on what you've learned about yourself, and how that has helped you in the present. So you're sort of modeling that behavior, that self reflection, and then there's lots of elements of some peer to peer feedback. So there's a sort of a raft of strategic stroke, tactical things we do to sort of bring out that self reflection, bring out that self awareness. And I would really emphasize, I think there's a need for people in head coach positions. If you feel it's that seminal, which I do to model that behavior, you can't expect it with others, unless you're willing to demonstrate it yourself.

Paul Barnett  16:20

To illustrate the way great coaches talk about behaviors, we wanted to finish with some examples. The first is from Rugby Union coach, Andy friend.

Andy Friend  16:30

Whenever we're reviewing a cultural performance, it's all around the four key behaviors, which we've currently got, and the four key behaviors that came out of that promise. And that's evolved through time two is number one, challenge and be challenged. Number two, prepare to winter, do whatever it takes to win. Number three is to know your voice and know your shifts and know what you do, but know what you're doing, therefore perform it. And the last one is don't be a dick. And again, that's the players word. So again, it's not anti friends words, these are the players words. So those four things, whenever we're doing anything, we say, Do you know your stuff, and how you're doing it, you've been a dug or dig? Did you prepare to win, and I prefer to have the challenging conversations and beat to challenge and be challenged. And pretty much that covers virtually everything that we do on a daily basis. And if we see it, we call it out and we say, brilliant, your preparation is outstanding or great conversation. Well, then for pulling up metal, great conversation, volunteer rewarding that effort that you just saw. Conversely, we see something that that didn't happen correctly, you say, that's not what we do around here, don't do that. So we're forever challenging that and referring to that, and bringing that to life, because it can't just a culture can't just be walls words on the wall. It has to be something that you live.

Paul Barnett  17:43

Under another good example comes from Beth Pressman, who coached the Canada women's soccer team to the Olympic gold medal in 2021. Here, she talks about a focus on bravery that drove the team forward.

Bev Priestman  17:56

And so that bravery part was just individual was process driven, I didn't want the outcome to be we're gonna get a gold medal, it was behaviors that I knew would improve and make the team step higher. So I think it just was celebrating regularly after every session, every game, I would highlight brave, brave decisions, brave conversations, brave actions on the pitch, to just constantly reinforce the confidence and drive in the team to do more. And so players could take risks because I think to be brave, you've got to take risks. And really, Bravery is an act and it's acting in spite of fear, it's okay to have fear, for acting in spite of fear. And that was some of the conversations that we had as a group.

Paul Barnett  18:40

And finally, an example from basketball coach, Dean Vickerman,

Dean Vickerman  18:45

which is selfless, hard accountability, relentless execute other words that we that we use on that team and, and try and live it, you know, we've broken it down even further to finish a practice. The selfless side of it, is, how did you make someone better? And so we'll ask that question after practice. How was your physicality which was the heart of what we did? Did you make others better with screening? Did you compete on every rebound? Did you dive on the floor? Did you do all the little extra things that that helped teams win? And then how did you execute what was prescribed on top before practice? You know, did you achieve it in the day? Did you execute offensively defensively, what we wanted to get done over the day, and so we asked our players to either write themselves or to rate their teammate and give yourself a ticker across in all those three areas, and try and build a consistency in our behaviors and practice every day.

Paul Barnett  19:48

We hope you enjoyed our episode on behaviors and found one or two things that you can bring to your own dinner table, locker room, or boardroom table for discussion. The key lessons I've taken away on the topic behaviors from an interview guests. Behaviors are discussed more frequently by great coaches than team culture and values. head coaches observe the behaviors of their teams and athletes and bring a no compromise mindset to then challenging the athlete where expectations are not met. When the group agrees on the required behaviors, it unites the team and leads to sustained performance. And the leader must role model the required behaviors. And be aware that what they choose to walk past will become the new standard. Here at the great coaches podcast we are always trying to learn. So please let us know if you have any feedback, just like Mac and Jillian who said great insight into coaching and how to work with your teams and what makes them tick and also how to get the most from them. Thanks Mac and Jillian. The interaction with the people around the world who listen gives us great energy. And so if you have any feedback or comments, please let us know. All the details on how to connect with us are in the show notes or on our website. The great coaches podcast.com