Glenn Pocknall Edit
Fri, Aug 25, 2023 3:00PM • 29:54
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
players, coach, cricket, wellington, bit, glenn, question, team, game, glen, talk, experience, great, share, words, person, match, day, values, good
SPEAKERS
Glenn Pocknall, Paul Barnett
Paul Barnett 00:00
So good morning Glenn Pocono and welcome to the Great coach's podcast.
Glenn Pocknall 00:04
Good morning, Paul. How are you?
Paul Barnett 00:05
I'm going okay. But early in the morning here getting ready kids are upstairs getting ready for school. And I'm very excited to be talking a little bit of cricket with you. Brilliant. Glen, something really simple to kick us off today. Where are you in the world? And what have you been up to? So far?
Glenn Pocknall 00:19
I'm in Wellington, New Zealand. And probably similar to you. I started my day off with a couple of crazy kids waking up the household minor, young, six and two, so we're very dependent on mum and dad. So it was a chaotic start to the day which is great. I hit it off to the Westpac stadium, or the sky Stadium, which is now called in Washington, which is the home of the Mighty Washington hurricanes. We have an indoor facility down here, we're willing to the base along with the base reserve and spend a couple of hours down there doing a bit of admin. I'm in the last week of my role with cricket Wellington, before I shift to CD, cricket up the road, and then I had to go and pick my son up from daycare to take him to the doctor. So it's been an eventful day filled with a bit of work, a bit of play and a lot of rolls around the kids. Well, we're going to
Paul Barnett 01:05
talk about Wellington. We're going to talk about CD. And we might even talk about the blackcaps as well in there so very much looking forward to this discussion. But Glen, could I start by just name checking a couple of the really good coaches you've had experience with Jamie Siddons, this mark Borthwick, and of course, is Mike Hesson. And I'm sure you've seen many others along your journey as you've traveled around the world with cricket. But I'm wondering, from your perspective, what is it you think that great coaches do differently that sets them apart?
Glenn Pocknall 01:34
It's a great question. And for me, it's the ones that can really sum up an environment quickly. And from there, understand what the environment needs to adapt to Burnley some flexibility in terms of the way they coach, not always the same style, but summing up all those factors, and then determining what style is best for the group. That's definitely the thing that I believe separates the best coaches in the world. And some of those guys, you mentioned outstanding of that. And it certainly comes with experience.[PB1]
Paul Barnett 02:05
Then when you were 18, you were working as a guillotine operator in a factory, I guess. Firstly, I should describe what a guillotine is, it's a blade that chops objects like wood. And this was 2002. Then in 2005, you write yourself a 10 year plan to get to a coaching position at Wellington, which of course eventuated. So I want to start by asking, What advice do you have for others now, when it comes to long term planning?
Glenn Pocknall 02:33
Yeah, it's another really interesting question, because I never would have envisaged myself writing a 10 year plan, I've never really been able to look too much further than a day ahead. But I guess to start it off, was I was having a discussion with my dad about my vision and my goals. And we felt I would like to go and he suggested a 10 year plan. And at the time, he kind of laugh about him have a bit of a joke about it, but I did it. And thankfully, a lot of actually came to fruition. And and I don't know why I don't know if it was just pure luck. But I guess to answer your question, the advice I would give people is try and be really visionary. And what I mean by that is making the biggest dream possible, the thing that you think you're never going to achieve, that you really want to achieve, and then make it visible for you. And that's what I did, I made it visible. I always had a little pocket in my wallet where every time I opened it, it had been what my vision was and what what goal was. And I made some pictures of some at a time some Wellington Firebirds players. So every time I saw it, it really created some really positive endorphins and adrenaline, and it just made me really happy, motivated, positive person. And with that, it gave me that sense of every single day I was contributing to eventually, hopefully fulfilling that vision that dream of 10 years down the track. So I think that would be the one piece of advice is Dream Big, make it visible. For me, I share it with a lot of people as well. Some people say don't share it, keep it to yourself, but I share it with a lot of people because that in some ways made me accountable to it. What it also did is a lot of other people along for the ride with me who helped me and supported me, which at the end of the day is you're going to need that and whatever facet or career you turn to in life. So as I said at the start, I never would have envisaged kind of writing that. And I'm probably in the process now of looking 10 years ahead and seeing what that looks like. And the first question is always the hardest, where do I want to be in 10 years? So that's the next challenge for me[PB2]
Paul Barnett 04:25
is just sitting there and your answer that you shared it with people. And I understand you did share with one person in particular and the advice he got was to get out of your comfort zone. How did that experience of getting out of your comfort zone shape, he was a leader.
Glenn Pocknall 04:39
That was probably a couple of years after that. But I was a CEO at the time given Larson who's now the chairman of selectors for the blackcaps. I shared this with him and he basically said, Well, you've got to leave Wellington, you've got to go overseas, and I was a little bit shocked to kind of hear that great advice, great honesty, and he said the reasonings because you need to get out of your comfort zone. Just as you've said you need to explore the world you need to be in different environments, because it's gonna grow you as a person. That's ultimately what it did being in environments where I was uncomfortable, where I didn't know the people, I couldn't speak the language, culturally, we're on completely different wavelengths, I found that my natural persona and my natural character of being calm and considered, really had to be at the forefront of everything I did, whether that be coaching, whether that be going to the supermarket. So that test of that that character trait or that coaching trait that I had, and untested under extreme pressure, in some regards, because I was thrown in the deep end. But at the same time, it also showed me that my approach and my way of dealing with those challenges, was actually really successful to take a deep breath, step back, think of a plan, and then present the plan to the players or, or presenting the plan to myself in terms of the area I was heading into[PB3]
Paul Barnett 05:53
that journey took you to Ireland, Scotland, England, and of course, back to Wellington. And you come back to Wellington, and you're an assistant coach. And what I find really interesting is that you step up from that assistant coach into the head coach role for a lot of people that transition of having peers and then leading them these difficult. I'm just really curious, Glen, how did you manage that transition? Yeah, I
Glenn Pocknall 06:17
was really fortunate that it was a gradual process, I was involved as an assistant coach for seven years. But fortunately, there are guards throughout that time. Firstly, when Jamie Simmons was a coach, he had three kids, so he had time away. As we all do, we've got young kids from time to time, miss the old training here, miss the odd game here and there. So I was lucky in those early days, I got opportunities without leading the team for weeks on end or, or matches on end, I got small little snippets of how I wanted to go about it. And I couldn't really change anything, not that I would change anything, I had to kind of keep the ship rolling how Jamie had it rolling, which was fine. And then literally Bruce eager came on on as head coach and suddenly had the odd training old match here and there. And then Bruce's last season, I got to lead a campaign, which was like it's the last step in that transition going from assistant coach to a head coach. And that certainly helped a lot.
The key challenge I felt along that whole journey was maintaining the relationships that I've built up over a long period of time with all the players. So my main key focus was just to be myself. And just to continue being myself, I didn't want to change my philosophy, change my coaching style, change my character traits, I was still the same person, I just had a different role title, and with a different role total came different responsibilities. So fortunate, I did get that opportunity through those other two coaches to transition very gradually through that. Otherwise, I don't know how it would have gone just because it can go the other way, with a lot of coaches. I've seen it a few times before we all of a sudden they're thrusted into a head coach role. And they completely change the way they are and the way they go about things. And it's not necessarily who they are. So that authenticity as a coach, and a person is very important and a player's eyes.[PB4]
Paul Barnett 08:09
Glenn, I've got this great quote from you. And I'd like to read it before I ask the next question. You say, every team probably sits down and talks about some key words like commitment, excellence, determination, whatever it may be coming up with these words that they want to live by. But the hard thing is actually leaving them. So we try to live them through sharing experiences. I was really intrigued by this idea of sharing experiences. Could you tell us how that works?
Glenn Pocknall 08:37
Yeah, sure, the first part of it was sharing them through players demonstrating those values. So what I mean by that as we're going through a game of cricket, traditionally, you might focus on things like batting bowling, fielding dot balls, boundaries, saving runs, bowling maidens, all those things that are always going to be visible for anybody to see around the world. So instead of focusing on that, we focused on our values of things like commitment, and passion and excellence. And sometimes those other words that we felt were really important to the team. And we made them a real focus for the training and for the game. So for instance, let's say was commitment in terms of our game review, everything revolved around that word commitment. So it wasn't necessarily me talking about commitment. It was me saying to the group, who saw commitment today, what did you see? How did they show it? How did it contribute to the team, and that's where the shared experiences comes back. It's all built around the game of cricket, but players talking about other players about how they showed commitment, really bought those values to life and showed that they were not just words on paper in their things that we're trying to live, which was a great part and certainly helps our success. We also tried to or started to get past players into talk about their experience as players and I prompted them quite often to give them some suggestions around how they're trying to guess move towards this As a team in terms of the values, and they talked about the experiences, you know, in the 70s, and the 80s, and the 90s, and how they show those values as a team, or how certain players show those values to the team, and that the three things really Yes, a board values to life, but also connected the past with the prison and made those values. So, so much more powerful, because it was something tangible that the current players could hold on to from what the past play, he'd say. So it's a real challenge, because quite often, you do a value session, and it kind of gets put to the bottom of the drawer for the rest of the season. But it takes a lot of work and a lot of care and attention to continue it.[PB5]
Paul Barnett 10:38
I think connecting the past with the present has also been a theme you've explored by looking at the history of the ground. And the team in the stadium is if my research is correct, yeah, absolutely.
Glenn Pocknall 10:47
Then the base reserve, it's one of the most historic grounds in New Zealand used to be a swamp back 120 130 years ago. So absolutely. We tried to touch on that as to what the ground has been through cricket wise, they've played football there, they've played AFL, there, it's been a swamp, it's been a tough, it's been numerous things. So the early settlers were there, I think was a wolf at some stage. So we share stories around that. And a lot of the stories I can't share, because I wasn't around in the 1800s. And not many people work in this day and age. So we try and get people in that are really knowledgeable on those certain subjects. And they talk about it and like the values and then when you're out there representing your province, hopefully these things start to flood back into the players minds when it's a pressure situation or the games on the line or the the questioning whether they die for that ball or not. That's trying to bring the representation or what they're representing to a bigger purpose than just themselves and just the team. It's a whole lot more than that. Glenn, New[PB6]
Paul Barnett 11:44
Zealand cricket has a wellbeing policy that allows players and coaches to take time off and refresh. But the flip side is that it also gives other people a chance. But the flip side is it also gives other people a chance. Tell us what happened to you.
Glenn Pocknall 12:00
Yeah, that's amazing story. And I stole every time I say it, I do get goosebumps even when you just ask the question. Yeah, just get a bit of a tingle down my spine because it was a fantastic experience and something I'll remember for the rest of my life. But I was working down at the sky stadium with my good mate Doug Watson, doing some coaching and I had a couple of missed calls from New Zealand cricket. And at a time you kind of want a New Zealand cricket wanting to get hold of me it's the middle of winter and that will just come out of lockdowns and things like the rest of the world. So I rang back Brian Stronach from New Zealand cricket Later that afternoon, and he jumped straight in and said, Oh, we want me to blackcaps coach for the Bangladesh and Pakistan tours. And I was speechless, I had no idea what to save. Like I said, Yes, obviously. But that was just the natural reaction was yes. And then I took three or four hours before I actually told anybody because I needed it to really sink in. And I got home and sat down with my partner and told here and here he actually not because I wasn't quite sure how it was gonna go given. We've got young kids and we're in a pandemic at the moment. And I was going to be kind of ditching them for that. But her reaction was one of pure excitement, which made me even more excited. So yeah, very surreal moment. But a very special moment that I'll look back on needs to come with a huge amount of pride. And
Paul Barnett 13:16
I don't think you're finished with the blackcaps coaching just yet, but we can potentially get to that a little bit later on. Glenn language is very important to you. And I've read where you try not to use the word development. Can you tell us about your approach to communication? Yeah, I've
Glenn Pocknall 13:32
done a huge amount of study on language and words and a huge amount of reading on it. And it's confused me. But it's also clarified my thinking, I think, naturally, when you get more knowledge and do more research, it can challenge your philosophies and your way of thinking. But certainly, in the long run, I saw the benefits of language because I experimented and tried a lot of these philosophies out with players and teams.
And I think the words that you use have huge impact and how players interpreted or misinterpreted you. So what you say is very important. And the end goal for me is trying to get the player to understand you, but you wanting them to understand you so they do improve. Ultimately, that's what the end goal is we want players to improve. So the better and yes, use the example about development and what I try and do. I've done it probably for the last four years now as I go into every training session, and I give myself many goals. So for instance, I had a phase where I didn't want to use the word why sort of took their completely out of my vocabulary when I was talking to players. And the reason I wanted to do that was because the word y can be a little bit imposing, it could be seen that you're questioning a person's motive for doing something and it can be a player can put a wall up and then if they put the wall up or if they feel that defensive nature, you're not going to get much out of them. They're certainly not going to learn from what you're trying to help them with. So that did a couple of things that certainly challenged my coaching because I had to ask questions in a different way using the words What made you make that decision? How did you come to that decision? Could you have made a different decision? Did you have another option? So instead of just saying, Why did you do that I had 456 different options to not just ask one question, but ask more questions to dig a little bit deeper into the players mindset, the bring more to the surface, which is hopefully going to get a better outcome for both the player and me, because we're going to understand each other a lot better. So look, I found it and I still find it very, very challenging, because ultimately, you want to get 100% learning capacity out of a player every time you talk to them, or every time you coach them. And maybe that's not achievable. But that's something that I'm certainly striving for as a coach, because we're that you're going to have players that are going to improve quicker. And if they improve quicker, they're going to become better, quicker, and the outcomes are going to be better, which ultimately is a goal that every coach wants their players to achieve.[PB7]
Paul Barnett 15:58
Is there an example of another experiment you've run with language that you could share with us?
Glenn Pocknall 16:03
Yeah, I've used a lot of words, like try not to use the word how, why is definitely the one I've focused on, because that's the one doing my research has said, that's the one that we've got to try and stop using not so much other words, but I've tried to give no feedback. So I might just ask questions and get no feedback. And again, the reason for this is to remove any judgment, because quite often we'll ask a question, somebody will answer it, and then we'll jump in. And we'll give our our point of view which in some instances, that's fine. But I felt at a time with some players that it was better for me just to listen, and observe, and give them the opportunity. So I just listened, and listen, and listen. And again, it's a challenge because as a coach, you have to say something, you're the leader, it's your role to help them. And in some instances, yes, that is the case. So I felt I want to try and remove any judgment of players and just listen. And I found that so rewarding, because with the particular players I've tried it with, you just see their confidence rise, because they've basically been given a voice. And they're being allowed to share their own opinion without somebody giving them another option, or telling them to try something else or going in another direction.[PB8]
Paul Barnett 17:16
Glenn, I've also heard you talk about the importance of mind management. That's the phrase that he used, and you talk about it in the context of controlling the mind under pressure. Now, if someone wanted to get better at helping their teams achieve this, where would you tell them to start?
Glenn Pocknall 17:33
The simple answer is trading more under pressure. And pressure comes in different forms. And cricket pressure comes with a scoreboard with runs and wickets and wins and losses and a fast bowler slow baller skill levels. So it's really trying to test a lot of that under pressure, but also thinking a little bit outside the box, which is where I try and be quite innovative with trying to do those things, but do them in a slightly different way. So I did one a couple of weeks ago, where I was I was throwing balls to a player and I switched the pitch around. So it was diagonal facing. And this is an indoor center where players are just not used to that they used to everything being straight lines, there's a background where they can see the ball and you become quite robotic in that motion, similar to a cricket pitch. So I thought I'm going to do this, I'm going to go diagonal and just see how it goes different backgrounds, slightly different surface. And it was great. I debrief the players afterwards. And I said, How did you find out? And they said it was really challenging? Because we'd never have to face that way will voice face this way? And how did it affect your mind? Well started to think about the surface? And about why why is he changed the parameters here with our training and what's going on his mind. So all the things that would happen in a game but slightly different. So we discussed like, if there happens in a game, what do you need to think about? And then that gets them back to your original question around the mind management? Do you want to be thinking those sorts? Or is there another thing you want to be thinking about? So for me, it's just trying to create pressure or anxiety. And then the key part of all of that is talking about at the end, and then having a strategy for when you do it next. And we're in Wellington and probably most parts of New Zealand were indoors for five, six months of the year. So we do a lot of training. And it's easy just to hit balls and not train the mind, there's not really going to be any benefit whatsoever. So trying to do examples like that and get deep into the mind and get them uncomfortable. And then come again the next day and try it again. And incorporate some of those strategies really helps players prepare for what they may face and again, in a slightly different context,[PB9]
Paul Barnett 19:45
then I know that data is very important to you as a coach. You use it a lot. You talk about how you use it, but I'm wondering if you could share an example of a time you looked beyond the data to improve performance.
Glenn Pocknall 19:58
Yeah, this was a good question too. because you're right, it's like an ideal use data because it's so valuable. And it's so readily available with cricket. The game is so outcome based, but it does only tell a part of the story. But I've got a really good example with this, where we had a player who was our fastest in our group with all the running tests. And the match, he looked really slow and labored. And we labeled him from what we saw in a match as being lazy because we had the data and then we saw our eyes. And we thought, okay, he's being lazy, which is pretty unfair perception from us. And the way we kind of look through the data is we really tried to study this player and a match situation, find out what was going on. And we figured out he was just, he was slow off the mark more than the outfield slow for Mark, and not getting a quick so we thought knows it's not laziness, because he is going. And what we did, as we found out, it was just an awareness issue. So I think if we just stuck to the data, we would have fought, this guy needs to be the fastest because he is the fastest in our tests. However, we did look a little bit further than that, in fact, while he is faster the test but that's running in straight lines, whereas when he's out in the outfield, he's got to anticipate whether he's gonna go left, right, backwards, forwards, or does he stay stalled because of balls hit over his head, all of those things happen quickly. And then you've got to make a decision. So it was a really good example. Even though it's not necessarily betting and bowling relating was a really good example, to take the data with a little bit of a grain of salt, and then almost form your own opinions from what you see. And from that example, we tried to help him with not running drills, because we knew he could run really fast, we use a lot of drills around hand awareness and anticipation and speed off the mark, which was brilliant. And then the end result was he started to get a little bit faster in the cricket context.
Paul Barnett 21:52
I was also fascinated to hear how you used an optometrist within the team, which I thought was brilliant. Could you tell us a little bit about the exercise and the benefit the team got from it?
Glenn Pocknall 22:03
Yeah, absolutely. And we just talked about he was one of the players that benefited from that, because, like a simple drill that the lady we had was involved with netball. And she reached out to us because she wanted to tap into the cricket market, given the speed of how things happen and the role of the eyes. But so for that particular player that I just talked about, as she set up a whole lot of lights on the ground, red lights, green lights, yellow lights, orange lights, and they all went off at different times, and this player had to go and tap the color that went off. So real unique way of speeding up his speed to the mark without using a cricket ball and without using a batsman. But like the main area I found it really useful was as in terms of the eyes is more the peripheral vision. eyesight was so important, not just cricket, it's very important. All sports, we're good at looking straight, and we need to look straight, but there's so much going on. On the outer edges of our eyes. You take fielding for an example, there's two guys running for the ball is a ball in the air, there's runners between the workout is a crowd is a boundary, right? And you need to have an awareness of where all that stuff is you can't look at all that because you're looking at the ball, hopefully. But your peripheral vision needs to be aware of all those surroundings. So she did heaps of exercises around that, and like exercises. And the thing that I really liked what she tried, and some players gravitated and some didn't. But she really advocated that we played five minutes of video games before bets on went out to bat. And the reason behind it was basically just speeding up the hand eye coordination and the reflexes. So when you go out to bat, you don't take two or three balls to get used to that fast paced nature of the game, which was fascinating. It was quite visionary. And as I said that a few players really picked up on it and quite liked it and other players, it wasn't for them. So a really awful a really unique way to help a player prepare, especially in the modern 2020 format. That's not just sitting in a chair watching the game and then going out cold
Paul Barnett 24:11
Glen batsman spending a lot of time alone. Out in the middle. Yes, they got a person 20 feet away from them, but for the most part of it, they're alone. How do you help them deal with negative self talk that could potentially bubble up while they're waiting for the next delivery?
Glenn Pocknall 24:30
Well, that's one of the biggest challenges for batsman, I don't think you're ever going to alleviate it. I think there's always going to be moments where that little birdie pops into your head of doubt, or whatever it may be. But I guess two ways I go about it. Firstly, from a training perspective, it's really ensuring that the players have got a clear process in terms of basically in terms of how they're going to score run. So what what is your plan and really concentrating on that plan and thinking about that plan. There's a lot of other things takes around visualization and breathing. And those things are good too, because they give you something else to focus on. But I think the process of having a plan, it's positive reinforcement about what you're trying to do, as opposed to what you're not trying to do. And the second part of that is around the Match Day type confidence, or the Match Day anxiety where those fears could come into your mind. So for that, it's really trying to instill those positive messages with the players. And I use imagery a lot with my communications with players. So that might be sending a player, a video of them performing really well, the year before, against the same team that we're coming up against, or any ground we're going to or against the bowlers we're going to be coming up against, and either seen in that the night before a match, or the morning of the match, so the night before the match, so hopefully they watch it before they go to bed. And they're having the best dreams ever about them going out and getting 100 or conversing in the morning, they opening it up, they're looking at it and again, is thinking positively about how they can perform that day. None of that guarantees their little booty is not going to pop in your head. But the things that are really gravitated towards through my experience as a coach, and I believe more often than not, they do help alleviate some of those thoughts that can pop into the best man's minds.[PB10]
Paul Barnett 26:17
What gives you confidence as a coach? Glen,
Glenn Pocknall 26:20
it's a great question. No one's ever asked me that.
And I definitely get confidence from preparation just being prepared. And I've had to be really prepared. Early on in my career given I've never played through a high level, I became a bit of a compulsive planner. And just being very detailed. And what I needed to do and how I wanted to run a training session definitely learned to be a lot more flexible as time has gone on. That's just due to experience. But I definitely get confidence just from being well prepared for a coaching session for a game. And the second part of confidences, I think it's hard not to get confidence from having success, whether that's team success or player success, but I think I probably take more confidence from seeing players perform individually, because team wise, there's a lot of different moving parts that contribute to that. And similarly, when they go over the white line, the captain's the one who's pulling all the strings, so he holds a huge amount of the responsibility. And also, a lot of the feud offs needs to go to that person in that situation. But seeing players perform individually, take a lot of confidence because you have a huge amount of time with players individually, and I feel you have a lot more control of them putting their best foot forward in terms of performance.[PB11]
Paul Barnett 27:35
Glenn, just perhaps one last question before we finish. And that's again, I'd like to read a quote to you before I ask the question, you say, I fell in love with coaching, because it was pretty cool seeing other people do well. And other people leave out some of their dreams and some of their hopes that they wanted to achieve and seeing people smile and things like that. It gave me a different buzz. So I'd like to just close by asking in the distant distant future, when you do retire and hang up that whistle packaway The clipboard? What's the legacy? With these people you've helped smile that you would like to have achieved? That's one of the questions you're
Glenn Pocknall 28:11
constantly asked on coaching courses and forums around philosophies and legacies and look at really evolved for me.
But I think the main thing for me is they've enjoyed the experiences that they've been a part of an experience for me as a match, yes, it's a training, it might be a meal out, it might be time in a changing room, it might just be a one on one interaction. So if I can go away, and I can go away, and we've enjoyed those experiences, and for me that that'll be a massive result. And the other part for me is really of late anyway, there's my philosophy has been a lot more about the individual. And it does go a little bit against some coach's philosophies where it's a little bit more around the team and team first. But I find it really important that new environments I'm in I need to work in adapt around the individual players needs and what suits them, as opposed to the other way where they have to conform or they have to buy into us a better word of how we do things. And I feel that's the way the Marlins game has gone now we have to adapt individuals and not give them leniency but understand their needs and understand their challenges. Because if we do, we're going to get the best out of that player. And if we get the best out of the player, the natural result is they're going to be a great team player. And they're going to be a team first player. So as I said, it's certainly my philosophy has changed, but it's a lot more around the player as opposed to the team and working with all those players on an individual level to get the best out of them.[PB12]
Paul Barnett 29:39
Glenn, it's been great meeting you today and spending a little bit of time listening to your story. I'm sure you're going to be back coaching the blackcaps one day and I wish you all the best with that, unless you're playing Australia. Thanks for that Paul.