Graham Reid Edit
Wed, 6/15 10:02PM • 28:18
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coach, players, people, team, game, hockey, lost, olympics, rick, confidence, nil, business, talk, score, won, important, sport, quote, emotions, resilience
SPEAKERS
Paul Barnett, Graham Reid
Paul Barnett 00:00
grind rate. Good morning, and welcome to the Great coach's podcast.
Graham Reid 00:05
Good morning. Thanks very much for having us, Paul. Great to be here. Finally, we've been chasing each other around the world for the last year or so I think it's been so it's great to finally get here.
Paul Barnett 00:14
Well, it was before the Olympics. And of course, we're gonna get on to what happened at the Olympics for you as we get into the interview, but grind something really simple to kick yourself. Where are you in the world today? What have you been up to? So far,
Graham Reid 00:25
we live in Bangalore, inside the Sports Authority of India complex. It's a bit like the is in Canberra, it's an India and we spend our life in here when we're not traveling and playing around the world. And that's where we are, we're actually just about ready to leave for Europe, we've got pro league games coming up in Belgium and in Holland. And we also have hockey fives, which is an exciting new concept for the sport of hockey. So we've got some things on and Sunday, so it's a little bit of a relaxing time.
Paul Barnett 00:53
Well, thank you for taking your Sunday out to come and talk to us about all things hockey. And I might start actually, by name checking one of the all time greats, I think in any sport, which is Rick Charlesworth, you were coached by him, and you've had a long association with him. And I'm sure you've met other great coaches on your journey along as well. So I'd like to start by asking you, what is it you think the great coaches do differently? That sets them apart?
Graham Reid 01:18
It's always an interesting question. And I think the answers are about as varied as you'd expect, I think. And again, this isn't only necessarily Rick, but he probably ticks most of the boxes. But for me, it's constantly thinking about the game, and how do we make things better? I think that's one thing that I think that they do. Well, I think they have a clearer picture of how they want their team to play the behaviors they want to see, on and off the pitch, I think off the pitch is just as important. And the old adage behaviors that you get are the ones that you have prepared to let go. And I think that discipline of being able to make sure that if you spot something you don't listen, then you need to pull it up and change it. And that's I think what they do well, I think good coaches are great coaches understand the environment that they're in. And whether that be in a foreign country, it might be your team is in a different space to where another team might be. In other words, you might have a very, very experienced team, and therefore you need to be a different type of coach. And I think they do it very well. They have an innate sense of picking that up. One of the other ones is that they also have a good sense of their limitations. I think they surround themselves with people who complement them, if you like, that's probably some of the main ones there, of course, million others probably, but they're very intense as well, that's probably something else that are very intense. And sometimes that intensity is a real focus. I think maybe that's the word rather than in intensity. It's that ability to have Micro Focus on what they're currently doing.[PB1]
Paul Barnett 02:48
Graham, you were a successful player in your own right. And after retiring, you built a business career. I'm just wondering how that experience went on to shape your coaching philosophy.
Graham Reid 02:58
Yeah, it is interesting, having had that business background, and does people always say that businesses can learn a lot from sport. And of course, I also think sport can learn a lot from business. And so I think after having been in business for 20 years, almost before I came back to full time coaching, or before I became a full time coach, we had a business coach, actually, and we would read a book a week, and some of the authors I really liked is someone called Jim Collins, he has good to great. And then the one that I really love is Great by Choice. He has sort of three principles that he talks about. One is productive paranoia, there's fanatic discipline, and then there's empirical creativity. And they're the sort of three things that for me, that really like it encompasses all the things that you need, as a coach, you need to be paranoid about the opposition and about what's coming up and what's not there and the things that that you need to do. You need that fanatic discipline to be able to apply it, of course, to all your training sessions to your games and what have you. I can speak for hours on it. And then that last one is empirical creativity, but you need facts base, you need some empirical evidence behind it. And then in that book, he talks a lot about firing bullets and then seeing how they go and a bullet is just trying something, something that's pretty low cost. It's not going to sink the boat, but it may work in in Maine, but once you find something that you work, he then says you fire cannonballs after that it's a great book anyway, but I've sort of used it as applying it to all the all the areas of my coaching and it's been quite a good little bait.[PB2]
If you like things like Bill Gates successes allows the teacher what's the quote something it seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose. And I think that's what we do often as coaches. If you're successful, you tried to make sure that you learned from the success as much as you do from a loss but it's still hard. Are you still in that success because you don't want to change too much for the risk that you may start that you're not going to keep winning. [PB3] So there's also another book that I talked about a lot is changing your questions, change your life, change your questions, change your life, I think it's called. And it basically talks about what we tend to do as people in general is we judge and I see it all the time. Now, players we're judging, and we're not learning. And if and it talks about it, and that is change the questions that you're asking, because you're probably judging, rather than trying to find out the real answer behind it, those sorts of things are interesting, though, of course, critical conversations, then I'm not sure that's necessarily a business.
That's something else that that I think, in this day and age, coaches really need to be able to have critical conversations with everybody, you know, through your coaching staff, through the players and everything else. And so that's a really good book to understand the best way to approach those sort of conversations, the difficult ones, critical conversations, I think, are defined as being the ones that you disagree on, they mean a lot to both of you. And they're critical in in the future of what you're trying to achieve. So that's some of the things that I that I brought back from business coach actually had this concept of five ways of making your business, Ben and that were things like leads and conversion rates and number of transactions, profit margins. And his concept was pretty simple. If you improve just small percentages, 1% 2% of each of those five ways, then they multiply all out into a huge profit, a much bigger profit if you like. And so yeah, I think you can bring that in, you know, and so things like the number of times you get into the opposition's 50, you then convert it to 25 penetrations, and then into circle penetrations, and then the goal shots and, and then breaking it down into things like that, so that you don't need such a huge change, you can just increase how many times you're getting into the 25, how many times you're getting circle? And what are the things that you need to be able to do that,[PB4]
Paul Barnett 06:57
you know, I want to take that experience you've had in business and I want to add it to your playing career because it was it was a pretty successful won an Olympic silver medal, nine champions trophies. Now, as a coach, you've got a Commonwealth goal to champions trophies, a World Cup, a World League title, and of course, and a bronze Olympic medal. So if I put all of this experience together with your business knowledge, what does this taught you about? The human spirit? You got some good,
Graham Reid 07:26
good questions there. Paul, I always think that the problem was successes, whether it's a problem or whether it's rarely ever just one thing, it's it's always a series of things that are done over and over and fixed and changed and done better again, and done over and over. And, and so therefore, it's very hard to nail down what things make that up. And I'm not sure what it has to do with human spirit.
But for me, the thing that I have learned the most since I started coaching is that I believe that everybody can be a great player when I've gotten to the level of where I've been coaching. And I think the thing that holds us back is the openness. And they're having that open. And I think it's quite a common thing these days to talk about open mindset and fixed mindset. And I think whenever I find a player who, who seems to have plateaued, or is going through a point where you're going well, he's missing out on teams, they're not quite sure why. And almost always it'll be because they've closed their mind about getting about particular areas of life. It can be but also, but certainly when you're talking about coaching sport, that they have lost that ability they get into the space of I already know that.[PB5] Oh, yeah, I know. I know. But that type of and I think when I look at the players who keep on going and you've only got to look at Jamie Dwyer, for example, as someone who just continually wants to get better and and learn and I remember being on a plane going to Rio, it was going to be his last tour. And he's still saying to Coach, what do I need to improve on what what do I need to work on during the during the Olympics. So those sort of things which are great.
I think another part that I've discovered since I've lived in India, but I think everybody, the big catchphrase at the moment around is resilience and trying to build people's resilience and nuts across the board.
My belief is that I think everybody has resilience, it's just a matter in which particular part of your life or which particular part of that part of your life, you have it everyone's been kicked around or had things happen to them. And that resilience they often talk about for me is about being able to have a look at what you have done over your life and change it and actually then apply it to what you're currently doing. So give you a quick example the guys in in, in in the India team, a lot of them have come from backgrounds, which are so incredibly great stories, but they haven't necessarily applied that same resilience, if you like that they've had to prove to hockey or to sport or to high performance sport. I'm not sure I'm explained I get that well, but the fact of resilience everyone has, it's a matter of applying it to your, what you need it in that particular moment in time.[PB6]
Paul Barnett 10:11
Great. Let's talk about that Indian team actually, and possibly even a little bit about resilience because you were appointed in 2019. And I was very intrigued to read about one of the first things you did was to get the players to share their personal journeys, in short videos. Could you tell us about this and what the objective of the exercise was? What are you trying to uncover?
Graham Reid 10:32
Yeah, to be honest, it started, it will look a bit like your podcast, it started. To be honest, during COVID, we had a little bit bit of extra time, we weren't allowed to leave, leave this place we would have locked in, I thought, well, let's use this because I didn't know them very well, of course, I'd only just started. And so I really want to get to know the players. And for me, I sort of new, and it's something that I've always wanted to do, to be honest, is get people to tell their stories about how they've come to where they have. And everyone has a difference of things like jumping over the fence to get onto the pitch, those type of stories that we all have had over the years. And I think every and so I got a video camera here. I had a green screen from some some other time. So I sort of got everyone it took quite a long time, as you can imagine with I think it was about 20 minutes of questions for each of them. But things like who is your first coach? Why are you playing hockey? Where did you come from, tell us about your village, tell us about your hometown, tell us about your family, all those sort of things. And what I wanted to do was to as as I said, for me to get to know them and understand them. And of course, quite a few of them were in Hindi. So I had to also do some work on translating them, of course, but it was just fascinating to to hear some of them. And it probably changed halfway through because I really then wanted to everyone else to know these stories, I wanted everyone within the team. And again, it's never going outside these walls. And we would only ever show it to us. And if you didn't even want to share it with the rest of the team, then they didn't have to, I wanted to have the black bit of background on each of them. And then it basically the idea was that we would edit those and then show them before the Olympics and everyone could could understand. This is why this is the way where we come from and everything. So it was a bit of filling in time, it gave me a chance to get to understand the players. Yeah, it was a great experience. And of course, they ended up with a video that that they have at home now with their families. And it's very nice memento for for that period.
Paul Barnett 12:36
They also go home with a nice memento, which is an Olympic bronze medal. And it was a you broke a 41 year year drought to get that middle Indian hockey in Tokyo. And it must have been particularly rewarding given that you had to build that team during lockdown. I'm wondering as you look back on the result, and you sort of reflect on it. Is there a moment or an event that sort of clicked and you pushed the team forward where you started to think oh, maybe we've got something here.
Graham Reid 13:06
Again, it's always hard to nail it down to a specific thing. There's never a certainly think if you take that period of time. And to be honest, I was reading an article the other day about it the Senate, it's actually a real thing that people can't remember, between March 28 and march 20, wildlife kids sort of all blurs into one. So if I take that as the single event, the lockdown, I think that had a major effect on us.
And I was telling the guys when we were able to train and we were obviously able to try and quite a lot during that period. But also, we had a lot of time where we were stuck inside rooms. And we couldn't even leave our rooms at one point there. So I kept saying to the look, understand that when a group of people goes through something like this together, it will bond us. And that was sort of I kept mentioning it mentioning it all the way through that period. And then in the Olympics, as well as look, when the chips are down when the pressure is on these connections that we've all made during this period are gonna come out. And sure enough, I think there were a number of times that we were tested during during the Olympic campaign. And I think, yeah, that time together. And I can't imagine another group of people staying together that long and without their families. And it was quite a tough period for everybody. And I mean, lots of people went through it in the world. And that was the other part. But the good part was that we were able to do it together and asked him to help bond us together.[PB7]
Paul Barnett 14:32
Well, that team lost, unfortunately to Belgium and pushed them into the bronze dog match against Germany. But I read a really interesting quote from you about that, actually. And you were saying that it was very easy to motivate them because of the next thing mentality the team had been working on and I really wanted to ask you about that. What was this next thing mentality that you were working on?[PB8]
Graham Reid 14:52
Yeah, it's interesting, where coaches tend to put little acronyms and things around specific ideas just so that to give someone my handle and I started playing next thing mentality because it's very simple. It's sports psychology 101. It's focused back on the next task all the time. And during a game, that's the next skill, the next pass the next tackle the next shot. But of course, between games, it's okay, what's next who's next? Right, we've lost the second file. Now the next thing is our bronze medal. And mixed with that with all the a couple of the guys had been through experiences of losing semi finals, and then losing them the third and fourth. So that was pretty easy to tap in on that I gave them my example in Seoul, where we lost our semi final and then lost the bronze medal, and there's nothing, nothing really, unfortunately, so spectacular about it, it certainly helps. I find, I think one of the most common things and you see it in every sport, they're just worried about what's just happened, but I just miss my shot. I just missed, missed that trap. I whatever, I missed that goal, people get caught back in their heads, thinking about what could have been instead of focusing on the next task. [PB9] So that was the story behind that one.
Paul Barnett 16:06
Greg, I know the quote from you actually, if I could you say, I'm definitely a relationship coach, having relationships with each of these players, is what's really important. So that when the chips are down, those things can come to the fall. And I really wanted to ask you, how does being a relationship coach distinguish you from someone who isn't?
Graham Reid 16:29
That's a good question. I think from memory that quote, I had just joined the Junior World Cup group. So it was after the Olympics, and I joined the Junior World Cup, I think that I'm definitely a relationship coach was perhaps a bit more in that specific project, if you like to help out that group. But I also think I think that it's probably one of the most important thing these days, too, because it's those connections that you have, that you know, when you need to, I think it was in habits, seven habits. Stephen Covey, he talks about having a bank balance, and emotional bank balance with people, if you have a debit in your emotional bank account with someone, then you can be really hard on them, or you can be whatever you need to do to get something working. And so I always think of that, whenever you are, whenever the chips are down, you need some positive bank balance in that emotional corner for you. And I think that's what relationships do you get that trust? Do you understand where they're coming from? They understand what I need, or what I want from them. Yeah, I think everyone these days has to have a form of relationship coaching. And I think those days have gone where where you can just sit up and be the school major, and don't move top down approach. So I think that's probably where that comes from.[PB10]
Paul Barnett 17:49
You've spoken a few times about the link between confidence and the flourishing of your players. And that this confidence will help counter the team fade outs in performance, which I think is a really interesting link. And I wondered if you could share a story of how you've worked with an athlete or a team to lift their confidence and ultimately, their performance.
Graham Reid 18:11
I know you've had Rick on your podcast before, I'm sure he probably would have mentioned it. But there's a German Dietrich somebody he had a quote called comfort that troubled and trouble the comfortable. Yes, it rings a bell. And I think for me, that's a really important part of it is it's about some players need you to comfort them because they're struggling with form or, as you say, confidence and all that sort of thing. But of course, there's the other part where people aren't comfortable. And so you need to trouble them, get them a little bit uncomfortable about where they are in the team and how things are going. [PB11]
A lot of people talk about confidence players, some are he's a confidence player, she's a confidence player or what have you. I'm not a big fan of it. Because I always think that confidence is means that if you're lacking confidence, it means you you're not working hard enough. And that's not true, of course, in every case, but I certainly think that if you are lacking confidence in a particular area, then then I think the best way to get out of that is longer term is to make sure that you can do that skill when under pressure. But having said that, it's also really important to help a specific plan to overcome their their confidence levels. [PB12]
As far as a team is concerned, sometimes you have to do that. Like overnight, for example, perfect example was during the Olympics, we lost to Australia actually seven one and that was a really quite an interesting time within the group. But again, now you know the background of those other those the stories and the resilience that I talked about. This was one of the times where that came to the fore. One simple way that I use it, there's a thing called the goal, opportunity total. And it's a different way of looking at your score of your game, for example. So every goal opportunity The deed that we create and the opposition create Zion a qualitative number between one and five to them. So we might create 20 opportunities in a game, one of you might have 10 ones, two threes and a couple of fives, for example, you end up with a total because you have a total for you have a total against, and that has nothing to do with the actual screen itself, as you to do is to actually go back and look at the quality of your opportunities you created, and also against. And so when we did that, and I knew that straight after that particular game, that it was not a seven one, you could play that game three or four times again, and with that, a much better result from our point of view, three to four, three, that type of score line rather than than the seventh one. So those sort of things where you can take an objective, empirical look at something which can also help you lift attain, when we did the same with the Dutch, we played, I was with the Dutch team at that time, and we got beaten five nil, I think, from memory by the Belgians in the round game. And it was not a five nil game, according to the gods score, but God score was much more even. And of course, the game you tell the players this that hey, look, yeah, we lost file number hit every single shot in the net. And of course, we came out and won the European Cup against Belgium, with a similar God score at the end, which was interesting. So there you go, yeah, you have a five nil and three to win.
Paul Barnett 21:26
You call it a got score. What does that stand for? Yeah, goal
Graham Reid 21:29
opportunity total. And Rick, probably also, well, I talked about it in his last book, but we sort of came up with that concept of yes, in such a low scoring games like hockey and football or soccer, you can get carried away with a one nil win or a one nil loss or two nil loss, and almost you know, the world's going to fall over. But in reality, if you've got things that you can look at, and count, then yeah, and so we ended up with something like 10 years or nine years of data. And what it came down to was that a god score of 20 meant one goal that's for every team doesn't matter whether you are playing the best thing in the world or not, over time, it will go to 20 to one goal, if your view in the game 60 to 20, then then the game probably should be three, one. That's the concept behind it. But the real concept behind it is, you use those things when you need to, you know, to build that confidence back up. Or the other way, if you're trying to trouble the confident, which is what happened. After 2014 I took over from Rick, we've won the grand final or the so the World Cup six won against Holland. And my first meeting is as the new coach after taking over from Rick was showing them the god scores from our previous five or six encounters with Holland, and that they were real, very similar. The actual goal, the golf scores were similar, but the results were not normally it was a little like one or the debaters once one nil tool, three, all that type of score. So again, hey, don't get carried away with the sixth one. Boys, there was a much closer game than perhaps it looked like,
Paul Barnett 23:05
Graeme, I've got this quote, again, where you say the biggest challenge is a player is to remain focused on the job at hand. The first game brings with it a number of emotions, the player who can control those emotions and stick to the game plan will be ahead. Which leads me to ask what are your top tips on helping your athletes learn to control these emotions so they can perform when it matters most.
Graham Reid 23:30
I think I would have to say see enter above that next thing mentality, I think is a perfect way of being able to control your emotions, because it's the thought of what just happened that often will send those emotions flying. And if you have a particular task that you now have to focus on, then it makes it perhaps a lot easier to control those emotions because you now have a job have a task. To be honest, I only sort of realized this later. But any of the teams that I coach, we play pressing a lot, we play a high press and we get pushed out onto the opposition. And one of the positive parts about that is that is a you actually have to be doing stuff you've got to be out and about and in the opposition's space. And you can't be just sitting back lulling them into a false sense of security. And what's that what happens is if you, for example, fall back and do a half court press, for example. Often, you're just getting back into your own head and getting out and doing stuff in the big games. If you've got tasks to do and you're getting out and about that, it certainly makes you a lot easier or it makes it a lot easier to focus on what you've got to do next, rather than letting the emotions take over. And a lot of people talk about it now with mindfulness and about being present. So those sort of things I think are also important.[PB13]
Paul Barnett 24:49
What about your kids? And now you've got to Scott and Emma, I don't know whether what relationship you have with them. I don't know whether they come to you for any kind of advice whether it's about leadership or life but If they do, or if they have, what would you tell them?
Graham Reid 25:04
For me leadership? Well, first of all, it's lonely. It's a lonely business being head coach or the CEO, or whatever it is. And so first of all, get comfortable with be happy in your own skin. And trust your judgments, I think is really important. When I look back and think that's one of the things that I definitely believe in is that good leaders have to be brave, and you can't be worried about what might happen. If this doesn't or that doesn't, you just have to trust what your judgments somebody else that I have also this vulnerability and sharing your own vulnerability. I have a big believer in that I think it certainly builds trust. And certainly the old fashioned way was definitely not to show that. But I think it's become part of what we need to do now be true to yourself and your values. Don't be something that someone else wants you to be be the previous managers or the previous coach, you don't want to you don't want to be them. You want to be yourself. And I think that's what I learned. Way over the years.[PB14]
Paul Barnett 26:03
You've been so generous with your time Graham on a Sunday. So maybe just one question to finish up. And when you do finish coaching, whatever that is, hopefully it's long into the future, when you hang up that whistle. Is there a particular legacy, either through physical manifestations or through more of an emotional impact on the people around you that you hope you've left? Yeah, I
Graham Reid 26:27
heard your other podcast, I thought this would becoming the legacy question. Don't normally sort of think and think of things like that. But maybe it's my, the values that I have, I like to think that I am able to have imparted those on all the players, or at least a great number of players that I've been involved with, but be honest, be brave. And and it was very nice that Billy Baca used to be the captain of the data in Austin, my Amsterdam team when I coached over there and, and one of the Indian press asked them, you know, what a background read and he gave the quote of that you have to be prepared to lose to win, he always sort of remembered that that's what I said, You got to be brave, you got to be get out there and you and you got to be prepared to lose it all to the actually to be able to win and, and so that's something that I think is really important. I'm always on about team first. So for me, thinking of others, and don't be selfish is something that I really, you know, to me, you need that in a team, you need that that ability to think of others first. And I think that's what team sport sort of brings you up to do, and probably the dedication and the hard work. It doesn't guarantee that you're going to get success, but I think dedication and hard work will certainly help in whatever area you are trying to achieve in and of course the other big one, which is perhaps an Aussie trait, which I like to think always and that's keep fighting until the end. You never give up. And that would be nice if that's what the players said that they they learned from me,[PB15]
Paul Barnett 27:57
Graham, it's I'm so glad I finally chased you down. It's been a great interview and I want to wish you all the best on the road to Paris and what I hope will be a different color middle for you and the team.
Graham Reid 28:09
Yeah, let's take it one step at a time as the coaches would say. But no, thanks. Thanks again, Paul. I love your podcasts.