Motivation lesson final

Tue, May 23, 2023 8:40PM • 13:06

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

motivation, coach, motivate, internal motivation, challenge, inspire, individual, willpower, athlete, explained, learned, people, great, interviewed, required, dinner table, talks, modify, comfortable, fitness

SPEAKERS

Mark Lebedew, Gary Kirsten, Charlie Walsh, John Hamlett, James Wade, Conor O'Shea, Heyneke Meyer, Paul Barnett

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.

00:24

What an interesting way it is to be a leader.

Paul Barnett  00:29

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 be better leaders. We started this podcast because we wanted to have better conversations with our families around the dinner table. In a social media world where 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 motivation. And it features audio quotes from a selection of coaches that we have interviewed from around the

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world. The lessons from the great coaches podcast

Paul Barnett  01:32

there are many great motivation theories in psychology, from Maslow's hierarchy of needs, to McClellan's on the three key drivers of motivation being achievement, affiliation, and power. And while these theories are convenient, in that they help you grip the factors that motivate people. The reality is that motivations are uniquely individual. And as the coach, you need to be able to understand what drives the people you are charged with leading. Here is the championship winning volleyball coach Michael Ebert you explaining why this is so important.

Mark Lebedew  02:07

As a coach, the thing that I have to find out fairly quickly is what are the individual motivations for each of the players, everybody has a slightly different motivation. In a lot of cases, I can know at least part of that before I arrive by talking with them by talking with people they know, and piecing together a few things. And those motivations are wide and varied. Some people want to make more money, some people want to go to a better League, some people want to win, some people want a quiet life. And all teams are basically made up of some combination of all of those people. You don't want to have too many people who want a quiet life. But it is advantageous to have one or two because then of course any trouble. And then to just work on the individual motivations of the players. And for the most part explained to them how working together in a group in this group, in particular for this period of time, will help them to achieve their individual motivations to find a better team to get more money to whatever that motivation is.

Paul Barnett  03:20

James Wade has played basketball in France, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Belgium, and is now a championship winning coach in the WNBA. Experiencing these different cultures has amplified the learning that Mark talks about when it comes to trying to understand what motivates people. But he builds on it by saying that being open minded when it comes to trying to understand what motivates people will help you grow as a leader.

James Wade  03:50

When it comes to motivation, you figure out once you get into another country, that is not always one way to do things. It's not always one way to motivate people and you meet different types of people from different walks of life, different cultures, different backgrounds, and you have to be open minded to each individual person to different cultures and it will only help your growth as a human being and only help your growth as a as a leader.

Paul Barnett  04:19

And the reality is that motivation will go up and down. And often it has nothing to do with the results or the output. As the team leader, you will be required to manage this fluctuation in motivation. Here is rugby coach Connor O'Shea explaining his experience with this.

Conor O'Shea  04:39

Some say it's easy when you're when it's easy when you win when it's not. When you're winning. You have to keep that motivation of everyone and keep feet on the ground. When you're losing. You have to retain motivation and at times you have to give motivation and you bring that energy even if you're feeling pretty down yourself.

Paul Barnett  04:56

But there must be individual willpower to sustain need motivation as without it behavior cannot be modified to the required standard. The South African rugby coach Hanukkah Meyer explained this to us using an analogy with hamburgers.

Heyneke Meyer  05:13

The third thing is that which I believe you have to have the willpower because and the I use the pain and pleasure principle. So say for example, you don't change a habit, it's very difficult to change a habit. So say I love hamburgers. If I see a mug is as great and it's so seen, it's really enjoy it, I'm never going to change that bad. But if I see it, listen, it's gonna I'm gonna get time, it's gonna blow me I'm gonna get a heart attack, if I'm overweight, not going to see my grandchildren, then it's gonna I'm gonna associate that to fine. And that's why, especially for young coaches, I never ever, ever, punish a guy with fitness. Because in fitness for them is a punishment, they need to see fitness as a pleasure which great to do fitness, we're going to win games in the last minute, they will do fitness I never finished with fitness.

Paul Barnett  05:57

Charlie Walsh, is one of the world's most successful cycling coaches. One of the central themes that he discussed with us was the importance of the presence of self challenge, as this allows you to push your body beyond what it is comfortable doing. Because this is where you're able to modify what you're capable of

Charlie Walsh  06:17

got to be very clear about where you're where you want to go, and how you're going to get there. That's our job as a coach, If the athlete does not see that picture, it's difficult for them. Ultimately, it comes down to the very simple thing, except the fact that self challenge is critical. And I remember reading early in the piece that if we want to modify the body, you're subject to stress, chronic stress. So if it's lovely in training, the body says, Oh, I like that. And I will stay like that, you actually have to severely challenged the body. Now the mind is no different to the body, you must challenge the body, we all like to be comfortable. That's that's why we have the standards of living that we do nowadays, because of this pursuit of trying to make things more comfortable, we make things more comfortable for our children, I'm not necessarily sure we're getting the outcomes we would want by making it too comfortable for them, because you're taking away this capacity for self challenge. And it's terrible it is to say the more severe the challenge sometimes the better it is. But it's not just challenge for the sake of it is managed challenge. So we got to see, and you got to as a coach, you've got to work with your athletes to severely challenged them. And then you will give them some sort of feedback generally, particularly when I say walk working with the football was, I would they would challenge but then I would go back and you're all would always look for something positive, out of what they have done. It may be a miniscule thing, because that put themselves through a fair amount of torment. But that miniscule thing is maybe just all they need that to say to them that was worthwhile. Now we can go on to the next step.

Paul Barnett  08:20

John Hamlet, coaches, ultra marathon runners, and with a background in the army brings an uncompromising approach to his leadership. Here, John talks about how he learned that it is not possible to be the internal motivation for your athletes.

John Hamlett  08:37

That but I learned a lot from him. He, as an athlete was too dependent on me. I had to move away, working obviously, in the intelligence. And I tried to keep him going, but it just bailed out. Now this was could have been a stupid could have really been a super athlete. But clearly because he was so reliant on me as coach, I was almost his internal motivation. I was keep knocking on his door, keep him going. And this was a mistake. And I saw that never would I do that again, as a coach, I would never in terms of and even in my management structure. When I finally began with Colonel, I applied that same principle I said, Never will I be the center of attraction. I will be I will be the I will be the I would say not the motivator. She I can motivate a little bit. I will but I'll be that enabler. I must be the enabler and they must be having that internal self discipline and occasionally push the button to get the motivation.

Paul Barnett  09:32

However, while you can never be the internal motivation for the athlete, you can find the line where you inspire them. And this was something the World Cup winning cricket coach Gary Kirsten spoke to us about.

Gary Kirsten  09:46

I do think we play for someone that inspires us. The question is, how do we inspire? I think there's a lot of different ways that a leader can inspire people but if you can get to that space where you are inspiring people, I think it's a very Powerful plays because that idea or that concept of playing for someone, I think is a very powerful concept.

Paul Barnett  10:09

The motivation of elite athletes is a special thing though. They make amazing sacrifices in the pursuit of goals that are beyond the reach of most normal people. When you come across this type of motivation, as a coach, you are in a very fortunate position to be able to partner with them on their journey. Here is swimming coach John rod, with the final word on motivation. There's,

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there's times when it's tough, there's nothing particularly glamorous about very first in chlorinated water for 20 hours a week, that notion of deferred gratification, what you give up now in other aspects of your life, not give up, but change or make small sacrifices so that the next the life experience that you can have, because of what it is that you're doing is so more rounded, whole and special than that which a regular person might achieve, who doesn't commit to something in this particular way. That for me is the drive and the intrinsic motivation for them to do what it is that they do. And ultimately, what they're seeking, is that knowledge of how good they are. So that when it's the day to hang up their swimsuit and say, That's it, I'm done. They can honestly look in the mirror and say I know how good I was, and not have any element of frustration, of not knowing, because there's no time machine to go back and put it right.

Paul Barnett  11:46

We hope you enjoyed our episode on motivation, 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 have taken away on the topic of motivation from our interview guests are it's important to take the time and determine what motivates each individual. Motivate motivation requires willpower and will ebb and flow regardless of the results. Motivation must be self driven. And where it is not intervention from the coach should be to inspire not substitute for the individuals drive. And where the individuals motivation has lapsed, do not be afraid to step back as a coach. Here at the great coaches podcast we are always listening and trying to reflect and learn so please let us know if you have any feedback. Just like Chris Goodman, who after listening to our John Rudd episode said, great coaches enable sports people to be better people. Thanks, Chris. The interaction with the people around the world and 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