Theme: Resilience
Key Message: Great coaching is all about having authentic relationships with all those around you.
My name is Paul and you are listening to The Great Coaches 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, 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.
Todays episode is brought to you by the world record holding Australian cricket coach John Buchanan.
And it is on the theme of resilience , which is something I try my very best to cultivate every day, so that I don’t get too caught up in the mistakes I make or the unrealistic quest for perfection.
One of my mentors, once said to me that its not the mistake or problem that matters so much, but rather your response. Its something that resonated with me very strongly and has stayed with me as I have become a parent, a manager and now a leader of an organisation. Its also something that I thing sums up the very essence of the word resilience.
But just before we go to John, If you're a first time listener, you can check out our library of interviews at our website; the greatcoachespodcast.com
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And now over to John.
RESILIENCE
Every coach has a slightly different way of defining the word “resilience”, but all are in agreement that it is an essential ingredient to success, and being able to repeat that success.
If we were to explore how the dictionary defines the term -
1. the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
2. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
synonyms:
flexibility · pliability · suppleness · plasticity · elasticity · springiness · spring · give · durability · ability to last · strength · sturdiness · toughness · strength of character · hardiness · adaptability · buoyancy · ability to bounce back
What an array of words and phrases it provides as meaning.
Sport provides us with a lens through which we can see resilience in action.
- Whether that is an athlete returning to playing after serious injury.
- Whether it is a team that looks beaten, yet somehow, finds the will and the way to turn a game around, and win.
- Whether it is a coach who suffers at the hands of a voracious media storm, yet looks deep inside himself or herself, to find their beliefs which allow them to constantly and confidently meet the criticisms head-on.
Allow me to throw in a couple of quotes which further define the concept of “resilience” –
“…pain is temporary, quitting is forever…”
From philosopher Seneca, “ It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”
So how do we learn resilience? How do we coach it? How do we instil it in our organisational DNA?
Lisa Alexander, former highly successful Australian Netball Coach gives us an insight into how she goes about it -
I'm an educator. So I'm always optimistic that people can learn this. And I think it goes back to that the writing the journal is actually writing down those issues or experiences that have been tough and really examining them instead of not facing them. I've often written down my challenges and the things that have really confronted me and what I needed to do, which has been very helpful. So it's sort of like having your own copilot that sort of helps you to navigate that the tough times
For me, it was a checklist in my mind. The checklist was my reference points of my coaching philosophy. These revolved around –
- Always having a vision for the future
- Dealing with the ‘whole person’, not just the athlete, or staff member
- Creating a stimulating learning environment
- Making myself redundant, or conversely, having the athlete be ‘their own best coach’
- Never being satisfied where things were currently – always room for improvement
- Being planned
- Living my key values of family & team, integrity, honesty, hard work
If I honestly believed I was doing these to the best of my ability, as much as possible, every day, then I knew I could do no more. If this was not good enough in other peoples’ views, there was nothing I could do about that.
If you get thew chance to watch Sir Alex Ferguson’s documetary Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In | Official Trailer - Bing video, it is obvious he has “resilience’ coursing through his veins. His resilience was built up over time as a young boy I the backstreets of Glasgow with a father who worked hard in the shipyards to feed the family, but little time or feeling for them. This support was provided by resilience sometimes will come from your background growing up around the shipyards of Glasgow…with his dad giving him very little. It was his mother, Elizabeth that gave him love and the support he needed when he went through some poor decisions and struggles a young footballer seeking his fame and fortune as a fulltime professional. This finally came his way at Dunfermline Athletic. After other stints at rangers and finally Ayr United, he arrived at a point where he believed the way players were being managed was not right, and so began his Managerial career with St Mirren being his first step towards the legendary status he created at Manchester United. The documentary starts with his recollections of a major heart attack he suffered and his journey back to health. This story typified the determination, the resilience, the self-centred belief that his way was the right way.
While Eddie Jones, is a different person, his approach to excellence in himself and all those around him speaks closely to Sir Alex’s coaching and managerial philosophy, and ultimately what he perceives resilience to be -
And I think it's the ability to be able to teach them that it doesn't always have to be fun and you don't always have to be happy. And at times there are difficult situations but there's a fun to and the fun to sticking at something doing it well. And then achieving I think you've always got to be conscious of the fact there's a fun there that you've got to learn about health and it's teaching players about how do you find that fun area understand fun is something that you've got to stick at, it's gonna at times gonna be uncomfortable at times, there's going to be bits and pieces where you don't like and you just keep on trying to find ways to get it through.
To conclude, I draw from a coule of quotes taken from Robin Sharma’s book, “ The Leader who had no Title” –
When it is dark enough you can see the stars, and problems then become the platform for possibilities.
As legendary Formula One driver Mario Andretti adds, “ if everything is under control, then you are going too slow!..”
We hope you enjoyed our episode on Authenticity 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 on away on the topic of resilience from our interview guests are:
There are 3 things you can do every day to help build resilience; express gratitude, do something selfless, and take part in small competitions to help normalise the pressure you feel through competition.
Embrace discomfort, and try to reframe it as an experience that will make you stronger.
Self-reflecting, preferably through writing in a journal, helps you keep perspective and view the disruptive events in your life from different angles.
Here are the Great Coaches podcast, we are always trying to learn and this was our first Lessons episode so Please let us know how we went, and wthere there are any specific areas you would like us to explore.
The interaction with the people around the world who listen gives us great energy, And all the details on how to connect with us, are in the show notes or on our website, thegreatcoachespodcast.com. and if you would like to learn www.buchanancoaching.com