Roy Hodgson edit
Wed, 8/10 7:50PM • 33:03
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coach, people, players, roy, england, team, game, job, tournaments, football, success, sport, leadership, working, career, playing, chance, roi, referring, failure
SPEAKERS
Paul Barnett
Paul Barnett 00:00
Mr. Roy Hodgson. Good morning, and welcome to the great coaches podcast.
00:05
Yeah, thank you. Nice to be here.
Paul Barnett 00:07
I'm absolutely thrilled to get the chance to talk to you, Roy. And perhaps we could just start with something really simple. Where are you in the world? And what have you been up to so far today?
00:18
I live in Richmond on the outskirts of central London. And my day hasn't really started yet. I'm waiting to go down the gym, which is how I quite often start my day, if I don't have any meetings anywhere in particular to go. So it's early in the day, but I don't have any particular plan for today.
Paul Barnett 00:38
Well, thank you for delaying your gym session so that we could talk today and I, I promise not to make this too strenuous, so that you've still got energy left at the gym.
Good.
Roy, maybe if we could start by talking about the great coaches that you've experienced in your career? I'm sure there has been many of them. And I'd be really keen to understand what is it you think the great coaches do differently? That sets them apart?
01:03
So very complicated question. Of course, I mean, in many ways, they don't do a lot differently, you know, what their success depends upon, apart from the obvious qualities of knowing a lot about their sports and having good personal skills, you know, good abilities in dealing with human beings and getting people to like them and be on their side.
I think probably the one thing that does separate the wheat from the charts to some extent is, is the determination to succeed the passion, if you like to, to be at the top of your game in whichever sport that you're that you're working in. And of course, the ability to be resilient, because there are going to be loads of things that happened to you along the way that that halts your progress. And you've got to be very resilient to come over that and not lose faith in yourself and not lose focus in where you think you're going to be able to, to live at eventually. And to never lose sight of the fact that to get the better keep the people that you're working with on your side, because you certainly don't win things as a as a coach, per se. It's the people you're working with, and who work alongside you who win things for you. You just have to be the person who's orchestrating the band.[PB1]
Paul Barnett 02:26
Roy, I'm intrigued because you became a head coach for the first time at 29, which is relatively young. And I'm wondering, was there an experience earlier in your life that helped prepare you for this role?
02:40
No, not at all. I mean, my entry, if you like into coaching was the same as everybody else's it came off the playing mind came while I actually still was playing, having returned from a spell in South Africa, I was playing, but only on a part time basis here in England. So of course, the chance to go into full time football again, or be it on the coaching side, rather than on the playing side, seem too good of one to miss because, of course, I wasn't leaving that much behind. I was leaving behind the joy of playing. And I wasn't leaving behind a career in playing. So it made that decision fairly easy for me. But no, in fact, it really was a case of getting on the diving board and jumping in. And all I had to help me was the help that I had from the English football association with the coaching badges and on which were really designed at the time to try and make sure that you had some idea what you needed to do standing in front of a group of players and what sort of tactical things and you should be promoting and what sort of, I suppose rules and advice you should be following in terms of setting up and preparing your training sessions before you carry them out.
Paul Barnett 03:59
Roi. There's been many times in your career where you've had instant success, there's most notably Hampstead, there's Fulham, Switzerland. And it happened again at fc Copenhagen. And I'm wondering what this has taught you about the barriers that prevent teams from actually reaching their potential?
04:16
Well, I think instant success is something which you can't really plan for or prepare for that. So you can only hope for what you can prepare for is to be ready to do the job as you think it should be done. To give yourself the best possible chances you start your first day in the job in, in allowing for the possibility at least that if these players you know get on board with me and I'm able to sell my ideas to them and able to bring them along with me and we have the rubber the green in terms of where we happen to be visa vie the other teams in our competition, we might get some success, so you can't really prepare for instant success. instant success is something which of course is very, very useful. because it gives you that little bit of a platform and a breathing space, because the worst thing that can happen for a young coach who I'm sure has done all the sort of things that I did, and probably more to prepare for his first job, if he goes in, and for various reasons, you know, he can't unfortunately, bring the team that he's been asked to coach with him and get success with them, then, of course, that can lead to failure. And that can lead to great difficulties in getting back into work again. And we see that all the time here in England, where it is very, very cutthroat and you don't get many chances, and one should never forget. And quite often, you know, when you when you take over jobs, we're talking about serious level of professional football, you aren't actually working necessarily with the players that you've chosen, you know, you're working very much with a group of players who perhaps quite often have failed or maybe failed quite miserably. That's why you've been offered to take over the job from the the poor guy who's not succeeding with your than expected to succeed within. That, of course, isn't always possible, because unfortunately, it doesn't matter how good a coach you are, how good a leader you, unless you have the level of player that's gonna give you a chance to compete at the level you're working at is going to be very, very difficult for you. Because we all know that it's it's players that we've met years and coaches that lose them,
Paul Barnett 06:25
you're actually quite humbled their ROI because there's numerous examples in your coaching history of taking teams with smaller budgets and resources, and competing successfully against bigger more resourced opponents. And for many people listening, this is a challenge we face every day. And I'm curious, what have you learned about competing from the position of underdog?
06:49
Well, I think the first thing you need to we understand there is that unless you are tactically every bit as good, if not superior, to the better team that you're playing, then you won't have any chance at all, because if you really just decide, we're gonna go out there in the old Bayern Munich of the the late 70s. And early 80s days playing man to man all over the field with a lever behind and winning every game because they were 11 was so much better than the other 11, when they came, came across the idea of playing man to man, let's test it out, is your man better than our man, and he obviously wasn't those days of long past. And we've all accepted now that even the weaker teams if they organize themselves, and if they have a good game plan, and if tactically they really do understand what they're doing, and they, they know exactly what they've got to do in order to limit the the strengths of the opposition, you know, some success is possible. Often, of course, it's limited. Because unfortunately, at the end of the day, that the quality of the opposition, the quality of our players will probably wear you down and make sure that you don't reach the very heights with it.
But preparation and making certain that you've really done everything you can to prepare the team for the game that's going to be played. And every player really does know what is expected from him. And it's not just a question of what you as a coach expect from him is what his teammates expect from him. Because if you, you work on tactics as a team, and you're working every day with sessions and practices in training, and everyone's saying, you know, when, when you're preaching, if you like what you think needs to be done, everybody sees it.
So you see what, even if it might not be your position, you see what the guy alongside you is being asked to do for the team. So really, until you get to a situation, hopefully, we're, each one of the members in the team has got a clear idea of what's needed when we've got the ball and when we haven't got the ball, because that's really all the game is it's a question of what you do with it and what you do when you don't have it. And of course, the better you become in those two areas, the more chance you will have I suppose of getting a team, which is at least hard to beat. Because I think that's probably what you have to accept that if you're competing in a competition where the players that you've got perhaps aren't quite as good as many of the other teams around you, then you've got to make certain that these two are going to be very competitive. And that becomes first of all becoming hard to beat before you start taking them on toe to toe. Because toe to toe probably means that they're 11 will beat yours because they're better quality individuals.[PB2]
Paul Barnett 09:39
Roy if I've got my math, right, it's 21 teams over 46 years that you've led. And I'm wondering, what if anything has changed when it comes to the art of people leadership over that journey?
09:54
cultures change, that's the big that's the big difference. I think I mean 46 years ago in the 90s He was 76, January 1976, when I stepped into the job at Homestead and move to Sweden, which was quite a quite a bold move, as you say, I was 28 and a half years old. So it was quite a big step. The world was a different place in terms of the culture and the way young people were at that time for style, there was no social media, there wasn't that sort of pressure on everybody, which is a major pressure that everyone faces today, it was quite simply a case of journalists and often local journalists with him, quite often you could forge a relationship with Him, the players had a relationship. So I think the major difference in the last six years will be the culture and the pressure that that puts upon players and of course, the game itself, if anything has become more mass mediatized.
And in particular, with the with the television companies, you know, if I talk about here in England, you know, the advent of sky and then follow up by BT Sport. And in other countries, you've got the canal plus and all the other, you know, big companies, often, often subsidiaries, sometimes other big companies, they've, they've put so much money into the sport, there's so much televising and so much interest generating that, of course, that that makes the pressure greater because very few games or football these days at any level. They wouldn't be played without, without the scrutiny of the general public and with quite a few critical people who are analyzing the game. So that's something which people have got to live with. And you as a coach have got to live with it as well, but you live with it in a in a double wave to some extent, you live with your own scrutiny, of course, and the pressure that comes with that, and the pressure that you put upon yourself to try and do well with the team. But of course, you've always got to be aware of all the pressures and the the problems that the players that you're working with are suffering and keep a very, very close eye on that. [PB3]
So I think mainly, the main difference in in terms of people, people are people and people have been people with their human qualities and their foibles, for as far back as we care to remember. But I think the major difference now is, is making certain that you're aware of the environment that you're dealing with, because the environment has definitely changed a lot in that 46 years. And I would say it's probably become a bit harder today, not least of all, in terms of you know what contracts are worth playing players who sign contracts, but you can never be 100% Certain they're going to be honoring them, because they'll have agents trying to move them away. And all of these types of things they add to the management pressure every day, because it's all part of your world. But it's not part perhaps of the world that I really went into in 1976, where it was a group of players playing in a league, you know, where we weren't capable of competing? And really, and truly it was a question of well, How good can we be how well organized, can we how can we maximize what we've got some algorithms visa vie the others if we want success. And of course, you had to look after the pleasure to get a relationship with Him, you had to take care of them, you had to make certain that you were doing things that they thought were worthwhile. All of those obvious factors that a coach, any coach any sport, even the Father, taking his 10 year old son's team has to think about that top top level, top professional level today. So many other factors have started to play upon. Today's coach a top level has to be a much more rounded figure, and much more intelligent figure, I think I'm certainly a much more resilient than I certainly had to be in 1976 when I when I embarked on my on my career. Roy, I
Paul Barnett 14:05
had this great quote from you and I'd like to read it to you before I ask you the question. You say people will respect knowledge, but only for so long. Everybody needs that feeling that their loved, supported and wanted. And they're really strong words. And I was wondering, is there an example you can share? Were creating this feeling of being loved, supported unwanted, led to improved performance?
14:30
No, it's such a global comment. I think comments really based on the fact that the
there's no doubt that people skills are important in all walks of life. And I think there is evidence in obvious than one walk of life where you're going to have some need of people skills if you decide to take on the job as a professional coach dealing with professional players in an environment where successes is vital, and if it doesn't come it will lead to failure not only for you, but also for the players you're working with. So I think people skills are important. And I suppose what I'm referring to there is, is the fact that sometimes we can ignore those people skills we can. And I was probably referring to the the debate that sort of once raised about whether leaders should be should be dominant, almost dictatorial figures, or whether they should be more Ivanka, I think I was referring probably, with that, quote, to that debater, also refer to, you know, lots of studies in America, which prove that, you know, the fact that if, if you can engender an environment where the players or the people you're working with, actually quite liked you and appreciate that you're a good human being who is trying to do his best in the job he's doing, while taking into account, the feelings of the people he's working with, that's got to be an advantage, I think it's a pretty obvious thing to say. And it's one of those no brainer things that really we can quite easily accept. When we see it on paper, the only problem is, it's not always that easy to to put it into the practice of the daily working environment. Because once again, all of those human qualities, or foibles or weaknesses that you have, are always going to be there on display. So it's a constant fight, to some extent to make certain that you are on top of yourself, and that you're not really forgetting leadership principles in various moments, because you're carried away possibly by what's going on around you in the media world and in the world of your club. [PB4]
You know, dealing with failure in moments in time is not an easy thing for anyone to deal with. And you have to be careful, I think if you're a leader that you don't allow personal disappointments or personal failures to start ensuring that you see the players you're working with in a different light and you start treating them in a different way, you've got to try to be fairly consistent in that area[PB5] . So I would guess that's what I was referring to. Well, I don't remember the quote, I don't have a book of quotes. And I'm always worried when someone says to me, I've got a quote here from you, or was really concerned that it might not come from Me in the first place?
Paul Barnett 17:29
Well, I hope that one was okay, Roy, knowing a little bit about you, given the research I had to do today, I'm fairly sure that that quote is consistent with your philosophy over over many, many years. But can I just go back a little bit because you talk a lot about feelings. You talk about cutthroat, you talk about resilience, and there's one part of the story where a lot of this comes to bear. And that was, of course, when you were in England, under your leadership, the team rose to be third in the world under the FIFA World Rankings. And that was their highest ever position since the rankings were introduced in 1992. But this didn't translate into tournament success. And I'm curious to know, what did you learn about dealing with high pressure situations through this experience with England?
18:14
Well, all jobs shape you there's no doubt about that. And certainly, failure at a high level definitely shapes you. And it was a massive disappointment both both in Brazil and in farms, where we believe that our preparation for the two tournaments was good, and that we were very, you know, we had the we had the players, we thought that we were what I call teams hit by some quite nasty injuries in both tournaments. But I suppose that will be par for the course I don't think we were the only team to suffer that. So when the failure comes along, and you don't get as far the tournaments as you think you should go or get and go as far as you think you're capable of going, it becomes a very difficult thing to deal with. So there's no doubt lots of lessons that are learned. I think it was very difficult to pin down what you personally or I personally in that situation could could have done about it. I don't I don't think there were spectacular failures in the way we we went about our work. There's no doubt that tournaments in the summer for England have always proved quite difficult. It's not the best time after long Premier League season. But it's too easy, I think to blame those things. There could even be an argument that you know, we we actually not positive the players, but we were perhaps too generous in our approach towards them or a we were we were pretty faithful to you know, a group of players and a goddess there. So there was a lot of loyalty where maybe some of that loyalty was misplaced. And there was certainly a situation whereby we were constantly in encouraging them to believe in themselves and express themselves and to have no fear. They're not to be concerned about anything going into the game, because we knew that we were well prepared, and we knew we had the quality of player. So, you know, just go out there and make certain that you do the things that you've all agreed on the right things to do, perhaps we could have been a little bit more aggressive with them at certain times, you know. So I would say that that could have been a failing on my side and on the staff side. But if it was a failure, it's a failing in the right direction, because I don't think that adopting a more bullish and aggressive approach to trying to threaten people into giving performance would have worked either to be perfectly honest. So I'm not certainly it would have made a difference. But you're looking back, I suppose. Afterwards, on reflection, there wasn't an element where perhaps a stamping of the foot would have been more valuable than the arm around the shoulder and the trying to encourage people to believe in themselves still, because we thought they had the ability to do the job.
Paul Barnett 21:20
Roy, I've heard you talk about this wonderful idea of being a perfectionist without being perfect on multiple occasions, and outside of sport, and many leaders talk about finding this line between good enough and perfect all the time. What advice do you have on finding this balance?
21:39
Well, I mean, the first thing is, I think, the pinnacle, understand that they have a life outside of their professional life. And if you're not careful, the the search for perfection can make people obsessive and obsessive people can often then become very difficult people to live with. And it might not help them in other areas of their life. I think to some extent, all of us who had long careers in one particular area I sport in the area we're talking about, but it could just as easily be the same in other areas of life that I don't know so much about politics, for example, would be an example, I imagine people could become equally obsessive about you know, their career and what they're doing going forward. I think we have to be very careful that we don't alienate ourselves from the real world, the world that people live in the world that we we live in ourselves, that goes but the world, the people we're working with living. So I think the it's a dangerous go, perfectionism. Because, you know, we, we should really replace the idea of having perfectionism as a goal, and replace it with maintaining the highest of standards and setting the highest standards, not only for your team, but for yourself. And for really making certain that when you do look in that mirror when you when you go to bed at night, and you can ask yourself the question, well, am I actually doing what's required? Am I Am I living up to what I think is needed? In this particular job I might doing? Well, I think I've always proclaimed and preached, I should be doing with regard to running this football team. And in my case, I think if you can normally answer those questions, if you're an honest person, then get an answer. Yes, you know, I'm basically doing what I what I can do. Now, I think that might be the moment to lay your head on the pillow and try to get some sleep because otherwise the the danger is that obsession for perfectionism is going to turn you into a very different person, to the person that you first were and the person who first succeeded in his job. [PB6]
And maybe I remember quite early on the first time I was asked him to give leadership talks. He was in Sweden during the Maumee years. I mean, you ever mentioned my Well, that was probably the most successful period of all five, five years winning the league in a row and they just won the league without a boo in the second division the year before. So it was six, six league wins in a row for it. And I was invited to give these talks as it's now very popular. Of course, your podcast is an example. You know, to people even outside of and, you know, it was about how to build a winning team and, you know, what's important to you in in leadership terms, and I've never given it a thought, quite frankly, I've never given the actual subject of leadership, thought I've given coaching, a lot of thought to what needed to be done coaching. But most of my most of my work really was so focused on the actual coaching the preparation of the team, the tactical side of making certain that people really understood their roles and really got together as a team. I think I might, I might have done some quite good things on a leadership on the leadership side, but they were done in a climate really of being unaware. And I even remember thinking, I need to be careful here, because if I'm not careful, I'm gonna start overthinking things too much here, because things are going so well. And everything seems to be moving along quite swimmingly. And I'm not actually burdening myself too much with leadership principles and leadership thoughts, maybe I should, I should just keep leaving in order chance and hoping that some way I'm going to, I'm going to blend them my way through. So even that's an obviously very exaggerated thoughts going back around me. And perhaps I'm even over exaggerating with the lack of
26:06
knowledge I had on the leadership side. But there's no doubt that you can, if you're not careful, you can, you can make things a lot more complicated than they need to be. And most importantly, you can make yourself a very, very different person. I think we all do. I first got some ideas on the leadership side, really from the American butcher, the American, the American, in particularly, the American football and the American Basketball Coaches, we wrote very, very good books about about leadership. And I really started to put putting a lot of things on paper, which I actually understood, and probably a lot of the time, could actually say, well, actually, that's what I've been doing. I've been actually following those principles. But I hadn't been particularly aware of them in in those intellectual terms, it just been so which maybe fortunately, came fairly natural to me at an early point in my career.
Paul Barnett 27:03
Well, Roy, you've been very generous with your time today. And I know, the gym is calling. So perhaps just one final question. There's been talk in the press that, that you're hanging up the whistle, that you're going to stop coaching, I don't know whether that's your intention or not. But if it is the case, or even if it is years into the future, before you retire, what is the legacy that you hope you've left behind you had all these wonderful clubs and with all these people that you've interacted with,
27:32
I think the people that are most important to coaches are people who really have have sort of dedicated their, their working life to the coaching side, rather than the other side. You know, they are the famous Italian expression of the, at the time when I worked in Italy, that there are three types of coaches and the coaches have coached the the board of directors and coaches who coached the press, the coaches to coach the players. Well, I've always been very, very firmly in that final category that coaches and coaches will coach the players. So therefore, my legacy, I suppose, will be hopefully, you know, what that body of people I've worked with, over the years thought about my work or about the way I dealt with them, thought about what I was able to present them with,[PB7]
I feel quite comfortable in that respect, because I do seem to receive a lot of a lot of accolades, but certainly a lot of respect from the people in that area. So I think that's the biggest legacy that one should should look out for, because there's no doubt that being recognized by the people you've worked with, or recognized by your peers is, is probably the, the most we can hope for at the end of the day, you know, fame, fame is very easily achieved these days as a celebrity. But, you know, I think it's the deepest seated respect that people might have for you, as someone who knows his job has been able to do his job and has carried out his job. Well, that's the most important thing that I think, I think for me, that's why I'd like to think people will think of me and I'd also like to think they will, except that I've tried to be as dignified as possible in the job as well to try and try and not bring the game into too much disrepute to try and for the, for the, for the non footballing person who watches interviews. I would always like to think that I'm putting over a persona if you like, which they can identify with and then they don't turn the TV off and I think that's what a football manager looks like. I hope my kids never play the game. I mean, they're they're quite important things as well. And that was in particularly important I think, during the ambassadorial stroke coaching role. If I had with the national team, I think that's a very important factor. When you're with a national team, you do have to realize that you're, you're not only representing a nation, you're representing the nation, nation interest in your sport. And of course, if that happens to be football, and you're the manager of England, that's all the zeal, or Germany, where football, you know, our guns, if you like in terms of sports, that's very, very important, you might get away with it less in other countries where football, for example, in Sweden in 1976, football is a big sport always has been. But so it is, okay. So in actual fact, you know, there was a, you could even argue that there were almost parallel interests in those two sports, we've never really had that anything. Football has always been so far and away the number one, even though cricket and tennis and other sports, they aren't important. In a country of 60 million people, we've got enough people here to get interested in everything, but but football is the be all and end all. So I think if you become the England for management, you have to be aware that you know, you're not just representing all these people who love football, they're also representing a nation and how that nation is going to be regarded when people regard that nation's football team, just a little thing, they are an example for us on one of the things that we first the first things we did, and was to make some other players saying the national anthem, when when in now, that wasn't always the case.
31:32
And that wasn't because like some countries, there are people who aren't English or not being bought up in England, and have been sort of roped in from Zealand, given their nationality, you know, for ever, any 11 people lining up at the start of the game for the national anthem, they're all English and have been bought up in England. So it's one of the first things that we that we did. And I mean, now it's taken for granted, when you're going to see a team of England now lining up and not seeing the national anthem. But that wasn't the case in 2012. So little things like that. I think. I'm not saying that made a big difference. I'm saying that it made the players aware that it's not just an honor to represent your country of football, your your sport, the game you love. You've also got a slightly wider responsibility because you know, you're representing your country on the national stage. And if England can be successful and football, it does actually improve the view of people from outside of England as a country.
Paul Barnett 32:40
Well, ROI, respect, recognition, dignity, and if I might add humility. Sounds like a pretty good place for us to finish. Roy. It's been a great honor to spend half an hour with you today. I appreciate you taking time out to chat with us and I wish you all the best for whatever adventures lie ahead. Thank you, Paul.