Values lesson Final V2

Thu, Jun 01, 2023 4:04PM • 27:35

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

coaches, values, great, team, interviews, trust, win, joy, talk, learning, leader, basketball coach, players, athlete, passion, australian cricket team, world, game, behaviors, respect

SPEAKERS

Jan Stirling, Damian McGrath, Brenda Kirkpatrick, Jackie Carson Smith, Tanya Oxtoby, Andy Friend, Lisa Fallon, Pokey Chatman, Thomas Frank, Lisa Alexander, Peter Moores, Sue Enquist, Glee, Conor O'Shea, Mirel Radoi, Valorie Kondos Field, Paul Barnett, Olaf Lange, Simon Jones, Julia Price, Justin Langer, Tim Walsh, Cori Close

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.

Valorie Kondos Field  00:13

How you deal with how to be resilient, how important it is to infuse joy in the process of learning. To be

00:20

a good candidate, you've got to do more than you take. What an interesting way it is to be a leader.

Paul Barnett  00:28

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 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. Today's episode is on the topic of values. And it features audio quotes from a selection of coaches that we have interviewed on the podcast. And just before we go to the episode, if you're a first time listener, you can check out our library of interviews at our website, the great coaches podcast.com. And while you're there, if you'd like to help our podcast which is fully independent and free from ads, you can follow the link to our Patreon page, where we offer exclusive content to our supporters. And now on to the topic of values. The lessons from the great coach's podcast. In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and war came back to Europe. In the aftermath, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, emerged as a leader, reminiscent of other great wartime leaders like Churchill and Eisenhower. He rallied the governments of NATO members with speeches given live from his bunker in Ukraine. And in one address to the US Congress said, today, the Ukrainian people are defending not only Ukraine, we are fighting for the values of Europe and the world, sacrificing our lives in the name of the future. These European values are listed out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and include human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, and human rights. And these words are so important. Such powerful forces of motivation that they are worth dying for. Values are central to many of the great coaches we have interviewed. They described them as being the rallying force behind their teams, the energy which drives their motivation. And in this episode, we explore them in depth, the identification of your personal values, and then using them as the foundation of your approach to leadership is a common theme that emerges in our interviews. Here is the soccer coach, Lisa Fallon,

Lisa Fallon  03:11

I suppose the biggest learning I had was I had to learn about myself to learn about my values, and I had to learn about my strengths and my weaknesses and have an understand myself first, and how do I make the personal improvements before I can tackle other things and bring that into the coaching mix?

Paul Barnett  03:30

The Rugby Sevens coach, Damian McGraw echoes a similar view. As Lisa,

Damian McGrath  03:35

I think values are very important people. So what are your What are your values, and they'll tell you what they are, but you can tell you what they are, but they don't necessarily live them. And yet, if you don't, you can not as a coach, leader, manager move forward. Values are really important, I just think you have to eat underpins everything you do. Because then you can set the culture then you can be that person that creates the environment that people want to be part of

Paul Barnett  04:00

Tanya ox to be coaches in the women's English Premier League in England, and illustrates the point Damian makes by explaining how she coaches from her own values.

Tanya Oxtoby  04:10

So So I coach based on my values, because if players buy into what we're trying to do as a group, and I can help them individually, I think that's where I get my most satisfaction watching them develop. But if we've got players that don't buy in, and all they trample on those values, that's when I start that's when I lose my rag. So for me, it's really, really important that everything that I do comes back to those core values of trust of honesty, and Sue

Paul Barnett  04:39

Enquist, one of the best softball coaches in the world, explains how the great coaches she has made are anchored in their personal values and stay consistent to them through the good times and bad.

Sue Enquist  04:51

I think all those people that you spoke of, are really anchored in their enacted values, I think is a great way to discern a leader that performs over time in their designated title or just in their influence as possibly a mother or father or sister, brother, aunt uncle. Because the leadership in some instances is a title, and in other instances is around influence. And the one thing that all of those have, one thing that they all share is they actually live their values and reach the highest highs and the lowest of lows, and they don't change who they are, despite the conditions that have been thrown at them. That lends to a great environment to be influenced by

Paul Barnett  05:41

the behaviors you exhibit are an expression of your values. And many of the great coaches talk about creating standards around behaviors to help keep the team aligned to their values. Here is cycling coach, Simon Jones.

Simon Jones  05:56

Values are good, they've got a role, but you can't necessarily see them. They're things that you values, we'd rather sort of turn them into more behavioral. So we've got another session coming up a month or so to go back to us. But it's about supporting each other. It's about challenge is about accepting, there's a challenging environment, I think so which just reminds people that if you've not been challenged, or you've not challenged, like someone for a while, you can observe that behavior. Some attain base, some individual based I'm sure the list will grow. But it's more about having conversations about what are the standards and what are the expected behaviors. And I think what often people in high fluence environments, it's not a happy family environment. It's not a family environment, it's really, really supportive, but they often have high levels of challenge as well. So it's getting the balance between a supportive environment but also one which has got lot of checking challenge as well.

Paul Barnett  06:42

Basketball Coach Trebek Gleason, also identified the link between values and behaviors, and talked about how your behaviors as the leader, influence others.

Glee  06:52

Well, the first thing is for a leader who values and your behaviors every day, it's, it's not about do what I say it's about what you do. And it's like, if I say, we want to be the hardest working team here, and I get into the office last in the office and first out the door, am I really doing the things that I'm saying we have a pretty strong work ethic here and guys get in early because they want to improve. And if I'm taking shortcuts, that's noticed by everybody. So we follow through with the values and behaviors that we do out of the culture is done every day. It's not one off and and taking shortcuts.

Paul Barnett  07:30

Thomas Frank is a Danish football coach leading Brentford in the English Premier League. He builds on Trevor Gleason's ideas by saying that the team's play on the pitch is an expression of the coaches values. And he talked to us about the pillars that describe the values he's looking for in the team.

Thomas Frank  07:49

I think when you see a team play, I think a lot of the time, it's the good picture of how, what a person what kind of values the coach has. So I'm speaking always about four pillars, and one of them a hard work. I think we all know, in these great performances, and these top teams or top athletes, none of them have achieved anything without hard work. So it's a basic pillar. But sometimes players or coaches don't know what hard work is, I think that it's very different opinion of how much is hard work. But hard work is a big thing. Second thing is performance. And I would say that, everything you do every single day is about a good performance. So performance out and training, linked with the hard work, they put a good performance in into the into the game, everything is linked on that. And then under the performance, you can focus on different aspects of the style of play. We've always very much of the builder play or the high pressing, but it's everything about putting a good performance out there, then I think it's crucial that we talk about attitude. And attitude is for me, is that you are confident, I don't think you can achieve anything as an athlete coach, anything a football player, without being confident, but you need to be humble. So I love that you are very much confident in your own abilities and your own strength. But also you need to be humble, but it goes a big world out there. And there's a lot of task ahead or struggles that you need to overcome. And the final bit is togetherness. You can't achieve anything alone. I think if you want to achieve anything quick, you can go alone. But if you want to achieve anything big, you need to go together. And I always value my players performance in terms of what they give themselves but also how much they give to their teammates or the team. And is that oral performance that is the one I read. Hi.

Paul Barnett  09:51

A word of caution though, came from the rugby coach Andy friend who experienced negative results from trying to push his values onto the Team.

Andy Friend  10:00

Yeah, and it was a great lesson. It was a, it was a tough lesson because I'm gonna lose your job. But there was a lot of things transpired in me losing my job there. But as I said, I definitely as a young coach, I came in and I said, here's, here's what I believe are the five key values we should live and they're good values, the issue was already friend, friends values, they weren't the values of the team. So my great learn out of that, I'm still very values driven, I still have my own values, but I don't try and enforce them upon a group. It has to be the group that finds its own way. And what tends to happen is the group, if you're the leader of the group, and you live the values that you talk about, that comes through in everything you do, so they pick up on that people that are smart, I work that out, so you don't actually have to verbalize them.

Paul Barnett  10:48

The consensus is that values need to be co created with the team. They need to be representative of how the team aspires to be seen. And to be authentic, must be consistent with the history of the organization and the other groups within it. Here is the rugby coach Connor O'Shea explaining how they created team values at harlequins. Well, we

Conor O'Shea  11:09

sat down and this goes back again and highly with harlequins with the players and I went in there in 2010. And we sat down as a group and said, you know, what do you want out of the game, they talked about values, they also talked about how they wanted to play the game, and the how they wanted to play the game. So they wanted to play with tempo, they wanted to be ruthless, they wanted to be unpredictable, and how they played their big one enjoyment, that funny little acronym came out to be true. And they said, we just want to be true to our values, true tempo, ruthless, unpredictable, enjoyment, and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy it. Now. People sometimes say enjoyment doesn't mean you want to win, rubbish. Like you want to win every single time you lace a boot and play, whether it be tiddlywinks, or whether it be a game of rugby at the very highest level or the game of golf against your best mate, you want to win that's inbred and people. But if you don't enjoy what you do, you're not going to be successful.

Paul Barnett  12:01

Justin Langer was the coach of the Australian cricket team that won the T 20 World Cup, and the ashes against traditional rivals England, he was also a successful player for Australia. And here, he talks about the values of the team,

Justin Langer  12:14

we're going to develop you as a great cricketer, a great person. And we're going to live by these five values. They're not my values, they have values that I've learned in 25 years, I've been involved in Australian cricket, professionalism, because I've never met anyone who's great in sport, who isn't an elite professional, we're going to have honesty, and we're going to have honest conversations and they had their buddy had, I still get nervous, I'm going to I'm going to tell a guy later today, he's not playing tomorrow, and I still get nervous. And even though I do it every single day, so they're hard, they're hard. And you've got to be honest content. And the other thing about honesty is that sometimes whilst being honest to other people is tough. You've got to be meticulously honest with yourself. You have to be honest with yourself and the man in the mirror and your conscience and all this sort of stuff. But so professionalism, honesty, learning, as long as I've been involved in the Australian cricket team, we've had this catch cry, as long as you get up every day looking to get better, you and we can get better. And we used to say that we have been, we won 16 Straight Test matches at one point. And we kept saying, as long as you get up every day looking to get better, we can even get better and the rest of the world is going across what better than yesterday. And yeah, and that's what we believed in. So that was the third one humility, or that most of the great cheer 98. So the great champions, I know, a really humble good people. And that's what gets back to the great people bit. Because a doesn't what I've learned in Australia, we could win every single game. But before we carry on, like knobs, Australians don't like us anyway. So you've got and I believe you can have both you can have, you can be a great performing team. And a very likeable team. You can have both. And the last one is that concept of mate ship, we're going to do this together. Why not? Me, we've got to be doing this all together.

Paul Barnett  14:07

We have also interviewed coaches who have created acronyms to describe the values they weren't within the team. Here's the basketball coach, Jackie Carson Smith.

Jackie Carson Smith  14:17

So when I was trying to think of what my program stood for, and what I stood for, it was like, I don't want to be like anybody else. I don't want to be like this program in recruiting, we constantly have to sell why we're different. And so kind of be distinct is what everything is stands for. It is exactly what I live by. So, but the word distinct is an acronym and then we have a discipline. We have integrity, selflessness, trust. It can be trust or together I switch those up. Depending on what I'm talking about there girls, intensity, no excuses, commitment, and trust.

Paul Barnett  14:51

When it comes to keeping consistency within the group on these values, camaraderie or fun is often called out as being vital here. He's Justin Langer again,

Justin Langer  15:01

always, I've always says a player that the camaraderie within a group is like the glue that keeps everything together, particularly when the pressure comes on. And that's something that we have always thought about as being an Australian. And it's, it's something I hope we never ever lose that whole feeling that helps in life, but and it helps certainly in a sporting team. And on the flip side of that, if you get cracks in that, you quickly get exposed. The focus of

Paul Barnett  15:31

your team's values is on both aligning behavior, and building a sense of trust. The idea of trust comes up time and time again, in our interviews, as being the foundation for the environment you are trying to create as the leader. Here is gold medal winning Rugby Sevens coach, Tim Walsh,

Tim Walsh  15:48

I think those those espouse value in the middle where you can you can adapt to and, and bring on but ultimately, on the foundation of who you are, isn't really isn't really going to going to change. And it is it's ultimately it's time first is like, what can you do that's going to make this team better. And that's probably the biggest the biggest one. But then within the boundaries of that are obviously respect and ethics and all that kind of stuff. But team first, but without any of all that stuff, you got to have the trust to be able to deliver that,

Paul Barnett  16:24

once trust has been established, values are able to take root. And through the interviews we have done, there are five values that are mentioned more than others. The first is respect. Here is the coach of the Romanian national football team morale ROI.

Mirel Radoi  16:39

So we start to educate from the youngest one that should give respect, you cannot be respected if you don't give respect from the others. So when we speak for when you speak about the respect, first thing that they should know, it's whatever who eats inside to have one room, you have to go there and say hello, from there, we start to speak about respect. Respect for me is not only that, while our teacher or our parents learning, respect, it's to respect your enemy, you cannot go inside of the game and to kick one of your opponent without the ball, you cannot go with the elbow, you cannot go to punch someone. It's also the out in our philosophy. It's also about respect

Paul Barnett  17:23

pedimos coach, the English cricket team. But before that, he led Sussex to the county championship. And here he talks about the role that respect had in helping that team win the championship.

Peter Moores  17:35

I think the year before that, we finished bottom of the Second Division, and we've had a terrible end to the season, we've done pretty well halfway through, we suddenly train smashed after that we weren't in the dressing room. And at the end of the season. So we all had a few drinks and we sat there. And something really special happened for me in that we sort of made a promise to each other that we weren't going to play to win a trophy the following year, we're going to play to win Respect, respect of our fellow proud of each other and how we went about it and how we worked. And that to me became one of those moments whereby suddenly, we started to do better because the winter was filled around. Don't think about the outcome. Let's just work to improve.

Paul Barnett  18:17

The second value we often hear mentioned his passion. Here is World Championship Winning Australian basketball coach, John Sterling.

Jan Stirling  18:26

So when you talk to me about the value words of being trust, being accountable, what about having trust, it's about being trustworthy, to do what you're meant to do, when you're not being watched. So there's if you know those core values, but the biggest one I think you see, you can't go past passion, or you just can't go past. So anyone who's successful you talk to any successful person in general, most people say they're really passionate about what they do. And so that's a big one for me. What you don't want is an athlete who is told well you're you know, you're simple to you need to be a basketball player, but they have no real passion or desire to be that. So they certainly need to be passionate about what they do.

Paul Barnett  19:10

And Europa League winning basketball coach, all left Langer.

Olaf Lange  19:14

One key factor for that was is that we didn't over practice, the European Cup practice culture at this time was two days, two days, two days, which pretty much kills any passion you have for the game because it becomes so, so monotonous from practice to practice that there is no passion so well, we did. We practice less, but more intense, and the players really picked up on that because their passion came back that competitive nature came back to it and we really excel.

Paul Barnett  19:45

The third value that is most mentioned by our interview guests, is a growth mindset. Hear his basketball coach, pokey Chapman,

Pokey Chatman  19:54

and I will say this as you move up the ladder when you're coaching 10 year olds, you're talking about commitment and pay Passion and discipline and all those things and you're teaching them but as you move up the ladder, from college to pros, it gets a little bit more refined. And I think in terms of and this is what people always laugh at, I said, it really is about the people. It really is about a growth mindset.

Paul Barnett  20:18

Cory close coaches, the UCLA basketball team. And she also talked to us about the importance of a growth mindset.

Cori Close  20:27

So I said, growth, mindset, gratitude and being lifestyle givers, I just believe that you wake up every day. And I actually made a speech about this in my high school graduation. And I still believe that I'm turning 50 this year. And I still believe it to this day, just like I did when I was 18 years old, that every day, we have a chance when we wake up to look at the world through the lens of what can I give? Or what can I get? And it's a choice you have to make. Because I think we were are all pretty selfish humans left to our own devices. But I think the reality is, is that purpose and depth and contentment come from looking at the world through that lens of what can I get, how can I invest in someone else,

Paul Barnett  21:08

the value of integrity, was also referenced frequently by our guests. Here is elite cricketer. And now coach Julia price

Julia Price  21:17

works that integrity, you know, so that girls know that you know what I say, what I'll do, I'll actually do and go through it, I know that there's a trust element as well there. You know, if they are having difficulties away from the game, that they can come to me and understand that it's you know, it's a conversation that we can have, it's, you know, there's, they might not get the outcome that they want, but at least I know that they can have a conversation with me, and it will be a fairly open and honest one,

Paul Barnett  21:39

here is Brenda Kirkpatrick Brown. Also talking about integrity, I think the

Brenda Kirkpatrick  21:44

integrity of your word is critical. the accountability piece that I spoke about earlier, that is a connecting, everybody understands whether they admit it or not, that we all have faults and flaws. That's just in our nature. And so the more we're able to communicate that the relatability I believe is got to be there. Of course, you're gonna relate on different levels to different kids and different staff members at different times, for different reasons. But I think both of those things have to be there. In terms of the non negotiables, honesty and straightforwardness. Your everyday living has to be there as a coach.

Paul Barnett  22:21

The final value we wanted to highlight in this episode is joy. This is one that the great coaches speak about frequently in the context of helping cement the team culture, but also to help counterbalance the daily grind that is required when you aspire to excellence. Here is gymnastics coach Valorie Kondos field,

Valorie Kondos Field  22:42

I believe I learned about the power of joy, bringing it into my coaching, when I started realizing it was important to develop relationships with my athletes is when the joy started being infused. And I'm not saying relationship as we're best friends as we go out to lunch and shopping. That's for their friends to do. I'm talking about the relationship of I know them more than just as an athlete. So if we were in my office, and I was asking them an open ended question, how are you doing today? 99.9% of the time the student athlete would respond about how she did in the gym. And I would say if you want to talk about gymnastics, that's fine. I'll talk about you. That's not what I asked you. But I asked you about you. How are you as a human, the more those relationships developed in that sense, the more trust between the athlete and me there was so when there was friction. When there was a disagreement. We there was still this foundation of a relationship and trust, which is the biggest part of relationship. That's when I was able to help the athlete infuse joy into the process of learning. I had an a wonderful one on one conversation for about an hour with Kobe Bryant. The majority of the talk actually he started by saying he said misspell I don't know whether to thank you are gonna be mad at you because my daughter's have Caitlin Ohashi is flirty and like automatic replay in our house and he says we literally have watched it probably 1000 times that switched to us discussing how important it is to infuse joy in the process of learning and Kobe. I mean we were just so on the same track that understanding that joy is not being happy. Joy is something internal that comes from you doing your absolute best at something. And he said to me says you misspell joy for me was getting up every morning at 430 and putting in two extra workouts before the team ever showed up. Because I got so filled up with joy and pride. added that it really didn't even matter if we lost the game or next game, that nobody can take that away from you. He said, That's my pride in a job well done is what filled me with joy that I was able to bring to everything I did in life.

Paul Barnett  25:18

Perhaps the best way to finish this episode on values is to come back to how we started and ask why are values so important, particularly in sport? I think the best answer to this question is provided by the iconic netball coach Lisa Alexander, who makes the link between the values you learn through high performance sport, and their applicability to leadership in all spheres of life.

Lisa Alexander  25:41

I think it's worked extremely well, I think it's shown the way of how the team can collaboratively work together, how they can work on their leadership skills as people. And this is where I said to them, you know, we should be able to get a prime minister out of you, because you're all at the top of your game and your sport, you're learning about yourself, you're learning how to lead. And, you know, this is what we want you to do. Hopefully, when you go back out there,

Paul Barnett  26:09

we hope you enjoyed our episode on values, and found one or two things you can bring to your own dinner table, locker room, or boardroom table for discussion. The key lessons I've taken away on the topic of values from our interview guests. The starting point for any leader is to identify their personal values and the behaviors that both support and detract from these, then to find the balance between pushing values on the group and working with them to co create values that are representative of your aspirations, and a consistent with the history of the organization. And finally, the importance of cultivating the camaraderie needed to ensure the values are enacted by everyone. Here at the great coaches podcast we are always trying to learn so please let us know if you have any feedback. Just like Doug 73 Who said Great insightful podcast series, and biscuit 11 who said, I just listened to the interview with Tracy Menzies. Having been an elite swimmer myself and now a teacher. I could relate to everything she said. I loved how the questions were phrased. I really enjoyed hearing this story. Thanks, Doug, and Bescot 11 the interaction with the people around the world who 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. And on our website, the great coaches podcast.com