new teams lesson

Tue, May 23, 2023 8:43PM • 29:05

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

team, coach, winning, work, players, listening, talked, years, vision, coaches, organization, culture, championship, explaining, set, change, establish, level, group, engaging

SPEAKERS

Ben Ryan, Thomas Frank, Carrie Graf, Julie Fitzgerald, Joe Prunty, Pokey Chatman, Simon Jones, Salliann Briggs, WV Raman, Briony Akle, Kathy Delaney-Smith, Mark Lebedew, Jim Woolfrey, Tom Ryan, Mark Robinson, Hugh McCutcheon, Slavomir Lener, Paul Barnett, Rod Macqueen, Tim Walsh

Paul Barnett  00:00

Welcome to the lessons from the great coaches podcast.

00:04

I've learned that you don't do it alone, 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

00:20

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

Jim Woolfrey  00:29

Hello, and welcome to the great coaches podcast where we believe there is no algorithm for leadership. And so we interview great sports coaches from around the world, to try and find ideas to help all of us lead our families, our colleagues, and our teams better. As the podcast has grown, the great coaches we've interviewed have shed so much insight and wisdom that we decided to create episodes dedicated entirely to the ideas that have resonated with us the most. Today's episode focuses on starting with new teams. Here at the great coaches podcast, we're working to create one of the world's best leadership libraries from the lessons our interview guests share with us. You can help support our project and get access to the leadership lessons episodes, where we collate insight and wisdom from the great coaches on key topics like culture, vision, or behaviors, as well as other exclusive content by joining our Patreon community. All the details on how you can be part of this journey are in our show notes. And now onto the topic of starting with new teams.

01:42

You're listening to the lessons from the great coaches podcast.

Paul Barnett  01:46

In 1933, America was in the grip of what would come to be known as the Great Depression. It had begun with the Black Thursday stock market crash in October 1929. And it would be a decade until the American GDP returned to the level it was when that crash occurred. But in 1933, things began to turn. And many attribute this change in fortune to the actions the new President Franklin D. Roosevelt took in his first 100 days in office, the new president ushered in a flurry of new legislation and executive orders all aimed at relieving the hardship of the people and stimulating the economy. Not everything he oversaw succeeded. But his bold action inspired hope. And from that sprung new energy that would ultimately propel the country and its economy forward. This frenetic opening to his presidency would become the template that other leaders would aspire to. And it gave rise to the focus on the first 100 days in office for new leaders everywhere. Today, there is a slew of books that will help you prepare for navigate those first 100 days. And in fact, I've been gifted a few of those over the years by managers and friends eager to see me do well in a new role. They have templates to follow and lists of questions to ask, and are in many ways quite different from the more considered approach the great coaches we've interviewed talk about. There is broad agreement from our guests that your first task when starting with a new team is to listen, you do this with the intent of gathering the information that is going to help inform your next steps. And you're listening must appear genuine, if it is to have the added benefit of establishing your authenticity. Here is gold medal winning Rugby Sevens Coach Ben Ryan explaining his view on this.

Ben Ryan  03:42

So when I got there first, I think part of my personality isn't to suddenly shout and scream at people and lay down a marker, it's to gather as much information as I possibly can before he then feel like you've got enough to decide on your next steps and the pace of those next steps and the risk of those next steps. So I went around and listened to people and again, those levels that I've been, I've worked hard on over the last kind of 10 years on my listening skills, not just being at that top level, that's pretty much transactional. You're listening to you just so I can answer your question. But listening to try to understand and then get to that third level where people really think in the relationships you've got with them that they you care about them, and it matters. And you remember things that makes them feel the other parts of psychological safety, like purpose and belief and their status and their achievements are getting recognized and they feel like they've got control. They've got some autonomy in what we're doing.

Paul Barnett  04:42

Basketball Coach Joe Prunty, who has worked under the iconic Gregg Popovich takes this further by explaining how deep listening when you start with a new team will allow you to understand the philosophies that shape the culture of the team. And this is a critical step before you try and insert Get yourself into that new culture.

Joe Prunty  05:03

But there's a few things but I'll, I guess I'll break it into two categories, there's the professional side of it, I try to listen and learn as much as I can from all the people that are available to me early on. And most of the time, when you're arriving, it's well, it depends on when you arrive to a new team, but meaning the time of year, if it's the middle of the summer or early summer, sometimes you're just getting acclimated with the coaching staff and some of the other people in the front office. But really, just try and listen and learn to what the philosophies are what people are working towards, what are the goals, what are we going to build, but just trying to improve myself on sort of what the overall system is not the coaching system, but what the philosophy of the entire organization is. And just, I don't want to say not interject myself into it, but just listen to what people are saying. So I can figure out where are we going, you know, study, film study, watching previous games, but really getting into the nuts and bolts of what some of the players, their tendencies are, how they played what they did, looking at numbers, the analytical side of it, but just trying to figure out, you know, it's kind of goes into that listening to what people are talking about, and where we're going and philosophically what we're trying to do. But it's also now trying to dive into the visual part of it, or the analytical part of it and study and get to know things. And so it's really sort of a GET TO KNOW process for me professionally, in terms of most people that I've gotten to work with, I've had some idea of who they are. But till you work with someone, you don't really know what they're about. Then I also from a professional standpoint, just want to establish the level of consistency with myself like how I am and what I do, and every morning, always come in with the mindset of working hard, and I get it. Some people have tough days. So it's not as easy but still saying good morning, every day, kind of get ready for the grind and being what I would deem like I said, this is the professional side of it, but being professional.

Paul Barnett  07:10

In order to listen well though, you need to invite people to talk. And you achieve this through asking questions. One terrific example of a question to ask is, what do people expect of you? In this example, the coach of the Indian Women's cricket team explains how he used this technique.

WV Raman  07:28

I try to us the players as to what it is they want me to do, what is it that they expect of me? And what is it that they want me to bring into the team? Because it is very important to know, what is it that players want to do? Where is it that they want to go?

Paul Barnett  07:47

As you begin the process of listening and engaging the organization, make sure that you do so in the words of basketball coach pokey Chatman, from top to bottom. This will allow you to calibrate what you're hearing across the many tiers within the organization or group.

Pokey Chatman  08:05

And I think what aided me initially was I engaged the entire organization, top to bottom to find out from those people who were experts in their craft and their roles. And it was more about me learning their area in them. And that proved to be so huge, because it never been done before. You know, it was all these different factions. And I just believe in in total team concept of everything from sports, to family to life, in business. And I think that initial thing, because then people wanted to help more, they felt a part of it. And obviously, I have to evaluate the team, but those individual players the same way. Because what's really hard when you're stepping in is you don't want noise from a media clip or an article to define these players that you're coming into this organization with. I wanted them to have a clean slate that just wasn't stats, because there's always something behind that.

Paul Barnett  09:04

These first conversations are also a critical step towards building the trust you will need when it comes to the latest steps of articulating the vision you have for the team and outlining the tasks required for everyone to achieve it. The Cricket coach Sally and Briggs put this eloquently when she spoke to us about winning hearts and minds in the first six months with a new team.

Salliann Briggs  09:26

And the thing that really stood out to us and it sounds a bit cliche was about winning hearts and minds. And I stuck with that for six months because it meant that I had those conversations with all the right people that I needed to. And it wasn't just within the team either because we've got a finance department, we've got commercial department and need to know that CEO. So I use that as a kind of little mantra and a little checklist of over the first six months is like I've got to build these relationships and build this trust and actually works quite closely with that personal development manager In around building that safe environment, and that vulnerability, that ace for the girls, so we can work better together, and being more on board with what we were trying to do. So yeah, the key thing was direction, winning over those hearts and lives in the building that have strong relationships and that trust within that. And then just making sure I work bloody hard in that first initial so that the girls know that whatever that I asked them to do, I was gonna give him twice as much.

Paul Barnett  10:28

In parallel to listening to everyone, you must assess your staff to ensure you have the right people around you. Here is wrestling coach Tom Ryan, explaining his view on this. However, from my own experience, I would call out not being too quick to let go of existing staff, particularly if they are long serving and well liked. This is a balance that you need to approach with care in order to not alienate the people whose trust you are looking to win.

Tom Ryan  10:56

I would say so the first thing that we did was, I made sure that I surrounded myself with the best staff and the best people. You know, not necessarily all of them were great wrestlers, but but I was looking for, like men of character, right man who through the years, I knew their work ethic, right and the type of people they are.

Paul Barnett  11:16

One interesting idea that resonated with me was also being clear when you hire staff, that there will be a succession plan. Even if you haven't had time to yet plan it out. This was something that will Cup winning rugby union coach rod McQueen talked about, and gave the example of how he did this with one of his teams.

Rod Macqueen  11:35

Once again, we put together a pretty solid business plan as to what it was all about. We talked about now how are we going to go about things had a succession plan in place? Again, from day one, I think we had a two year plan would have been the first thing I'll put on that the business plan for the brand is

Paul Barnett  11:54

in the early days, when you are listening and engaging the organization, there will be the temptation to offer your viewpoint. This can be amplified when you join a team that is already successful, and you are trying to find a way that you can add value to what is already in place. The netball coach Julie Fitzpatrick, reflected with us on a time where she had made this mistake.

Julie Fitzgerald  12:17

I think I learned a lot with this when I went to magic in New Zealand, they were a very established franchise, they were going through a massive change when I got there, but they were a very established franchise and I look back on it now and think Maybe I was too eager to impose things upon them that I felt they needed. I think sometimes you need to sit back and have a good look at how it's all running, understand what they value. Have a good look and see if everyone in the organization is living to those standards and believes in them. Give yourself time to work out if changes needed, how drastic it needs to be, is it just a rotten culture that does need throwing out and starting again or other some really good things in there that you may not have noticed if you've gone into Ganga.

Paul Barnett  12:58

As you gather information in those early days, you can start creating a sketch of the environment and its strengths and weaknesses. The gold medal winning Rugby Sevens Coach Tim Walsh calls this an audit. And he explains here how he uses this to form the basis of the point of difference he hopes his team will have a good tool to help you with this is the culture whip developed by Johnson and Scholes in 1992. And I'll put a link to it in the show notes.

Tim Walsh  13:28

Definitely take a look at your all the different factors, you know the SWOT analysis, the environment in which you're operating in, but don't take someone else's plan or style and just plug it into into yours. Because you might have different players, different ages, different experiences different maturity. So you do have to do and you can use a lot of statistical data and all that kind of stuff. So audit it in all different aspects, from politics, to playing styles to what you what you can have. So it's analyze what you have or can have, and then develop a point of difference around that. And then then you develop it so you get a competitive advantage. And then you build your behaviors around that vision.

Paul Barnett  14:13

As you're putting together this sketch of the organization, you will find areas that need to be developed, that may not be something you have experienced with a good way of addressing this was outlined by Kathy Delaney Smith, who coached the Harvard women's basketball team for 42 years.

Kathy Delaney-Smith  14:31

So when I got the job, I understood the kind of student athlete I was going to get at Harvard there. It wasn't very strong. And so I knew I was gonna have the greatest minds in the world, but I didn't I wasn't gonna have the tallest or the quickest players. So my first thing I did was read every science psychology book I could get my hands on I took a meditation class with Jon Kabat Zinn, who is the guru of meditation and mind And so that's what I started with at Harvard. I mean, that's what I worked on. And not everyone doing the punch, like, you talk to some of my athletes in the early days. And there's all kinds of jokes about what we did. And all the training I tried to implement, you know, a lot by act, it was, they were my big experiment. So, we did work on training the mind. That was number one, number two, recruiting matters. So I had to make sure I could recruit players that were talented enough to win, and I was lucky enough to be able to do that. And then three, I think creating a culture takes a little time and three years is about how long it takes and the culture was in place. And we thought like an acted like winners.

Paul Barnett  15:48

With your base of understanding in place, you are then in a position to start outlining the vision you have for the team or organization, this becomes the exciting part as you start challenging the expectations people have of themselves. And what is possible, here is volleyball coach, Mark Lebu, talking about his experience with this.

Mark Lebedew  16:07

But what I found, firstly, was that the club, the team, at least had a kind of, and this is common in professional sport, at least in volleyball in a, we'll do our best and see what happens kind of mentality. So the first thing really, that I did was to change the expectations of the group in terms of what's possible in playing what's possible in matches, but really at a micro level. So how what's possible, and every action, every action in the game can be a little bit better. And if we do X, Y, and Zed, then we have a really great chance of outcome, a algebra, not obviously my thing. But by changing the expectations of the small things along the way, we found very quickly that we could compete and beat the top teams who had been beating us the previous years.

Paul Barnett  17:10

A similar example comes from elite basketball coach and Professor Carrie Graf, who like Mark challenged her team to aspire to a greater vision. And she did it by reframing the challenge they faced in terms of what they had already achieved in their lives.

Carrie Graf  17:29

But the first thing I did was we got into it and said, Who here Who here thinks we could win the championship and I could see the looks on the faces of the camera girls that can goes over here thinking Oh, my God, Is she serious. And then I went around the room and went count up with soaking up the championship. So we won, whether it's in under 12, or under 14, or under sixteenths, or in the WNBA, or any championships, you've won on state teams, and we went around the room and the number, you know, I'd been a part of many surely Sandy beat a part of many. So our numbers of that group of winning was in the hundreds. So suddenly, everyone in the room went well, we know how to win, because we've got a whole lot of people in here that know how to win. And even if we haven't been a part of a WNBA championship, yeah, we want an I want an under 12 premiership or on the school girls championship. So it was it was really setting the stage for you do know how to win because you want it doesn't matter if you haven't won at this level. And everything we did was about, well, how do we win this championship and we kept that front, front and center and we set goals to sit under that. But it was really about instilling some belief early that if we do these certain things, we've absolutely got the talent to win a championship and and those of us that have won, here's some of the things that we think we can do to help this team win. So it was about instilling belief I think, and then going about a process of doing the hard work, learning and evolving as a group and keeping our our goal at the at the forefront without being over focused on the outcome.

Paul Barnett  18:57

Another example of bridging the gap from listening as a coach with a new team, to setting a vision, and then reframing beliefs and language people may have comes from championship netball, Coach briny Arkell.

Briony Akle  19:10

I have a choice about how to listen a lot, and not necessarily just come in and change the world because the Swiss have a great winning legacy. And I knew there were a young team. And I had to set a very clear vision of what it looked like for this team and a part of how to get there. So having clear direction and having small goals along the way that we would basically off the back of coming six. What did that mean for us? And I think we were really happy coming six in that first year because I think we'd want double the amount of games than they had the year before. So we'd set that little milestone Oh, we've just missed out on the finals. But we had to redefine what good look like in our environment. And what we wanted to turn up like every day and I'd say to them, I put them in after a training session or just in the middle of one drill. So I'd say so does that look like a championship team? Is that how a championship team to rains. So it could have been good. It could have looked great To the untrained eye, but the mining excellent all the time with this team and drilling into them that even though a young while we were going to listen to that rhetoric of people telling us that you probably won't win a premiership for another two or three years. So when I came in, I was like, no change to your language and the language that you use every day that filters down the line into the playing group, we lived positive energy and positive words. So I think one of the mantras are why can't we do it this year? What Why can't it be us in 2019? Standing on that podium, what what are we waiting for? So I gave them that confidence, even just to individual players to say, why can't you be the world's best shooter? What's stopping you, and you can sort of see her body language just grow in terms of or no one's ever asked me. So just questioning players around their own ability, and me giving them the confidence to sort of let's go do this. Let's chase it this year, wait two years.

Paul Barnett  20:59

A word of caution, though, when you move from listening to engaging the organization on a vision, and challenging them against it, it's important to prioritize and keep your message simple. This helps you avoid the trap of trying to fix too many things at once. Here is Simon Jones, the cycling coach putting this in context?

Simon Jones  21:21

Well, I think you've got to start very simply, and you've got to prioritize, and you've got to do the ones which are manageable. And I think you have to build it over time. And I think everything it's a once you've set what those standards are, could be we start training on time, you might you know, for example, you know, we always do a debrief, for example, it could be things like that, I think what you can't do with these things is you set a culture, and then you don't do it. And that undermines trust. So I think you got to start small set things which are realistic, and then build on them, as opposed to sort of starting with like said, like the, you know, the gold standard, and then having a really, really big mountain to climb.

Paul Barnett  21:57

This was also a point that English Premier League coach Thomas Frank talked about, he builds on the idea of prioritizing, by explaining that you have to take things bit by bit and teach as you go along.

Thomas Frank  22:11

So of course, I had a clear idea of how I wanted to play, but also had a clear idea of where I assessed when we're primary was at that state. So we need to take it bit by bit. And I had, of course, several meetings, but especially in the beginning to explain the plan, this is how we do it, this is how we're going to train it. This is how I'm going to coach you guys. And that did that from the beginning. And then of course, a lot of individual talks, especially with the more experienced players to get them on board straightaway. And build that relationship, because I think it's all about relationships. And I think that's one of my Yeah, I would say strength in terms of connecting with people.

Paul Barnett  22:51

Another idea that connected with me, was the importance of breaking down your vision into a timeline that feels more concrete to the group. I think this is especially important when the vision is a bold one, or challenges the team in ways that they're not used to the first example to illustrate this comes from Rugby Union World Cup winning coach rod McEwan.

Rod Macqueen  23:13

And when you put it into three different areas, which was the beginning, the journey and the destiny, and so we wore T shirts, for instance, with the beginning written on it. And then when we got to the stage where we thought we were understanding where we're going, we had the journey. And then when we went into the World Cup, we were in the Destiny phase of what we did, all of those things have been played out.

Paul Barnett  23:39

The second also comes from a World Cup winning coach, but this time from Cricket, here is Mark Robinson, the coach of the English women's team,

Mark Robinson  23:48

I think you're going to need to obviously, you've got to have a vision. And you've got to hopefully that's going to be a shared vision. So I remember we met the first time you met as a squat properly. When I got all the players together, we were in South Africa. So I've done a month on the job already. But the best six girls were in the women's big bash, I just put it on a big whiteboard from watching stone, which is where we were in South Africa, from what from stone to Lourdes was put the dates up. So we start in here, January 2016, porch and stone and lords July, whatever the date was, where we're going to finish, and that's the piano and everything we do from then is going to be to that goal. And a lot of my language would be things like when we were playing Australia and the final laws. This is why the staff would join in and put on the SMC the string of additional cultural put things like sweat for the batch, everything was almost languages around. So that was one of the first things you did. And then I suppose to try to tell a squat or team or group of players how you're going to get there. And so that was my thing, how we're going to get there by being braver by being more exciting. Great records all the records All, women's Well, cricket in a team room, and I asked the girls want you to visualize your names. That's the most best strike rate and teach finance and I want your names there. So the next step cycle for you all names have the ability to excite them how to play, and where we're gonna go. I think the other thing I asked him to do was the real Darwin quote about it's not the fittest, strongest, that survive, it's, it's the one that other people can evolve over the white coats of assassin that rave enough to be prepared to evolve. So that's what we did that and I set that out, but it wasn't obvious like mostly one quite clean, plain sailing, because we have to make a few changes, we have to change the cups and say that a couple of senior players go to get a younger team that is probably more likely to fulfill that vision.

Paul Barnett  25:51

With the vision in place, and the roadmap to get there outlined, there is a need to establish rules, or as they're sometimes called guardrails that either you alone or the team as a whole has agreed on. This has the added benefit of bringing clarity to everyone about what you as the new leader will and will not tolerate. Here is Ice Hockey World Championship coach slapping me a letter explaining how he did this.

Slavomir Lener  26:18

The sooner you set up those rules the better for you. Because set up the rules once the train is already driving the way, it's always done. So the best as we've talked about the team philosophy or team culture, as soon as you can, you must set up the culture. And then everybody has to buy into it. Or you must convince the player or the parent or the spend sponsor, that this is the way you're driving the machine. So yeah, you can do it. It's more work. It's more time to put together. But you have to set it up as early as possible.

Paul Barnett  26:55

To close this episode on starting with new teams. I wanted to feature a piece of advice that Hugh McCutcheon, the gold medal winning volleyball coach gave, I interviewed Hugh just as I was about to move into a new role leading a large organization in another country. And his reminder came just at the right time, and it stayed with me through those first few months in the new role.

Hugh McCutcheon  27:18

I understand as the coach, I'm going to have the chance to set the temperature in the room. And if we're going to ask them to work hard because we knew the expectations for this team were extremely high. You might even say unrealistic, but they were extremely high. And so it was like Well, hey, if we're going to have a chance at achieving any of this, then I'm going to ask them to work really hard I've made to make sure that I'm working hard as well.

Jim Woolfrey  27:41

You've been listening to the great coaches thoughts on starting with new teams. I hope you found it interesting and discovered a few ideas that you can bring to your own dinner table, locker room or boardroom table for discussion. The key things I took away from it were the importance of listening in an engaged way when you meet the new people from the top to the bottom in their organization, the use of good questions in those first conversations to uncover insight and establish your leadership style. Taking things in the words of Thomas Frank, bit by bit and not being too quick to try and solve all the challenges you're seeing and ensuring that you break your vision down into a timeline that is easy for people to engage with. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as we did. And just before we go, if you have any feedback then please let us know. Just like PTS who said simply love the deep insight from these marvelous women leaders. We do too. Thanks pretty. We love the interaction with people around the world who listen and so if you have any feedback or any comments, then please let us know. And if they're positive ones, then please let your friends know to all the details on how you can connect with us are in the show notes or on our website, the great coaches podcast.com