The Duratus Mind - Ben Ryan - Gold medal winning coach and leader

In this episode Gaz talks to Ben Ryan.  Ben is a former English rugby union coach who is best known for coaching the Fiji sevens team to a gold medal in sevens rugby at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He is currently Director of Elite Performance at association football club Brentford.

Gaz and Ben talk all things leadership, psychological safety, the value of experiences, trust, how to work with toxic people, being prepared to fail and how to adapt using feedback amongst lots of others - enjoy! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Ben Ryan, welcome to the Duratus Mind Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Thanks, guys. It's really good to be here. And I, you know, I I've only recently got into the pod since we last when we met at Man City, and I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Oh, thanks very much. Thanks very much. Um, you just said there, we we met at Manchester City a few weeks ago. Um, and we spoke just before this, and I said at the time, I'm whether I'm lucky enough, but I'm I'm I'm certainly in a place where I'm surgically speaking to people now, a bit like a sniper, I guess. I'm picking people off at the people that interest me. I listened to your talk at Manchester City, a leadership day they were doing. Loved it, really loved what you your message, um, the the principles that that kind of threaded that together. And I was like, I've got to try and speak to Ben afterwards. And yeah, we we decided to do this, so it's great that it's happening. Actually, thanks for traveling up today to sunny derby that uh we're in today.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah, is it always like this?

SPEAKER_01 1:29

It doesn't rain in doesn't rain, it doesn't rain in Derby, mate. Doesn't rain derby now for sure. So yeah, um like you've got a ton of experience in areas that I'm fascinated by leading people, really complex problems, um, and I'm really keen to unpick some of that. You've you've got incredible accolades when it comes to coaching and getting the best out of your people, and it's something that I just I just I know I'm gonna enjoy this conversation. I just love scratching around it all. So, um, do you mind for the people that may not on the face of it know who you are, sort of uh canter through a little bit of your background and journey? Is that okay?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yeah, sure. So um I I I grew up in um in Brentford and uh and then I went to school in uh comprehensive in South London and uh played rugby mainly in a bit of track and field, um, ran 400 hurdles, and then went to university, do sports science at Loughborough. Um Penny hadn't really dropped at that point about the importance of academic study. Um and uh and then I went to then played rugby um to to a professional level when I was at Cambridge doing postgrad, and then I started coaching and worked my way up the the badges as you do for coaching until I went from kind of student coach to um uh semi-pro, pro coach, and then England eventually asked me to be the skills coach for England 15s and sevens coaching, I was there for seven years. Um, and in my last year, well, I kind of fell out of love with with professional sport and left and terrible, I mean we might well talk about this, but terrible at art managing. I fell out with my boss and went to take a job somewhere else, and then a mate said to me on Twitter, You've seen Fiji looking for a new head coach, and um and I'd played against them and coached against them, and when they were on it, they were unbelievable, but they were so inconsistent. You know, as an England coach, I had a winning record against Fiji. I should never have that, you know, the quality of players that they had. So I so I I went into the um I I decided to apply for it and had a Skype interview at two in the afternoon in Suva, uh, which was two in the morning back in South West London. Um, had downed a couple of espresso, stuck a tie on for the first time since I left school, put the laptop on the breakfast table, ready to have an interview, and um and nothing, two in two in the morning, nothing, two thirty, nothing, no call from Skype, three. Um, and I'm sure you do know some Pacific Islanders. Absolutely. And you know, Fijian time, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Fiji time.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

No hurry, no worry. Um, and eventually two hours later, the word interaction, they you know, asking me, CEO was interviewing me, but lots of other people were peering into the camera and asking me questions like, you know, do I know the famous rugby player Johnny Wilkinson? Have I met the Queen? These are very important interview questions. I've never met the Queen, and I've and I've I've coached Johnny for about all of about three minutes, I think, um, doing some box kicking if he was ever needed as an emergency scrum off. Um, and uh, and that was that really. And then the following day, I thought I'd find out a bit more about this place I might end up at. So I went onto the internet and the Fiji Times website. The headline was the CEO that had interviewed me, he had been um been sacked straight after the interview. So I thought, okay, that's you know, that's that. That's that. And then two weeks later, I was in a restaurant in Richmond um having dinner, my phone rang, and it's Fijian phone number. I said, Hi, and they said, Well, Bulla Ben, this is Berlin Cafoa, I'm the new CEO of the Fijian Rubber Union. Um, I say, Hi, Berlin, what can I do for you? And he said, Um, oh, we've got an in we've got a press conference here in 20 minutes. Um, I said, that's great. You know, what's it about? He said, Oh, it's to to name you as our new coach. And so I say, Look, do I have any say in this? He said, 20 minutes, call me back. Um I said, okay. And and I had this first moment where I didn't have 24 hours and get all English and get your sheet of paper A4 out and write your pros and your cons. And uh I didn't know how much you know was being offered to me and how long my contract's for and what it'd be like to live in Fiji and who my bosses were and who was left from the all that sort of stuff. But there was a gut instinct that I had just lost my edge. I'd become a bit worn as a coach and I'd forgotten what my real purpose was, and I needed a reset button, and it was a big one to go halfway around the world. But I just rang him up and said, Yeah, I'm in. And and he then said, you know, if you don't mind buying your flight, we'll we'll reimburse you when you arrive in a week's time, still waiting for that check. But but that began my journey to Fiji, and then it was a long journey um with lots of twists and turns. But at the end of it, we were double world champions, Olympic gold medalists.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Which for people listening, uh for Fiji, uh Olympic champions, the the first gold medal they'd ever received in any sport in their history, right? So we just recognize that. And then quite a let's just I've heard some of this story, and it was fascinating listening to it. Just all the twists and turns that this took because of the nature of working in Fiji and in places that that need uh that kind of extra, or there's just there's just a lot going on. There's a lot going on, and you're managing a lot, an awful lot. A lot of managing up, clearly, but then getting to know the players. One of one of the things that fascinates me most about this is um an Englishman going over there and having to embed himself into this brand new culture, brand new group of people, and all the time building trust to try and achieve this goal that you set out there. I don't know if you went out there thinking, no, I'm gonna make I'm gonna take them out there and and try and become double world champions and Olympic champions, or whether there was just it was more about you having your own train set again and just really honing down um or honing your skills. Um but what fascinates me is just knowing how culturally different that part of the world is and those and and and people from Fiji. I've worked fortunate enough to work with a number of absolute warriors from the the islands, uh Fiji guys, one of which I'm convinced should have a VC, and I'm more than happy to talk to you about that offline. Um fortunately it doesn't, but I know that culturally they're very different to us. And so firstly, I guess the first question is how did you did you know that when you first went out there? And and when you realize that there's just so many cultural differences, how how did you start to make progress with that first?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah, that the the first thing I guess I had a short runway from going I'm in to getting on the island. So my research window, maybe fortunately actually, yeah, was short. So I didn't get to read about you know the current situation of the military dictator on the island and and all the other things that I'd end up finding out about. I had one conversation with um uh Corporal Isoa and Damu Damu, who was playing rugby for England Sevens at the time, I'd brought in, and um Fijian Heritage, and I asked him for a quick, you know, give me a quick one pager on on what I need to do or don't do when I get there. And he said, like, you know, a couple of things. Um don't argue publicly um and don't swear. I was like, all right, I can do both of those things, that's a good start point. And then the rest, I just went on the same as anywhere I go into, really. I had to have that phase of just understanding by learning and listening and not making any knee-jerk decisions. So if I'd gone in and gone like this is my methodology, and I don't really care where I am, I'm just gonna apply it, I'd have struggled big time. So I had to get to that point of understanding the culture. Um I would say right at the start of what you said there, I I did go there thinking we'd win an Olympic gold medal, and I had that as my driver. Um I thought I thought the talent was there from it as a coach, but I knew how I just knew how messy everything else was. And you know, if you can apply the foundations, then hopefully that will allow them to flourish. And I think one of the benefits I had, you talk about it about experiences, you know, and I had, you know, I was still relatively young really, but I was in my late 30s, I might have even been in my early 40s when I when I went there. But I had had quite a lot of experiences, and not just like within professional sport, but you know, I I went to uh I went I got scholarship at a private school, didn't really like that, went to a state school in South London, um, went to a couple of different universities in Cambridge, one of them uh and then I taught in a my first teaching job was in a city um behind IKEA and Brent Cross. Uh and then I went to a big boarding school where I taught Richard Branson's kids, and then I then I um taught a whole range of different subject areas, um, and then my coaching took me through literally through every area because I wasn't an ex-professional, I was an ex-professional, but I wasn't an international. So you you kind of had to work your way up. And so I had a lot of experiences of a lot of people from different backgrounds. Um, none of them were none of them particularly like it was still gonna be different there, but I just knew that the one thing you have to do is understand where you where where you're gonna where you're gonna work and who you're working with. And the only way you can do that is by starting to build trust and being consistent in your behaviours so that they can begin to to buy into what you're trying to do. Because like the first three months I was there, like no one, no one said anything to me. Like, and I'd have a meeting with them, and I'm like, Do you know, do you get you know, this is what we're doing today? The you know, everyone understands, and they were like nodding their heads, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Just because they were they were really uncomfortable, they just wanted to get out dodge fast, so they nod their heads. And um, it took me a few months before I got buy-in, and um, and that was by finding the power brokers and the cultural architects around me that had influence, and by also doing stuff consistently that they realized that I was there for them and I wasn't there just as a leader that was doing it for me.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, there's a lot of uh social standing for people listening in within Fiji, isn't there? There's a you know, you certain people's families can sit higher than other people's, and and understanding those dynamics is critical because stuff just doesn't always get passed if if the right people don't have buy-in. And that was so counter to what we were used to. The best in my old world, the best idea is is always the best idea. And and but but sometimes in in that kind of culture, the the right people have to give it the nod, don't they? They have to give like we we trust this guy, that's okay. Let's let's do what let's do what Ben says or Mr. Ben says, you know, right? So this um I get it. It's uh it's it's a fascinating dynamic. I think a lot of people misunderstand the vast majority of what special forces teams do actually. They you know Hollywood uh expresses one thing and and I guess the TV show shows another, but the reality is a lot of the time small teams of special forces guys go to much larger organisations, embed themselves in them, and they're coming together for a common purpose to try and achieve this common goal. Um, and within that, we we always have to firstly build trust, and that trust is the is the bedrock for any of these relationships, and and that's exactly what I'm hearing with yourself, isn't it? Um that uh you mentioned in in Manchester there's a number of funny scenarios where just what you wanted them to do just was misunderstood. You know, there's these you know, some of the coaching drills that you set up, you assume that they would well, this is why they're doing it. They're just but they're they're they're much more um yeah. Could you do you mind?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yeah, no, of course. Um and I made loads of mistakes early on around assuming that they would understand the the context of what I was doing because I'd I'd been in um you know a highly professional environment with England where they had tons of resource, loads of money. That's right, and the athletes had come through a pathway. So, you know, if they were gonna do a gym session or a speed session or a training session, you didn't have to explain why they were doing it because they'd understand it and they'd get on with it. And you know, what I wanted to measure a few things so I could manage a few things. And one of the things I wanted to do was a simple speed test. Um, and with the England boys, we'd do a 40-metre speed test, and you do it on a track. In fact, we used the track that Mo Faro would would train on at Strawberry Hill at St Mary's in southwest London. And if we were down there on the Tartan, I'd have a wing gauge to start with to find out which way we wanted to get them to run, and then we'd have electronic timing gates at 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40 metres, high-speed, high definition cameras, side on front on, they'd be in their lycra, in their spikes, they'd sprint down the track, it'd all be recorded, it'd be individually uh sent by Bluetooth to their iPads, where they would have a speed coach interpret some of the data and the biomechanics, and they would go from, I don't know, hoping them if they were running you know five seconds for 40 metres, would try and get them down to 4.95 over a 12-week period, and we would put a whole process around that, and I had to squeeze every ounce of of their of their talent out of those English boys, and I still wanted to measure their speed in Fiji because there's still a process that I wanted to go through to try to find out what our base was like, and obviously I didn't have any of that kit, and I had my iPhone um for the stopwatch and had a coconut tree that I could start them off at and a plastic bag that I put 40 metres further down or close enough to it, and then I got them to sprint, and they were so slow that my immediate immediate reaction was culturally, I've done something, I've upset them because they look just looked like they were not interested, and I knew they were quick, but they were jogging and it wasn't getting any better. And I spoke to my William, my my Fijian physio. I had our all Fijian staff, and uh I said, mate, what can we do? And he said, Why don't you get someone to chase them? So I was like, Yeah, all right. So I put someone two metres behind and they ran faster because they didn't want to get caught, and you know, they found it a bit of fun. And then he said, put someone in front with a rugby ball. So I did the same, and they wanted to chase them. Now I had just assumed they would understand simple modality of getting them, measuring some speed, managing it, and they just thought, oh, this ginger guy is getting me to run to the plastic bag. I'm not getting fitter, it's not fun, not scoring any tries, not playing rugby with my mates. And it was it was definitely a penny drop moment for me philosophically in my coaching that well, A, you should never assume things, but B, whatever you're doing, you should explain why you're doing it and what the benefit is to both the athlete and to the team, and they've got to agree to it because if they agree to it, then they own it, and then me as a coach, I can start to move back, create some autonomy so they feel some value around that, and so when it gets put under pressure, whatever it might be, then they can help find the solutions from from within. Um, and I found that really powerful because yeah, there were things that they rejected in that process, um, and there's other stuff that they they they took on board, but it was really important for me with the Fijians that most of them had come from left school early. Um, you know, the rich kid in the team was our captain, and he had to take it in turns to go to school because his dad only could only afford the bus fare for two of the three siblings. Um, so they all came from the same very poor income, and they were used to being told what to do and to just get on with it. And I had to reverse that because you're playing you're playing a decision-making game at the highest level, and they had to think for themselves and they had to create that that that feeling that they had autonomy and it was a flat hierarchy. I wasn't just telling them what to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

I was going to say that. Do you think there was a benefit to to to that flatness within their team? Obviously, often teams, you know, the military is a class classic example where there's a hierarchy within the military and there's there's clear reasons, regimen reasons why that is. But equally, my old background, uh, that would that that could flatten very easily because, like I said, the best idea is always the best idea. It doesn't matter who it comes from, it could come from the newest person. It's the best idea, let's go with that. It takes true humility for a leader within that organization who's the most experienced to take that best idea from the newest person, for example. Do you think it was a benefit for the uh the guys, the team members to be on that level playing field? Because I'm just looking at certain other sports, let's use football as an example. There's such disparity between players, earnings, standing, profiles, you know, and that that doesn't build trust with uh within the team when often, and there's there's ways around that for sure. But you know, what's your thoughts on that with regard to this very flat, very humble nature to them?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I I'm uh I think it gets time I've had time to explore and understand leadership a bit more, and um I came across um situational leadership as a as a as a as a a thought process, and it kind of landed well with me because I thought that's what I was generally naturally doing, that situational leadership is about being one of them, one of us, not not an us and a them, and that it's very situational, it's it's specific not just to the culture, but also the time that you've the moment you've gone into that culture, yeah. Um, is also really important. And so for the Fijian boys, they were used to not getting any feedback. So they would never find out if they were getting if they'd been, you know, what they had to do to get better. They just read it in the newspaper. So often that meant they just they just gave up. Some very talented players would just disappear. Um, there would be all the other stuff that you you touched upon as far as the politics on getting selected if you're in the you know, your your dad's you know, or your uncle's in the member of the opposition party, you you might not get selected, or or if you're from a different hierarchy or whatever. Um and that put put off the talent on the island. And so I needed to show them that anybody could have a voice, it was a leaderful team, and the only way I could do that is by my actions. And um, and so we created a group with the captain who was very influential, um, leading on this, to just have that safety. I know Amy Edmondson's work around psychological safety, it's become a real hot topic, and people are bang banging on about that a lot. But the bit I get away from that is that if you create an environment where people can say how they feel and not get judged, I don't see many drawbacks to that. No, agreed, you know, and and so I needed to I needed to create that, and I I think naturally that's how I like to lead. I don't want to be that bloke front and centre that's telling them what to do. Interestingly, though, and I might I might chuck this question back to you. There are times where there'll be stuff, and like for Fiji, like um it's a third world country, you live in the present, yeah. So the positives are for a game like rugby, where you watch the Fijians play and the offloading game, the instinctive stuff, it's just unbelievable, unbelievable. They're just joyful in the moment. A free bar is a problem because they won't think about tomorrow. Yeah, and it'd be the same for a buffet at breakfast, you know, they've got these huge volcano type plates that they've got. And so I had to make sure that um sometimes for some of their stuff they were below the line in their behaviours and their fitness was was another thing, you know. Everything was slow and long and wasn't fast and intense, and they weren't getting to the level I wanted to for rogue for the for the sevens to play at the level I wanted to. So I had to pull them up from un from below the line until they got above the line. And I don't know if you've seen that, and because it's quite an art to narrate that to people because you can't on one side as a as a coach or leader go, do you know what? Um we've got a leaderful team. Everyone can say what they want, but by the but I'm doing I'm doing this my way for the next six months.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

You know, I've got though I've got plenty of experiences like that. Again, uh like I said, I was fortunate enough to work. There's not many Fijians that have made it into special forces, but there's a few, and I was lucky enough to work in the same squadron with with two of them. Um Big Ron uh and and Pete. Um I'll I'll I'll keep for their own dignity. I'll I'll keep their full names back. But um Big Ron in particular didn't have an off switch when it came to booze. Um now I think he'd learnt to manage that himself. Though we we were deployed, it was it was hard by the nature where we were to get hold most of the time working in a Muslim country, so hard to get hold of alcohol, and but we we could always find a way, right? We were good at what we did, and it was a great social aspect to us. We in in the military, I used to talk about this quite regularly. That there's there's m it I we used to describe it as like being in a professional football book where boozing was allowed, it was and encouraged in some ways, you know. I think there's a um one of the one of the ethos of commando spirit is um cheerfulness in the face of adversity. And I think having a a space, a psychologically safe space where you can let your hair down and cope with the things that was going on um was necessary. Now, I'm not saying that always has to involve alcohol, that's absolutely not what I'm saying. But in the military, it was often one of the ways when the vehicles to just get people talking and get stuff off their chest. And and and and I'm smiling because that those times with Ron where you knew if you started a session, it it wasn't ending until we had to be it back at work, whenever that was. And I'm talking ending as in 10 minutes before ending coming in. And he he's an ultimate professional. Um, he definitely liked to drink, and it was about exactly what you said. They live in the moment, and it's about living in the now. And I've got a lot of respect for that actually, because I'm a lot more, I think, um held back sometimes by my my thinking processes and like where that might be what what so what's of all that? I've spent a career working out contingencies for actions and what that means and how we can overcome certain problems. And I think you definitely need diversity in your thinking, in your teams, of for people that see things very differently, and actually that helps you to see and yourself see things differently, but then resolve problems in a different way and more thinking outside the box, for example, you know, my way isn't always the right way, far from it. My wife will tell you, right? But uh, but a lot of the time I think having a diverse group, and Ron and Pete were you know gave us that in spades in many ways, um, because of the they're very much living in the moment. And and I think that's really necessary, actually. Does that make sense? Is that kind of what it totally makes sense?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

And the only way I'd I mean it's really easy to I think in different cultures, and this is a good example, really, of you can jump to conclusions, particularly because you you go back to your experiences, and if the majority of them are here in the UK, um I got one example. I remember one kid came into camp on the Monday and um and he looked terrible, he looked like he'd been on the smash all weekend. And the English coach in me would would have like ready to pull him to one side and say, like, you've got to um wind your neck in about the you know, about your drinking back in the village and get on with it. But there was just something in me that I knew that I just had to you take a breath, go to my team manager, Rapati Cavesi, amazing guy, 176 kilograms, big guy. Um and uh and I and I said to Rapati, look, can you find out what's going on? Um, and you know, half an hour after a little talano, a little chat underneath um one of the coconut trees, he comes back and says, you know, he's he's not been drinking all weekend, there's been no food in the village all weekend, he's literally running on fumes. Um, and that's a really good example, I think, on when you go to other cultures that don't jump to conclusions because there's all sorts of stuff in that space in between that you don't know, and the only way you're gonna find out is by taking a breath, asking some questions, being open, and shutting down that some of those experiences that you think they must they they must count because they don't, and I have it all the time, and it might be I'm working the French rugby team, and and and they don't like putting their hand up in class when they're kids because it's not cool. So you struggle to get any questions from them like that, even though you are you know you go to your coaching manuals that you'd read and open questions where they can not interested, and like you don't know that until you have a chat with someone that says tells you that, and you go, All right, I've got a different way then I've got to get this information from these guys.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah, we we we we talk about cognitive biases, aren't we? And sort of those those fixed beliefs that we have that can really shape how we make decisions and and ultimately you mentioned earlier about experiences. I always say experiences times a thousand makes experience. There's no shortcut.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

I love that phrase.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

There's no shortcut as well, is that right? And so so just getting more experiences and leaning on the experiences of others that have lived a very different life to you is is certainly helps has helped my teams when I when I've worked in them. So yeah, with that, what what what were the biggest challenges? What were the when you went to these um when you went to Fiji in particular, but then also kind of the time in England, what were the biggest challenges of getting people to do what it was that you wanted to do?

SPEAKER_00 28:18

There's probably two angles I'd look at this from. There's my personal angle as a coach, leader, um position, senior position, being consistent. Is it is it was a big thing for me to be better at because as you go on the journey, um and if you're doing okay and you're going into slightly bigger clubs, bigger jobs, bigger money, resources, the pressure gets slightly bigger all the time. And if you're not aware of it, and I certainly wasn't when I was younger, then you have these massive blind spots where you become inconsistent. And as you know, you can be 99% consistent with someone, and I could have a throwaway line to make them a bit of a brunt of a joke at the beginning of a train session, and I've lost that relationship forever. I might get it back to a certain percentage, but I've lost it. And that's where I think I had my biggest lessons as um going through the system, and I still do to be super consistent and have that awareness and be able to see things from everyone else's side as well. Um, and then I think it does still come down to relationships and understanding that uh everyone does things a little bit differently, and we we talked about this off off air, but I call it guardrails, where you have certain agreed standards, but within that people can be their best version and they can do things a whole different way to how you would do things, and that's okay. And I think that for me is is is what is is a big lesson that I had to understand that people would do things in a different way, you know. And the Fijians, like you know, that that they did have the Fiji time, but they also just were super chilled about things that would really get me stressed. And you know, I might be side of the pitch at a quarter final in a World Cup, and um, you know, the the Hooters about to go with five points down. I'm thinking, man, we're out. They're laughing and chuckling that I'm getting stressed, and then the 90 meters later in about six offloads, they've scored under the post to win, and and they'd be like, Ben, I don't worry, it's just a quarter final, you know. And there's small things like that that I have to I you just have to recalibrate calibrate.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Um do you feel that that helped you? Do you feel that because again, I I can relate to that, I can be certainly hard quite hard edge sometimes and and have to lean on little comments like that from other people that see things quite different, more chill, that it's like actually I I can breathe in this moment and it's not as important, you know. Um, do you think you you you were able to take on some of that?

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Without a doubt, that I've I learned so much about myself and improved the most in my three years living and and working in Fiji. And I would say that if I could if I could take if take away some of that stuff for now working back here in the UK, it's like that ability to have someone tap you on your shoulder, proverbally or whatever, to to to give you some home truths or to just balance you out a little bit for exactly what you what you said what you said, you know, either to go just relax a little bit or you need to turn it up a bit here, whatever it is, um, to have that awareness is vital.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Yeah. So, I mean, we we talk about self-skills and in uh the coaching and personal development stuff we do. Um, self-awareness is the first self-skill, right? And so how you get that, well, you seek feedback. And so how do you get that feedback? And it's certainly one of the challenges that I've I mean, I I work with clients and so we get the feedback from them. Sort of we've got a pro few processes that we use there, but it's one of the things that I've certainly missed the most from my old organization, would be that that that feedback from the team as to how you're doing as a as a teammate, as a as a leader, you know, and we we having a a really robust way, a trusted way for people to like you said, and I'm not talking about a 360 review necessarily. Sometimes that's the right thing, but I'm talking more about the tap on the shoulder from someone you care about, say, Gazzy, you had a stinker there. Like, do you want to shall we do you want to talk that through? You know, and that's like the best kind of teammate that can have that and give you that one, and you can you've got the chance to be self-aware, sit back and go, I think you I think I might need to make some adjustments here because I've probably said the wrong thing at the wrong time or whatever it might be, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Um yeah, but and I think for that to happen and for me not to rear up against you, if you'd said that to me, yeah, I have to have an underlying level of trust. 100%. Because if I've had it at some of the places, and again, something we we we we chatted about a lot of stuff before we came online, we're having a really nice cup of tea. And um it one of the things one of the things that that we talked about is that uh you drop in and out of organizations when you're doing consultancy work. Um, and if I'm dropping into a football club, for example, and I see some of the players having a bit of banter about something, it might be someone's girlfriend or chat about that. I'm not getting involved in that because I do not have that trust to suddenly jump in and say something. And that's not that's also my entry with somebody when I'm building trust. I'm not going into those more personal bits straight away. Um, and so that takes time to build that trust. So then when I do get the the um somebody giving me some home truths, my ego's not flying out the door to face them straight away. Um, if there's someone I trust, and I immediately will go, um, yeah, no, I'll take that on board. It's funny actually, I think one of your previous podcasts with Floyd, um I was listening to that on the way up here, and I thought, you know, I can't remember what it was, but I thought when I get home tonight, Michelle, my partner, I'm gonna chat to her and go, I'd really like you to truthfully tell me what I need to get better at and improve upon. But we haven't like, you know, I haven't had that conversation. But she's sure, I'm sure I'll have a long list. But it's like, why aren't why aren't I doing that more? Because I trust her more than I trust anyone else, and my ego's not gonna rear up and I I want to get better.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Yeah, like and like we're we're not, I'm certainly not a relationship counsellor, but we talk about with teams that and groups that we work with about the courageous conversation, yeah. And that kind of conversation, like I'm sure most people listening can sit and think, actually, to give the people I care about a forum to tell me some home truth, that feels scary. Do you know what I mean? But actually, how vital for you if you're humble enough to go, well, I'm just here to improve, to say, okay, and you've got to do it in a loving way. There's the right way to do it, and there's the wrong way to do it for sure. Um, and I, you know, we all get told the wrong way quite often because it gets our backup and we start getting defensive, right? There's a message there somewhere within that information we're getting that there's some information there we probably need to hang on to, but we we choose what we're picking. And that that courageous conversation and creating an environment, psychological, safe space, like you spoke about, um, is critical. Um, and every organization will do it differently. And as a as a family man, you know, it's something that we focus on quite a lot. You know, we me and my wife Karen, we've we ensure that we've got time where we have chance to talk about what the plans are. We talk about where we want to be heading and and if things have drifted a little bit. And the thing that jumps out at me is the we this is another thing we spoke about, ensuring that I've got balance in my life as a father to four children with regards to how much time I work, because I love what I do. I genuinely love what I do, and it can just steal my time. I've always loved what I did, it it's very different now. But I I used to overcommit my life to what I did. And the reason I left, one of the reasons I left was so that I had more control over my time because ultimately, whether it's Fiji time or real time, it's it's that's all we've got, right? And so I wanted to try and find balance. And so I need to keep checking in with the people that I care most about to ensure that am I being balanced here? Because you'll give me the honest answer. It's normally not because I'm I'm I love what I do and it it and I'm aware, self-aware, I think, that I easily drift and finding the time that's right for you as a as a if your team's even your home team, right? Rather than your work team, but certainly with a work team, with a with a club, a high performing team, you need to find those at places where you can have that trusted conversation, which brings me quite nicely on because when when I last heard you speak, you you spoke about, and again, people speak to anyone. What's the what's the fundamental principle of a high performing team? What's the one thing you need? And there's lots of things we need, but trust is is right up there, right? And um you you said something when you were speaking about the trust ABC. Um do you mind sharing that with people listening?

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Yeah, not at all. Um so the ABC is for me, and it everybody's different, right? So the A stands for approach, B behavior, Cont C conversation. And so for everybody, and I'd I I use me as an example. If I want to have my approach, I I don't want a formal sit in front of a desk. That's not I can't have that. Go for a a walk with a coffee in my hand, yes please, you're gonna get me immediately a bit more open. And then your behavior on how your your body language is and and what your opening lines are, and how you how you talk to someone and like like you do that, that's also really important to and you individualise that based upon the knowledge you have around that person, and then your conversation is kind of both looping back at the end to make sure that you've understood what they've said and what you want to get out of that conversation, you need to plan that a little bit as well. So the ABCs are really important because if you get that wrong, immediately you're gonna lose that trust and also just lose the information flow. You're not gonna get what you want out of those conversations, and I've it takes you you can't jump in on that, you need to understand someone slowly, and you can't do it from someone filling in a psychological questionnaire or like um but one big thing that with England that was over all the teams was insights, so yeah, Myers Briggs kind of stuff. Myers Briggs, yeah. And look, look, uh you know, so I remember one of the players, you know. So for people that don't haven't come across insights, but red, blue, green, or yellow, you know, you get told various things. So one good mate of mine that I brought to Fiji actually in my last year, Chris Kracknall, who's now now a hairdresser, but was a professional rubber player, very good one. Um, he's like, Well, I'm a red, I'm a real, you know, it's like red means danger, and I just getting labelled, you know, and it's like and you can go on for all of that. And like football clubs that will sign players and sometimes use psychological assessments. If I'm about to sign for Man United and I've got to sign a, I've got to do a psychological set at Myers Break or whatever it is, you're getting a really good version of me about to sign for Man United. And it might be very different to the one that walks in the door. So to get your ABCs right, that there's no shortcuts, and it's about having good conversations and understanding those individuals and being another word that I use all the time, being really curious, you know, to find out about what what might be going on.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Yeah, we um we with the clients we work with, we we use um the strength finder. I don't know if you're familiar with it. So I'm a firm believer that people work best at their strengths. I think it's fairly well researched. Um and everyone immediately wants to know what their weaknesses are, and they or they assume a a 360 feedback session would be about understanding their weaknesses so that they need to improve on things. Well, actually, if you can get your teamwork into their strengths, then you'll all be pulling in the in the best way in the right direction. So we use um we use a strength finder, and it actually there's there's so many traits. I think it's 34 within the set that you could answer on, but it gives you your top five. Again, people always say, How do I get to know the rest? I was like, you can pay extra to go and look at the rest of your traits and find out which ones the bottom ones are. Everyone wants to do that. That's a a real human trait. Well, what are my weaknesses? No, this is about understanding your strengths. And when it says, I don't know, let's say empathetic at the top, like don't immediately all all uh non-confrontational, don't immediately think the worst about that strength. No, that is a strength. The fact that you're glue for people is really important, actually. And there's various different um I did some work with uh a county with uh a load of police inspectors, so senior police, and we got them through them. We the they they're the I forget the exact name of the quality, but the um the the incidence of it that was basically that they they don't want confrontation and they continue to keep relationships warm, and they are they're like, Yeah, I just hate confrontation, such a bad thing of mine. I'm a police officer. No, no, no, no, that's really good. I can't think of a better trait for a police officer, actually, to try and resolve problems, right? That is great quality, and but people think about these things in a different way. The point I'm getting to, it's a tool, and it it's it's a it's a snapshot, and there's a much bigger picture to all of us than any um output that these psychological tests can give, and you can only get to know that through meaningful connection with people, right? And and how you present yourself will change invariably to who it is that you're with. I mean, uh we talk about authenticity a lot, and you need to be as authentic as possible to try and be to reduce the stress of what you're you know, putting on a facade is never a good thing long term, and and I'm sure you worked pretty hard to ensure that you were being your the real you and as honest and as caring and thoughtful with the the teams that you've worked with. Um but sort of that I think people struggle with that uh authenticity quite often or lack of authenticity. Is it is it been something that has um you've come across with you recognise people that are wearing a facade and hat? And if that is the case, have you have you found any ways to build trust by breaking down that facade somewhat?

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Yeah, it's a good question. Um yeah, I've been coached by a few people and I've I've had bosses that have uh had agendas um that they would try to cover up and and not particularly well sometimes around you know on their from a personal point of view. So you know I I've had I've had I find, I mean, and we talk talked again another topic is uh art managing, and so being able to art manage people where you know that there is there are two sides to them, um, you know, and they might tell you one thing, but they actually have an agenda for something else. And so understanding how to art manage well is something a skill that I've kind of I I got to learn in Fiji, uh you know, military dictator as your boss and a convicted murderer as your lie manager, it means that you've really got to be on your money there, and um I still still preferred them to the guys I had my bosses at the RFU, if I'm honest with you. Um and and yeah, trying to unpeel exactly what they're about is difficult, and it does go back to don't assume things, take your time to work people out. Um, I know we do on that first, you know, every contact leaves a trace, and and on that first contact you meet someone, you immediately have some sort of you make a you make a decision a little bit about someone. But I think it's in it is important to take a breather and not be a magpie and immediately go in and think what they're saying is the truth and that you know something shiny. That's what you've got to attract to. Pull back a little bit and have a bit more re understand that you need a bit more data, a bit more information, and that's before you start to understand whether someone is who they say they are. Um I don't know if I kind of make sense there.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

Yeah, it does. You you um again what what without skirting around the issue with uh your boss when you took over um the Fiji team, he was the the leader of the country, right? That's how it works in Fiji. Yeah. Um that must have scared you to death, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Yeah. The first well, the first meeting I had with him where I'd just flown in and it everything was new, and you know, and you you're jet lagged and you're finding out all these things that weren't weren't as you thought, you know, that they'd gone bankrupt and they got no money, they got no training base, players all gone overseas. My boss was was Frank Binamarama, the military dictator, and we went to this tournament and somebody said, Oh, Frank's ready to see you. And so he was up in the stadium in the stands with his bodyguards. Um, and I went up into the I went out up into the stands and take it.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Did you take a pair of locks with you? They went out on the field, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

I should have made some quick substitutions and got them up. And I went up and said Bulla. And he said, Oh, you know, welcome to Fiji. I've I've got a bit of um, you know, something I want to say to you. I said, you know, said lots of people are going to give you a lot of advice. Um he said, don't don't listen to any of it unless it's going to save your life. And then he started chuckling, and you know, I could see his his sidearm there as he as he opened up his um his his shirt jacket. Um and he was he was someone that I had to upmanage well because I think it's a good, I mean, like it's an extreme, right? Because you know, he put his brother-in-law to line managed me and he'd gone to prison for manslaughter for kicking and punching someone to death at a wedding. And these were people on an extreme level, but a boss does not want a curveball, and therefore that's not a bad guiding principle when you aren't managing, you know, don't give them curveballs. That means, well, how do you stop that? It means by being proactive. If you see anything coming around the corner, tell them about it and explain what's going on. That then fills them with a bit of confidence that they're part of the process. Um, you know, there's other things that I had to do around massaging some egos and some some some mistruths, you know. Occasionally I'd say how great it was to see them in training or being part of the, you know, and they weren't they weren't there, but I knew it was going to help my relationship.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

I think that applies to so many people. I know it can seem like quite an extreme example, but ultimately, if you've your your line manager, your boss, whatever, you know, they they've even the story that you told there, he was he was demonstrating to you who he was, and he was showing who's boss in some ways. You know, he's you know, he's got his side arm on sidearm on him, and he's not he's not keeping it discreet from you, he's letting you know. Um but that's okay to know that that's good information to know, the kind of people people are is good information to know. You can think, well, I don't necessarily like that way of doing things. Well, maybe not, but it sometimes your boss is your boss, right? And that can't be changed in the short term. That's something that's gonna happen over a longer period of time. But you can understand that and work and find out and get more experienced in how to work with that person. And again, I've got lots of experiences where my boss, my line manager, didn't I didn't particularly like them. And but that doesn't mean that I can just bang heads with them at every single opportunity because that's not gonna work. I've got a number of colleagues that chose to do that with certain individuals, and I used to watch it happen, and that was just toxic for the for a wider ripple effect, right? It was just damaging to the group, to the team. Whereas if you can just swallow your pride sometimes, but your thoughts about a certain someone and just be ensure that well, what's the goal here? Well, trying to get this team moving in that direction to keep achieving what it is we're trying to achieve. That's what we're here for. It's not about me, it's not about them, but let them, you know, and I'd imagine, I'm imagining, because again, I've I've been saying lucky enough, I've been in similar situations where I've been sat across a table from someone with, you know, a an Afghan warlord in many ways, and and and they've got a lot of power. And it's okay to let them flex that. That isn't a bad thing. And but some people would be incredible. I would never let someone do that to me. That is the indignation of someone telling me who's boss. It's like, no, they're boss, they're they got they hold the all the cards, right? That is the boss, but you've got to try and influence, and you as uh you are winning by getting them to align to your thinking as well, right? But that takes time, that takes this trust, and that's with any even people listening that have got that difficult boss. You're not gonna change people overnight, you're not gonna change their thinking often ever, but you've got to try and work with people to achieve the common goal, right? And I think that's what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Yeah, you summed it up really well when you talked about you know the guiding principle about what you want to get out of things, and it's not about the the the individuals, it's about the collective goal and and and and with Frank, you know, I I I I say it jokingly about he was a better boss than the bosses I had at Twickenham, but he was because if there was a a problem and I could pick up the phone, he would answer it and he would action something. And when we had your lines of demarcation right, and everyone he understood, you know, I I like to say, you know, only involve those who are involved, and because occasionally in like these big sports, particularly in Fiji, it's national sport, everyone wants to get involved. Um, and you know, a senior army officer brings in a couple of young soldiers into the gym and says they're playing in the next tournament, then you're suddenly in a confrontation where he cannot lose face, um, and you can't also take it. So then you're like, all right, well, look, these two can come to training. If they don't make the grade, we'll I'll be sending them home tonight. Everyone's okay with that. And with Frank, he he he helped me in lots of things, and and so you know, unfortunately, we've got a bit of a strained relationship now, um, which I hope we can patch over. But he um yeah, he was, you know, in in in many ways, he was he I could trust what he was gonna do and he would leave me alone to get stuff done.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

What I'm hearing with with Frank, I don't know the guy, but uh it feels strange calling him that. But he cared. Ultimately, he cared, right?

SPEAKER_00 50:44

He played touch rugby every morning, you know.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

So if if you have someone as your line manager, your boss, that you know they they think very differently to you and they're abrasive and they're difficult to work with, but do they care about the organization they're in? You can work with that, right? And Frank clearly cared massively about success and helped in whatever way he could to enable you to take them all the way to the top, which you managed to, right?

SPEAKER_00 51:08

Yeah, and that's that's again like you're summing up these things really well because you know I remember one occasion with England when it was our it was the World Cup in New Zealand and we had had a you know a poor um a poor competition, and and one of the senior management, you know, was uh was the day before a couple of things blew up in the in the papers about some behaviour. He was on the field with the track suit following day he was back of the room in a suit, and immediately everybody just felt that there's an em and an us. And there it it broke that, it broke that broke that group of players and that team. Um, so you're absolutely right. You know, when you know that your leader cares, it makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_01 51:50

And that's the people listening. That's like as the leader of teams, you need to demonstrate how to care too. That's like it's not about yeah, I wish my leader cared. No, no, no, no. You you are the leader of self, right? How the teams that are around you, again, always start back with your family. If you not aren't able to demonstrate to them that you care in your workplace that you care with your people, and like how do you do that? It's going to be different in in every group. But building trust, doing what you say you'll do, role modeling what you want to see is the is that step. I think I think that's what we're uh Frank obviously cared enough about you. I love the story um about how um there's a Fiji banknote with uh Ben's face on it, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 52:27

Yeah, there is, there is. Um, I mean, one thing about Fijians, when they like you, they really like you, and and the the people were so deliriously happy after the Olympics, you know, three days of bank holidays, and just Ireland went crazy. And and it's actually quite diverse, you know, there's Indo-Fijians and Fijians, and that's normally why the coups happen when there's a bit of fraction between those two groups, and everybody was hand in hand, and they just wanted to celebrate it. So that yeah, they put me on the 50 cents piece. I'm the head on that now, and um, we got a new seven dollar bill that um that had my face on it and and a couple of other seven dollar bill, yeah. Seven dollars, right? You know, for the sevens, I think it's the only seven dollar bill in the in the world. Um, so yeah, and and the British flag was also is in the top corner of the Fijian flag. Yep. And he had had a competition, Frank, to get rid of that because he didn't really um enjoy that connection. Commonwealth, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And um after the Olympics, because that flag was everywhere, and because I was British and had been coaching the team, they reversed that decision so the Unijet remains on the Fijian flag, which which is kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

You you must like you say, you you went into that job with a a lot of unknowns, you didn't have time to worry too much, but there must have been quite a bit of fear. You you clearly learnt an awful lot through that process, and then when you won the golden Rio, you you then stepped away and went and did your own thing. Um that's a scary thing to leave with that success.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

Did it feel like the right thing? It did, it did feel at the time like the right thing, but I think as coaches, um, you're never quite sure on on when you're gonna leave somewhere often, you know, you're told. And to know that I had set a goal of of doing the things that we did and we'd achieved them, knowing that that that potentially there was some stuff that I could get involved in that I wasn't too comfortable about from the political side of things, um, I knew it was kind of time to leave. So um, and I wanted to see the world outside rugby. Rugby's great, love it, and I owe it huge amounts, but it's it's a very small pool compared with what else is out there, and I wanted just to see whether yeah, my skills could could do some good somewhere else. So that kind of took me on this last six, seven years' journey.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Yeah, and and for people listening, that where where's that take you? Sort of that snapshot.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

Yeah, I've been all over the place. Like I went straight to New York and and worked in pro basketball for a little bit and worked with Nike across some um research innovation and and uh and a group over here in in Europe. Um most sports I've probably touched upon really. I'm really lucky that um being at Olympic Games does open doors, particularly in the US, you know, because it's so big in America. Um and it just allowed me to then to see what was going on in different sports, different organizations, and look at the culture and leadership and coaching models and see if I could add any value around any of that. Um and I've always, you know, I've always enjoyed football. Um I I I prefer watching football to rugby and wanted to see whether I don't want to coach football, but wanting to see, I find the culture um amazingly interesting because as you as you as you mentioned earlier, people are on huge amounts of money, they might have come from pretty poor backgrounds, they might have huge entourages, they're in transfer windows with multiple agents, they're at clubs where you know if you don't win two or three games in a row, your managers get getting close to getting sacked. Nationalities, you know, most will be double digits, nationalities where first language isn't English. Um, same with the staff.

SPEAKER_01 56:12

Almost every player in some academies is dual nationality, aren't they? You know, there's so much dual nationality, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Yeah, so rugby, we've got it easy. Yeah, like you know, it's just generally they all you know, take Fiji. I know it's different culture for me, but everyone speaks Fijian and most will speak English, they came from the same background, and so to get it right culturally in football, that's really difficult. And so when you see a Pep Guardiolo or Jürgen Kloppen, what they've done, you're like, wow, this is pretty sensational. And you're not surprised when it doesn't, when it suddenly derailes a little bit because of all those moving parts and more that we've just talked about, and I find I just find that fascinating. Um, and Fiji reminded me of my purpose, which is to, you know, and and I think we don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to answer what my purpose was probably 10 years ago, but it is to serve, is to help people be their best versions, but also scaling that up, help teams be as good as they can for as long as they can. I I love what you you talk about in the special forces that you're never gonna be good enough. Yeah, there's always striving, and I and I've totally adhere to that. But so in that context, you you still want people to be as good as they can be, and I get a kick out of that.

SPEAKER_01 57:23

When you um I think I think I read this right, when you were uh teaching at a school in Oxford, I think um you you took over in in the role, and that formerly that school had never had an international rugby player, but in the six years you were there, you gave them an international player every age category from 16 and up into in the international squad. So you know how to get people to succeed, uh align themselves to a goal and go after it, you know. And and I'm I'm keen to unpick that. Yeah, we'll start there. So what like what you know, and you demonstrated it with Fiji, you've now worked with all these teams after you're bought with Fiji. Like what what is the what's the secret source? I know there's not secret source, but what's the secret source there to really getting people their own success?

SPEAKER_00 58:14

I think the start point is making sure that the people that you're working with uh think big. Yep, they don't they don't see that where they've come from there's an there's a there's a limit, there's a glass ceiling. Um and to help give them the interventions and tools that hopefully they can use themselves without having to prod and push as a coach or teacher to to see how far they can go and at the same time put them in situations where they are uncomfortable, awkward, don't want to be there, because as you know, that's where you get your growth, right? 100%. Um so it's easier to do in teams collectively. People will will go to some dark places together a little bit easier than sometimes you on your own. But getting someone through that process, helping them narrate that, understand that, and then suddenly they just they're amazed how far they can get and what they can do. Because I, you know, I as you know, I our human behavior, we we will naturally stay away from something that puts us in an uncomfortable or at risk situation. Naturally we do yeah, and I and it's one of the things actually at the beginning when we talked about my Fiji taking that Fiji job, um, that you know, when I said yes, and my heart was getting pretty excited about it, but my stomach was was not in a great place. And the following morning I rang my agent straight away and said, Any chance we can get out of this? Yeah, I was nervous and fearful of all these unknowns. It's led me to whenever I'm asked to do something where it's suddenly immediately I feel fearful about it, I'm like, I've got to do this because I don't want to do it. Yeah, that's the reason I do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

Completely agree. Um, we talked about you know uh before about that saying of get comfortable being uncomfortable. And people know the saying, they love the saying, but then when they get uncomfortable, they absolutely hate it and they want to get out of that situation as soon as possible. And it's it's how you coach people, help people to stay in that difficult uncomfortableness, going no, that you you you don't appreciate it right now, but you're learning so much. And that that flight over to the job in Fiji, the first few weeks were and was it right for six months you didn't get paid. That's right. And you had no idea if you would get paid. Obviously, I'm assuming that they they came fairly good on that. Um, but that was just you were navigating that uncertainty, and that's a skill to learn for people rather than you know. If if I I'm a firm believer, I chatted to somebody about this yesterday actually, that if people are unfulfilled and they they they they get they're feeling bored, they're feeling quite depressing. That can be quite a depressing state when things are good, but good in the sense of easy, that actually isn't the best thing for us. And finding things that we can really bite down on. Um, I learned I worked with a South African, um, and he said a word to me, some uh vas bit, vas bait, I think, which is to bite down on something. It's a South African word, and I loved it, because we've got to find something that we can bite down on to really get our teeth into, to to give us fulfillment and purpose. And that the role that you took on Infiji was a massive problem to bite down on, and and look where that difficulty that you navigated is now what it's born out of that. The success that they got was born out of you facing that difficult problem, which would never have materialized if you'd not, if you'd have if your agent would have managed to get you out of that, right? Yeah, which which is which we often lose sight of.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

Yeah, you did there's so there's there's a lot in this because I don't think, and I'm I'm not being humble, I don't I don't think it took a genius to turn the Fijian boat around, so to speak. Um, but what was the bit that got me to maybe be a bit different was to say yes to that role um at the time, and you're absolutely right, like saying yes to things that are gonna make you bite down to something, but you're gonna feel real uncomfortable. And one of the things that probably helped me was that I didn't look at it as a whole big huge thing. Yeah, I chunked it. Yeah, so it was like, right, I'm going to Fiji. And when I get there, if after a couple of few days I'm not this, I'm not feeling it, I'm going home. And then you get there for a few days and then you go, it's not as bad as I thought. And then it's like, right, okay, they're not paying me this month. Well, that's all right. Let's just do another four weeks and let's see how it goes. Don't think about three years and doing and and then you you get to that point, and then suddenly everything becomes far more manageable. I know this is fairly straightforward, but often you lose sight of that, don't you? Um, and it helped me hugely because if I had gone the other way, I'd have been I what I don't even know if I'd got on that flight, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:12

There's a there's a there's a book that I recommend to a lot of people, um, certainly people I work with by Ryan Holiday called The Obstacle Is the Way. I don't know if you're familiar with it. Um it's it's quite stoic in its philosophy, but almost that the problem that you're avoiding, that is the solution. And like you describe chunking, and you assume we assume everybody listening knows what that means, but just the ability to break down this what on the face of it can seem a massive problem. If you look at the the dorm wall, you're familiar with the dorm wall, the climbing movie, I forget the oh yes uh uh they they climb the this incredible upanyo samadi. Yeah, if you put your nose on that wall, then you're never gonna be able to see the how to achieve what it is that they ultimately did achieve. You've got to get perspective, you've got to stand back, you've got to break it down, you've got to learn bits of it, you've got to, you've got to like choose a particular section of yourself or the problem to work on, to improve and build on, and achieve that, and then look at the next stage. And I think chunking things is is one of these skills that people aren't quick to think of when they see a problem. It's just like, wow, this is too much, it's overwhelming, and I'm just not gonna even face it or turn my back on it. And that's a that's a shame because there's there's again, I'm again, I've got an interesting network, Nims Purger, a good friend of mine. Um, nobody believed what he could achieve with the 14 peaks in the time he was talking. He believed it, he was able to chunk it down because of various experiences that he had, but now he's done it, someone's on someone's a few months like this is he broke the record and he was it was it was seven, nearly eight years. He broke it in in seven months. It blew people's minds. There's there's currently a Norwegian lady who's ahead of track to beat him again now, and it was just like what they what he did, what they thought was unbelievable. Now he's proven the path, and you can break down the problem into smaller chunks and you have the right funding, etc. Then then you can you the margin for success isn't as narrow as everybody thinks. I think I think that's that I often come around. Certainly with um the context of special forces selection. We often talk about this. People think the margin for success is very narrow because not many people make it. I'm convinced actually it's very big, but people are focusing on the wrong problem. They're focusing always on fitness and strength, and that's not the thing that will get you through. It's getting the brain in the right direction, the mindset, and being really clear in why you're trying to achieve it. That's the thing that will help you most. The minutiae, the detail, often you can navigate that by being really clear in your purpose and leaning on various different people around you to help you with the complex problems. And that sounds like that's the kind of the story of Fiji. You know, the really complex problems, you you had there was an incredible group of players, talent there already, and you've brought them together to actually ultimately achieve what you could see the steps that you had to make.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

And share those steps as well. So when you've got that vision um about some big you know, Olympic gold medal for us or whatever it was, and you're currently, you know, training on you haven't got anything, so you you got no training kit or and players aren't getting paid, no one's getting paid, and you haven't won anything for a while. You've got to share that vision and then really um Owen Eastwood talks about it well, like um colour it in. Yeah. And I love that. I love that idea because I I'm a big I used to drive around when I'm driving around the island, it's got Kings Highway on the top, Queens Highway on the bottom, and Vitilevi, which is the main island. There's 300 other islands, but that's the main one. And you can drive around it in about seven or eight hours. And I'd often be driving from one end to the other to meet a player or go train or whatever it was. And I would literally visualize like winning gold medals and team winning tournaments and do it all the time and do my own colouring in. And then I'd be sharing with people. And I sometimes you you can get a little bit kind of overly spiritual on the sort of things around that manifestation stuff. But just sharing something that just works on a lot a a number of levels I think is I think is really powerful. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

I I completely agree. I completely agree. I think it's tapping into that that vision and helping people to you know sometimes have to paint it for but a good leader will paint the picture for the people around them alongside them help them paint it in because they won't believe themselves they won't trust themselves to be able to achieve things. Sometimes you can see uh the potential in people and they need an awful lot of polish right but that's that's what great leaders do they help people understand the things they need to do to themselves to to the self-discipline to polish themselves right that's ultimately what they're trying to achieve um you must have seen a lot of people through your career of of coaching and and working with individuals and teams a lot of success but like what what there's a lot of people that don't manage to achieve what it is that they set out to achieve what do you think are the most common reasons why you know from a bit of a hand grenade question but well because a big question again but what's the common reasons why people don't achieve the success maybe that's as as an individual or as a team so if you work on um like a let's take this as a flow chart where um there's failure so if we say someone's failed that next step on what you do after that now if you're in innovation or you're in a positive mindset then it's learning you're gonna learn from it then you're gonna adapt you might then do a bit of innovation and then you're back into it again and you might fail again but you're not put off by that because you can see the slightly bigger picture.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:59

So I think where most people would trip up is that post-failure moment they either don't learn or refuse to take any responsibility for it therefore there's no adaptation and I can't remember what the quote is but you know you keep doing the same thing over and over again. Whatever that quote I can't remember which one is insanity isn't it it's yeah yeah it's like well that's where you you'll trip up and I've seen it with coaches that will not be flexible in strategy in how they how they are with people or um or some of the technical stuff they've done and I've seen it with players that they'll I mean elite players often will appropriate success on them and appropriate failure on the rest of the team.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

100% and that's a in the short term that's all right you know there's there's there's protection you know I've seen it all the time where um let's take a sport like cricket someone someone gets bowled out they don't blame their technique they go well that bowler you know he he could have bowled anyone out on that and and in you're in the moment where you've got to go back into bat in a few hours time you don't want to get into that negative but you need to unpick it at some point for sure so you so after the game you can go back and go off I failed there and I need to learn from this but that's it's on that bit on the cycle for me where you know because the the adapter to um innovate bit you know once you everyone everyone can get onto that it's that first bit where people trip up yeah I I I I agree with that so much one of the there's three principles with our leadership programme that we talk about um there's authenticity which I've already talked about we've talked about loads about one of the the other one of the other three it's communication it being so critical to be for to be able to work as a leader or as a team to be able to communicate well and the third one's accountability and what you've just described that is taking accountability some people say take ownership um but that like what can you do in that moment of something going wrong failing whatever that is where next time it happens that you can do something slightly different to try to try differently like the example I use we um when my early days as a as a young marine after passing out of marine training I was taken to Norway um within the first few weeks long story night absolute nightmare as a first place to go really difficult environment with new group of people in a new um uh a new completely new environment of that is at that will kill you if you hang around for too long so it's so freezing cold but we were taught how to ski and to teach it how to ski we were taken to the top of a big mountain and told we're gonna ski down today and by the end of today everyone's gonna be able to ski down um you're allowed to fall over on your face but you're not allowed to fall over on your arse because that means you're not trying hard enough. Okay. Right and so they just they sent us careering down this mountain and everyone was falling all over all over the place and by the end of the day we we learned to ski a really hard way but it was that being prepared to fail because that what you learn in that failing and falling on your face by trying rather than not fully committed and falling backwards is okay it's a great analogy now but it's it's something that I think I see with organizations when they're trying to learn and develop and try new things that you've got to be prepared to fail and pick up the slack and understand and feedback with the process of how to adapt I'm convinced the the the biggest difference between the Royer in the Royal Marines and my time my career in special forces the the main difference is the speed with which special forces teams adapt. And they their whole being is there to adapt because the problem keeps changing they're the people that get sent to the problem and so you have to be able to willing and willing to adapt and to evolve because the problem is the enemy is going to keep adapting and evolving to to face you right so always doing things the way you've always done it won't always work. That's just got to be accepted and understanding having a really robust feedback mechanism as to how you can change and adapt is vital and this is something I work with sport on um sport for me like every mission that we did at the end of that mission we would have a feedback session and call it hot debrief we'd call it after action review call it whatever and we'd do one immediately when we got back and it wouldn't matter if we were tired it wouldn't matter if we weren't fed or watered it would be the most important thing because that learning is the most important thing it's part of that process and actually we might get called out again five minutes later an hour later and if we haven't learned that lesson well well that's bad. So learning that lesson is part of the process and I know with sport very different but um sport sometimes chooses to just park that for 48 hours go get your time off and then come back let's review the data but in that time I'm convinced that 48 hours whatever it might be people are telling themselves various different things they're certainly checking Twitter they're certainly checking Instagram they're certainly watching match of the day and seeing the reviews of you know people they respect give them of how they've achieved and actually they've already created a narrative that has embedded itself born out of what they think well actually the team it matters for the team to understand and I'm convinced that capturing that as soon as possible is more optimal not it doesn't have to be perfect and it needs to be coordinated the the comeback I often get guys what you don't understand in a dressing room it can be can be really heated in a game after after but it's like well I trust trust me after a a conflict on a battlefield and maybe one of your friends has been killed things are really heated someone taking ownership accountability for that problem it takes a lot of effort and it takes a lot of humility to go hold my hand up I could have done better there but you learn so much from that environment and if you've got this protect psychological safe space we've done this full circle where people will put their hand up and say I think like this happened I think I probably should shouldn't have done that that that we've learned and sorry I I'm really pleased you mentioned this because it's common and the amount of times after matches where the coat the coach or the manager has said it's a bit emotional in there let's uh let's leave it for a bit and I know I know a coach that that a manager that played that managed in the Premier League he's never gone into the change room after a game ever and I'm like you're losing an opportunity here because there's so much like I I I'm looking at it and going right go in and find out straight away what they think because you've got all that emotion banging around you've also got some genuine so the players will say this is what you know so it might be a whatever a last minute goal right what happened and they're emotional and they're telling you a story on what they think happened and then you look back at the tape and it's very different.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:04

Yeah so that's immediately a great opportunity as coaching to go well there's a there's a disparity there yeah yeah yeah or they might actually be right on it and you're going this is quite good that they understand what's going on fault correcting and you're not you're losing out on that but you're at you're absolutely right that in sport that is it's it's it's one of those I mean football does a lot of things very well but there's a lot of things that are kind of seen as we've always do that and that seems to be in that in that category where we we'll we oh we'll give them a bit of time.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:35

Yeah see them on Monday I think it's a a a lack of accountability to the problem because they're trying to gather all the data they're trying to do all this I think having the self and it takes self-discipline this self-skill you need to to to for a dressing room to be managed it takes discipline from the team to care about what's the purpose here we're trying to learn well actually piecing together your story right now from what happened in reality is to why you made that decision not based on a former pro that is going to give you his opinion and then therefore that's going to change your mind as to why you did what you did and think of something to say actually in the moment why did you do what you do because that's what you've got to learn from isn't it and it's got to be you've got to keep that as raw as possible and I think that rawness that emotion that's how we learn we we remember those situations and we can learn from that environment and neuroplasticity as an adult that happens when we care and we we're we're we're very focused on the problem and when it's as in when it's immediately in front of us that's when we'll focus the most I'm convinced by it but again it's hard to it's hard to change how it's always been and again I'm not I've not got the connections with the sports teams to like we spoke about earlier to have that necessarily that trust to say hey let's try and do this you know but and again it takes coordination but it's something I'd love to investigate.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:49

And once once it once it starts and there's some inertia around that you'll see everyone else will start doing it. So keep chipping away at that yeah it's the way we've always done it right then yeah convinced by it um you we've been talking for quite a while then I'd I I could talk forever generally um maybe not forever I like my food as well but um you're a you're a man that's had a career of of giving service to others in many ways a coach you know I I often for me it's about it's not about you it's about the people that you serve etc um so for the listeners who are a wide broad range of people um a lot of very senior execs that we listen to we get a lot of feedback from them they really enjoy the leadership kind of uh conversations that we have but as a kind of thinking about a book or a podcast that you've maybe listened to read recently that you think you'd like to share with um the audience that um might help them yeah and I'm sure you're the same but you know if you're you've got your your your sites on someone that you want to chat to or there's a conversation you have and a book's name checked you know that those Amazon deliveries are going fast right amazing and like um yeah Michelle is not so happy when that bookshelf is like propping up various things and all you know got books all over the place uh I would say like and I've name checked him already Owen Eastwood's book belonging yeah I I've written it I've I've read it twice and listened to the audio as well and I'm not just saying that because he's a friend it's very powerful and it's um you know there's lots of good books that skirt between sport and business and sport and society uh it's really readable and and I got I got loads loads out of it and I go back to it because he he's a good storyteller as well so that for me would be the the one that I'd probably um yeah I'd I'd recommend at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:44

Yeah I've I've I've shared that with a few people it's a it's a fantastic book and I've got a lot of respect for like we said earlier about Owen with what he has achieved from his he was a lawyer wasn't he was a lawyer and completely switched what he did and you know Rich Roll actually Rich Roll he's an American podcast very similar he was a former lawyer that's kind of I think deep thinkers and and they're now sharing uh their insights from their thoughts in in in in different ways and uh that that book is a is a great one so we'll we'll make a link uh in the in the podcast afterwards for people to check that out in our house we've got a rule because again I don't know uh have you got any children no we haven't so um in our house uh keeping our kids off the the phones and tablets is always a problem so there's a rule in our house that if you want a book there's an unlimited um bank balance for books right and so Amazon's amazing we've got we're big advocates of trying to get more books of reading in our house it's uh good rule yeah well it's it's it's not too expensive fortunately because they uh they're still obsessed by their phones and tablets but hey that's another story Ben um really appreciate your time today um that's been mega um I'm gonna keep picking your brain so and selfishly keep that to myself most likely but uh thanks thanks again appreciate it no uh thank you so much cheers guys