91É«ÇéƬ

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý00:00

I guess at that particular point in time, I felt like I was in the fog.ÌýI think, I think our team felt like we're in the fog. You know, you're just walking through a forest, and you just can't see anything.ÌýIt's just you just didn't know where to turn.

Dr Juliet Bourke  00:17

It's the start of the 2017, AFL season, and Sydney Swans coach John Longmire is at a crossroads. On paper, the team's in a strong position. Just months earlier, they'd made it to the grand final, but now things are beginning to slip. The losses are stacking up. Confidence is wavering, and inside the club, the pressure is mounting. John Longmire is facing a question many leaders grapple with when the results aren't coming. Where do you even begin?

Dr Juliet Bourke  00:56

This is The Business Of -  a podcast from the 91É«ÇéƬ Business School.ÌýI'm Dr Juliet Bourke, an Adjunct Professor in the School of Management and Governance.ÌýSo John, let's go back to that moment. What was the mindset inside the club?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý01:15

Well, back then, it was 2016 we'd actually got to the grand final. We only got beaten by 20 points. And so when you think about the next year, so 2017 you go in with great hope, because you've been just about at the top of the mountain andÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýso we started off, we lost the first game and lost the second game and lost the third game.ÌýAnd things were sort of looking pretty grim.ÌýAnd there was so much going wrong. I was focusing all the mechanics of our game.ÌýSo all the offense wasn't going very good, our defense wasn't going very good, our stoppages, everything wasn't going well. And it really took almost got to a crisis point, which was the 0-6 moment, when I had to put all that aside and all the mechanics of the game and just get back to focusing on the dynamics.ÌýAnd really just clarified the messaging to the playing group, and once I did that, it just made it so much easier for the players to know what they had to do.ÌýI think I was probably unwittingly just confusing them a little bit with trying to fix things all the time, rather than just help clarifying the situation, which unfortunately took me a bit longer than what I'd hoped, but I eventually got there, and we had a great response to it.

Dr Juliet Bourke  02:25

Well, how did you work that out? Just you as a person?  

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý02:25

I think there's a lot of theory about leadership, but there's not a lot of when you're living the moment, it's every situation is a little bit different, and in that particular situation, I just couldn't pick up a handbook and say, what do you do after coming off a grand final when we're 0-4 0-5 what do you do? It's just at the moment I was trying to fix things, and the harder I tried to fix things, the worse things got. And I just need to clarify things. And once I realized that, and that was happens through discussions with players, with CEO mentors, you sort of work your way through that, and we concentrated on doing one thing really well.ÌýSo from a technical point of view was to get the ball back from the opposition kick-ins, and then from an emotional point of view was to just pick your team out off the ground. And we concentrated on doing those two things to connect our team again. And my job then was to make sure we reinforced that. And those particular things were really easily achievable, and so our players knew that they could succeed doing that.

Dr Juliet Bourke  03:24

Yeah, I really get that, that the emotion, in some ways, is first, right, the culture first, and then the strategy second.

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý03:32

That's right. I think we, when I was coaching, and certainly leaders in business, you can tend to sometimes fall for the trap of the mechanical part of the business and making sure you just need to hit the number or hit this or hit that. And I've always on the reflection of that particular point in time. I've looked back on that and thought, well, that connection amongst each other and how to help each other do your job is really important, and the better you feel about helping someone else do their job, the more that that spreads amongst each other, and then you get a really good performance aspect out of that.

Dr Juliet Bourke  04:05

What do you actually say to that team of guys, pre the game, after the game? What are the words that come out of your mouth?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý04:14

Well, it varied during that period, and I think that was part of the problem. I was probably changing it a little bit and just looking at the the the technical parts of our game, but when it became really obvious that we weren't caring for each other as much as what we should have, and weren't looking out for each other as much as what we should have, weren't really connected like we should be, and that became really obvious, in some ways, the solution to that was was pretty easy. Was just just connect and just have a physical way of getting back in the into be able to trusting each other and helping each other again andÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýwe're able to do that pretty quickly. To the players great credit. I didn't come to that conclusion myself. It was in conjunction with the playing group and the coaches, and you talk to different people, and then you've got to be really clear about how we keep each other accountable to that.

Dr Juliet Bourke  04:59

And did you need to manage any communications up, you know, to the CEO, to the board, you know, this is now the North Star. This is what we need to do to connect emotionally.

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý05:10

Absolutely, it's critical during that period of time you're really drawing upon the relationships that have been built previously when you haven't got that level of stress on you.ÌýAnd that's why it's really important to manage up to your CEO, to your board, and spend a lot of time developing and strengthening those relationships when times are going well, because you never know when you have to make a withdrawal on that and when you have to lean on those relationship strengths.

Dr Juliet Bourke  05:36

There's a lot of noise, isn't there that gets in the way of a player being focused.ÌýYou know, there's a lot of attention, lot of public opinion media, you know, feedback from fans. How do you keep the team focused? I'm talking very practically here. How do you keep them on that North Star?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý05:52

Was very visual, and when I was coaching, it was I used to draw pictures a lot, but you imagine a target, a picture of a target on the inner circle, controllables, on the next circle, out influences, and then on the outer circle, uncontrollables. And so, in a real sense, talking to the players, or even myself, writing down what mattered.ÌýWhat could I control on the inner circle, and actually writing it down, and I can control how I turned up how I coached, how I my relationship with the players.ÌýI could control that. The next layer out, what could I influence? Well, I could influence our supporters by just being how I handled the media press conferences, for instance.ÌýSo I could influence our board just by how honest I was with how things are going. And then you've got the outer ring, which is the uncontrollable.ÌýSo I couldn't really control out of the media chatter or anything else that was going on. It was a similar for a player, particularly in the era of social media, that that's the that's the uncontrollable loop, and really internally, we're just about what we can control. And once we sort of wrote those down and actually helped clarify what we could control and what we couldn't control, and made it a bit easier. It didn't go perfectly to plan all the time, and we had to be deliberate about that. So after a game, I felt the best times we had after a game was when we put our phones away and we just sat in the moment and enjoyed each other's company for maybe half an hour after a game, and just relaxed and we were really in tune with what each other's feeling, but you had to be deliberate about that as well. You couldn't just let that roll. Because I think, you know, if you sort of let it roll, then things can get out of hand.

Dr Juliet Bourke  07:29

You've described a very deliberate reset when you got to this 0-6 very high pressure moment, I imagine. So, you know, if we could go a little bit further into sort of the leadership principles that underpin that trust and camaraderie, that's obviously one of them. How do you build that, apart from just picking people up and communicating, what does that look like on a day to day basis?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý07:52

I saw my role as a leader was to highlight all the little things that people did that helped someone else do their job, and I spent most of my time coaching, looking for those little bits of gold that would reinforce how important it is to help someone else do their job or help someone else look good.ÌýSo the ball that the players played with every week, we'd get that after the game, and then on a Monday, our club captains would award that ball to the best team player of the week. Now that wasn't the best player of the week. It was the best player that best exemplified our team trademark behaviors, and it was really valued inside the four walls. And so, you know, I think one of the really important things to do on a regular basis is have rituals to reward people for doing really good things, and that quite often, didn't get seen in the media.ÌýSo there wasn't that outside recognition.ÌýSo it was our job from inside the football club to recognise it and blow it up in lights, so it was constantly reinforced what they were doing in a trademark sense.

Dr Juliet Bourke  08:59

Okay, I'm going to pivot now, so in an elite sport, constantly doing performance reviews, and as I understand it, you know that happens weekly, pre the game, immediately after the game, and then you move on again, and you next game, next week. You know, how do you make those performance reviews constructive, actionable? And bonus question, is there something we can learn in business from that cycle?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý09:24

First of all, we're really fortunate in professional sports to be forced into that because you've got a game coming up every week, so you've got to get into the rhythm of regular feedback and regular feedback loops is such a gift in professional sport, you can take it for granted sometimes, because there's always a preparation, as you say, there's a preview into a game, there's a there's the game, and then there's the review, and then there's the learning aspect.ÌýSo it's sort of four phased, and you go into that cycle in the season, and it's really beneficial when you get into that rhythm.ÌýFrom our particular case, we used to have player development plans, so a player would be really clear at the start of the year on what's required of.ÌýThem, and then as the season started, was just keep on looking back at that and how's that player tracking, according to their player development plan, but also being really clear with each player's role.ÌýSo the the role clarity was really important. What are they in the team to do, and if they knew what their role was for that particular game, andÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýthey were able to hit those markers or not hit those markers, it came a pretty clear and easy feedback part of the equation. And really understanding that, I think that a lot of people in business seem to do the preview. They tend to do the game as in the whatever it is, whether it's selling or whatever, I'm not sure, but then afterwards, do they spend as much time in the review? And in particular, do they dissect it at the right time? Do they dissect it with enough clarity, and then are they really sitting in the learning period before the next period starts to to be able to get better and better? You never nail it.ÌýBut I just think the learning loop of preview, game, review, learn and repeat is a really valuable loop to be able to get into the regular rhythm of.

Dr Juliet Bourke  11:02

Just thinking about business settings, though, is it harder to do it in a business setting? You know, we seem to have these annual cycles, or we have, you know, good luck to you might get six monthly but how would we do that on a weekly basis, or on a on a deliverable basis? I mean, how would that translate?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý11:19

I think there's, depending on the business.ÌýThere's always a cycle of something happening all the time, and there's always a rhythm of your job that you need to be able to do. And I think too often, we miss those opportunities as we go to provide feedback, we just either say, well, that's your job, that's what you should do, or we look at what the person did well, or we look at what they could have done a bit better, and we just let it go. And that's the moment. In those particular moments, if you're able to provide that feedback in the moment, it doesn't become such a big deal. And if you you get into the regular rhythm of that, doing it regularly, the person really appreciates it.ÌýThe people hear that on a regular basis.ÌýThey're not waiting for that 12 monthly review and making it such a big deal and such a stressful event because you're doing it on a regular rhythm.Ìý 

Dr Juliet Bourke  12:04

you mentioned development plans, and I had heard, please correct me if I'm wrong, that those development plans were known to the other team members, and so team members reflected on it, and did they vote on whether someone was going to be in a leadership position.ÌýSo the development plans were not just between you and the player. They had a wider sort of publication.

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý12:28

Well, the two things in that there's the individual player, development plans were about that particular person's development that wasn't a secret. If you take a step back and you look at the wider view of how we wanted to play, how we wanted to carry ourselves. Our trademark behaviors that used to come up every year with a playing group, our players used to set that or review that every year were our trademark behaviors still relevant for the next year? Every year there was a subtle change. The generational change was significant.ÌýI think that what was done 20 years ago, clearly, in a trademark behaviors is different to what happens now. What motivates young people now is different than what it was 20 years ago.ÌýThe regular review of that was really important.ÌýAnd then when the players set that every year, the playing group would vote upon those trademark behaviors, and that would be their leadership group, not the best players, but the best players who gave the best example of living the trademark behaviors that the players themselves wanted to be judged by. And it's a very open process, voted for by the players, the coaches wouldn't have anything to do with it. And out of that, we then decide who the leadership group was.

Dr Juliet Bourke  13:37

You mentioned that there are these different stages, agesÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýstagesÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýthings change over time. But you know, you've got a group of people, some are fresh, the 18 year olds, and then you've got players who've been around for a while. How do you shape your approach to the development of those two groups? Is there something in that?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý13:55

 Always, as a leader, as a coach, I thought the players taught me more than what I taught them, and I mean by that, those how the players reacted to how I was leading. You could feel it. You could just feel it, you know, and you just, you're connecting with you, with your playing group, in a coaching sense. I could feel that I was either disconnected to them and I wasn't leading as efficiently as what I should have, or or I was really leading. Well, I could, I could, you could feel that and when I wasn't leading as well, just making slight changes, and that was, you know, as the generations were changing, to be able to keep your foundation as a leader and your beliefs is really important, but also to be able to have enough emotional intelligence to be able to shift yourself when, when required.

Dr Juliet Bourke  14:36

I'm really curious about how you just framed that.ÌýYou framed it in terms of thinking, which is obviously cognition, you know, the stuff that's going through your minds, and you also framed it in terms of feelings, which is very empathic. And I'm curious, is that a strength of all great coaches, that they're very empathic, not just thinkers?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý14:56

Yes, I think, I think so. I think that, you know, when I was my best.ÌýI was really in tune with what was happening, and I was very present too often.ÌýI think organisation set a culture.ÌýWe've done a Culture Day, and they walk off and put a sign on the wall, and that's it.ÌýAnd first of all, you got to keep reinforcing it.ÌýYou've got toÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýyou've got to keep tending to it.ÌýYou know, I talk about that similar to an ecosystem in a weather sense, that things change every day.ÌýThe culture of an organisation can change every day, and you've got to be aware of it. What needs fertilising, what needs burning off, what needs watering.ÌýYou need to be in tune with that. And because it moves all the time, the culture of an organisation, the leadership styles, the people in the organisation, have different stages to what they're going through.ÌýYou need to move with it, and you need to be in tune with that and make adjustments as you go.

Dr Juliet Bourke  15:45

You've got 40 plus individuals on the field andÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýoff the field, and they're motivated by different things. So how do you get a read on that person as an individual, and then play to that motivation? 

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý15:58

You have to know that person really well.ÌýYou have to know what motivates them and also what influences them, and who influences them.ÌýAnd what I mean by that is sometimes it might be a parent, it might be their partner, it might be another teammate, it might be another coach.ÌýIt's not always the senior coach or the leader that influences someone. It might be someone else in the organisation, so that person might be really good to lean on to help in those situations as well, not necessarily yourself.ÌýSo getting to know the person really well is important. But whether you're a star player, and we've had some of the best in the game, like Adam Goodes or Lance Franklin, or some of the real superstars, or you're just really just starting out on your journey, most people like to be recognised that they're helping someone else out. And we used to just recognise that constantly. And I had an old coach that said to me one stage, that everyone has a sign around their neck make me feel important. When I coached at my best, I thought I was really good at that. When I didn't coach at my best, I thought I wasn't so good at that. And I think in a reflection sense, to better look back now I've stopped coaching.ÌýWas when we did that really well. We're in our real sweet spotÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýreally hard to beat.

Dr Juliet Bourke  17:07

Have you got any tips for people in business as to how they would do that? Because pretty much you don't know someone's wife, child, mother, you know other coach, other mentor.Ìý 

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý17:19

Depends on the size of the business.ÌýClearly, I mean, we're a very personal business.ÌýWe're very front facing with our people. And in business, we can sort of look at that and just almost not ignore it, but almost it's too hard. Whereas I'd say that there needs to be a bit of a refocus of that.ÌýIt's not a waste of time getting to know someone, getting to know their background, understanding where they're from, understanding what's going on in their lives. The more you invest in that, the better you'll go with getting a return on high performance. If you build your relationship up with that particular person, you can then push for a bit more high performance when required.ÌýIt's very hard to push for high performance in your organization without that strength of relationship, and that varies, and according to how many people you have in your organisation, I understand that. But if you can spend some time and invest some time knowing your people, you can generally get more out of them when when you need to. And it's like anything, isn't it? I mean, the more that people trust you or understand you or know you, the more willing you are to help them out. And very basic core philosophy, but it's seems to stand up okay under pressure.Ìý

Dr Juliet Bourke  18:23

You know, you get to know people as individuals, and obviously that means sometimes you give a little more to this person and maybe a little less to the other person. Does that create imbalance in the team? How do you how do you deal with that sort of need for fairness, with the need for differentiation?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý18:40

Yes, and I think it was Paul Roos that I first heard say to the playing group when he first took over as coach, when I was assistant coach under him, was I'm not going to treat you all the same. Now I nearly fell off my chair because, well, I'd heard all my junior career was treat everyone the same. He said, I'm not going to treat you all the same.ÌýI'm going to treat you all fairly you're all individuals. And I think that's just stands the test of time. Every person's a little bit different, and understanding that, that's the way that you want to get the best out of people by treating them a little bit differently. And that's certainly something I learned from Paul Roos.

Dr Juliet Bourke  19:13

Did you get any pushback from players sometimes that you got the balance wrong? Actually, that was unfair. How did you handle that? 

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý19:20

Yeah, probably, yeah, I didn't get everything right.ÌýI've got plenty of things I would have I'd look back on now, and I also, I wish would have done a bit differently, but that's part of the learning journey of like a player does, it's the same as a coach. You don't get everything right, you don't nail everything right. I think you've got to catch yourself a bit of slack sometimes, because there's so many expectations on leaders to get everything right. When we're just like everyone else, we make our fair share of mistakes as well.

Dr Juliet Bourke  19:43

Beth, there's something in that isn't there about being vulnerable, you know, even with yourself and your self image and to other people and that creating an even greater trust, a level of trust in you, that authenticity, that vulnerability.

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý19:56

I think previous generations, it was always about the leader having. The the answers all the time, or knowing most things and providing a level of strength. But the longer I coached, the more I realised, the more storytelling you had, the more times you shared some of the experiences, both good and bad, the success and setbacks you had as a person, the more connected the people were to you, and therefore the more success you had in pushing for high performance, and it took me a while to realise that, but towards the end of my coaching, I was much better at sharing those vulnerabilities I had as a coach and sharing the stories with the players. And therefore I thought we were we were better because of it.

Dr Juliet Bourke  20:37

I'm just thinking more about how to take some of these wonderful lessons from sport into business, and you've touched upon a few of those. But I wonder, are there some core non-negotiables for you in building and sustaining a high-performing team?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý20:52

You've got to know your people, and you've got to understand what really motivates them and who motivates them.ÌýThat's really important.ÌýSome of the big businesses won't know all your people in your people in your organisation clearly, but you need to know your key people and have enormous amount of trust in that. You need to have trust across the organisation, not only with your team, with the people that at the same level of you, but also the people above you.ÌýYou've got to have a high trust level. And to get a high trust, you need to be honest and upfront with with everyone in the organisation.ÌýYou need to be able to do that team is really important.ÌýAnd the last part would be to have the environment where your team can have a say in what they want to do, what they want to look like, how they want to be measured.

Dr Juliet Bourke  21:32

I know that since stepping away from coaching, you've been doing some work with the Sydney Swans Institute, and I think you've been running some workshops for different organizations. And I'm just wondering, has there been a moment that stuck in your mind? It was something really small, but it's had a magnified impact.

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý21:51

There's been plenty of moments we run programs with the University of New South Wales talking about leader as coach, and how coaching principles are really important. And there was one particular person at one stage, got up in a forum of a classroom type situation, and just really dug deep into what they were and who they were about, and gave me a really good insight into their background. And then watching that sort of then transpire into a really open conversation amongst a whole group of 30 people, was really inspiring to see, and was probably one of the best moments that I can recall, and that's as a player, or my current role, doing some facilitating, was this person got up and was really brave, and then opened up, and that opened up a magnificent discussion that was really organic.

Dr Juliet Bourke  22:39

Any final words for us and thinking about the next generation of leaders. Is there something we need to be doing, a habit we need to be taking on to get it right?

´³´Ç³ó²ÔÌý³¢´Ç²Ô²µ³¾¾±°ù±ðÌýÌý22:48

There's probably two. One is keep being inquisitive. I think that's a really strong prerequisite for any any leader, being inquisitive and learning off whoever and wherever you can get a learning from and I think the other part too is evolving. I felt when I was at my best, I was evolving at the rate that I needed to, and when I wasn't at my best, I wasn't probably evolving at the rate that I needed to. And I think that's if I sort of break it all down, being inquisitive andÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýhaving the mindset to keep evolving to the probably best skills you can have as a leader.

Dr Juliet Bourke  23:25

Thanks to John Longmire for joining us on this episode. If you enjoyed our conversation, we'd love it if you left us a review. If you're interested in hearing more about high performance in sport and business, listen to our conversation with Sydney Swan COO Drew Arthurson.

¶Ù°ù±ð·ÉÌý´¡°ù³Ù³ó³Ü°ù²õ´Ç²ÔÌýÌý23:40

One of the things that I think is absolutely applicable and folks in all walks of life can act on, is something we focus on internally, called incremental improvement, the compounding benefits of small gains each and every day. So how do I Drew as COO get a little bit better each day.

Dr Juliet Bourke  24:03

You'll find a link in the episode description. The Business Of is brought to you by the University of New South Wales Business School, produced with Deadset Studios.Ìý