Becoming a High Performance Manager Part 2.

Unlock the secrets to building a high-performance unit as I, Jason Webber, guide you through this illuminating episode of Two Coaches and Coffee. Have you ever wondered how understanding external influences can shape your professional success? We dive into the concept of "know thy enemy" — not in the literal sense, but as a strategy to identify and comprehend the dynamics of those who impact your environment. We'll navigate the nuances of aligning job opportunities with personal values and strengths, using the metaphorical "bus" and "band" to illustrate the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people.

Imagine a team as harmonious as Led Zeppelin, where creativity and competence blend seamlessly. Drawing inspiration from an insightful interview with Jimmy Page, we explore how trust and compatibility can sometimes outweigh sheer performance. Through anecdotes from a SEAL Team 6 presentation, I highlight the often underestimated power of trust within teams. Whether in music or business, the environment thrives when trust and mutual respect are at the forefront, paving the way for innovation and success.

Closing out the episode, we tackle the complexities of hiring in high-stakes scenarios, like the sports industry. What does it take to truly evaluate competency and fit within a team? We discuss strategic questioning to understand the strengths and weaknesses of those in higher positions, which is crucial for maintaining a resilient team culture. With an invitation to revisit past episodes for more insights, I encourage you to share this podcast to help us grow our community. Each conversation builds on the last, and I promise the journeys ahead will be just as captivating.

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Chapters

• 0:13 Building a High Performance Unit
• 7:50 Competency and Fit in High Performance
• 22:38 Evaluating Competency and Fit in Hiring
• 31:06 Continuing the High Performance Discussion

Transcript

Jason Weber: 0:13

Okay, g'day and welcome to Two Coaches and Coffee. I'm Jason Webber and again I'm here by myself. My apologies for Darren's absence. He's away on leave, a well-earned break after a hard season in the AFL. But last session out we had a crack at my steps towards establishing a high performance unit Now got some good reviews, got some good feedback, so we're going to keep down that path today and what we're going to quickly have a look at was a quick review of last time out.

Jason Weber: 0:47

So last time out we talked about step one, which is getting to know, get yourself right. Get you right, sun Tzu, the art of war, know thyself, know thy enemy. Last week, last session out, was really about know thyself and I think at this point and with today's sort of subject matter, which is know thy enemy, this is not always necessarily applicable simply to you having a job and saying, okay, let's go, hpm, way we go. It might be about you interviewing for a job, because this is always the first part of it. You can't make changes and you can't do some of these things until you get a job. And part of having a job or getting a job like obviously, when you're a young guy, maybe you're just jumping at whatever young guy or girl, but there are some times when I think you need to decide is this the right gig for me? And so that's what we're going to talk a little bit about today, which is really that step two. So in step one, we had a good look at know thyself, and the reason I'm going to go over some of this is because we're going to use it again this week. But we looked at the strengths and weaknesses of yourself. We looked at how do you respond to stress and then we looked at values. They were the four things. Now, obviously, in strengths and weaknesses, we went into some of the technical nuances of where you sit, and that's good. I think there's also going to be strengths and weaknesses, personality management-wise, anything else that you might come up with, how you respond to stress, and personal values. So we're going to utilize them today. Again, I'm a big believer in only putting out as many cones on the field as you need to. If there's markings already on the field, why bother putting out cones? Let's try and use what we've got. So we're going to use those principles again as we jump into today.

Jason Weber: 2:37

So the session today or the podcast, the episode, the podcast. The episode of one coach and his lonely short black is really step two in this process of establishing a high-performance unit, which is know thy enemy. Now that sounds really tough and I don't think it's anything to do with the enemy, but it's know those external to what you are. Know those who are making movements. They're making moves of their own. You need to understand them in order to get the best out of the environment, the outcome that you want, which, when you're quoting from a general, is winning. And you know, I don't mind saying it we're all trying to make our individual wins and that's what this is about a little bit. How do we make the situation work the the best for us? So yeah, it's a little bit unfair. We're not really saying the enemy, but it's about know the people, so know the people around you.

Jason Weber: 3:32

So, no matter which way you cut it hbms, um, no matter what industry, which genre, not industry which genre of our industry you're coming from, whether it's physiotherapy, sports science, um, strength and conditioning, arm performance, arm rehab, specialist doesn't matter. You're all going to end up in what I would terms of middle management, because you're never going to run the team right. You're never the head coach. You're always going to have him over the top. You're always going to have a senior manager, a general manager of the department, over the top. You're always going to have CEOs, all that sort of thing. So you're never going to be the guy at the top, which is fine. That is what it is. It's our choice in life to be in this industry. But you're going to have people underneath and people that might be in a bigger department reporting to you and, in the case of a genuine HPM, you're going to have performance rehab medical all reporting to you and, in the case of a genuine HPM, you're going to have performance rehab medical all reporting into you in order for you to facilitate the functions up. So you're going to be stuck in this 360 degree loop where you're going to have reporting lines up, reporting lines coming in from below. You might even have some lateral stuff, and I'm not going to go into the nuances or structure of department because there are certain structures where there are laterals Not going to go into that.

Jason Weber: 4:51

That's not what I want to talk about, but today's really. Let's get the two things I really want to hone in on the bus and the band. All right, that's my shorthand my notes, for what do we need to do or understand about the people around us to make things work? And this is the way I look at it. So there's the bus and the band. The bus is an abbreviation of a saying called get the right people on the bus, which, when you look historically, I've got no idea where that comes from, but I think I probably read it the first time in a book called Good to Great by a guy called Jim Collins. Now, this book is a fantastic book. It's a very good strategy book for people in the sports industry looking to learn about leadership. It's a really good book because it's very formmatic. It has some very good research in it.

Jason Weber: 5:42

But basically, what Jim Collins did was went through the US and went through, I think, like top 500 companies in the US and he had a bunch of students working for him, doing questionnaires, examining different bits and pieces, but they tried to identify the key elements that discriminated businesses that accelerated against the stock market, so they grew faster than the market as compared to companies who match the market. So let's say, average performers versus elite. What were the elite things? What were the common behaviors in them? And in that, one of the things he talks about.

Jason Weber: 6:18

He talks about lots of great things that maybe I'll talk about in another episode how I've applied those, but one of the key things he talks about is get the right people on the bus. He frames it first who, then what. He does go on to talk about. He quotes getting the right people on the bus, but the idea is that don't think about the position per se, think about the right people. Now, those right people. There's many components to that and I think it's fair to go down the path of understanding what that person is. Now I'm going to give you another framework to judge that on. The first is get the right people on the bus. So the idea is don't worry about how you're going to do things, don't worry. In the book, jim Collins talks idea is don't worry about how you're going to do things, don't worry. In the book Jim Collins talks about don't worry about strategy, don't worry about anything else, focus on getting the right people. Because if you end up with, there is the model around getting the right people which is focusing, and I quote focus on what Before vision, before strategy, before organization, structure, before tactics, first who, then what, as a rigorous discipline consistently applied. So that's a big part. Now I think it's easy to say that, like, let's get a bunch of cool people on the bus, but the reality is we live in a technical world so we're going to have to have a technical element to that. So that's where the band comes in.

Jason Weber: 7:50

Now I'm a music fan. I don't know who else is, but some of my music's old. One of my favorite bands of all time is Led Zeppelin. Now, led Zeppelin was led by a rather mercurial cat named Jimmy Page. Jimmy Page was lead guitarist and leader of Led Zeppelin. He fundamentally put it all together. He put the right people on the bus, so to speak. But excuse my phone, that shouldn't be on. But that's business, right, just turn that off. That's gone. Gone.

Jason Weber: 9:27

Now the band, jimmy page, was interviewed. Um, at some point. I think I know where what the interview was, but I'm not going to quote it because I might be wrong. But in his interview he was asked about what was the best thing about led zeppelin. What was the best thing about Led Zeppelin, what was the thing he enjoyed the most? And he said the competence of four people. He was guitar, john Paul Jones on bass and keyboards and all that sort of thing. John Bonham on drums, and I'm going to forget the lead singer's name. That's ridiculous Robert Plant. There you go, there you go. The old time has nearly got me. For anyone seeing the video, you can see the grey beard and the bald head. So here's what it is.

Jason Weber: 10:16

So he talked about the competence. He said because everyone was so competent at their skills, the creativity was unbelievable. If we wanted to go well I don't think left to right, he said. If we wanted to go well, I don't think left to right, he said if we wanted to zig or zag, everyone could go that direction. We could move because of their competence, because their skill was so high. Now, I love that. I love that idea, that idea that if we've got competent people, your creativity increases because we've got the ability to figure out problems, solve things.

Jason Weber: 10:48

I think that's a big, big conversation point around. Sorry, I just had to pause my dog's attacking my door in my office. It's a really big point around people in their roles, okay, okay. So short pause there. I'm just going to jump back in because I had to. My dog's looking for a play and I just had to get her away from the door she was banging at it. So this is all real, as with Darren, all the time. This stuff is real. Life is happening around us as we speak. So we're talking about the competency of Led Zeppelin.

Jason Weber: 11:25

Now I think that is an equal comment on our industry, that it's not good enough to wear a badge. I have a degree. I have a degree in sports science, I have a degree in physiotherapy. It's really about your skill and the acquisition of that skill that you brought along over time. It comes down to, not unlike music, a lot of who you work with. So you live and learn, but having competent people is critical. So while, yes, I agree with Jim Collins, get the who right before you put them in the seats, at some level there's got to be competence. And so that's my concept. The bus and the band. Yes, I'm thinking is this the right person? Can I work with this person? Am I going to be able to live with them every day? Now you've got to think for a lot of people. We're having kids and we've got families and all those things, the wonderful things happening. We spend a lot of our life at work and I will tell you from someone who's an old cat, who's been around.

Jason Weber: 12:24

You do not want to be going to work daily with pumpkin heads who are going to make your life a misery. Now, I'm sorry to say it, but there are some pumpkin heads in the world. I'm sure some people think I'm one of those and that's fine. Choose not to work with me, right. But ideally, if I'm a pumpkin head, I want to get the other type of pumpkins around me that are similar, all right. So it is incredibly important that you find, as best you can, people who are of a like mind philosophically, possibly even as personalities. Dog's at the door again, I'm just going to keep going because she's bashing the door. My door may not survive.

Jason Weber: 13:05

Yes, we've got to have the right people, but at the same breath, we've got to have competency. So what I would say with that, if I have the highest level skilled person available, I have someone with slightly less skill but a much better person, a much better fit for the environment we're trying to create. I'm probably going to take the slightly lower person, lower skilled person. I think I saw a presentation the other day, a special force or somebody saying hey, I hung out with SEAL Team 6 and we were looking at they presented an X and a Y axis and on the Y axis they had performance. On the X axis they had a personality trait. It would have been something along the lines of trustworthiness. I'm pretty sure it was trust. So do we want ideally we want the guy who's high trust and high performance, the top right-hand quarter, no problem. Do we want just the guy who's like quadrant one, he's just high performance but low trust? Absolutely not. We don't want him. And in fact the interview went on to say and you probably find it on social media somewhere the guy went on to say that a lot of the SEAL Team 6 supposedly are more inclined to take the guy of super high trustworthiness but lower performance because we can teach him. Now I'd probably say I'd advocate for that because I think we can help people develop their skill. We can help develop it fast. But if they're the wrong person we're really got hurt.

Jason Weber: 14:38

Now I can speak to experiences this year of talking to friends of mine who are in HPM roles that are dealing with some bad humans, people who are white anting. Now, for anybody in the US or UK doesn't get my Australian vernacular, but white-anting is that guy who's going behind your back, he's going and complaining about you and he's not right. Gee, I'm sick of what Jase is saying and just chipping away at the outsides, not man enough? Or yeah, man enough, I'm old enough to say those things. Yeah, you're not mad enough to have the balls to say to your face hey, I got a problem and deal with it. Let's let's do it face to face. So there are those cats. So would I take someone of a little bit lesser um skill set, yep 100, if they can be part of my world and we can educate and bring them up absolutely.

Jason Weber: 15:29

And if I was to say I use a couple of examples I was in a job many years ago where we didn't have a great staff, we didn't have any staff, it was just me, me, one physio, one doc, and we slowly started to work that out and one of the guys I brought in with me at one time, early on it was his first job at a high level had an exceptional amount of skill in a particular area, all right, and in that area I thought he was exceptional and so I manipulated the environment to ensure he had enough time to execute that task, that part of the program. I maybe took other levels, like I took higher levels of work because I knew I could handle all that. Because, like, I took higher levels of work because I knew I could handle all that, because I would get the best out of him. Now that's me saying, yeah, he was the right person and he had the right skill, he was more than competent in that task, but I had to manipulate the environment to maximize it. So I think that's crucially important Understanding again this comes back. I knew what my strengths and weaknesses were, so I knew I could take the bulk of that other work and that would allow the environment to flourish. And and it did. Quite frankly. Quite frankly, it did. I did find out later that person probably had some personality faults that caused some problems later on with social activities. But hey, you've got to live and learn on those ones. I will use aside another example Again when I was in a high-performance role, when I did have quite a good staff, I actually got somebody into my program in a rehabilitation role.

Jason Weber: 17:09

Now this is one of the big learnings from learning to interview. Now I took it on advice from a coach and from some people that I knew that this guy was good, he knew what he was doing. He'd worked with the coach before and I thought this is fait accompli, this is good. Had a quick chat to the guy. He seemed personable, so he seemed like the right guy, he seemed like a good fit. But it became very evident very fast when he got on the ground that philosophically he was way removed from where I was and, as time would tell, he was shown to be quite incompetent because he created some more repeat injuries on players and the like. So that's where I can say like, yeah, I think he was the right person, he was a good guy and all that, a lovely guy. But no competence. No competency. Yeah, couldn't play guitar, couldn't play drums, couldn't play anything Useless. So go and bash some pots and pans together, my friend, and do it away from me, because you're ruining my sound. That was really it and and that's what it came down to he. He ended up leaving pretty sharply um, and then trying to come back when he realized how sort of poor he'd been at the time. But although that was a problem, now I learned about interviewing from that and that's another subject for later on how we do that. But I didn't replace him and this is probably the key. This is probably the key.

Jason Weber: 18:39

At the time I had one other S&C coach with me who was more my senior S&C coach, but he was a jet. He was an absolute jet. He'd done a lot of work in rehab. In fact he'd taken the rehab prior to us bringing. The idea was to move him up the chain and bring someone else into rehab Not that I think rehab's a lowly job at all. I think rehab's critical.

Jason Weber: 19:05

But then when we lost, when the other rehab guy left, what I chose to do was not hire. Now, if I quote Jim Collins and I'm not saying that I did this because it was in the book, but one of his, so he comes up with he's got three practical disciplines for being rigorous in people decisions. Number one when in doubt, don't hire, all right. Number two when you know you need to make people change, act. So we kind of did in that context. And three, put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems. Well, number one I wasn't in doubt but I wasn't going to waste time because I knew that that the guy I had with me was more than capable, absolutely elite in what he was doing, and he stepped into that rehab piece and was able to cover off again and I think we actually split the rehab piece now. I remember it. But between the two of us we also managed the broader group, so we were able to. Again. It's another variant that manipulate the situation, but I knew I could trust my man, who was with me implicitly and if he listens to this he'll know who it is not going to go with names right at the moment, but awesome character and professional. So we were able to get on with it and did really well. Now, that wasn't a problem he was solving because we had an opportunity. We got some players back and had a very successful year that year. So it it was critically important.

Jason Weber: 20:37

But I think it comes back to if I look at the bus and the band. Yes, get the right people on the bus is a great concept and it's very important. I do trust it, but I think it needs to run along the side of the band. You've got to be competent at a minimum. But I think if I look at music and I look at Jimmy Page saying someone's competent, I would say they're pretty bloody good. Like John Bonham is recognized as one of the greatest drummers of all time, john Paul Jones, absolute freak at numerous instruments, numerous instruments and Robert Plant, an absolutely iconic singer and harmonica player, and the like. So, yeah, maybe competence is not even the right word, but elite. So the balance between the two absolutely, absolutely critical, I think. In terms of it's. You know, we talk, I talk about the gym constantly.

Jason Weber: 21:37

Don't worry about structure. I think you still need to know what your model is, what you're working towards, how you're trying to position your people, um, because that does these days. You know, teams are, groups are looking for that from the outset. How, how do you run your people? How do you organize things? Um, and there's probably a lot more I can share on that. You know, when we start talking about things like meeting structures and how things facilitate again, I'll make a note of that for later we might not even get Darren back, we might not invite him back, we might just continue doing this. Who knows If my dog keeps banging at the door, you never know, it might not even get that done. But I think you've got to have your ideal model Now. But I think you've got to have your ideal model Now. We're not going to talk about models today, but again that structure of how do you see it working? I don't think that's something that you want to be waiting until the last minute I think that's another implication from Jim Collins in his text is get everybody there and then you can figure out what you're going to do. I think there's a level to that. I think I definitely agree.

Jason Weber: 22:39

I would look to who's got strengths. I know a good mate of mine Well, actually a lie, I'm not a good mate but Birjo will tell you quite comfortably. He's talked widely on this podcast about his hiring process recently. Now a lot of what he did was looking for people with good skills and then he put them into different places. I think that's fantastic and I think there's certainly an aspect of that.

Jason Weber: 23:04

There was a couple of years ago I was trying to recruit a female biomechanist who was an awesome biomechanist but just a little bit inexperienced at the actual S&C delivery, and I tried to get her on. So I was trying to figure out how could I get her onto my team and then I'd move people around to accommodate, but it just didn't work out. But she's moved on to Major League Baseball. I'm absolutely killing it, but nonetheless, the opportunity was there to try and get her. Over time I've tried to get. I've got a guy who is currently leading performance in one of the NFL teams. His career actually started in dietetics and he's a US guy. He married a West Australian girl. I tried to get him into AFL as a dietitian and strength coach. I thought that was going to be a great pairing. Didn't quite work out. I also had another guy who's currently running a big national program in Australia and again I was trying to get him into AFL as a strength and dietetics guy. Doesn't always work, but I must say I'm open to the idea.

Jason Weber: 24:06

If I'm going to get great people, certainly people you've known for a couple of years, who you just know. They've got your back and you've got theirs and they bring competency and if they bring competency in a number of disciplines, awesome opportunity, absolutely awesome opportunity to create something new. Now I will reflect back because I probably went a little bit overboard last time for time, but I would reflect back to. I want to do two quick things before we go. I want to now. We've talked at 360 degrees. I've just talked about bringing people probably into your report, the people who are reporting up towards you. But you've got to report up as well. So I think there's an element.

Jason Weber: 24:47

If we take the perspective that, okay, you're getting into a position, I reckon you've got to interview the boss, now this becomes very, very tactical. How do you interview people above you? Well, a lot of it. You want to be evaluating the coach, you want to be evaluating management, all of that stuff. You're going to ask questions that are leading questions. You're going to look at reactions. You're going to watch people react.

Jason Weber: 25:21

So when you bring something up, when you bring up one of the ones that's quite common that I see, if I bring up skill acquisition concepts right, straightforward skill acquisition let's talk about something as simple as the progression of skill education, practice execution. How do we do that? And just bringing up examples, and when you see blank looks coming back at you and questions like oh, how would you do that, you kind of got to wonder okay, there's a, there's a potential there, that that's an area of maybe not strength, all right, so that's all right. There's nothing wrong with that. It's about you.

Jason Weber: 25:54

Again, let's go back to what this is about Know thy enemy. And it's not the bad guys, but it's knowing the people around you. So where are the strengths and weaknesses? And when I look at something like that, I would make sure I've got to check myself, because what I don't want to do and probably I've been accused of in the past is going in too hard with people above you. Now let's be honest. Let's be honest, right.

Jason Weber: 26:21

I've got an undergraduate degree. I've got two advanced degrees in science. I've been studying sport and exercise science, biomechanics, physiology all of that for the better part of the last nearly 40 years ballpark, something like that no, not quite that much 35. But when you look at coaches in sport, they may have played the game for a long time, but they haven't been coaching for very long. Maybe you're lucky you get one who's been coaching for 10 years, but they're going to know things that are great, unbelievable, about the game and knowledge through their experience, but not having done anything structured. So in many ways, you know you've got to be really careful with that. I've got to be careful with that and I think we should be careful and we educate up all those sort of things.

Jason Weber: 27:09

But I think it is suffice to say that you want to be asking questions that figure things out when strengths and weaknesses lie. They're the things that we asked of ourselves. That's what we asked in our last episode strengths and weaknesses, where do we sit? If you can figure that out, you can start to understand where people are at, where they're coming from, how they're going to react to you, because you're going to be on that reporting up chain.

Jason Weber: 27:39

I think stress is a big one. Understanding how people are stressed, how they respond to stress you can use in your reactions when people get under the pump. If you understand it, maybe you don't fight against it so much. You can walk with it. Okay, very yin and yang. Work with the flow of things rather than try and fight it.

Jason Weber: 28:01

The other one is values. Right, we talked about values in the last episode. What are the things you will not accept? What are the standards you will demand? Where is the wiggle room? We talked about? David Morris's quote about saying if you walk past it, you're accepting it. So what are the things? Can we figure that out? Where do we need to be? Sometimes those questions are quite easy because they're direct. You know what does this environment stand for? What are we about? What do you aim to be? You know, some teams have got cultures laid out. They've invested a lot of time. You don't understand what they are.

Jason Weber: 28:41

I will say in many regards that in my opinion and it's just an opinion that many of the corporate orientated vision statements or value statements that teams come up with are generally quite grossly inadequate when it comes to practice, particularly when you're looking at team sports, where you need discipline, you need people working together, you need, you know, in every team sport, number one thing we need is people working for one another. So where does that get mentioned? Not always. So those undercurrent cultural elements are going to be part of the team. They may not necessarily be part of the cultural value statement of the entire environment you find yourself in, but I think it's very fair to work. Those questions Work. Those questions strengths, weaknesses, how things happen under stress and where do the values right?

Jason Weber: 29:39

We also talked last week about technical philosophies. I think they're another, another level, I think in terms of approaching the up sense of talking to coaches and so forth, understanding what they know. Um, yeah, you can ask simple questions. I think on the technical side we already sort of talked about tonight and I'll just finish on this point really is. Let's just finish on the bus and the band. I really want to nail that home.

Jason Weber: 30:09

I do think categorically that you need the right people because you don't want to waste your life with arsehats. That's an absolute Can't do it. I mean, I've probably done it over the past. If I've been an arsehat to people, I apologize, but same thing, they probably shouldn't have got rid of me. But you'd like to try and think you do the right thing as often as possible and you try to be good and work with people. I've talked before about my environment. I tend to describe it as a learning hospital. I try to get people learning laterally and vertically. So you're learning laterally means between disciplines. So say, physio to S&C, s&c to physio Up would be well, clearly, your junior ranks to your more seniors, so forth and so on. But you've got to have the right people and you've got to have competency. So we're gonna pull stumps on that one.

Jason Weber: 31:06

We're at about the 30 minute mark, which is enough from me for one night or one episode. I hope you guys have enjoyed it, I think. Having talked to myself for the last half an hour, I think there's a bunch of other things I can keep going on, so we'll try to flesh it out a little bit more. I definitely think there is. I'm going to do one more episode in this construct. I definitely think it'd be worthwhile. For those that haven't looked at it, I think going back to session two, episode eight definitely was awesome. About technical philosophy I really encourage people to look at that about getting your own backyard squared away. Last week's episode was good in this regard. So if you dig it, talk to your friends, share it. We love it. We'd like to get 20 people following us. We think we've got about 12 or 15 at the moment. Always a laugh. It's been a pleasure. You never know who'll turn up next week. Maybe we'll have darren back, um, but I hope you enjoyed and I hope your journey is going well you.