Two Coaches & a Coffee

Unlocking Leadership and Diversity in Sports Performance Part 1

• Darren Burgess & Jason Weber • Season 2 • Episode 41

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Unlock the secrets of exceptional leadership in athletic performance with our latest episode, featuring insights from notable industry figures. We promise you'll learn how to cultivate credibility and influence before they're needed, through engaging hypotheticals and empathy exercises. As we reflect on recent events like the AFL draft, we stress the importance of establishing a solid foundation for leadership roles, enriched by anecdotes and examples that highlight the critical components of effective sports coaching.

With a focus on promoting diversity and skill development, we explore the need for inclusive environments in sports, drawing inspiration from trailblazing coaches like Arsene Wenger and Alastair Clarkson. Our conversation touches on nurturing neurodivergent and gender-diverse individuals, with personal stories that emphasize the importance of empathy and adaptation. By creating spaces that encourage diverse talents and perspectives, we illustrate how leadership can flourish in traditionally judgmental arenas. Join us as we share invaluable strategies for fostering understanding and communication in today's dynamic sports environment.

Sponsored by SPEEDSIG.com

Jason Weber:

This episode of Two Coaches and a Coffee will be recorded live at the Exercise and Sports Science Australia Human Performance Management Think Tank on November 22, 2024. So welcome, gentlemen. Thank you very much, Darren and Jason. This is going to be a live version of Two Coaches and a Coffee.

Darren Burgess:

So with that great introduction, I'll leave the two of you to follow my hand here and do the next session. So welcome, gentlemen.

Jason Weber:

Thanks, duncan, g'day and welcome to Two Coaches and a Coffee. This is our very first crack at speaking to more than 15 people. Welcome, darren, how are you going?

Darren Burgess:

Good thanks, jase. How are you mate?

Jason Weber:

Very good mate. Very good given it is 3.28 where I am.

Jason Weber:

So it's bright and early. Yeah, 3.28 am, yeah, so my coffee is well and truly loaded. I think I'm going to be somewhat bent out of shape for the next couple of days, but for the 13 or 14 people that do listen to our podcast, darren did make a comment a couple of weeks ago about the fact that sometimes you just got to suck it up and do what you got to do. So that's the end of my complaining. You've just got to suck it up and do what you've got to do, so that's the end of my complaining. So today, mate, we have got quite a unique thing in that we actually have some topics that we need to talk about, and it's got to be a bit better than our normal show.

Jason Weber:

There's a bit more pressure on you.

Darren Burgess:

We've got a bit longer and yeah, so I'm happy to let you lead. There's a couple of things that have happened here overnight in Australia which listeners might be interested in, which is the AFL draft and how that played out. So I'm happy to talk about that in a little bit. But I'll let you lead and we'll go with the set questions.

Jason Weber:

Well, not so much set questions, but the theme is the innovative leadership for athletic performance, and I'm going to tell you that Jen Overbeck, who just spoke before us, really intimidated me. I think for us to come in and talk about leadership now, we're going to want to come up with some good stories, mate. So, given those great introductions that Duncan gave us, we'd better come up with something good. So one of the things that I thought I'd like to start with before we go off, because we've got a couple of I'll just throw the headings out there's the things that we're going to work towards are team dynamics and gender and diversity and support and leadership leading in high-pressure environments, and innovation and leadership. Now, before we crack onto that, I thought one of the most obvious things and one of the things I reckon we sometimes overlook is the basics, like getting yourself squared away before you get started.

Jason Weber:

I think Jen talked a little bit about that. I'm probably going to cut off my notes here, but I thought the conversation about investing in your influence and credibility before you need it just outstanding idea, and quite often this happened to me when I first met Stu McMillan, but someone who actually verbalises what you're thinking right. Stu did that for me and I think Jen just did that when I listened to her. But I think we talk about and you and I have talked about before, sticking to systems, and it's one thing to stick to a system, but I think for young S&C coaches. Now I know I've certainly had a quick look through the list of people on this call and there's some old bulls, you know I call out a couple. I think I can see Dr Nick Poolaw sitting there. There's a guy, todd Teakle, from up in Geraldine, who's certainly a very wise old chap.

Darren Burgess:

There's a couple of other old heads I think Loris Bertolacci's there a bit of a legend of the industry as well here in Australia.

Jason Weber:

He is a genuine old bull. A genuine old bull. Who else is there anyway? A couple of people hiding themselves, so we won't go too far so just just in front.

Darren Burgess:

How just to crow wow, yeah, okay, um, he's been around for a while and doing some great things, uh, in both afl and soccer. How, how was the um? How is that credibility established? J? How is that? If you walk into a new environment? How do you establish that early on?

Jason Weber:

Good question. I think that goes. One of the things I've thought about and we've tried to do this before get people to take something away. I think one of the core elements that we try to do with Two Coaches and a Coffee is hypotheticals. So developing credibility and developing a skill in leadership before you actually get to that position, I reckon is hypotheticals.

Jason Weber:

I always encourage my staff to try and walk a mile in other people's shoes. So if you want to be the leader, you need to try and work on how would I deal with a particular situation, even if it's not your responsibility at that moment. How would I deal with it and then walk through it with the guy who had to deal with it? Now I've been in a position where I worked for a long time. Um, you know, if you the the nuts and bolts of the difference between our resumes, is I, I was a, I'm a long haul guy and you move between environments between our resumes is I'm a long-haul guy and you move between environments? No, that's not a bad thing, it's just what it is mate.

Jason Weber:

I'm stuck in one spot. But in doing that, one of the things I always thought with some of the great guys I work with, like Michael Dobbin, dan Zaknitch, jackson, dennis, guys who are leading their own environments now was I'd take them to meetings just to let them sit and listen and then we'd talk about afterwards what would you have done. I think that's super important. So I guess, as me, being a leader is me helping others grow, but I think, from the guy or the girl as it can very easily be female when they're coming through. I think, trying on practising how you might approach a problem, but a real problem, Like man, you face them all the time, right, yeah?

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, it's a really interesting one, because often people who are now leading similar to you, I've had the great lot of leaders were were, um, you know, was just that you're better at coaching and you've been around longer, so you get offered the leadership position and that might be true, but you don't get any training in it, so that on the spot training and you know it's a bit bit of a um, a cliche at the moment to go and do harvard courses or mbas and things like that and they all offer you, um, some really good scenarios, but they're not necessarily bespoke to what we do. So I think the way that you're doing it is really good by giving them practical scenarios. And what would you have done without, necessarily, the pressure of having to do that? I guess that's the challenge, then, for universities is to somehow implement that into their systems and into their teaching and there's some really good practical university courses but still to have that scenario-based education. And what would you do in this situation? I'll give you an example.

Darren Burgess:

When I first moved from the Socceroos to Liverpool, the coach at the time was an unbelievably successful coach, rafa Benitez. He hired me, but I never got to meet him. He got sacked before I got there, and when I turned up there there was 22 players. There was three staff in the whole club, including the academy, because Rafa Benitez had taken all of the staff with him to his next job. And I got there on a Friday after the World Cup in South Africa. We'd just beaten Serbia but got knocked out. Unfortunately, got there on a Friday and we started training on the Monday, and so we had to employ all these staff over the weekend. Then my first session. I remember it's possibly the most nervous I've ever been, jason my first session at Liverpool, because it was just me and I had to demonstrate a couple of drills. Oh, you would have been awesome. You're well suited for that because it was just me and I had to demonstrate a couple of drills. Now, oh you would have been awesome.

Jason Weber:

You're well suited for that.

Darren Burgess:

Mate, I was and I can't. And people listening to this especially some of the experienced guys and girls on this call, but people who are academics listening to this would go. This is the biggest load of crap ever. But to demonstrate the drill, which was simply a soccer passing drill where I had to sprint out, take a first touch and lay it off to somebody else so it was a combination of a conditioning and a soccer drill I'd never been so nervous and I would tell you right now that that ability fortunately, I nailed the drill. It was probably the greatest first touch I've ever had in my life, including my extraordinarily amateur playing career.

Darren Burgess:

That set it up. Because then the people from Brazil, from Yugoslavia, from Czech Republic, from all these different places said, okay, well, this guy knows a bit about soccer because he can play a little bit. So when I took Tim Parham from Port Adelaide to Arsenal, I said, mate, the biggest thing you can do over the next four months is work on your first touch, because you're going to be demonstrating drills. Now it's like you if I went into a gym and was attempting to demonstrate um drills, I used to think in my younger days now you don't need to demonstrate. Just get a good player to do it. But your ability to do that, I think, establishes that credibility, rightly or wrongly, whether we agree with it or not.

Darren Burgess:

It establishes that credibility.

Jason Weber:

So I think that's also a big thing that you don't get from textbooks or from university's mate, you hit on a big point because, clearly, in the strength and conditioning space and I'm not the smallest lad on the face of the earth, so I've always been in that context where, yeah, I can lift and do whatever. I certainly can't. Now I can tell you that I had a shocker in the gym last night, but that's not for this point in the gym last night, but that's not for this point. But what it does bring to the front is this idea, the concept of teen dynamics, gender diversity, because and I bring that up now because what if demonstration is critical?

Jason Weber:

If we consider that, now, I think your point's absolutely well made and fantastic. But what if you can't run or if you don't have that touch? Or, more specifically, if we had, we're in the gym and we have, um, we're working with someone who's not exactly capable of all of the tech, not all the techniques, but they're not going to lift at a, at a high level or the way they look. Do we deal with them differently? Should they be employed?

Darren Burgess:

Excellent question, and so here are the two options. Here are two options that I've used in the past.

Jason Weber:

Yeah, I've got a couple for you too.

Darren Burgess:

I'm not in any way. You know, in the days when I was more hands-on, I still wasn't very good in the gym not a big lifter in any particularly Olympic lifts, no ability to demonstrate those with any sort of confidence and you're a one-woman band working with a bunch of athletes and you need to demonstrate that, then you need to get good at prepare at online. So have a look at this person demonstrating it, because I'm not particularly comfortable doing it. Be honest with the athlete. Athlete can always detect I won't swear but can always detect bull crap.

Jason Weber:

So be honest with them, BS BS detector BS.

Darren Burgess:

We often don't respect athletes' ability of all ages to detect BS. So use an online resource that you trust. If it's in a team environment, go to one of the players and school them beforehand and say I'm going to get you to demonstrate this. Can you show me how you would do it? I'll correct you now. Here are the things that I want you to do during the demonstration that's happening in an hour's time. That's another method that I've used in the past is going to somebody and saying I'm going to use you to demonstrate and I'm going to cue you up accordingly, because, even though I couldn't demonstrate it, I could certainly cue it.

Jason Weber:

Cool Mate, I think, and one of the ones I'm going to bring up just by way of an example. I'm not going to name the person, but I worked many, many years ago with a female in strength and conditioning and she came to my environment, where I was working at that time, with a very, very high level of skill, very, very high level of skill and, in fact, as things often happen, um, she was so good and so intent at what she was doing that I actually had to get her to sort of calm down a little bit. She was taking some of the players I was working with at the time a little bit too far, but from a, I guess, this diversity idea, strength and conditioning is such a male-dominated space. I think men in our space and men being you and me and other dudes doing this, we've called out other guys on this meeting, but I think you've got to be starting to look further afield and I think there are women coming through that are exceptional in their area in strength and conditioning and are more than capable in the male environment. But I think you've got to set them up to succeed by making sure that things like you just said, you're not throwing them in demos that are inappropriate or ill-timed, making sure they're set up.

Jason Weber:

And I think that's one of the core things when I look at this whole subject matter of leadership in um, in our environment. Trying to set people up to succeed is a big thing, right. Making sure they know, not putting them on the spot. I mean, you and I do this gig every time we do the podcast. We throw hand grenades at each other all the time. That's just like that's part of the course when you've got sufficient grey hair.

Jason Weber:

But I think, in terms of the idea of what we're trying to do, if we can encourage participation, encourage females to take on those roles and demonstrate. But I would say the caveat is, like the girl that I worked with years ago who now I will tell you, is an extraordinarily successful person, like I say, I'm not going to call her out by name, but she had exceptional skill and I had a position I had in AFL where I actually thought I was going to hire a female, a very, very experienced athlete, but unfortunately she didn't quite come up to the skill level. So there are going to be decisions where you're going to have to make that, but making sure they're in a position where they've got the good skill and they've got the time to develop it and show it is absolutely critical, and I think that comes down to, I guess, the point in all this is us setting up the environment for it to happen.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, I think that's really important. I think the environment and the preparation that goes in beforehand to establish that credibility, because you often hear about the media talking about coaches, as in head coaches, senior coaches they have to do it harder because they haven't been a player themselves. So you know, there's certain Arsene Wenger, for example, was just an average soccer player, so the talk was that he had to work a whole lot harder because he didn't have that initial credibility of having been an experienced, you know, world Cup winning soccer player. That's a pep guardiola didn't have to have.

Darren Burgess:

There is there are examples in australia of people that were pretty good in in rfl, pretty good players who've turned out to be unbelievable coaches alistair, clarkson, those sort of people who were, you know, pretty good but not absolutely elite like some others who maybe haven't done so well. The same goes in our field, and so you just have to do a lot more preparation in that, knowing that you're walking into an environment that is judgmental, that is rightly or wrongly assessing everything that you do as you are doing it in terms of your credibility. So, before you bring somebody into an environment, in terms of your credibility, so before you bring somebody into an environment. You absolutely need to educate them, but also prepare the environment for somebody a little bit different coming in for sure.

Jason Weber:

Mate, tell me this here's one for you. Have you on the gender diversity side, have you ever worked with anybody who was, you know, genuinely different, like I'm, the archetypal meat axe looking strength and conditioning coach, but in terms of anyone who's visibly different and I think this is a challenging question I'm not sure how I'm asking this quite correctly, but I think it's a really interesting. It's one it's confronting when you actually get the question in front of you and you're going like, oh, my god, I mean, I've got, I've got a great experience. I I worked with um and excuse me for asking a question and answering it, but gotta, let me roll, I've got something. But I had a. I had a ph PhD student join me, not my PhD student, but a friend of mine. Had this person come from overseas and were working with him and they asked if they could come and spend some time in our space and the person that came in was genuinely diverse, let's put it that way. I don't know if that's the most appropriate way.

Darren Burgess:

Neurodivergent.

Jason Weber:

No, no, no, not neurodivergent um person, a diverse individual. I would say um, probably by way of um. I mean looked female but maybe didn't identify as that and and identified probably a little bit differently. But the only way I could figure out how to deal with that and to deal with her was for me to bring the environment to her, not force her into our environment. And I say her, but I'm just, you've got to give me a little bit of leeway there, mate. I'm closer to 60 now than I am to 50, so I get bent sometimes with the he-she thing.

Jason Weber:

But the point would be that I tried to bring the environment to her and, like, try and understand her and not that we covered anything particularly about her status or anything, but to try and make her feel comfortable. And in the end what ended up happening was someone who didn't speak, would hardly say a word, and this person was also challenged because I think English wasn't their first language, but they were very good at it. But by spending time and I think that's probably my point there people can't just adapt to an environment. They're going to have to have some time to, as you probably, build some comfort in an environment. So I mean it's a challenging space. Have you been down that path?

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, one of the things that you might do in that situation, and perhaps not to the extremity that you've just described, but