Two Coaches & a Coffee

Unlocking Leadership and Diversity in Sports Performance Part 2

• Darren Burgess & Jason Weber • Season 2 • Episode 42

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Unlock the secrets of effective staff management and leadership with insights from the Exercise and Sports Science Australia Human Performance Management Think Tank. Ever wondered how understanding personality profiles can revitalize team dynamics? Join us as we explore real-world experiences from diverse clubs, revealing how a "leader's eye" can transform your ability to read interpersonal dynamics and harness the unique strengths of each team member. We promise you'll gain practical strategies to enhance team cohesion and productivity by acknowledging and integrating the diverse talents within your group.

Our discussion goes beyond mere management techniques, delving into the continuous development of leadership skills among staff. Discover how personalized growth plans can transform technically skilled individuals into effective communicators and leaders. We share stories like the journey of a sports analyst who mastered public speaking for his PhD presentation, underscoring the importance of tailoring development plans to nurture essential leadership qualities. Learn from the art of communication used by AFL coaches to inspire and motivate teams, ensuring you're equipped to guide your team to success with confidence and skill.

Sponsored by SPEEDSIG.com

Jason Weber:

This episode of Two Coaches and a Coffee has been recorded live at the Exercise and Sports Science Australia Human Performance Management Think Tank on November 22, 2024.

Darren Burgess:

People are all built differently and they have certain strengths and weaknesses. For people who are watching this, by the way, I've got players walking past my window constantly. So if I'm looking up and smiling and waving and I've had that many text messages calling me rude for not looking up from players in the last 10 minutes but anyway is, like you said, bring the environment to that person. So I have spoken about this scenario probably not on the podcast, though If you know your staff really well and there's a couple of ways you can do that, that can evolve over time.

Darren Burgess:

It can be that you do the personality profiles, which have some strengths and obviously some weaknesses depending on which one you use. But, um, certainly, at at my last three clubs, we've done the personality profile of the staff so that everybody in the room knows what sort of triggers, what sort of personality everybody else in the room is. So if we use the Insights profile which we did at one club and we knew that, jason, you're a yellow which, for those who know the Insights profile, is always bright and bubbly a real people person gets energy and gives energy by being around people, which I'm using that sarcastically which I'm using that sarcastically.

Darren Burgess:

I'm using that sarcastically, but let's say you're a yellow.

Jason Weber:

I appreciate that mate.

Darren Burgess:

I appreciate that and I'm a red who's a bit more of a director and a bit grumpier and a bit, you know, sees things in only his or her way and nobody else's, and doesn't necessarily get energy by people. People tend to annoy him or her if they're not being productive. So in a recovery setting, if the Crows lose to Port Adelaide, if we use my current example, even though I may be the recovery expert, I'm going to say you know what I'm going to be no good in this scenario, jason. You're going to say you know what I'm going to be no good in this scenario, jason, you're going to take recovery today. Even though that might not be your one word, I'm going to put you in front of the players today because you're always energetic and positive and give energy and get energy from being around people.

Darren Burgess:

There is no point me being around them because I might say I can't believe you dropped that mark or, you know, I might be thinking that. And so getting establishing the diversity within your group and putting those people in the appropriate positions, where their natural tendencies are allowed to, are allowed to shine, I think is a really appropriate way to manage your staff, and that may be diversity in any aspect, and I'm using a pretty narrow range. I understand that by just personality profiles not as diverse as what you're talking about, but the genders is irrelevant. What their personality is is is what I'm interested in and what they might um how they might complement the environment oh, mate, you've nailed it.

Jason Weber:

You've nailed it from the like. You did right, it's not really when it comes down to the practical side. They've got it. People bring skill and that's what you're hiring and the personality that comes with that skill not necessarily the package that it's in, but in the same breath, like utilising personality profiles, I think is a good let's call it a longer-term strategy, like it takes more. Those things take time to do and to learn. I want to throw something a little bit different. Right, we always talk about having a coach's eye, right? Everyone. Like you know, I'm with SpeedSig. I see it all the time. People go oh no, I don't need to analyse biomechanics, I'm a super coach, I can see it. I've got a coach's eye, I have a rider, whatever, but yes, we need to develop a leader's eye.

Jason Weber:

You ever heard of that. Do you know what a leader's eye is? No, I just made it up, so I'm so what a leader's eye is. So what I was thinking about when I was writing, I wrote a color cheated mate, I I've got a lot I've got to tell you. I wrote some notes. So I'm sorry, but but when I was thinking about this person that worked with me who was clearly not going to fit in not naturally anyway, they're not going to.

Jason Weber:

You know, see, some people walk into a football environment and they're just, they've been there. Whether they have or not they they're suited to it I reckon you've got to look, you've got to be able to see when people are not fitting in. So I'm going to throw a couple of points out where I think, as a leader, you need to be able to read the room quickly, right? Because if you let's say, let's go back to your I think you said it was Liverpool but where you walk in and you just hire all these new staff and it goes from zero to 101, go Now, that's probably worst case scenario. But you're in a space where you've got people. You don't necessarily know them that well. You might have new staff come in.

Jason Weber:

I think a leader's eye, things like you've got to be able to watch, right, you've got to be able to watch people who struggle in what I would call escalating interpersonal settings. So particularly where you see someone that can speak to you, okay, and they can speak to one or two people, but when it becomes a meeting let's say it's a small meeting they're not going to say anything. Bigger meeting mate, they're going under the chair, they're not going to say a thing. Same thing in front of players. They can talk to one or two players, but then they get in front of a bigger group. Right, you've got to. You've got to be able to, um, you've got to be able to see that and read that.

Jason Weber:

In my opinion, because that's our job, once you wear that and I hate the idea but you've got a leader's badge on, I'm the boss, you're responsible for understanding how your people are developed. So I think people who the other one would be and you'd know this one one people who can struggle to contribute when you know they can. So you know, you've got someone on your staff who is, you know, intelligent, they know what they're talking about. They've got some great ideas, creative, whatever it is, but they struggle to contribute or to convey that message again in different settings.

Jason Weber:

I think you've got to work with that and it's our job to have a leader's eye to pick that up, because it's one thing, like you know, your point was great, like let's give people the opportunity to lead. It's maybe not their strong suit and some people will handle that, some don't. I worked with a guy, one of my PhD students, who's an excellent, excellent sports analyst and a very good running coach too, but he struggled, struggled when it came to any sort of group. Now I had to work with him gently to ease him through in the situation to be able to present, and that was so he could actually present his PhD down the chain. So I think that concept of like I do, like the like we used to use the disk profiles. I think that's a great bigger strategy.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah.

Jason Weber:

But yeah, I'd encourage people like leaders and people who want to be leaders to start learning how to read people like actually take the time to observe, because and I learned this off Dan Pfaff, who's a great, magnificent sprint coach but behaviour is a great tool. You can read people when they change behaviour, when they're a really gregarious person and they're suddenly quiet or the reverse they're not usually a talker then suddenly they're jumping out of their skin or they get flushed around the neck because they're now pumped up. Now I'm just going to quickly. I'm not real good at this reading chat thing, but I've just read Duncan. You've got to remember, mate, when Duncan Armstrong speaks, I'm going to listen, mate. You know, mate, I started my career as a swimming coach in my master's degree. I was all over Duncan Armstrong as an athlete, so I got all gushy last year when I met him. So I'm going to read his question.

Darren Burgess:

Can I just say if Duncan's listening, jason, you've been called a cyborg and you would just sink. I think swimming would be the worst sport for you. You have got the opposite of a a swimmer's swimmer's uh profile, I would have thought.

Jason Weber:

But anyway, I've seen duncan's questions I thought you were going a different space. I thought you're going to say you're a cyborg, but but you're actually a lovely sweet guy.

Darren Burgess:

I thought that was what you were going to say. No, no, no. You basically look like a cyborg, so you would sink anyway. The question is I'll read it out and you can answer it, because I've got a couple of examples what do you do with people on your staff who have the intelligence but are not group leaders or are not situated to address groups or teams?

Jason Weber:

Mate, that's absolutely. That's almost like a standard operating procedure. You need to understand Some people are not going to be group orientated, and I think it comes down to number one understand what they want to be. For instance, of the three guys I mentioned earlier who I've worked over 10 years with, like they all wanted, they all aspired to be HPMs. So you had to put them into situations, you had to help them come up. But there are going to be people that don't want to be that. So I think you've got to, like you said before, and I think this is again. I'll reference Jen Overbeck because, as I said, she intimidated me massively.

Jason Weber:

Even though I'm a cyborg, is getting things, figuring it out in advance. So, if you're going to start asking people to do things as in front teams or front groups is, make sure, like you said, they're ready for it and they're prepared for it. That's the biggest thing. But you've got to help people. I think a leader's job is to help people succeed, so you've got to figure out what that means. Yes, yes, duncan, I think that's a leader's eye. Yes, yes.

Darren Burgess:

Duncan. I think that's a leader's eye as an example and that leader's eye is going to go. It's going to take off, as Todd mentioned on the chat as part of that, if you have in a practical scenario and please, anybody who wants to ask a question far away, if you have somebody who wants to be a high-performance manager or director or whatever term you want to use, which requires some ability to get up in front of people and discuss and instruct.

Jason Weber:

Let's be frank it needs a huge ability.

Darren Burgess:

It certainly does, and they don't have that ability yet. And your leaders, they admit, look, I haven't have that ability yet. And your leaders I. Or they admit, look, I haven't got that yet, but I really want to be, or really want to sit in your chair one day. Then one of the mistakes I think that people make is they just say, well, you need to work on that, okay, off you go, whereas what I will do is I'll give them homework and say, okay, okay, by this time, in a month's time, you need to have done Simon Sinek's public speaking course or you need to have enrolled in his $350 from the club for PD. It's not going to be a more conventional course on strength and conditioning or sports science. I'm going to send you to Brett Bartholomew's communication improv course or whatever it might be, to learn that skill, and that is genuine homework Away. You go, come back to me with five courses that you've seen online. You've got a week to do it.

Darren Burgess:

So when I have staff reviews, every single staff member goes away with some sort of objective task that they need to complete in a week, a month, whatever it might be. They have been in the gym all their life and have little concept of coding or data analytics or decision making trees. When you get that information, it is the exact same concept. In order for you to lead a department and a team, you need to have some understanding of this. Your gym understanding is brilliant. Now you need to improve this side of things. Now you need to improve this side of things. So, therefore, off you go. Give me five courses on Excel mastery, into programming, into Python, into Rshiny, whatever it might be. So, using your Jason trademark, lead as I understand the weaknesses or the areas of growth or the opportunities in your staff and give them some objective work-ons for that mate, absolutely I can't stand the term homework, but I love your work.

Jason Weber:

Um, I think you did right. I think you you made another point the the objective. Giving people objectives to work with is is excellent, but I will let's quickly, I'm not not divert away from that, but I think you make such a great point that you're giving people to work on. But I think, as a lady yourself going in right, you need to make sure we talk about building credibility. You've got to have a skill. So I hate when people get the leadership badge but they don't lead.

Jason Weber:

For my, I used to. On a presentation, I used to talk about leadership. I had this black, know black space and there's this little person with lamp. That, to me, is leadership. When the room's dark, I've got a light. I'm shining. This is the way we're going. I'll show you the direction forward.

Jason Weber:

So I think, in terms of being a leader, what I would make sure that you have as well in your kit bag is you've got a skill set right. So take the sport environment. Let's take AFL. I was there for such a long time that, yeah, you can be a leader of the department, but you've got expertise in strength and conditioning, or you might be the physiotherapist and you've got high-level skill there, you can still contribute to the team and help bring it forward, not just wear the badge, like I've seen. I know a couple of people and again I'm not going to call them out who have been in leadership roles. But once you're in the leadership role, it's hands off. I don't do it. I actually I stand here and point fingers and direct traffic and do something like that. Now you don't have't have to have hands-on all the time, but I think my personal opinion is that you need to have a skill set that you can still bring to the team so you can show them the way forward.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, there's no doubt, as you elevate in your career in this field, you tend to get dragged away from that a lot. So the meetings that I'm now having with board members, with coaches, with CEOs, with owners in previous roles takes me away from the coalface with the players, and I think that's a mistake that you make. Like you said it, also takes away from the staff.

Darren Burgess:

So you need to make sure that you still have that one wood and you're employing it. Duncan mentioned we're talking about self-determining growth trajectory. Certainly, self-determining theory is a really important one in our world, allowing people to have agency over their own development. I think that's really, really important, so I agree with that. So I agree with that, dr Cates, tanya Cates, curiosity to understand what they don't know, that they may need Really, really really tough one, tanya, because I reckon in the last five years I've had conversations with staff who are really ambitious and really want to sit in the high performance manager or elevate their career the way they see an elevation, but they need work-ons, in my opinion and my experience, in certain areas of their game, not necessarily technically and so having that conversation is really a hard thing to do, but it's as you said, jason, it's necessary to shine the light on that because I absolutely take and you can take the next question, but I absolutely take the staff development part of the job that I'm currently in as important as any other.

Darren Burgess:

So there are difficult conversations, tanya, to have with staff, just like it is with players in my current job, where you might say you know your running's okay, but you need to work on your strength and that can be a difficult conversation if someone doesn't agree with you. So, certainly, having those conversations and shining a light on those areas that need a little bit of growth, you know, it's really important to be able to have that uncomfortable conversation.

Jason Weber:

I got a cyborg one for you. Duncan's asked how do you protect your time to develop your staff and players? I got this weird idea that, like I'm not a big fan of multitasking, I tend to prefer to do one thing and stick with it. Not that that's always an opportunity for us, but I certainly think of upright better. But remember the original Terminator movie, arnold Schwarzenegger. He's cycled up, he comes through the portal and he's going into the biker bar and he's completely naked. But he walks in and you get the point of view from Cyborg and you can see him. You can see on his computer eye. He's ticking through all the things that need to be done. So I find that is something that you need to kind of.

Jason Weber:

I always try to think about when I'm working is that there's things that you constantly have to be attending to. So yes, I'm attending to my players, yes, I'm attending to whatever we're doing at that time, but I'm also attending to how my players and my staff in particular are developing around that. So you're keeping an eye on all the time and you've got to keep it. It's almost like to be a very computer. It's like your RAM, your random access memory. It's there and it's ticking over all the time. But rather than, like Darren made the point of obviously having meetings and developing educational plans, I also like the idea of constantly adding little bits to them when you can like, giving them confidence around what they're doing at that time, giving them pump up right, making sure they've got confidence.

Jason Weber:

Lift your voice. Lift your voice more. I've said to people in warm-up take a deep breath and then tell people what you need. Project your voice. They're little skills that help people and they're not the skills you'll learn at university. They're not skills you'll learn anywhere other than in the trenches If you want to get somebody's attention. One of the things AFL coaches do brilliantly with their communication is they escalate and de-escalate their their comms. Mark harvey was one of the greatest I've ever seen. A classic all right, can it can escalate and then can de-escalate, but it gets people's attention. We'll see you next time.