Two Coaches & a Coffee

Unlocking Leadership and Diversity in Sports Performance Part 3

• Darren Burgess & Jason Weber • Season 2 • Episode 43

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Ever wondered how leaders in high-performance sports environments manage the intense pressure of balancing demands from both senior coaches and their teams? Discover how tools like DISC personality profiles can be harnessed to decode team dynamics and manage dominant traits effectively. Gain practical strategies for maintaining composure in high-pressure situations, and learn the art of honest communication with senior coaches, even when it means facing potential conflict. Our conversation promises to equip you with the knowledge needed to focus your energy on what you can control to create a harmonious and productive working environment.

We discuss the critical importance of understanding team members' motivations while preserving personal integrity as a leader and the necessity of knowing oneself and having the courage to address unacceptable behavior, ensuring that personal integrity remains intact. Explore strategies to handle undermining behavior and the balance between confidentiality and duty to confront issues when necessary. With an emphasis on concepts like "the leader's eye" and the confidence required for effective middle management, our discussion highlights how leaders can manage both upwards and downwards. Tune in to learn how fostering an environment of trust and integrity can help you navigate the multifaceted challenges of leadership.

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Jason Weber:

this episode of two coaches and a coffee was recorded live at the exercise and sports science australia human performance management think tank on november 22, 2024. All right, so there's little, little little skills yeah. Yeah absolutely.

Jason Weber:

Mate, can I? I'm going to bend you in the opposite direction. I, like you mentioned before about personality profiles, I think part of leadership when we're talking about the high performance environment or the high pressure high pressure environment. Excuse, my phone tingling. One of my one of the players I worked with for years got drafted last night, so he's just sending me messages. Lovely, you got your disc profiles and everybody's in the room and all that. I'm going to assume that, sorry, I said disc profiles. That's what I used over time in a couple of different environments. Did the head coaches do those tasks as well, virgil, in your environments?

Darren Burgess:

They did, yep.

Jason Weber:

They did. So how do you handle managing up? Because leading in a high-performance environment, so we don't lead from the like, we're like middle management. Right, hpms are middle management because you've always got the sporting director, the head coach, the whatever in your environment above you and you've got your staff underneath, so you're in the middle. How do you lead up when you know this guy whatever, like you said, is red? I know one coach I worked with who was on a disc profile. We did one where there's your standard disc and then there's your high stress disc and this person went from red to dark red to like whatever comes after dark red before it went black, like that's. He just escalated in that space. So, yeah, it's, it's a good question.

Duncan Armstrong:

How?

Jason Weber:

are you handling, how you, how are you using that information?

Darren Burgess:

um, while I'm answering this, jason, have a look on chat, because James Clydon's got a really good question which I'd love to get into.

Jason Weber:

All right, you get into that, you go.

Darren Burgess:

So with managing up is a really difficult one. I'll give you my practical solution. And that's not for everybody, right? So understand that. But I've been called names by coaches in the heat of battle which are not fit for a, you know, not fit for a mallee dog, to use a really Australian saying, as I'm sure a lot of people on this call have been in the middle of a game because I'm in charge of rotations and I make a mistake, it goes wrong and you know, a six foot eight player is standing next to a five foot nine player and it costs the team a goal. How did that happen? And straight away everybody points at Berger and you get yelled at and called all his names.

Darren Burgess:

That is somebody displaying that red personality. You know it. You know the coaches that way inclined. You've got a couple of options. In the heat of the battle you just put your hand up and say, yep, that's fine, my fault, I accept that, no problem. And you, you know that during the week or even half an hour after the game, the coach is going to be fine with it.

Darren Burgess:

But if you're seeing scenarios with which the inappropriate sort of leadership communication skills are happening, you can either sit idly by and not say anything, or if you think you can have an input in that situation and that situation falls within your area of we'll call it of control, then I think you're sort of duty bound to do it. And I know to have an input, and I know that I can rest my head at night a lot more comfortably if I've voiced my opinion, even if it's not heard, it's yelled at, it's completely ignored. But if I can say to, in this case my senior coach, matthew Nix, I might say to him Nixie, have you considered this? Or why don't you use some of the techniques that we've spoken about to calm down? Or however that conversation plays out, I feel like I'm duty bound to say it, and I have done that for the last 25 years of my career. Now that's landed me in some hot water, for sure, but I would rather do that than sit in the background and say, no, I value my job too much. I value my, and you know I want to protect my job and I want to protect everything by not saying anything. So how do I manage it? I have an input probably more so than is welcome from the other side, but at the moment it's a good balance, and it's a good balance with my last couple of coaches. That's worked out okay. So that's how I would approach it Understanding, though, before I finish and take a breath, understanding, though, before I finish and take a breath.

Darren Burgess:

Um, one of my big lessons to instruct everybody out there is before you do that, what is in your area of control? Is this something out of your area of control? Then don't stress about it, don't worry about it. One thing that grates me more than most in this industry is when you have performance staff physios, doctors, sports science, whatever they might be constantly complaining about. Oh yeah, but the coach does this and the club does this and the commercial director does that and no, no, no, that's not in your control. Let's just make sure our area is good, and then we'll worry about things that are in our control. Let's just make sure our area is good, and then we'll worry about things that are in our control. It's wasted energy. It's the Buddhism Don't get shot by the arrow twice. Why waste your energy worrying about things that you can't control? I'll stop now.

Jason Weber:

That's alcoholics Anonymous also have an interesting saying about that. Control what you can control, mate. The one I was going to bring up very quickly before we go back to James' question is understanding the DISC profile or your personality profiles. Like you mentioned a couple of processes where you know you're in public spaces with coaches. What about when you're one-on-one like, and I think that's an important so I found, like I've worked with two of the greatest hotheads of all time in eddie jones and um ross line, like they can fire up with the best of them.

Jason Weber:

Um, now, confrontation is not for everybody and and by the same token, I think you've got to be able to manage confrontation. Now I'll use a different term Again I'm going to reference Jen Overbeck but negotiation, and in my business now I've actually gone out and learned a lot more about negotiating. But what you want to understand about if you understand the personality profile, if you can see someone starting to elevate and go, if you've got a fired up coach, people talk about what's the hill you want to die on. Maybe there's a right time and a night to bring up certain points, like I would definitely. I used to always use it as a radar, like if I walked into certainly with Ross, if I walked into his office to present something that we needed to discuss, but you could see he just wasn't there, I'd excuse myself and walk out.

Darren Burgess:

For sure. Yeah, that's the leader's eye. I think you have to start the understanding of who you're working with for sure.

Jason Weber:

But you've got to play that game. So, as much as I said before, you've got a leader's eye and you're looking at your staff. I think the same when you're managing up is making sure, like there are going to be sometimes mission-critical things you've got to say but in our environment, pete, it's not a life and death thing. We're not saving people in ER or anything like that. So you and death thing. We're not saving people in er or anything like that, like you know, so you can take the time to walk out, but make sure, yeah, you're um, you've got an opportunity to be aware.

Jason Weber:

I would say one of the things I've learned in negotiation is the ability to um define behavior very quickly. So how is someone behaving and if they're behaving in a way it's aggressive or it's you know something down that path, you need to manage your expectations of that conversation and I think that's a really important thing for people to consider on the journey up in HBM is you're going to have to learn to confront different people. There's going to be hard conversations and you have to. You do have to get the hang of doing that, without question.

Darren Burgess:

Yeah, so it's um ego comes into it as well and this is this is a bit answering james's question as well um, ego comes into it as well. If you're in a conversation with I don't know senior coach or or, or it can be an assistant coach, it could be the kid man and, yeah, you're having a difficult conversation and you want to win the argument more so than you want to be right. You know you've got to have that self-awareness within you to say what is the end goal here? Is the end goal here that this player must come off the field at this point in time, or this player must not take part in training? And the extra 10 minutes that the coach wants him or her in training? Is that really going to? Like you said, this is at the hill you want to die on. Is that really going to move them a needle and make this person get injured or increase their risk of injury? No, it's not something you know, it's just your ego wanting to be better.

Darren Burgess:

So in the younger days I would have, you know, I probably would have fought that fight because my ego wouldn't let me lose. Um, but you know, in the last 15 years or so it's just changed dramatically and okay, what's going on in this conversation as you're having it. Is it just my ego, because we are running out of time and I am on a bit of a tight schedule. Let's get to James. What does leadership look like? I love this question, james, when you are in the dark and you don't know where to point your lamp.

Jason Weber:

I'm going to give you a few minutes, jason, because then we need to get to nick poolos's questions, which is really important I'll uh, I'll certainly say that part of being a leader and having good background information, knowledge of your environment, is being able to um, deduce, use deductive logic to try and figure out an inductive logic where you need to, to figure out the path forward. And one of the ways, one of the things I learned early off Eddie Jones, the way he ran meetings, which was quite interesting, was that he would you never. You never in a big meeting. You never answer questions. You always ask them right.

Jason Weber:

So when there's a problem problem, we're going around and you're getting out of your staff, you're drawing information. So you're gonna, you're gonna get feedback from your group. If you don't know the way forward genuinely and we do have that like certainly when you come across more complicated medical that's probably the biggest one in in sport is you're going to come across complicated medical situations You're going to need to draw on other people. There's no question around that. And I think one of the things James probably is within a reasonable degree of strategy about it is admitting, when you don't know, like not being the bearer of all knowledge all the time.

Darren Burgess:

Yes, I will go to experts. So if we're in a meeting and we have a decision which I actually don't know the answer to, I'll happily say I don't, and then I'll call some mentors, call some, you know, listen, I've got this scenario. What do you think? I'll use a lot of self-education in that. So if it's an area that I don't know a lot about, I'll try and self-educate which is not, you know, self-educating about the risks of a COVID vaccination, where you can dive down the, you know, the dark web education.

Darren Burgess:

I'm talking about peer-reviewed journals and things like that. So there are plenty of times when I don't know and plenty of times that I've had to learn on the run how to handle situations. So, yeah, it's a good question. We're not always going to have the right lamp to shine in the right area, but I think if you admit that and if you're prepared to work with the human, whether it's a staff member or it's a player to of a crowd, I think your ability to work with them and realise it's a process and not here's the light, here you go off, you go. Finish off with Nick.

Jason Weber:

Poulos' stuff. Well, mate. So Nick's given us a cracking question, big question. So, first of all, is how do you handle a strategy around a team member that's trying to undermine you? Nick and I have talked about that a lot this past couple of year and a half. It's incredibly challenging. What I would say is, unfortunately, keep your friends close, your enemies closer. Right, you've got to understand what they're trying to figure out, what their motivation is all right, and is that motivation?

Jason Weber:

I had one staff member, uh, years ago, who was being a bit duplicitous, um, but it was out of fear. It was out of fear. The person thought he was going to lose his job because I turned up in the environment. In fact, once I got him calmed down and said you're not going to lose your job, right, we're working through learning what skills you have, what skills I have, and that calmed him down.

Jason Weber:

Now, that's not always going to work, but I think trying to figure out people's motivations for the way they're acting, which again comes back to that lead desire, trying to understand why someone's acting the way they do it comes back to that lead desire. Trying to understand why someone's acting the way they do, which, again, it works with the personality profiles. Why is someone firing up? Well, they're firing up because that's their nature.

Jason Weber:

Under stress, some people go've got to always maintain that confidence, unless there is some huge conflict. If there were a conflict or someone was being put in danger or there was someone being treated inappropriately because of that information, I would be honest and say to that person listen, I have to take that information elsewhere. But quite often in the course of your career you do find out things about people, but I think it's a personal thing. You've got to maintain some confidentiality as long as it's not conflicting with their role. That would be my kind of perspective and I think are we getting the hook anytime soon, dunk, or we keep going as long as two minutes. I think he said Okay, I've got one more.

Darren Burgess:

Keep going, go man. I was just going to quickly comment on Nick's the undermining. Certainly the confidential information you need to keep confidential and there will be one or two other people, certainly the confidential information you need to keep confidential and there will be one or two other people. So Nick suggests your general manager and people in culture might know it so discussing with them with the appropriate strategies, with these staff undermining you. Unfortunately, it's just a common thing.

Darren Burgess:

People, you know, some people are inherently selfish. What can you control out of this situation? You, you control your own integrity. You can put the club's best interest at heart at all times. So as long as you do that, I think you'll be okay. I agree with you, jason. You need to get to know that person and what their motivation is. And if in situations in the past where I know that's happened and they're not going to listen to me, I've brought in experts in the area, for example, if it's a physio or doctor, I brought in medical experts to say this might be my view, but you're probably not going to do it because you're trying to undermine me or whatever, but this is the international expert in this area or this is the author of the paper that let's talk. Let's use the author of the paper rather than myself to to try and diffuse any biases that anybody in the room might have. So there's a few strategies there.

Jason Weber:

You go quick on yeah, I just think I wanted to finish off my last point on pretty much what you just said. You mentioned personal integrity. I think as a leader, you've got to know yourself. I talk about this all the time in the the um, uh, you know, in our podcast about know thyself, know thy enemy. You've got to know yourself first.

Jason Weber:

Keep your personal integrity in all situations. If you think you're getting dragged somewhere you don't want to go, you're allowed to say stop in the same breath what I will say and we sort of with the gender diversity and diversity thing. I reckon you've got to call stuff out. Be strong enough and have courage in your convictions to say what's not acceptable. I remember back in the early 2000s being in an environment where a player did something in front of a female staff member that was subtle but inappropriate, I must admit. I jumped immediately to call it out and I probably threatened the player a little bit. But that's old school. But I think you've got to call it out and I think you've got to make sure you've got courage of your conviction and you know who you are so that in all circumstances you know you're sticking with your personal integrity 100%.

Duncan Armstrong:

I think that's a great way to leave it there. Gentlemen, it's been very, very valuable and useful Thank you very much for that To spend time, two coaches and a coffee. And, jase, you've definitely earned another coffee mate at four o'clock in the morning over there mate, so enjoy your second brew.

Duncan Armstrong:

There's a decision to be made here soon two of the things that really caught my attention was the leader's eye. I think that's great leagues and, as the chat said, I think that's going to probably stick. But you've got the coach's eye and you've definitely got the leader's eye in HBM. And then the other quote that I loved again from you, jase, because you're a quotable quoter HBM is middle management, you know, and having that confidence to manage both up and down where it's appropriate. So I thought those two great takeaways. Thanks for responding to all of our questions too, mate, and you know from everybody here, all the 27 people listening to the call and in the room. Thanks very much for your time and it's been great to be part of Two Coaches and a Coffee podcast. Good luck, boys.