The Great Coaches: Leadership & Life

Ante Milicic is an Australian soccer Coach and former professional player. As a player he represented Australia and won National Championships and was the first player to score a hat-trick in the A-League. After retiring he moved in to coaching straight away with becoming player/coach for Sydney United in 2009. At the same time he became an Assistant coach for the Australian U20 team. From there he was an assistant coach to Ange P at the 2014 WC in Brazil and the 2015 victorious Asian Cup as well as assistant to Bert Van Marjwick at the 2018 WC in Russia. In 2019 he was appointed as the Australian Womens National Coach and led them to the Round of 16 at the World Cup. In 2020 he was then named as the inaugural Head Coach for the new National league Mens team Macarthur.Some of the key highlights areHow he talks about his first task when taking over the Matilda’s was to ask all the staff to present their role and responsibilities to him. And how this brought a level of calmness to the group.How his time coaching both men and women at the elite level has taught him about the importance of taking time with players as individuals and helping them prepare through either technical or emotional information.How the feeling that he didn’t do enough with the talent he had as a player now shapes the way he works with helping people develop mental strength.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

Brian Bohannon is an American Football coach. He started as an Assistant with Gardner-Webb in 1996, and then over the next 17 seasons progressed through roles with Georgia Southern, Navy and Georgia Tech. In 2014 he started as the inaugural Head Coach for Kennesaw State. That team has gone on to become the the best five-year start-up program in college football history. Along the way he has won 3 Big South Coach of the Year, the AFCE Coach of the Year as well as leading the team to two Big South Conference championships. Some of the key highlights are: How he describes mental toughness as the ability to execute a simple task regardless of circumstance. And the way he strctures the teams culture around effort, attitude toughness to help re-enforce this. The story he tells about starting up the team from scratch and taking it to be the most successful 5 year startup program in college football history.How the number one thing the great coaches have is the leadership ability to take a group of people from different places and backgrounds and get them to buy in to a common goal and vision.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

This week, my co-presenter the gold medal winning coach Hugh McCutcheon and I continue our exploration of Thriving Teams with the American Football coach Mike Bloomgren. Mike started his career in 2000 as a graduate assistant and the the University of Alabama..He then held various assistant roles before starting at the New York Jets in 2007. From there he moved to Stanford under David Shaw where he was part of the coaching staff that won the Pac 12 championship in 2012, 2013 and 2015.In 2017 he was appointed head coach of Rice University. Mike has terrific energy and some of the highlights of our interview were: His belief that optimism and pessimism are infectious when you are the leader, and they spread more rapidly from the head down than any other direction.The structured way he goes about building connection across the 107 players and 50 staff and their families, and the role this plays in building a sense of care across the team.His philosophy which he describes as Intellectual Brutality, and the role this plays in unlocking the decision making power of the athletes.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

This week my co-host, Professor Eric Knight and I are joined by Kevin Eastman.Kevin is an American Basketball coach.He started coaching in 1978 progressing through assistant roles to become the Head coach of Belmont Abbey College. He then went on to lead the lead Washington State University and then the University of North Carolina Wilmington.In 2003 he was Nike’s Basketball National Director of Skills and through that role met Doc Rivers who invited him to become an Assistant with the Boston Celtics. That team went on to win the 2008 NBA championship. These days Kevin is an in demand public speaker and the author of the terrific book: Why the Best Are the Best: 25 Powerful Words That Impact, Inspire, and Define Champions  Some of the key highlights are: How he believes that the most important question great teams challenge themselves with is, what are you willing to sacrifice for this group? And how sacrifice is not just about what you give up, but rather what you choose to do for someone else. The acronym TIPS he uses to illustrate what all Teams whether in the sporting or corporate world need to do to be at their best. T stands for Truth which is the most important element, next is Intentional which he expands to describe as, what we do intentionally to fulfil our purpose, P stands for Preparation and S for Standards. The way he talks about the concept of Ubuntu which is an African word that embraces 2 key ideas, People are people because of other people and second tenet is, I can only be all I can be if you are all you can be. And the way this idea formed the foundations of the connections within the team.You can learn more about Thriving Teams at https://thegreatcoachespodcast.com/thriving-teams/ If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

This week my co-host, Professor Eric Knight and I continue our exploration of Thriving Teams with Shane Mcleod.Shane is a former New Zealand hockey player and now coach. He transitioned into coaching while still playing, and coached teams in Europe before becoming the Belgium Women’s team coach in 2002. In 2007 he moved back to New Zealand and led the Men's team at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. He then moved back to Belgium winning 2 National titles before becoming the Men's National team coach in 2015, and took them from a world ranking of 15 to #1. Along the way they won silver at the 2016 Olympics, the 2017 and 2019 European Championship, the 2019 and 2020 FIH Pro League. As well as gold at the 2018 Men’s Hockey World Cup, and the 2020 Olympic Games Some of the key highlights are:How the feedback he was given as a player, which was that the selectors thought he liked the idea of playing for New Zealand more than you actually wanted to play for New Zealand, has gone on to to inform the way he gives feedback now in a way that doesn’t deter someone from wanting to be better.The processes they have in place to encourage the athletes to develop their self-leadership. The exercise he used to get the players themselves to select the team, and he used this to identify the strengths of each individual and the players within the team who were the glue that kept the group connected.To find out more about Thriving Teams visit https://thegreatcoachespodcast.com/thriving-teams/If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

This week my co-host, Professor Eric Knight and I continue our exploration of Thriving Teams with Ben Darwin.Ben is a former Australian Rugby Union player who represented his country 28 times. He retired at the age of 27 after a neck injury and moved in to coaching before co-founding Gain Line Analytics, a company that has uses empirical analysis to understand the way professional sports teams work and succeed with each other.It is one of the more fascinating interviews we have had on the podcast because of the challenging views he has on the traditional drivers of success.Some of the key highlights are:The idea that small groups can be highly effective and the example he gives from military and history to show that it is the cohesion of your team, not the size of the talent pool you pull from that is key to success.His description of cohesion as understanding between the component parts of a team. And that this understanding is much more predictive of outcomes than the individual skill.And How effective cultures have normative behaviors that are established over time, are harder to change and can be learnt more easily across the components of the team.If you would like to know about more Thriving Teams or use the diagnostic we have created to understand how close to Thriving your teams is you can check out our tools here: https://thegreatcoachespodcast.com/thriving-teams/If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

This week my co-host, Professor Eric Knight and I continue our exploration of Thriving Teams with the Great Coach Jill McIntosh Jill McIntosh is a former Australian National netball player and team coach. As a player she won the 1983 World Championship and then coached the national team to the championship in 1995 and 1999, as well as gold medals at the 1998 and 2002 Commonwealth Games.She has also coached the National teams of Singapore, Northern Ireland and Jamaica. And is presently the coach of the Cardiff Dragons in the UK Super League.In 2020 she was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame The key highlights from the interview are: How many coaches are good at knowing what they want, but they fall down when it comes to creating the “How” of how they will achieve it.The way she uses her rule of excellence to guide all the teams activities.The importance of getting in sync as a team, and they she goes about moulding teams to achieve this.You can find out more about Thriving Teams here: https://thegreatcoachespodcast.com/thriving-teams/If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

In 2022 we were talking with 2 of the great coaches we have interviewed over a coffee, Eddie Jones and Neil Craig, as we got up to leave they challenged with an idea; so many sports coaches have models to illustrate what they think high performing teams do, why not compare them against what the coaches you are interviewing are saying? It was an interesting idea that stayed with me afterwards and in early 2023 I found some time to do this. I looked at models from Coaches, Academics and Consultants. I printed them off and laid them out on a table and started to compare them against the insight database that we have built up. That database has 1500 one to two minute videos from the coaches and is coded into buckets like culture, communication and mental skills. You can find it here: https://thegreatcoachespodcast.com/individual-insights/ The model that I thought best reflected the messages I was hearing from the Great Coaches , was the Thriving Teams model developed by the consultancy Thompson Harrison in conjunction with Oxford professor Robin Dunbar. Their model builds from the idea that organisation only thrive when people do. And they identify six dimensions that enable this; Belonging, Purpose, Connection, Culture, Values and Learning. In this podcast I will talk about their model and use audio from the Great Coaches to bring it to life.If you would like to know more about Thriving Teams you can find the information here: https://thegreatcoachespodcast.com/thriving-teams/

Liam is a former Irish Hurling player and now Coach.Liam played 13 senior games with Tipperary over 10 years. He retired in 1999 and in 2002 began coaching Tipperary youth teams. In 2007 he was appointed senior coach, and in 2010 he led to team to their 26th All Ireland Victory. Liam then took a year break from coaching at the highest level to spend more time with his family, as well as to coach local teams. In 2018 he returned to coach Tipperary and in his 2nd year won the All Ireland final again.His challenge on whether you focus on the setback or the bounce back and how this idea flows through his story and the championship teams he has led.His belief that a perfect day is when you give to somebody who might never be able to repay it. And his focus as a leader on creating an environment where the person gets to flourish.How the great coaches are innovators and focused on creativity so that they can get to the future before anybody else.If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com