Our Great Coach on this episode is Dan Hughes.Dan is an American Basketball coach with over 40 years experience.He started his career as a head coach in 1978, ultimately coaching in the WNBA for 20 years with stops at Charlotte, Cleveland, San Antonio and Seattle. He has coached the second-most games in the leagues history (598) and is tied for third in victories with 286.He has twice coached teams to the WNBA championship, the Seattle Storm in 2018 and 2020, and was twice named WNBA coach of the year in 2001 and 2007.And was an Assistant for the USA womens team that won gold at the 2018 FIBA World Cup and at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.Dan is a coach with both high integrity and empathy. He is a connector of people, finding ways for relationships to form so that the output is greater than the individual could produce alone. And he then takes great joy and satisfaction from seeing how these relationships produce success.He also embodies the critical leadership traits of selflessness, resilience and empowerment and shares some wonderful stories to illustrate these qualities in a way that makes you stop and reflect on your own character.Some of the key highlights of the interview are:His view that statistics can often leave you feeling empty, and its more importance to condense them into priorities that can people can act on.The importance of talking more about what you want people to do; not what they have done, so that it sets an understanding of what is required.And how you can become better at empowering people by being genuinely happy when other people are successful.This was a conversation that had my reflecting deeply on my style afterwards, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In celebration of International Womens Day we decided to do an episode that features some of the Great Female Coaches that we have interviewed.It features wisdom and leadership advise from 14 Great Coaches, that is applicable to all of us. 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this episode is Alyson Annan.Alyson is a Australian field hockey player who represented her country 228 times and won gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Sydney Olympics.She transitioned into coaching in 2003, and she led the Netherlands women team to a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil and a gold medal at 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo as well as gold medals at the 2017 , 2019 and the 2021 Women's EuroHockey Nations Championship and the 2018 Women’s World Cup.This interview was recorded in late January 2022, and then in mid February 2022, Alyson resigned as a coach of the Dutch national team after a dispute with administration about the team culture. Listening back I think some of Alyson’s dissatisfaction and self-reflection comes across in the interview.What is indisputable though is that Alyson is that rare individual who has won an Olympic Gold medal as both an Athlete and a coach, and from these experiences she believes that if you are confronted and challenged by a coach then you will be a better athlete. The key to challenging in the right way is through the use of observation skills and heightened communication delivered as best as you can at the right time and location.And it seems these challenging skills may be one of the reasons some of the team felt dissatisfied with her. However as many of the great coaches have said in these interviews, the role of the coach is to challenge, in fact the iconic Ric Charlesworth says ot best with this quote: Sometimes you have to trouble the comfortable, and comfort the troubled.Alyson also believes that when you create your own pressure, you will perform better than when pressure is put on you from outside. And you achieve this through reflection on your behaviour in response to the performance challenges you are facing.Other key highlights from this interview were:How she uses failure as a positive criteria when selecting the team.How she had to learn to not coach as she played when she first started coaching, but instead go back and think about how you need to communicate to impart knowledge.Her focus on learning and growing, and in particular making mistakes and using them as motivation to keep going.Also listen out for her explanation of the Ringelman effect and she uses it with the team.This was a deep conversation, with a rare individual and hope you enjoy it as much as we did.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In late July 2021, I had the opportunity to interview Justin, he was very generous with his time and we had an hour together while he was on tour with the team with the West Indies. It also soon after the first reports of discomfort about his intense style had emerged from some of the players via the media. When we finished the interview, we talked a little about intensity, about what it meant and why it was not necessarily a bad thing given the brief he had to repair the team culture and return the team back to its winning ways. The team went on to win the T20 world cup and retain the Ashes beating England 4-0 in Australia. By any measure this was surely a sign that the team was doing well. It was a shock then, when he was only offered a 12 month contract by Cricket Australia. The reports were that players wanted a more calm and composed presence as a coach. Last week I heard, John Buchanan, the former Australian cricket coach who lead the team to team to 3 consecutive World Cups wins, a world record 16 consecutive Test Victories, speak about the role of coach, and I thought it summed up perfectly why Justin was successful. In light of this I thought it was a good time to revisit the interview with Justin, we can never know what the team environment was like, but we can view the results, listen to Justin's words, and those of one of his players, Usman Kwaja, who said; “He brought humility back to the Australian team … I know what we played like before he was coach and I know what we played like hen he was coach.” And form an opinion of just what the role of a coach is. I hope you enjoy it second time around as much as I did.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this show is Rodger Schmidt.Rodger is a former a Curling champion and now coach.He was the European men's curling champion in 1985 and two-time German men's curling champion in 1987 and 1992.In 1994 he founded the "Rodger Schmidt Curling Academy" based in Switzerland. From this base he has coached at 5 Olympics and multiple World championships, leading the National teams of 8 nations including Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Russia and the USA.He is also the author of the definitive book on Curling coaching; The five elements of curling technique which was published in 2011.Rodger has coached all over the world and so has a broad perspective on the dynamics of teams and human behaviour. He believes that there is more that unites us than separates us; and that fundamentally good habits make good teams, and also help the individual build the self-belief needed to clear your mind and focus on the execution of the required skills.He sees the inter-connectedness of our actions, and how we transfer energy from one moment to the next through the way we chose to think and move. He is quiet, under stated and conscious of the need to keep a certain distance from his athletes so they can work effectively together, but not be so close that the athletes efforts are mis-directed into pleasing him.I found this interview to be just as graceful as the actual sport of curling, and some of the key parts for me were:His focus on building deep seated self-belief in his teams so that they take to the ice confident that they are going to win every single time.His desire for all athletes to actually have a big ego, and to use it for the benefit of the team, and the slogan Wego, that he uses to illustrate this.His experience of failure at the Vancouver Olympics and how this shaped his philosophy of ensuring athletes can perform multiple roles within the team.And The importance of routines and mental keys to ensure your that you don’t over think when you are under stress.This was an insightful conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this episode is Rikard Grip.Rikard was the national coach of the Swedish cross-country skiing team between 2010 and 2019.At the age of only 32 he led the national team to their best performance ever at the 2014 Winter Olympics, where they finished equal top on the medal table with Norway winning 11 medals.As a result he was named the Swedish coach of the Year in 2015.In 2019, he resigned as coach having led the team to 35 Olympic and World Championship medals and took up a position as the Swedish Olympic Games Preparation Director, and now as Secretary General of the Swedish Biathlon Federation.Rikard is a driven and committed leader, who at only a young age was able to find an effective balance between challenging and caring for his athletes. He talks with deep sincerity about meeting athletes where they are, of partnering with them and brining energy into the relationship so that they succeed.Building self-belief is at the centre of his coaching philosophy which he summarizes by saying that its important to help the athletes feel like they can walk on water. He is also inclusive, and believes that the athletes and the supporting staff come together to create the environment that delivers high-performance.Other key highlights from this interview are:The importance of being yourself as a coach and not trying to imitate other great mentors or leaders that you have experienced.How body language is much more important that actual language when it comes to communicating with athletes.The story he shares about offering calm instruction about techniques in the final stages of the race and not emotional cries referring to the competition.And The importance of looking people in the eye when you are giving positive feedback so that they feel it is genuine and not offered purely to cheerlead the athlete into believing in themselves.I enjoyed this conversation with a coach who I am sure we will hear much more from in the coming years, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this episode is Mark Lebedew.Mark is an Australian volleyball coach and former player.He started coaching in the early 90’s eventually joining the Australian Institute of sport as a coach in 1997, where he also served as an assistant coach of the Australian men’s team at the Sydney 2000 OlympicsIn 2010 he became a head coach of Berlin Recycling Volleys and in 2012, 2013 and 2014 he won the German Champion title. In 2015 the team also won the Bronze medal in the European Champions League.While In 2017 he led Jastrzebski Wegiel to the bronze medal in the Polish league, andFrom 2017 to 2019 he was also the coach of the Australian National Team and led them to a silver medal at the 2019 Asian Championships.He has also coached teams in Italy, Belgium and Poland and is currently the head coach of German club VfB Friedrichshafen.Mark is a coach with a truly global perspective, his teams are made up of many different nationalities, his present one has 8, and he has coached 5 different countries as well as in the Olympics, World Championships, World League, Volleyball Nations League, and this gives him a unique insight into the dynamic that shapes and propels high-performance.He is both a student and practioner of the craft of coaching, in fact he helped translate one of the greatest texts on volleyball coaching from Russian to English, and believes that the great coaches are playing a game inside their heads 24 hours a day.He believes that team work from the 6 players, all usually well over 6 feet tall on the 9*9 court, is more important than jumping 2 centimeters higher or hitting with 5kmh more of attack speed. And to achieve this, he is focused on helping players understand their role and execute it to best of their best of ability.Some of the other key highlights from this discussion were:His views on how human history has evolved through the act of getting better, and how he applied this to his own views on innovation and developing new techniques.The importance of controlling your emotions so the team members can have faith in you to lead them through any situation they may be facing.How he doesn’t mind people having egos as it is an intrinsic motivator, as long as they don’t lose the ability to work with others within the team.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this episode is Andy Friend.Andy is an Australian rugby union coach and former player who is currently the head coach of Irish province Connacht.He was previously head coach of the Australia Sevens team, the Brumbies in Super Rugby in Australia, English club Harlequins, and Canon Eagles and Suntory Sungoliath in the Japanese Top League.He also coached the Australian Under-21 team to the final of the 2005 World Championships. And was an assistant to Eddie Jones within the Wallabies setup for the 2002 Tri Nations Series and 2003 Rugby World Cup.Andy is an articulate and calm coach who speaks with authenticity and simplicity on the fundamentals of elite level leadership.He has spent both his childhood and adult life traveling the world, and this gives him a deep appreciation of the needs that unite people; and how you can communicate emotion and intent despite language barriers.He is the type of person you feel immediately at ease with, and his ability to find a balance between the leadership and care for his players and staff, and family life, which also makes him a good role model for all of us who try to juggle the competing priorities in our life.Some of the key highlights of this interview for me were:How Great coaches have a strong sense of purpose that both motivates and guides them. This is matched with a natural inquisitiveness that fuels their ongoing development.How being sacked as a coach helped him realise the need of not imposing your own values on the team, but rather co-creating the right team values for that organisation.And His learning around not trying to do everything, but rather to invest time in building, in his words, the bank account of trust, with his athletes. And how this translates to him spending 70% of his time working with individuals within the 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this episode is Jackie Carson.Jackie Carson is the Head Coach of the Furman University Womens Basketball team.She also played there as a student athlete, and still hold the conference record for most free throws made. In 1999 she was honored as Furman’s Female Athlete of the Year and in 2009 she became on the third player in the programs history to have their jersey retired.She started her coaching career in 2003, progressing through Assistant Coaching Positions at Bucknell and Madison which included postseason appearances at the 2007 and 2010 NCAA tournaments.In 2010, she returned to Furman as the 9th Head Coach in the college’s history.In her 11 seasons leading the team they have earned four postseason berths and 2 Women’s National Invitational Tournament appearances.In 2014 she was awarded Conference Coach of the Year.Jackie is a coach with an Infectious energy that inspires you to have the confidence to, in her words, walk into the room or the gym knowing you are going to win. Building this confidence in her players is a key part of what she strives to achieve as a coach.After the interview, the keys parts I shared with my own family around the dinner table were, How she believes that as a woman, you have to be better than the male that's going for the same job, and importantly show why you're better. And explaining this is not something you should shy away from, in fact she says you should demand what you want in the future.How some of the things you say in your head to yourself, you would never say out loud to anyone else. And that the best way to deal with negative self-talk is to talk to someone else about how you are thinking, and through that, talk yourself into the tasks that are causing you to doubt.And wanting to leave a legacy, where people learn that you can do things the right way, you can be a mom that works, a black female that is successful and beats the odds, you can do whatever it is that people say that you can't do.As a father of 2 daughters, I found this interview educational and inspiring and I hope you enjoy it as much as Jim and I did.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Great Coach on this episode is Paul Roos.Paul is a former professional Australian Rules Footballer and coach.Paul began his professional playing career in 1982, eventually retiring with 356 games, 5 Best and Fairest awards, 7 All Australian selections and the 1986 Leigh Matthews Medal under his belt.He began coaching in 2002 with the Sydney Swans. It was here that he implemented his high performance dialogue philosophy, and in 2005 he coached the Swans to their first premiership in 72 years.Paul is a wonderful Coach and Leader, who has managed to find a balance in life that also makes him a great role model.This conversation spans his experience Coaching elite level Football teams, doing his best as a father to be present for his family and his latest work with organisations helping them build the right behaviours so that they don’t leave culture to chance.The highlights for me were:· His thoughts on what he calls “Real Talk” and how this is the cornerstone of accountability and taking teams from Good to great.· How you act your way into a culture, and so behaviors across the group are critical to make sure new people enter and build on the culture in the right way.· And the idea of starting meetings with a gratitude session to shout out to someone who has made a difference however big or small.I hope you enjoy it as much as Jim and I did.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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.