Making the Complex Simple: Josh Sutcliffe on Building High-Performance Teams Through Process-Driven Leadership

0:01 Welcome to The Coaching Equation, brought to you by Empire Partners and hosted by Ryan Lang and Brooke Bishop. Our mission is to help you build a profitable and impactful coaching business by cutting through the noise and all the expert advice to deliver tried and true, actionable insights that you can deploy in your business today. Each week, we bring on expert guests, unveil cutting-edge tactics and strategies, and share the secrets and stories that we've gathered from working with the most successful coaching companies on earth. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast.

0:42 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Vampire Partners. And man, I have got an amazing guest for you today. Josh Sutcliffe is with me. And for all of you coaches out there and those of you who work with coaches, this is a really, really important episode because we are unpacking one of the most important questions you could possibly ask in this space, which is what separates a good coach from a great one? Here's the teaser. It's not the playbook. It's not the tactics. It's definitely not how loud you yell from the sidelines or in some cases in your sessions. It's the ability to make the complex simple, to reverse engineer outcomes and to teachable actions and to build cultures where people don't just perform, they actually belong.

1:33 Now, Josh has spent two decades mastering that craft across multiple continents and at the highest levels of the sport. He's an internationally recognized sport coach developer and team culture builder, who's built high-performance programs everywhere from Stanford University, where he led both men's and women's rugby teams to national rankings, to USA Rugby's elite coach development program, where he's shaped the next generation of American rugby coaches. Josh's real gift isn't in what he's accomplished on the field. It's in how he teaches other coaches to create environments where players grow, learn, stay curious, and ultimately execute at levels they didn't even know they were capable of.

2:22 So whether you're coaching clients, leading teams, building a business where people need to perform under pressure, this conversation is going to give you the frameworks that that you can use immediately to make a massive impact. So let's buckle up and get ready for it. This is Josh Sutcliffe on the Coaching Equation Podcast. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners. And in studio with me today, Josh Sutcliffe, my man. How are you? I'm pretty good, Ryan. Thanks for having me. Dude, I'm so excited to get into this today. I've got so many things that I want to ask you so many things that I want to learn from you today and share with the audience.

3:05 But the first thing I want to ask you a question. What what makes what makes a good coach in your mind? I think a good coach to me is someone who is themselves and leads from who they are to create an environment where people can grow, learn and be curious. And once they grow, learn and be curious, then they can start to execute. And once we start to get into that execution phase, we know sort of a coach can curate sort of 80%. So we think about so many 80-20 rules, but a coach can kind of curate 80% of what we expect people to do. But then we need to give the team enough ability to go beyond that and to follow their instincts and build their intuition.

3:49 So I think a coach does all of that and that makes the complex super accessible. And I think those things together are what a coach does. Oh, man, I love this. And I love the nuance, too, of directing and guiding, not necessarily just saying, go do. I think there's a lot of misconception on that front. Speaking specifically, you just said something that really caught my ear, which is making the complex very simple. Why do you see that as such an important factor for a good coach? Yeah, I think for a good coach, the idea that our outcomes, we generally think that our outcomes aren't controllable, right?

4:36 So we have to think about all the things that are controllable and the things that are controllable are our processes. And if you listen to any sports coach, they'll talk about trust the process, trust the process. Yeah, yeah. And to trust the process. to get to a very complicated outcome might take a number of interwoven processes, right? And so if I don't make that accessible or simple to follow, then all I'm going to do is set my team up for failure, right? Because they'll get overwhelmed before they start the execution part. And we need to make that accessible so they start to execute. Then we can iterate together. Yeah. And in doing that, what have you noticed, you've been doing what you're doing for a long time, what have you noticed in terms of one or two things that we can do as coaches, in regardless of whatever capacity we're coaching, by the way, I should say.

5:31 In some cases, it's gonna be coaching clients. In other cases, it's gonna be leading our teams and coaching our teams. So in either case, what are one or two things that you feel like we can do to actually simplify the strategy and the processes? Yeah, I think we need to reverse engineer what we're trying to do. So we need to start with the end in mind and then we need to come back and say, well, if we want that end result, what are the behaviors that we would do? And then we break those down into teachable actions and then we teach the actions. We start to hold people to those actions and when they become subconscious, now they are our behaviors together.

6:16 And then we can teach them a new batch of actions. And so we can layer this on and eventually we create this environment where the behaviors are driving the process and the process drives the outcome. Mm-hmm. I love this. Okay, so let me ask you a question. I hear a lot of people that talk about the outcome. Oh, like if we're thinking about, you know, a number, a revenue number, revenue goal that we want to hit in our business, it's, oh, you know, know what the number is and go to sleep with the number and wake up with the number. Honestly, I think it's bullshit. I've been doing this for a really long time. And it's not to say that you don't want to know what your number is.

6:59 But you just said something that I think is really key. You just broke down literally in a matter of seconds, how we can become process oriented instead of outcome oriented. I want to ask you, I don't want to influence you by my opinion. I'm curious. Do you find that when you look at the most successful people that you see, that you've been around, that you coach, are they outcome oriented or are they process oriented? And why do you think one is more effective than the other? They bias towards the process, but they never forget the outcome. And I think there's this duality if we get hyper-focused on one, so if we get hyper-focused on the process, then the team goes around in the spiral.

7:44 They don't actually start to improve. And if you get hyper-focused on the outcome, you forget about the relationships and then the team starts to drift apart. And so it's holding these two things together. A really good coach, Mick Byrne, he's the coach of Fiji rugby team at the moment. And I was at a coaching course with him one day and he said it the best. He's like, if you don't have an outcome, then your process is pointless. right? Good thing. I've said that one more time. If you don't have an outcome, your process is pointless. And I was like, that was the moment that I was like, yeah, you have to hold both of these things at the same time. But then you have to then, once you do it, then go to Bill Walsh, right? Bill Walsh, the 49ers coach.

8:24 Yeah. And my wife's a 49ers fan. So I've got to throw it in there somehow. No, but he wrote the book, The Score Takes Care of Itself. And he's, But if you read that book, he's incredibly detailed about everything that everyone has to do. And the only way the outcomes take care of themselves is if you know what the processes are. And so it's holding these two things together without biasing towards one or the other. But you spend most of your time in the processes, right? But you never forget about the outcome. That's so good. And it's such a great, Bill Walsh is such a great reference because for those of you that know Bill Walsh, you understand what I'm about to say. But for those of you that don't, he's not just a legend as a coach, but part of his legend are the coaches that he coached.

9:10 that went on to become uber successful. You know, he's got this entire, go Google Bill Walsh coaching tree and it'll blow your mind. The amount of coaches that were successful. So clearly that guy understood how to do it. I love this. I think too, that, you know, we, it's, it's almost the way that I liken this and I'd love to hear your feedback on it. Cause I, I really love your opinion here. Uh, I kind of equate it like I think about, okay, what's the outcome? Then to your point, reverse engineering, going into what are the processes that I need to be going through day in and day out? I basically, I shoot, it's a practice shot, essentially, initially, where I go, okay, here's my outcome.

9:54 These are the two, three, four things I think that if I did them every day or in whatever frequency I think I should. I believe that I'd get damn close if I don't hit it or overshoot it. And then to your point, I do think I totally agree. I think people can get lost in the process. And I think that I think that there have to be I don't know about you. Maybe you have a set standard for this, but I like to create waypoints where we come up for air and go, OK, like I've been in my process. I've been doing my things. Where are we at right now? You know, is that kind of what you do? Do you have a different process for that?

10:35 Well, and I think in sports, you have the preseason, in-season, off-season, right? It's kind of constructed for you. Yeah. And so you have to do that. And especially when you're developing staffs underneath you, right? So you might be a head coach, you might be the leader. It's really important that you create demarcations and then smaller cycles within those demarcations. And so using sports parlance, you know, you have macro cycles, you have micro cycles, then you have mesocycles. And at each one of those points, you do debriefs, right? And so having those after-action debriefs is really good because you do those after the longer cycles. But in-action debriefs, I think, are actually where it's at.

11:17 And if you can do an in-action debrief, and this is kind of something that was taken from the Special Forces, As you're going through this period, you create this time and you do, you come up for air, you take a step back, you do an inaction debrief. You ask a couple of questions. Where are we? Are we actually heading towards where we're supposed to? Yeah. Because if we're going to miss the mark, let's change now, right? And so, yeah, yeah. It's inaction. And then if, yeah, we're on the right path and we stay in the action. If we don't, then we pivot and we work together. I love that. I love that. One of the things that I think is most powerful about that process that you're describing right now is when we have the ability to detach ourselves.

12:04 So here's an interesting thing. I kind of think about an outcome, and I think one of the things that stops us from hitting outcomes is the emotional attachment that we have. to the outcome and whether we're on track or off track. And I think that it's a superpower, whether we're talking about sports, whether we're talking about business, whether we're talking about your health, your life in general. When you come up for air and you do that in action debrief, I think it's so powerful to be able to be detached from the outcome enough to look at it and objectively, without any judgment, just go, okay. where are we right now? Oh, okay. You know what? Hey, I'm, I'm a few streets over from where I ought to be on my GPS, you know, or Hey, I'm, I'm right on track.

12:50 Great. We'll keep doing it. Um, I'm curious when, when you see this, uh, if we talk about sports for a minute, uh, when you see this in sports, where do you see, um, what do you see around the whole concept of judgment, judgment around outcomes and things of that nature? I, Personally, I believe that it really throws a lot of great players and great operators off their game. Where do you stand with that? Yeah, I think those who manage it well, they become the greats. And those who manage it okay, they're just good, right? Yeah, those who manage it more later out of the competition. And so I'm a rugby guy.

13:31 Yeah, I've got a reference of rugby guy here. Dan Carter was, I don't know, some people will say he's the go, but he won back-to-back World Cups with New Zealand. And one of the things that he's well known for is talking about the All Blacks culture, which wanted to go from great to great. And that is such a different idea. That doesn't mean great, right? How do I stay ahead of the curve again and again and again? And so they were very able to have blunt conversations. And one of the things that's really important about that is it's a high care, high challenge environment. And I think when you have a high care and high challenge environment, you can be great and then be blunt and truthful and honest, and then you can evolve again.

14:15 And if it's not a high care, high challenge environment, what tends to happen is people get blasé, they get complacent, and that's when you start to see the performance diminish. How would you describe a high care, high challenge environment? Yeah. So I think the first thing it starts with is relationships. It takes people knowing who they are and not being afraid to be who they are in that space. Right now, some of the coaches that I really like watching Steve Kerr, he's himself all of the time. He's himself all the time. I really like watching him. He's a phenomenal coach, Dawn Staley, herself all of the time with the South Carolina women's basketball team. And And those people, when they're themselves all the time, they create a space for others and they want those people to build themselves in that space.

15:02 There are boundaries to how they perform, right? And the coach sets the boundaries and then the team creates the environment. And when you get this mix between the coach setting the edges, right? We need this performance, right? But how we do it, well, that's co-created by all of us. And I think That's the environment that I want to be a part of. That's the environment that I help people create. And those are the small things that take a team from being in their head to being ahead of the game. Oh, man. That's so good. You're clearly, you're such a, I love the name drafts of these, you're such a student of the game. Not surprising, Josh, knowing you. You're such a student of the game.

15:43 I want to ask you this, man. Where did this all originate for you? I mean, what was, I assume there is a background in sports, but give us kind of the superhero origin story here. Where did it start for you in sports? And then what, what, what, What kind of preempted you really getting obsessed with coaching and, you know, and all that? Yeah, I think for me, I moved around a lot as a kid, right? So I lived in 13 towns or cities before the age of 18 across Australia and New Zealand. So that's a lot. Oh, my gosh, man. So I don't know. I was thinking about us today and I was like, I don't know anyone from like kindergarten or, you know, I'm not still friends with anyone from most of my childhood.

16:24 And my parents, my mom's Filipina, my dad's white Australian. And so you have this blending of East and West sort of Asian and Anglo-Saxon culture. And they were pastors and they ran schools. And so I moved around a lot and I saw them do all this stuff. And I guess this is my expression of what they expected me to be, which was a pastor. I definitely wasn't cut out to be in church the whole time. And if you've ever met me, you know that I'm rougher around the edges than some other people. And that's okay. A ditto. And then I always wanted to play sports. I grew up watching sports in Australia, New Zealand, all the sports, cricket, rugby, rugby league, swimming, field hockey, squash, like there's just this plethora of sports that I was exposed to.

17:14 Yeah. As I got older, I wanted to play rugby because I was Asian, there wasn't a lot of people who looked like me. But my dad had played rugby and he'd played it at a decent level when he was younger. And I wanted to sort of write my own stories. And when I was in uni in Australia, I didn't. I lost my mentor. I was on path to be a lawyer and he died in a car accident and someone else told me that I was too honest to be a criminal lawyer and that I got really disenfranchised with the whole law thing. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. So I'm sitting there and I'm in laws and undergrad degree in Australia.

17:55 So I'm sitting there at 20 years old and one of my teammates goes, well, why don't you just do this development officer thing? And so I'm 20 years old and development officer. I went into schools for the next three years teaching rugby to people and then, oh, wow. So that, yeah. So 20 to 23. And then I started to come on identification and people invested in me, right? And I was good at it. And I think those two things mixed together, that's the origin story, right? Like you're good at something and then people want you to be better. Like that's the secret sauce, I guess. And then over the course of time, I moved to America because my wife's American and we met in Australia and then she moved over here and – I always say one of my mantras in my head is be prepared to be lucky.

18:41 Oh, sorry. Yeah. It's good when you get lucky, right? Yeah. I love that. When I got lucky, I just happened to be around Stanford campus one day and I was, there were some kids kicking a ball and trying to catch it. And I just went up and I say, do you mind if I give you a tip? Right. And that worked for them. And then the coach talked to me and that's how I got my first assistant coach role with Stanford. And I moved around and I got very lucky with the opportunities because there aren't that many rugby jobs in America. And over the course of time, I found that I really cared for people. I loved the environment and I was playing at the same time and I loved the players that I was with as a team member alongside them, but I also love cultivating this next generation of players and when a player comes up to you and they go, I get it, right?

19:31 And you've been working on something for like three, six months. Yes, yes. That payoff is awesome. Or as they bring out to you their parents like, oh, this is my mom, this is my dad, and I want to introduce you to them. Like those relationships, that just fills me with so much energy, so much joy, and so for me, getting curious about it. And then you watch these people and they stay in the game for 40, 50 years. Like, what can I learn from them? How have they done this? Because this is hard, right? Like, one of the things about a coach is you have all this bravado and confidence, and yet you probably have the most nagging self-doubt that you're missing something. Oh, tired time.

20:11 I think that's so true. And, and, you know, I, I spent in, you know, in, in my early time in, in radio, I got, I had the good fortune of spending a lot of time around, you know, I, I worked for the Tampa Bay Bucks and New York, New York Yankees. Um, I had to spend a lot of time around those guys and spending time around a lot of the coaches, uh, in central and South Florida too, was really well connected with the university of Florida and a lot of their coaches. Being a coach, I mean, a coach, being a coach in sports, that is a tough road. I don't care what sport it is. That is a really tough road. And and you got to want it really badly. And I'm curious, I would love to hear this because I think about this a lot.

20:55 It's it's it's actually it's very similar to entrepreneurship. Like there there are so many people who have the gift like as a as a tactician. They could totally go do the thing. But can you hold up, you know, you know, when when it's really tough and you just got fired from some low level job and you're trying to scratch and claw your way, you know, into the next thing? Most people don't survive. Same thing with entrepreneurship. It reminds me, too, of have you I think I'm going to screw up the name of this, but I'll I'll have to go find this book.

21:35 But there is a there's a book called Fourth and Goal. I believe is what it's called. And if you haven't read it yet, I'm going to highly recommend this book. I'm looking it up here while we're while we're doing it that. Yes, that's what it was. It is fourth and goal. So the coach, his name is Joe Molia. And this story, Josh, if you've never heard this before, dude, you will eat this alive. This guy is a football coach. He ends up in a spot where He, you know, he's coaching at Dartmouth and and, you know, he's living in this field house with no heat in the wintertime, like above the practice facility.

22:19 And he's got a family and they're not making any money. And he makes this decision to, you know, at one point that, hey, he's got to take care of his family and he decides to quit. And he somehow ends up getting a job on Wall Street and eventually becomes the I mean, now, you know, former CEO of TD Ameritrade. I mean, this dude is worth a. Fuck ton of money. A lot. And then inexplicably at one point decides, gosh, you know what? I left this dream of coaching. I never stopped wanting to be a coach. Screw it.

23:00 I'm going to go back and try this again. And he does. And he's been very successful at the collegiate level. It's an amazing story. Great book. Yeah. I remember reading, you know, those stories of, you know, those days for him and how hard they were and hearing stories myself personally talking with the coaches at the professional collegiate level in Florida. What do you or what have you personally used at times when you can't see the next step? Something goes sideways and you're like, man, didn't see that coming. And it's either get out of the game and go do something that's easier, which most people will tell you to do, or...

23:44 find a way what how do you handle that yeah i think for me that i've had a few situations not exactly this where i got fired or let go from a job but like my wife got breast cancer i was living in california she was living in chicago um because she was she's a sports psychologist so she was working in northwestern i'm at stanford and you guys are clearly both idiots i mean that's All right, continue. Sorry. So she's there and I'm like, well, do I quit? And I'm like, no. She's like, you can't quit. You're not allowed to quit because if this is really bad, we need you to have a job. Right? And I was living near her family.

24:25 So that would have been the natural move to move back to California and be there. Yep. And so when that goes sideways, you have to lean into relationships. You have to have those be around you. And you have to build it before you need it. And I think this is one of the things that whether it's feedback, whether it's a shoulder to lean on, they have to be an elternary part of your life. They can't be extraordinary. Because when it's extraordinary, the pressure is so high to make it work that you don't even try. right and so like today I was texting with a buddy every Tuesday I have a buddy that's on my reminder list that I text and we check in with each other and every week I do the same thing and I have a couple people on different days and When it gets tough, you have to go back to your tribe.

25:13 You have to go go out of your back, right? And entrepreneurship's the same way, right? Because there's going to be ups, there's going to be downs. There's no one in the game with you, right? And as a heritage, there's no one in the game with you. No one, yeah, I'm going to give you the honest truth, but your reflection in the mirror. But you have to have people who've got your back, who believe that you can do it no matter what. And those people, they're the ones you connect with when it goes sideways. Right. Was that something that you knew or you feel like early on or was it a lesson that you kind of had to learn? I definitely had to learn it. Yeah. You know, moving from Australia to the US, I was lonely as it was. And so the first time I got super lonely, I actually missed selection for a team.

25:56 I was like pissed off about it. I just, I reached out to my boys back home. Right. And that was the light bulb that went off is like, they haven't gone away. But if I don't cultivate the relationship, they will go away. And so ever since then, I've sort of known and I was really lucky. I was like 24, 25 years old. And I was going back and forth with my boys in Australia. And we just say dumb stuff most of the time, right? Like it's really, really dumb stuff. Like nothing that I would say publicly. Sure. Yeah, I have a few of those. Yeah. But as soon as I said, it's not good today. I get full food. Right. And that relationship, that's what you have to cultivate as a coach or an entrepreneur because sitting in the background is there's going to be that day and you're like, yep, I'm done.

26:46 And yeah, I have that day. Everyone has that day in coaching, right? Every part of the season, someone's going to have that day. And the people who have you back at that time, you need to have that relationship with. So they pick up the phone because you don't even have the energy to pick up the phone to call. That's so funny that you say that. I literally, yesterday was a challenging day and I had someone completely out of the blue just send me a message and go, bro, I heard today was a challenging day. I just want you to know I'm here for you and I love you and I believe in what you're doing and blah, blah, blah.

27:27 That's so powerful. And I think that one of the things that's special about that too is knowing, I think it's important for us. It's one thing to have people in our lives because we all have people, we all have family, we all have friends. But I think there's something really special about a contingent of people who can have some understanding of what you're going through and what things are like for you and what you actually need in that moment. You know, I'm. I think that it's kind of like, I mean, again, coaching and entrepreneurship are not that different. Plenty of people, you know, that are outside the world of coaching look at when they actually find out what a coach's life looks like.

28:07 They're like, what in the fuck are you doing? Why would you do this to yourself? You know. You don't go. It's parties. You don't. You know, you're gone. It's. Why do you do this to yourself? Yeah. You got to. Yeah. It's love. Love for it, man. So. Yeah. I love kind of the thought process and anchoring in like the need for that tribe. I want to shift a little bit and let's talk about team dynamics for a second. When we look at really creating, you know, we've seen this throughout sports, throughout business, there seem to be those people that find a way to create truly special environments.

28:50 They're the ones where, you know, I mean... And whatever you think of the guy, you know, you think about the Patriots when they were winning. It was like there's the Patriot way, you know, is like Bill Belichick's way or the highway and love him or hate him. It was an environment that he created, that he crafted, that everybody bought into. And I think that. I think that is literally a superpower because it's really, most people think that leadership is just the ability to bark orders at the lemmings down below. And anybody can do that.

29:32 Any idiot can do that. And I think that where the superpower comes in is the ability to create an environment where people will run through a wall for you. Yep. What you've been around this game so much. What do you see in terms of the people that are able to do that? What are the qualities that they possess? And what are some of the things that they do to create those environments where it's truly a movement and everybody's on the bus and we're doing it as a collective instead of, you know, just a dog out in front of the sled pulling everybody along? Yeah, I think, and this is what's really interesting, right? I think it starts with connection first.

30:14 Every team wants to get to trust. That's the outcome, but it starts with respect. And this is probably where I vary a lot from my peers. I never talk about trust, right? I talk about respect. I talk about respect for each other. I talk about respect for the hard work that we're doing. And when you start to see the things that people are doing in an environment, then you can start to celebrate with them. And I think the respect mixed with those small celebrations of what people are doing leads to the shared experience and the shared experience leads to trust. And when you connect these things together, now you have a trusting environment. And for me, and I'll give an example of how I use this in rugby. One of the big calls in rugby to break down a huddle is to call out brothers, right?

30:57 Like brothers on three and you say brothers, right? And that means something. And to me, and this is the way I define it for my team. We can bicker as much as we want in this circle, but as soon as someone from outside points a finger at one of these boys, they get all of us. And that's what brothers meant. And you had to earn that. So we couldn't use that. They would come to me and say, can we use brothers yet? And I'm like, no, you haven't earned it. Our actions don't match that. Right? Lower the course of the pre-season and even the early part of the season, we wouldn't use it. And they'll be geeking out for it. And then you'd let them use it and you'd see it. All of a sudden, you'd see it. And so some of the stuff that we had to build into our environment was this physical touch, right?

31:39 Physical touch is such a powerful connector. And so I would say they had to do five bow hugs before they left the training field. Right. I love that. Yeah. It's so awkward at first, right? They're like, oh, I want to do it right. I'm sweaty and whatever. But they had to do five hugs before they stepped off the training field. And then for three or four weeks, and then you as a leader have to really make sure that those actions happen. You are the one who drives those initial actions until the point they become integrated in. And after three weeks, I forgot to say it one day. I forgot to say, do your bro hugs before you leave. One of the captains, I was like, boys, do your bro hugs before you leave. And it just, you know, there were people chuckling. There were people on another training field near the guy and they all laughed at us.

32:22 And I'm like, yeah, but that's us, right? And once you start to build this form of us, now you've earned the right to call yourself a team. And once you can call yourself a team, that's when you have that trust, right? And that trust, that's that ability to run through a brick wall. And I have to see you as a person and you have to see me as a person as the leader. And if we haven't got that, then we haven't had the trust yet. Do you believe that part of a leader's role is to serve the people that are below him or her? Yeah, absolutely. I think it starts with service for me. And that probably comes from my background in the church, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like it just, I would do anything for anyone, right?

33:06 And so bringing this idea that I'm bringing my full self and I'm seeing them and where their biggest need is, that's where I first go serve, right? And that's how we build the ability to have that shared experience that leads towards that trust. And for me, those shared experiences are so important. And I think we forget them sometimes. As soon as I give an order, I'm not sharing any experience anymore, right? Yeah, just told them to go off and do something by themselves. But if I'm out there and I teach alongside them, right? Like the difference, right, for a business leader. If I sit down at a computer with you and we work on it together, that's a completely different experience than if I tell you to go away, make a report and bring it back to me.

33:48 Yes. Yes. Right. That's so true. I, you know, it reminds me too. I was, I'm, I'm, I'm in the midst of being obsessed with welcome to Wrexham. I don't know if you've watched the show. Oh my God. I love it. It's so good. Uh, but I, I remember in, in, uh, in towards the end of the first season there, you know, the, the, the, the coach that they've got dude is such a character, man. I love, I love when they have the paradigm of like, you know, he's, he's in the locker room or on the field and, and they've got like the meter fills enthusiasm. And every time he says, fuck, it's like, you know, ding, ding, ding. I think, I think he got like 15 or 16 in with, in like 90 seconds.

34:32 It was something else, but then they, you know, show him when it's not game time. And one of the things that I thought was, Oh my gosh. It just really hit me as a moment for a leader where they showed him before a game, having a conversation with one of the players. And he was just like, hey, just checking in, man. How are things at home? Tell me what's going on with your wife. Hey, did your son da-da-da-da-da-da? What's going on with that thing that you guys were going to go do? And holy cow. I just thought to myself. Boy, most leaders do not do that. I mean, most can't get out of their own way enough to be intentional enough to care that much.

35:16 And to recognize that even going that far, just taking the time to go to a team member, whether we're talking about sports or if you're in business, When was the last time that you just jumped on a call with somebody on your team and said, hey, I just want to check in on you. What's going on at home? You know, how's your family? Oh, your daughter had a birthday the other day. How was it? You know, like people care about that kind of stuff. And I think it gets so lost. Yeah, absolutely. And like one of, once again, Greg Popovich at the San Antonio Spurs. Oh, he's a stud. Right. He's incredible. Like he just does all this stuff and they have these wine dinners and like most of us can't do the wine dinners that they do because they're all, you know.

35:57 Yep. Right. Loaded. NBA. Yep. Yeah. Yep. But it's just this idea that he goes out and finds what's right for them. He wants to be curious about them. And if I would liken leadership to being a parent, right? So I have three daughters, beautiful girls. One's a singleton, and then I have twins, right? So how old are they? So I have a 16-year-old and twin 13-year-olds. Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, I don't get to pick the music, which is tragic now because... No, you probably don't. It's on lockdown. Yeah. But one of the things about being a parent is you care about each of the interests. And as soon as they get a new interest, you dive into it.

36:37 You try and figure out what it is, right? So I never played the clarinet. One of them plays the clarinet. So I figured out some stuff about the clarinet. One plays a euphonium, which I did play. So that was a very different conversation. But you find ways to connect about what's important to that person. Yeah. And I think that's what a good leader does in... Right. Like you just find things to, and we have this, um, misguided sense of what a warrior is, right? We think the warrior is someone who just went out and bullied people. But if you look at our warrior leaders, whether these are from the Scottish Highlands or from Asia, right? Japan, the warrior also did calligraphy. They also did art. They also wrote, yeah.

37:18 Yes. all of these things. They cultivated this nurturing environment where people had to think. And I think our job as leaders, whether it's as a parent or a business or as a coach, is to create an environment where people think and grow and you take interest in what they're interested in because that grows your experience and that curiosity, that leaves the dynamicism and whole being behind it. And that's the team environment that really produces results that you couldn't even imagine when you started. Wow. Dude, that's so good. And it makes me think immediately, you just did the last little bit that you talked about with the warrior and how, you know, those people engage creativity and thoughtfulness and mindfulness.

37:59 It made me think of Mark Devine. I don't know if you're familiar with him. you know, respect. And you just know, like he can speak very softly, but behind the scenes, like, you know, he's a badass. And I think that duality that you're talking about is so powerful. That's where I think like, You know, we can run on either side of the coin. And I've made this mistake in my leadership career.

38:40 One of the biggest mistakes where I know, you know, we can definitely go down the road of, oh, I'm just going to be the authoritarian guy and bark orders and they work for me. You know, they're here for my outcomes kind of bullshit. But I think we can also go too far the other direction. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was. Yeah. You know, I remember in my oil and gas business, I had a situation where I had a team of people that was really underperforming. I wasn't managing them at the time. I had somebody else managing them and I decided like, OK, you know what, I'm going to go, you know, I'm going to go down there and try to see if I can straighten this thing out. And the biggest mistake that I made was to what was essentially to put myself on exactly the same level.

39:28 And I think there is a fine line there, man. It's like, ooh, it did not end well on that deal. I learned a great lesson. But there's a fine line between caring for people and being thoughtful and mindful and creative. But... You can go too far the other direction where all of a sudden you're trying to just be one of the guys, one of the players along with everybody else. How do you avoid that? How do you coach your coaches to avoid that scenario? Yeah, I think there are on times and off times. So the way I work with the coaches is if you're at a dinner, you're in an off time, right?

40:10 So if you're at a team dinner, we're talking, we're the person, we're serving the needs and all of that. But then you put on a different outfit and you're the coach. Right. And I think this is really important. I actually get them to put on a different cap or a different. I love that. Right. Like, so you actually put a physical identity marker. Yeah, exactly. Love it. So like if I'm in a business, right? Like if you have a jacket or, you know, a vest or something, you just throw it on. Now I'm the boss, right? There's this aloofness that comes with it. And it's an indicator to the players, right? In my case, the players then see you, all right. Coach is on. Time is on. We're now in Zeeshan, right? This is different, right?

40:51 And I know my feelings might get hurt by their feedback, but they care about me, right? Yeah. And that's the other part of it. You need to have enough aloofness that you can make the tough call, right? Yeah. Like, you come down to picking, you're doing roster cuts, right? Like, that's honestly the worst day of coaching. It's the shittiest day is… Like for me in rugby, we would take a roster of 15 to nationals. And the 16th, 17th, and 18th guys telling those three players that they hadn't made it, could they have made it? Yes, they were good enough to have made it. And just by some subjective marker, I've decided that these three would make it and those three would.

41:31 And if you're not just a little bit aloof from them, you don't give them space to process information, right? If you're their buddy, Now you're in their space. And so that's one of the things that I talk about is like for you to make tough decisions, the players need to be able to go away and they have to hate you for a little bit, right? Because you made something that's not in their favor. Yeah. Yeah. So that's how I think about it. I think that's so wise. And I think that I think that when people see that you're willing to make a tough decision, that sets a precedent. You know, it sets a precedent. In some cases, it's making a tough decision. Similarly, you got a team of people in business and you know, you just you make a hard decision that somebody's got to go for one reason or another.

42:18 People look around and most often, especially if you've got a team of high performers. One of the reasons I love that you're talking about this, Josh, is that you and I both know that when we've got a team of high performers, when you get somebody who for any reason, even if they're trying their hardest, if they can't measure up, Mm-mm, they gotta be gone. Because everybody around them is thinking to themselves, damn it, what is going on? Why is this person allowed to be here? You know, I'm playing up here, they're playing down here, everybody can see it, and I think that that, willingness to not be a buddy and to make the tough decision is something that not only serves the interest of the person that you're going to let go as hard as that might feel in the moment, but it serves the interest of the team and the greater good.

43:06 Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's one of the things you keep the outcome in mind, right? You can't let the process get busted because you have the outcome in mind. Whereas if you only care about the process, you'll probably spend too much time with a player and without demanding that they change. And I think that's one of the things is often as coaches and as business leaders, what tends to happen is we take all responsibility for everything that goes wrong. Yeah. At the same time, we've got to expect the people around us to continue to iterate and evolve. Yeah. If we don't put some of that responsibility back on them, then we're not giving them a chance to be their best self. And if they can't measure up and you have that conversation that, hey, this isn't the right spot for you.

43:51 I think you can do it, but maybe I'm not the person to take you to the promised land. Oh, that's good. And I think I think that oftentimes we tell ourselves, you know, that we can't or we're reticent to make decisions like that because we're afraid of hurting somebody. When I actually believe, as I'm sure you do, that when we don't make that decision and we know it's the one that needs to be made, we're holding that person back from what they're really meant for. It's selfish at the end of the day. Because we're really just preserving ourself. Not, you know, not the other. It's my discomfort that I'm not doing this for. That's right. Because it's good for them. Yes. Yes.

44:31 So good, man. Tell me what you're up to these days. Now, you're still coaching coaching right now, aren't you? Yeah, I coach a little bit. I'm trying to help bring the Philippine rugby team back from the side. Oh, right on. My dad was born in Manila. He's American, but was born in Manila. So I've got a strong tie to the Philippines. There you go. Yeah. And so we're trying to bring them back. And, you know, we came back last year and we want to keep that going. So that's kind of what I'm doing there. But because my wife's a sports psychologist, we made a decision that having two people with highly emotional jobs is probably not beneficial for us. I love this.

45:13 I've really changed my focus to coaching coaches, right? Like actually helping those that want to develop and grow into. I don't look like other coaches that have come before me. I'm half Filipino. Like I'm 5'7". Like I don't fit the mold of what you expect for an Aussie. right? That alone an Aussie rugby coach. And I want people who don't necessarily fit the mold. I want them to be able to express themselves as coaches. So I'm on a mission to sort of help them bring their heritage and their thoughts to the environments to allow people to just continue growing. And we see it in the NFL. We see some great coaches getting shots. And I just wanted out there for those college coaches, because it's hard to go from a graduate assistant To a head coach.

45:57 Yes. And as an assistant coach, you need someone there. But as a head coach, you need someone there for you in your corner. And what I say I really do or I really enjoy doing is I allow head coaches to word vomit so they don't in front of their players. It's so good. I love it, man. And who would you say just because I want to make absolutely certain I know our audience is just loving this conversation, but I want to make certain that we're clear about, you know, who would be the right person to reach out to you in terms of working with you. So who how would you kind of define the right person in terms of people who might be interested in working with you? Yeah, I think those people, the coaches, and these would be college or prep school coaches, right?

46:41 Yep. They're the ones who create learning environments for student athletes. And they're the ones who actually want to create an environment of care that's high care and high challenge, right? And so if they're just about the wins and losses, they're not right to work for me. But if they want to develop this whole person through a sport, then let's have a chat because that's the sort of thing that you need support to make sure you're being your best self when you're in front of them. Awesome, man. Well, dude, I want to make sure even beyond that, that people know where to get a hold of you and where to follow you and all of that stuff. Where are the best places to find you hanging out online these days? Yeah, the best place is Instagram, at coach with Josh.

47:22 It's super simple. And I probably put out content a couple of times a week. And it's just little 90 second coaching tips, which are probably applicable across a lot of teams. Awesome, brother. Well, dude, first of all, thank you for taking the time to spend with me today. And I want to honor you, honestly, man. You are such a high achiever, heart driven, so thoughtful. I love the way that you've worked through the whole concept of process and outcome. And the work you're doing is so important because at whatever level, at whatever capacity, we as coaches are the ones that have the ability to influence so many others. Uh, and there's a massive ripple effect in that.

48:04 And you're, you're doing that. And, um, and, and, and just beyond that, you're just an amazing human being. So thank you for taking the time and being here. I know people have gotten a ton out of this. Um, and, uh, yeah, brother, I can't wait to do it again. Sweet. Appreciate you, Ryan. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate being on here. Awesome. Thank you for listening to this episode of the coaching equation podcast until next time. Take care. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coaching Equation. Please hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you got value out of this episode, we would be so grateful if you would share it out with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes or your favorite platform.

48:49 To learn more about Empire Partners or to inquire about working with Ryan and Brooke, please visit www.empirepartners.io forward slash go.