Personality vs Character in Cricket | With John Neal

No, I think that might be slightly before my time.

That makes me feel old.

Well, you are a little bit old.

Fair enough. Well, anyway, there’s a line in that film that has always stuck with me. Winston Wolf who’s played by Harvey Keital says, just because you are a character doesn’t mean you have character. It is. And today we’re going to unpack that idea.

That’s a great line.

with someone who’s spent over 30 years working in high performance sports, leadership and coach development and we’re going to be asking him this: what’s the difference between personality and character and why does that matter in cricket whether you’re a player, a parent, a coach or a leader in the game

So joining us today is John Neal, former head of coach development at the ECB and someone who’s worked across Olympic sports, professional rugby, business, and even the military. So if you care about sustainable performance, leadership under pressure, and what really drives culture, this one’s for you. I’m Briony Brock.

And I’m Nathan Wood.

Welcome to the Cricket Mind Podcast.

So our guest this week has spent most of his career helping players, coaches, and leaders across sport, business, and the military, not just improve their performance, but to also understand the true values so that their behaviors actually support their goals, especially under pressure. From leading coach development at England Cricket and Welsh Rugby, to mentoring leaders in F1, the corporate world.

Thank you.

NATO and even Buckingham Palace. John Neal has consistently challenged people’s thinking and the systems around them. He’s also been a policeman, a personal trainer, a bin man, and my old boss. So his range of experiences is both very broad and very deep. John, welcome to the pod. That’s quite a CV.

Well it’s very kind of you to say so but I want to make it very clear I’m a practitioner so I’m a recovering academic so I’ve got an academic underpinning but I like to talk about so how do we apply this in practice because I think academics is great I have no problem with it and I quite enjoyed it for a while but

you

when I speak to coaches and leaders they’re not interested in the academics they’re interested in so how do I apply this under pressure to make a difference to get better some want to win some just want to improve so as long as everyone understands whatever we talk about is from a practitioner’s perspective and if I upset some academics well I’ll live with that.

So today we’re going to explore something that I think sits right at the heart of your work and that is what’s the difference between personality and character and why does that matter for players, coaches and leaders in cricket? So John, in a cricket environment, what is the difference between personality and character and how do you see that difference kind of show up under pressure?

Okay, so again, practitioners approach in my view, personality is how you show up and how you defend yourself in the world and what you look like. Character is when no one’s watching, how do you actually behave and think? so for me, in cricket, in a performance environment, I use two simple questions. One is, who do you think you are? I’d call that personality. And who are you really? So when the pressure’s on,

what comes out. Now some of that may be good, may be really helpful but invariably who you really are, your character over which you have very little control created often by family experiences, some your DNA, some new evidence on that as well. When the pressure comes on what do you default to? It doesn’t mean you have to default to it but if you’re not aware of it then you typically will default to your character.

rather than your personality. for example, a batsman that says, I’m always calm and controlled and then they get a dodgy decision, they walk in, the bat goes into the window and they scream and shout, kick the dog. I’d say that’s their character. And they’re both prevalent. I would suggest though, we spent a lot of money working on personality and very little money working on character. So Myers-Briggs, SDI, all that stuff.

That for me is working on your personality, it’s who you think you are, which is great, I have no problem with it. But who you think you are and who you are really is very different. And if you’re to perform in a performance environment, you need to know who you are really, because that’s what comes out. And I get particularly frustrated when I was working in cricket, and forgive me, I’m dyslexic, so I’ll probably get this wrong. But someone said, would you mentor so and so? And I said, yeah, we’d have a chat.

You

And they said, just so you’re aware, John, I’m an IFPC or whatever it was, I’m Myers-Briggs thing. And I said, I’m really sorry, but I didn’t get past the first bit. I can’t remember all those letters. And it might be okay when we’re chatting, but when you’re coaching, who you think you are and who you are really is fundamentally different.

you

And I always start off with the second bit. Who are you really? And that’s my observation, reflecting on your life story, ⁓ getting feedback.

from people who are going to be honest with you. I really mean honest. People who don’t care what they say. Kids, grandparents, people who haven’t got anything caught up in saying, well actually, do you know you think you’re this, but I’ve seen this. Doesn’t mean they’re right, but it’s important to do it. But people don’t do it because it’s pretty scary. We don’t want to know some of this stuff. But I’d rather you know it.

before the performance environment than in it. Because I think there’s a terrible saying in sport, failure’s okay because you learn from it. Well you do, but it’s not the right time to do your learning. You don’t want to learn in the performance environment, you want to learn in the practicing environment. So let’s create environments. I listened to your podcast last week and I loved it. was about, let’s create a practice environment in nets, which is pressurized.

Because if you don’t work in a pressurized environment in training, it’s very hard to translate it. And that was a clear message that I got from the military. I was with them a long time and they train harder than they play, much harder because you know this expression, it’s okay to make mistakes because you learn from it. Not if you’re a bomb disposal expert. So get your character, understand who you really are.

Hmm.

it.

handle it, some will be good, some won’t be so good, but work it out and mitigate or develop it early on before you find out who you really are on the pitch.

That’s really interesting, John. And so you said there about seeking feedback from others around you. Are there any other ways that people can kind of really understand their own character kind of without needing other people’s input? You know, can you kind of sit down, have a chat with yourself about how can you get to know your own character?

Yeah, I think there’s several ways. You have to open up and you have to be in a psychologically safe environment because you’re going to open up about things that happened probably in your childhood, probably. So I’m a big fan of life scripts, sort of reflecting on your life and thinking about what were the significant incidents that happened in my life to which I reacted? Now, I say that how I reacted, it needs to be a strong reaction. So…

.

looking at all the good things in your life are unlikely to have an effect. You’re typically going to look for those things that were probably negative. Could be really inspirational and could be positive, but typically in my view you create those memories through emotional events and your brain says you better look out for that again, if that happens again it could do you some harm. Whereas good stuff doesn’t tend to, you don’t remember them as well, your brain’s there to keep you safe.

So looking at those big events through your life, looking at role models, I’m a big fan of looking at role models and how they might have influenced you. But ultimately, all those events, you need to look at them, but you don’t know how you’re gonna react. So you look at the events, but then you’ve got to think, how did I react? What was my response to this? Well, I’m a big fan of saying, asking your mum dad, brother, sister, auntie, how did you see me react there? How would you describe it?

and something that people might want to try. It’s the cheapest 360 degree feedback there is. Just type to people you trust, describe me in three words. And before you get your answers, write down what you expect to get and then look what you do get. Because we often look at this thing and this side of things and think it’s going to be negative. I think you’ll be surprised that a lot of people see you in a lot better light than you see yourself. And we typically look for the dark side.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Hmm.

where there’s a lot of light sight in who you really are. So I think you can do that. 360 degree feedback, I think is really helpful. And the one I’ve always used and I found really useful is experiential activities. Events and activities that put people under pressure where they actually exhibit who they really are. And Nathan and I will probably be able to tell you about stories when we’ve taken people to the Lake District, coaches and dangled them off ropes.

Mm.

you start to see how they react to that. You don’t have to dangle people off ropes or jump off mountains, all that stuff. You can do exercises. I now work at a business school and we use actors a lot and ⁓ the actor comes in the room and although it’s a training room, honestly, there’s a shift in behaviour. On two occasions in the last three months, I’ve been pinned against a wall.

Mm.

Hmm.

because we were doing a role play and they got really into it and I said, I don’t And it’s really good as a facilitator when you say, that’s interesting from a calm, calm individual. I wonder what happened there and they look at you.

Mm.

shame.

So

experiential activity, putting people under pressure in a safe environment. So I always talk about it like this. You need to take them to the cliff edge because that’s where the best view is, but you mustn’t let them fall off, right? Because that could be catastrophic. So you don’t want to do that. But you can have fun with this. I was with a group yesterday where they said they’re all open to learning. I said, okay, let’s do some clowning and singing. And they went, yeah, not that open.

Mm.

to learning John and I said to one group okay we’re going to do juggling and one guy could juggle and he said yeah great and I said okay that’s three balls do four he went no no so he wasn’t that open to learning as he said he was open to do stuff that he could do but he wasn’t open to challenge and so for me it’s give them that experience and make it exciting but then create the space to do the reflection.

Because if all you do is just excite people and throw them off cliffs, they never have the chance to slow down and think, OK, what happened there? What does that tell me about who I really am? And most importantly, what would I do next time? There’s one thing I’d say about reflective practice is you can do it until the cows come home. Right. Great. But that’s not any good unless you do something about it and then reflect on your adaptive process. So ⁓ one thing

I remember doing, I think Nathan or Rowly that I used to work with ECB, was these coaches used to walk down for their, walk down the net for their, their assessment of their coaching ability with a laptop. And I remember taking the laptop off one person, I said to close it said, just coach please. No laptops, no pre-planning, show us what you’ve got. And they went nuts. This was someone that said, I’m adaptive.

Hmm.

coach who responds to the individual in front of me unless I’ve got it on the laptop and I’m being assessed. So but then you have to stop and go okay what happened

Yeah.

there doesn’t make you a bad coach it just helps you think who do I think I am who am I really where’s the gap what do I need to work on and that’s where I think development comes in.

So if I’m a, if I’m a 15 year old cricketer listening to this and I don’t have access to three sixties and that kind of support around me, how would I know whether I’m showing.

personality or whether I’m showing character what would be the signs John for a young player to see that in in themselves

I think it is harder when you’re younger because you don’t have that sense of self-awareness and it’s quite hard to know when you’ve got the mask on. So I think personality is a bit of a mask. Listen to your friends. They’re a good source. Now this isn’t very scientific but it does work. Sometimes you just know when you’re not being you and you get a feel and you think, I’m not being you. For example,

Thank you

young boys or girls that walk into the first team dressing room for their first experience of first team cricket and the environment or culture in that dressing room might be very different to the one they’re used to and do they play up to it and say yeah I’ll do that and they you just get a feeling this isn’t really me I’m putting on a bit of a mask to pretend to be one of the boys or one of the girls and you know

and you just get this feeling that’s personality and sometimes when something happens and you normally would say well I don’t agree with that I’m going to hold you up I’m going to disagree and you go well no I’m going to keep my head down here or perhaps when a coach says would you like some feedback and your character says no I don’t want feedback leave me alone I’m working this through but your personality says yes please that would be really interesting.

And I don’t think you can measure it, I think you can only feel it. And perhaps you could get your mates or your friends to say, did that look like me? Because they’ll look at you go, no, come on, come on. Where’s that vibrant dynamic individual that normally calls people out? Where’s the swagger gone? Because often character is swagger and yeah, I’m great and then I’m not so good. Or perhaps…

Yep.

Mm.

I remember when I was very young, I was big for my age and I was picked three years ahead of my age group, not as a bowler, as a wicket keeper. And when I was playing with my age group, I was screaming, shouting, come on, you know, and then I went three years up. I shut up, right? And I just need someone to go, hey, what’s happened to the John we know? What’s happened to that confident young man that is chirpy and a bit, probably a bit over the top actually. But where’s that gone? So.

Mm.

think that’s one thing. The other thing and I’m really passionate about this is you’re not a cricketer at 16 or 15 or 30 you’re just a person right so get out and do other sports where you’re not that good because then you’ll find out a bit more about your real character about do you work hard, are you persistent, will you never give up, are you open to learning, are you a member of the team.

Hmm.

and you mentioned earlier that I was a bin man. That was the best character formation I ever had because I went to a nice school, I had lovely parents, I had a decent brother and I played sports with nice people and then I went

Hmm.

on the bins. And I met a different group of people who were also very nice but were much more direct and I thought, well I’m not sure if I am that direct and I learnt there and probably my biggest character development was joining the police.

because in the police I met a whole new group of people which I had never met before and they operated in a completely different way and suddenly I was contrasting so am I acting up to be like them? Am I being myself? Am I putting on a mask? And you sometimes really feel it as you get a bit older and you do need to get a bit older and you just start thinking I can’t live in this environment I just can’t be myself.

And I’m pretty sure if you’re acting personality, it has a huge deficit on performance. You need to be yourself in order to be a good performer because then you relax. If most of your attention is taken up with how do I look? How am I fitting in? Can I say what I think? All those things. Am I having to push down my character? A lot of energy goes into that and not.

Hmm.

I don’t think you’re in flow when you’re doing stuff contrary to your character. I heard it the other day as your essential self.

I think.

Can those environments be contagious in some way when it comes to character? Because where you said there, know, young players going into the first team dressing room, we see a lot of young people who play club cricket and they love it and they’re chatty and they talk about having a fun time and laughing with their friends. And then they start playing county age group stuff and they just talk about how it’s everyone’s out for themselves. There’s no chat. There’s no fun. Can that be contagious?

It seems like it’s the whole environment changes people’s approach rather than one person being different. Does that make sense?

Yeah and this is down to coaches and counties in my opinion okay because they give them a badge so they wear a badge and they all wear the same badge and then they give them a cap and then they start pretending that they’re a bit better they’re only just a bit better at cricket they’re not better people and then they start saying things like you’ve got to let go of that stuff you did at the club this is serious now it ain’t serious it’s still hitting a ball and

I think they restrict performance because the reason we all catch a ball or throw a ball or do all that stuff because it’s fun. It’s just, you see people throwing a ball on a beach, it’s a laugh and suddenly it becomes serious. And even at the top level, all the teams I’ve worked with is trying to remind them that we do this for enjoyment and it’s a choice.

So John, you mentioned it’s important to be yourself. Would you agree that in modern cricket, we sometimes overvalue personality and undervalue character?

Well, we measure the hell out of it. And I know in cricket we use a hell of a lot of psychometrics and then forgive me, a lot of psychs think that they then know the player. They don’t, they know the personality of the player. They don’t know the character. But it’s easier to measure. It’s a lot easier because we’ve got tools for it and we can call them colors and can put them in boxes and give them four letters and all that stuff. So we do value it. I think we probably overvalue it to be honest.

Yep.

The reason why I ask was because you were saying about, you know, be yourself, but in talent pathways, often bold personalities tend to get noticed quite early, whereas quieter players, can sometimes be overlooked. so you were talking about be yourself. Do you think there’s ever a time or it’s ever in a young player’s interests to…

exaggerate or even fake, you know, a bold personality just in order to catch that selectors eye.

case loop.

You have to play the game a bit, but I don’t like fake it till you make it because fundamentally that is a problem. Faking stuff is dishonest to yourself, it’s dishonest to the group, it really doesn’t work. However, I would say, and I would encourage people to be themselves with style. recognise their strengths and most people have some strengths, character strengths, bring those to the fore.

bring those to the fore and perhaps subdue some of those character strengths that are less welcome. But what I’d also say is, and I would challenge really strongly the coaching and the management and leadership of many organizations. And I heard it say recently that in order to be a leader, you have to have charisma. That’s not true, Charisma in leadership is not a necessity.

In fact, some of the very best leaders are introverted, quiet people who lead in a fundamentally different way. Unfortunately, the media like the loud, charismatic leader. If you speak to a lot of people, they don’t want to follow them. What they actually want is the quiet leader that comes along and goes, how are doing? That are approachable and easy to talk to. And when I say be yourself with style, if you’re going to do a media interview and you go in…

Hmm.

You perhaps be yourself a little bit more style and say, I’m not one for talking about stuff like that. However, on reflection, I’m quite pleased with how things went there, you know, with a smile. You don’t have to scream and shout. And so I challenge the coaches to look for the characteristics that you need, not the personality that you can see. And that takes coaches to look beneath the surface and

look at what people are doing when they don’t think they’re being watched because that’s when the character is much more visible. If you put someone on show they will give you what they think you want to see. So coaches I always used to get to whatever venue I’m working at I’ll get there really early so I can see how young players arrive at the stadium.

How do they get there? How do they speak to the person on the gate? How do they speak to the person on reception? And if I’m in the corporate world, how do they speak to the taxi driver that dropped them off? How do they walk in? I’ve done an exercise where I filmed them coming in and then I’ve shown them the video. That was interesting. And they’re horrified because

Hmm. Hmm.

When they saw me, they go, hello, John, how are you? That’s not how you just spoke to the receptionist.

In fact you threw your key at them and I said well so why? Because I think that’s the real you and it doesn’t go down very well but it does work.

and

So let’s widen a little bit in terms of going on to parents and the impact that they have from your experience. ⁓

Well, how much influence do parents have, know, consciously or unconsciously on the development of character in young players?

It’s massive because when children are very young, their brains are hugely plastic. So what they see is what they believe to be normal. So, ⁓ and here’s the problem, right? As parents, I think the vast majority of parents, and I’ve got three boys, we do everything because we love our kids. However, our kids don’t know that what we are doing is values driven. They just see a behaviour. So.

A parent could be absent from a training session and the kid might think they don’t even come and watch me practice. They obviously don’t care about me. The parent may say, I’m doing an extra shift in order that I can pay for that training session. So the problem is that we, as parents, we do in the vast majority of the cases, everything we can to try and help our kids in the way we think we can help.

Hmm. you

but that’s not often the way they receive it. So they could receive a little look. The look might be because mum or dad is tired or worn out or they really want their kid to do well and they’re disappointed or the other one is nervous parents. And the parent is nervous for the child and displays nervous behaviour. And it has a huge effect because the brain is so plastic it just takes it all in. And can I give you an example of this?

Mm.

Yeah.

So I was doing some work in one of the Olympics I helped leaders and coaches prepare for. And I noticed myself and a guy called Nigel Redmond, who was head of development at British Swimming. And we noticed, and you’ve probably seen it, all the athletes coming out with headphones on and caps pulled down. And we thought, this is really interesting. This is like the Olympic games and they’re here. They’ve got, so they’re no sound, can’t see. And we said, why do you do that? And they said,

Mm.

because I don’t want to look at the coach. Really? Well, why not? Because they get so anxious and nervous and their faces, like we don’t want to see them because it’s like makes me nervous.

So what we would say is in the coaches form, if you are feeling nervous, if you’re a parent,

or if you’re feeling anxious, what am I trying to project to my child? And typically they want to project confidence and enjoyment and not nervousness or a drive for success. So even if you are nervous driving your kid to the net or the practice, you don’t talk about it.

The kids don’t need a psych in the car, they need mum or dad in the car. And I’ll probably get a bit deep here, but all most kids want is to be loved. And thought, doesn’t matter what happens in that net, when I get back in this car, it’s gonna be warm, there’s probably gonna be some food and mum or dad are gonna love me. And if I screw it up, it doesn’t matter, mum loves me.

Hmm.

so for me the answer I’m sorry that’s a long answer but for for parents to recognize that the most important thing is make sure your kids know you love them and

care for them and don’t worry too much about outcomes and I think you probably can’t go far wrong and by the way this is from a parent that probably did get it wrong.

Hmm.

Well, I mean, being a sport parent is…

It’s tough, isn’t it? Because there is emotion attached to sport — I mean, that’s the whole, you know, attraction of sport. So in terms of a practical tip, when a child is dropped or overlooked or feels something is unfair, what do you think good parenting, in terms of development of character in that child, what does that look like in those moments?

So the child’s upset, disappointed, all that stuff. The worst thing you can do is be upset for them and say, absolutely right, you’re terrible for being dropped and I have seen it. go, I’ll speak to the coach.

if you’re going to go into the world of sport, guess what? You’re going to get picked and you’re going to get dropped. Even the best players get dropped and often

when they do get dropped it hits them very hard because it’s never happened before. So what do they need from their coach or from their mum or dad is to say okay this is life, what are you going to do? What the parent can’t do is take on their problem. It’s got to be okay son, daughter this isn’t great but this is life this is reality — what are you going to do about it? What element of your game do you need to work on?

have you asked why you’ve been dropped? And unemotional, because what they don’t need is anger. They just don’t need it at that point. You you can be disappointed. I can understand that, you know, that’s really upsetting, but it can’t be your upset.

And it’s then the coach. And this is where I think coaches go wrong. They don’t really tell them why they haven’t been picked. They’ll say something nonsense like, well, it’s just a feel That’s not good enough. It’s got to be something objective that they can go and do something about. And so I’m a real fan of feed forward. I’m not a fan of feedback.

because feedback is typically they know and if they don’t know then you enlighten them but what they want to know is what can they do about it? What can I do to get better? Because if it’s feedback it’s in the past I can’t change it. Feedforward is, look you haven’t been picked because in the nets, in my view, I don’t think you worked as hard as you could do. So strength based, I think you could work harder in the nets.

and the player hopefully will say what does that look like? Okay it means you get there a bit earlier it means you do a proper warm-up it means you do a proper warm down and I’ll be honest I saw you on your phone three times.

So that’s something you might, it might not be right, but it’s something a player can work on. And then the parent must go, righty-ho. What they mustn’t do is, well, that’s a load of old rubbish. That’s nonsense. They’ve got to say, okay, let’s go with that. If you think it’s fundamentally wrong, I think you’ve got to bite your tongue because ultimately it’s not your call, it’s the coach’s call.

Mm.

Hmm.

The coach picks people. You can’t change the coach. But I’ve seen parents try.

Yeah.

If the coach is cool, you’ve got to support the coach.

Yeah, it’s very interesting. We did

an episode on resilience ⁓ a little while back and it was a similar sort of takeaway messages, processing experiences, of like taking them at face value, accepting them and moving forward builds that resilience. And it sounds like from what you’re saying, it builds character exactly in the same way. It’s sort of not getting emotional, not fighting back, not trying to diminish the experiences or make it any easier, just taking it as it is.

you’ll see.

dealing with it and then moving forward.

Yeah, and I think parents of young children at the moment have a bigger challenge because they are encouraged to be nice, not kind. And by nice I mean the child is of the view that they have a lot of choices. So where they want to go on holiday, what they want to eat, when they want to train, when they don’t want to train. And we’re supposed to be child-centered and let them make that choice. And I get that, I understand it.

Yeah.

Mmm. Mmm.

but they don’t always have the broader experience of saying, well look, if you do these things, it won’t be in your long-term benefit. They don’t have the ability to look further forward. And Jimmy Carr talks about this, I think really eloquently. He says, it’s easy to allow your kids to have burgers and chips and fries and play on their computer all day, but ultimately that will end up in pretty unfit, unhealthy kids.

without a great range of experience. He uses different words, I won’t use them. But a kind parent says, look, it is time that we went out and we got off the computer and for a walk in the woods, or you do have to eat broccoli, right? You do have to practice and not all practice is fun. And sometimes it’s good to go out and practice in the rain, but it’s cold and it’s wet and it’s not very nice. No, I know it isn’t, but…

If you have trained in the cold and the wet, imagine what happens when you have to play in the cold and the wet. I’m sure both of you have experienced sports events where it was cold and wet and those that have been through it and have got used to it, that’s parents who have been nice to them not.

or is it the other way round? One of the two, take your pick.

So

we’ve looked at it from a player’s perspective. We’ve looked at it from a parent’s perspective. In terms of looking at it from a coach perspective, what does character look like in a coach ⁓ when the pressure comes on? What are you looking for there, John?

level level that’s what i look for because if you’re a coach you know that you’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some and i don’t mean outcome there some players will do really well some sessions will go well some won’t but if the session goes well and or you win stuff and the coach is cheering and screaming and whooping and hollering then the same is very likely to happen if things go wrong

There’s a bad session, they scream and shout and throw the bat against the net and whatever. If you’re a player, I think you need a coach that stays fairly level. Doesn’t have to be unemotional, but stays pretty level so that as a player, you know from that coach, they’re in control of their emotions. In character terms, I think that’s the ability to manage your emotions

Are they self-aware? Are they able to manage their character? And sometimes, sometimes a coach does have to use their personality and they do have to pretend they’re happy when they’re quite sad.

If I come in as a coach and I’ve got all sorts of stuff going on at home, I’ve got this, I’ve got that, the other, that’s got to be left at the door. And when I come in, I’ve got to be that level coach who is reasonably positive, but not too hyper, not too negative, but is steady state. And I quite like coaches that sort of smile.

and sorry, going back to your question, Nathan, what I want coaches who

may not be confident, but inspire confidence in others, because there is nothing better than a player that goes out feeling confident based upon not just psychological confidence, but because they’ve practiced, they know their game, they know how they’re.

they’ve done the hard work, they’ve done all that stuff, so psych and practical, but if the coach creates

Hmm Hmm

the environment and you walk out going, can’t wait to demonstrate my strengths, I think you’re more likely to get a better performance.

Have you seen many examples where, at the top end now, where a leader’s personality is impressive, know, charismatic, confident, commanding, but their character is revealed differently behind closed doors. Have you come across that much?

In really enlightened players, I have

identified quite a few who I knew them and I can’t say who they are, so forgive me, that wouldn’t be appropriate. But I knew they were nervous as a kitten and they’re, because our character isn’t always positive by the way. We’ve sometimes got stuff in our character that says you’re not good enough, you can’t do it, you’re not strong, you’re not fast, you’re getting a bit too old, all that stuff. But then have the ability to say, okay,

Thanks very much for bringing that to my attention. I know you’ve done it because you’re trying to protect me. However, my personality that I’m going to display to the team is going to be one of confidence and involvement and engagement. And the player I’m particularly thinking about, I can’t say who it is, but he was a big man. And I remember it was a European Cup semi-final and we were nervous as kittens as coaches because we were playing against a team who had nothing to lose but full of stars.

It was a team of stars, not a star team. And in a one-off game, that’s really dangerous. And we could feel this

Hmm.

nervousness, but this player, I always remember, he walked to the dressing room, to the door with the team behind him and he stopped. He stuck his jaw out and he turned around and he said, boys, this is our day. This is when we make the final. Let’s go. And I saw everyone shift and they said,

He says we’re going to win, so we’re probably going to win. Now I knew he didn’t feel like that. So that was where he knew his character, but he used personality to demonstrate to the others, well, okay, this is what they need to see. So sometimes you do have to mask it.

that I’m not decrying personality. I’m not saying character is the answer. I think it’s a balance between, it’s almost a polarity and you need to be able to work between the two knowing what is best as a coach.

Mm.

you need to know what is best for them because it ain’t about you as coach. What is best for my team right now to create the best environment for them to show how good they are.

So John, I don’t know whether this is related or not actually, to my mind it is. I’ve heard you use the phrase ego kills eco. What do you mean by that? in a, cricket context, in a sporting context.

Okay, so I’m not going to get all Freudian, Jungian and all that stuff. I’m going to use the word ego as one’s mask, right? Which sometimes you put on. Sometimes it is a mask. Sometimes it is, it’s all about me. And so I think there’s a difference there because often the word ego is used as it’s all about me. And it’s not, that’s actually not what it means. Ego is typically, I’m going to put a mask on here just to protect myself a little bit from the world so that

People don’t see my vulnerability. So I’m just going to smile, even though I’m sad. I think you mean ego as in me, me, me, me, me. And does that kill the ecosystem? Yes, I think it does. All right. We do need ego. We do need some people who will step forward and in cricket particularly, which is called a team sport.

You have to recognize for me to be at my best, you have to be at your best. And I can’t do what I do unless you do what you do. So I have a responsibility to help you be really good at what you do. And you have a responsibility to do what you can to help me. So if you’re prancing around saying, I’m the greatest player, I think that’s going to rub some people’s back up the wrong way because you think, for angles sake, you’ve got…

six wickets because six people have been practicing their catching all week and have caught the ball and you got lucky you know you’ve bowled a couple of balls they were loose and it’s not all down to you i get it you hold up the ball because you delivered it but actually i like it when players i’ve seen a couple of top players they gingerly hold up the ball because they know hey i did my very best but they caught the ball

It’s a team game and if you have got those egos they will kill the ecosystem.

I remember one team I worked with very early in my career, we had a standout player, but he was very different to everyone else. And I remember speaking to the coach saying, you wouldn’t tolerate that from another player because it’s not fair. know, we treat really great players differently to average players. I had this idea, we treat everyone the same, well you don’t. I said, why do you put up with it? And the coach, a very wise coach, said, John,

I put up with it while he’s delivering results, but I’ve made it very clear to him. If he stops producing the results that benefit the team, then I’ll treat him differently. So his contribution is what he does really well, and I want him to do that. But if it comes to the point where it is negating the others, then I’m going to drop him. And I said, well, how do you know that? And he said, it’s very easy. I have to think about

How much better is that ego driven player than the player I would put in his place?

Right, so let’s say he’s 7 % better and you’ve got a team of 15 people. If that 7 % causes every other player to drop their performance by 1%, you’ve got a negative, you’ve got a zero sum game.

Hmm.

So he’d say, unless he’s delivering that percentage higher that he’s taking away, he goes. And not only that, but he made it very clear. So we’re gonna put up with this while you’re delivering.

It’s interesting because in cricket, and we’ve talked about this on previous episodes, the stats are like a kind of big, shadow looming over people, you know, so you, for example, if you’ve got a county under 16 side, those that get 100, 150 runs in a game are the ones that are going to then be put on the, you know, EPPs. So yes, they want to win as a team, but also there is that.

If they want to be a professional player, they also sort of need that ego focus, that focus on the numbers and the runs. So how can you balance those in cricket, which is so stats heavy and so much of selection is done on stats.

Yeah, and I get that. And what I say to coaches is when you’ve got an outcome measure like that, which is very clear, you’ve got to evaluate the quality of that score against 100 here is not worth 20 there. And it’s not just the outcome number, but the process by which they scored 100 and the value of that 100 within the context of the game. And I also

Mm.

Mm.

I think this is really important. I then watch them when they come off after 100. How do they respond? Do they then go in the net and do a bit of work in the net? Because when you score 100 at 15, well, well done you, but the character is, you still hungry to get better? Do you still seek feedback? And then if that 100 scorer then messes around in the warmup,

doesn’t bother catching and says well you know I’ve done my bit I would I would really challenge that as a coach to look at the wider perspective not just how that runs they scored how they scored them where they scored them how they responded to scoring them and sometimes getting out first ball that might demonstrate to you a lot more about their character than just the outcome how do you respond to 100 you throw your bat or do you do you seek

Hmm.

information, knowledge. How do they respond to somebody else that’s doing well? So, they give them the strike or do they hog the strike? And ultimately, see, I think it’s a coaching issue as much as a player and parenting issue. But if your kid scores 100, do you then celebrate?

Hmm.

so particularly in cricket where you know it is very clear to see if you get six six wickets you’ve done pretty well but i think coaches need to really challenge themselves um can i give you an example of this i went to a i was asked to go along to my local county under 15 trials

Mm.

and I saw two kids. One walked in in scruffy old kit but I could see the ball rotating. It was spinning like mad. You could hear it. I thought wow. He didn’t look, he looked like just fallen out of the back of a hedge but he could rotate a ball. The other kid, beautiful whites, manicured, walked up and he bowled like some of the listeners might remember John Emburey

straight leg the most graceful bowler right but it didn’t spin it and I thought this is going to be interesting I wonder who gets picked and you can imagine who got picked the one that looked right got picked and the one that rotated it didn’t so for coaches you’ve got to see through the outcome and look for the process because for me ultimately if you’re a spinner you should spin it

So for me, coaches see beyond just the outcome of runs, wickets. Look at the process by which they got it, where they got it, how they respond to it, how they behave. Even just things like how do they turn up at the game. And I’m not talking about have they got the right whites on because that could be down to mum and dad.

looking after them. But how do they speak to people? How do they respond? And your job as a coach there is to try and work that out because characterful players, they can learn skill. Skillful players, it’s very hard to learn character. That’s much harder because that needs new experiences. But perhaps that’s the challenge for lot of coaches now, to develop character, not skill.

Mm.

So we’ve talked about players, parents, coaches. Let’s just talk a little bit about organizations and systems. We often hear organizations say people are, you know, they’re our greatest asset. In your experience, how do you know when that’s genuinely true rather than when it’s just, you know, something written on a website or on a fancy banner? What gives it away, John?

Can I be blunt? Organizations do not have values. They do not have them. They have a bunch of people with a set of values who behave in a certain way. And if you put all that together and you watch their behaviours, you might get a rough idea of how that group of people typically seem to behave. However, I think it is really rare

I’d love you to.

when they say we are people focused I will challenge them on that and say okay if you are people focused let’s have a look at your balance sheet.

Where is it? Where is the number against people? Show me. Because if you are really people focused, it would be a key KPI. So where is it? How do you demonstrate it? And I sat in a meeting, I was working at a national governing body, and we all came together and we started talking. And the first thing they said, look, really sad news. So and so is very unwell. They’ve gone on leave. They’ve got terminal cancer. ⁓ And so just thought you ought to know. This hits us all.

Because as people, we really care because we knew this person. Bit of a shock. Okay. This meeting lasted one hour. At the end of the meeting, the person leading the meeting said, look, actions from this meeting are, we need to get that job description out because now they’re no longer working for us. We need to get the job description out. And organizations, unless they’re very small and entrepreneurial, they don’t have a soul.

They have a bunch of people who come together to work. They might enjoy each other’s company, they might not. They might have a common objective, but invariably they don’t because they’re siloed. They might have a bunch of values written up on a wall, but very rarely are those values held by everyone. If they are, they’re pretty nebulous. And the one you’ll see is honesty. Human beings are not honest. They are not. We are not brought up to be honest. Think about your childhood experiences.

We were lied to from an early age. I’m sorry to shock anyone if they’re looking forward to Easter. There’s no Easter bunny and if the teeth fall out, there’s not a fairy. And by the way, if mum and dad said they were having a cuddle and doing wrestling on a Sunday morning because the door was locked, that wasn’t true either. They lied to you, sorry, but they did. So it’s not natural to be honest. In fact, it’s really hard. Organisations by law in certain circumstances

but but but but

you

cannot be honest, they cannot tell you stuff because it might give an unfair advantage particularly in the financial sector. for me,

organisations, they might have operating principles which they try and stand by, but they’re normally done for PR purposes because it looks good and they put it on the job description, this organisation, we stand by these values. Look, can I be really frank with you? I’ve very rarely seen it. I’ve seen a few people live by their values.

I haven’t seen many organisations do it. And you only got to look at that when they do ⁓ media. You know when the team loses? They always come up with the same old stuff. But behind the scenes they’re under pressure to sack the coach and the media want the news stories so they want the coach sacked. ⁓ I’m not really honest with you. I’ve worked at a business school, professor at a business school for 36 years.

In that time, I reckon I could tell you less than four organizations that I think are really led by their values. And one of those values, by the way, is not make money. They happen to make money because they had a bunch of people who thought this is different. we have seen, and it’s normally entrepreneurial small businesses that are close enough to be willing to do it. I saw one.

You .

where the CEO walked in and said, in this organisation we value feedback. And he said to his group of leadership, said, what is the one thing that gets in the way of you giving feedback? And one brave soul went, you are.

And the CEO, what do you mean? He said, this lot are scared of you, but no one dares say it. This individual was a bit

older, probably didn’t give much of them monkeys about it anymore and said, you’re the reason. And he said, that’s terrible. That’s not me. He said, but that’s organizational structure. You you hold the keys. So the CEO said, what do I do? He said, well, you need to be willing to give us a get out of jail card. So he went off and got printed a yellow card.

and he handed them all out. said, if at any point you can give me the yellow card. And at that point we have to work from it. And off the back of that, I created something called the clown’s red nose. So you’re probably aware ⁓ clowning and jesters in the court, they were the only people that could call you out and they’d hold a mirror up to the leader and they could do it in a funny way. So with this group, we agreed that when you popped the red nose on, that was the time that you could

say what you really thought and try it put the red nose on and see how it changes behavior people come on what are you looking like yeah well come on say what you really think and you said it I have worked in organizations where I’ve got a small team of people I trust and I was able to say tell me what you think and they would tell me but that wasn’t organizational value that was a small group less than five typically who have a set of

Hmm.

Mm.

agreed values and operating systems and then they take a deep breath and they go we said we’d do it we’re going to do it because they felt safe in doing it. Organizations right you get sacked and all this stuff about it’s okay to make mistakes not at the top level it isn’t they say it is but you ask people that work in the top level of business how often have you made a mistake and you’ve been forgiven or even encouraged.

very very rare normally when you’ve got an entrepreneurial leader that says keep making mistakes it’s cool i heard it explained like this it’s okay to make mistakes where it’s above the water line you make mistakes below the water line that might sink the ship you’re gone so sorry to be blunt ⁓ organizations and organizational values when i hear them spouting it i don’t believe it i just don’t people have values not

So what can organisations do to be a little bit better even if they can’t have values and abide by them as an organisation? How can organisations that maybe want to be better, what can they do?

I it is quite simple. Be brave, be more courageous and do what you said you’re gonna do. And with respect, tell the media to get lost. Because it’s the media that typically creates the pressure that you don’t say stuff. The thing is, when you say, look, you can say what you want, media, I’m gonna be straight with my people. And there is one example I’d like to give you that people may remember. And this person walks the talk and his name was Paddy Ashdown.

Mm-hmm.

Now Paddy Ashdown got caught, his nickname was Paddy Pantsdown. He got caught with his pants down. Now lots of people have spun that and come up with all this. He walked out and he said, look, I have been caught. I did do something that I regret. I had a relationship with someone I shouldn’t have a relationship and I regret it. And I’m really sorry for that. And I’m going to try to work with those close to me to put it right. But bottom line is I got it wrong and I’m sorry. And do you know what happened? The story went away because

Okay.

Hmm.

Ultimately, if you believe in honesty, then go and do it. Go and do it and say, hey, I’ve screwed up there. And your team will go, wow. Right? Because we all screw up. But when a leader goes, hey, I got that wrong. When they lie, in my view, and I’ve worked with quite a few that have told lies, I lose utter respect for them and I cannot follow them. Because I know they’ve lied. Other people know they’ve lied. And we all then put that mask on and say,

Mm.

Hmm.

Mm.

yeah, we better not say it because this might happen or that might happen. Hey, it might be because I’m 62 now. I’m back being a self-employed consultant. So it’s a lot easier for me because I can walk away. But I have had two occasions in the recent past where I have probably have taken a breath and gone, I’m not having that. I’m going to call it. And then I was very lucky. I had the support of a wonderful family and especially my wife.

Hmm.

Mm.

and an ex-wife who happened to be an employment lawyer. So when I called it and it was a big thing I called, I had a bit of backing. And if you are going to be honest and truthful, you do need people around you who are going to back you and they’re going to go do the right thing because ultimately when you do that, it could be catastrophic. And I was told in that situation, this could be catastrophic. I was told actually you’ll never work in sport again.

Mm.

or perhaps I didn’t want to. Not in that environment anyway. what does it take? Bravery and courage and people around you who are going to back you and support you and a willingness to ignore the noise of the media.

Hmm.

We’re coming up to time, John. So let’s, let’s finish off with three quickfire questions. One sentence answers only a bit of pressure now. first question, what does character look like in a young player?

Right.

Cool. Right.

Resilience gets up, gets going again, smiles in the face of adversity and is loved, feels loved.

And second, what does it look like in a coach?

balance, the ability to mask when they are terrified at the right time and most importantly for me as a character trait they fundamentally want to help other people get better. That’s what that is like their superpower of their character they just want to help other people get better. You note there I didn’t say win right because if their fundamental character is win

Hmm.

that draws some pretty horrible character traits like cheat, playing an easy league,

by players in. So I know it’s one word, but for me it is a fundamental desire to help people get better without reward.

I’ll give you that as one sentence. I don’t think there that many gaps in there. And then third and final question, what does character look like in an organization or a governing body?

That’s a hard one word answer because I’ve rarely seen it. Courage. There you go. I think it’s courage and bravery to do what is right, not what is expedient.

And final question, if there’s one uncomfortable truth about modern sport, cricket, does it matter? That we need to confront when it comes to character and values, what would it be?

It is a business, but it’s still a game. So yes, we need to pay the bills and we need to do all that stuff. But when we remember it’s a game and we do it for fun and it changes lives in communities, if the England cricket team win cricket matches the right way, winning better, everyone feels happy. But they equally enjoy a beer and playing with their mates in the garden.

So we do need to win, I get all that, that drives the business, but we’ve also got to recognise we lose, that’s part of the game. So for me, ultimately, the thing we need to really come to terms with is, if we forget it’s a game, we lose the essence of what it is. And the games are fun and we choose to do it because it’s a laugh.

Very wise. John, that’s been thoughtful. It’s been challenging. It’s been hugely valuable. Thanks so much for your time and for continuing to

push how we think actually about performance and leadership. Before we let you go, is there anything that you’re working on at the moment, any projects, any programs, any initiatives that viewers and listeners would be interested in knowing about?

I’m hugely enjoying being a consultant going, working with a working, can’t say I am working with a particular sport, helping them. And then with people that want to learn, there’s nothing more exciting than walking to a room where people want to learn. That really makes my soul feel good. And the other one is,

I’ve been approached by a number of coaches to say, how do we as a group of sports coaches in the professional environment get supported? No, because there’s one thing you can guarantee as a sports coach in a professional world, you’re going to get the sack and who helps them? So I’m being asked to look at something called an independent professional sports coach, not a union, a network, an association where

Professional sports coaches can get advice, guidance, career support, CPD and probably the most powerful one is legal guidance because I needed it. Gee, I

Hmm.

needed it. When these key moments of truth come, you need somewhere where you can go where you feel this is my tribe and they will help you. So what am I trying to do? I’m trying to create an association, a tribe of professional coaches who will support and back each other.

Well,

I haven’t quite worked it through yet but everyone I’ve spoken to has said, yeah, fancy that. So I’m hoping that might come to something but we’ll see.

That sounds really interesting.

that sounds really

Yeah, it does. And an important initiative actually, and particularly at a time when, you know, I think coaching is still fighting to be recognized as a respected, profession in some elite sporting organizations. So we, we really do kind of look forward to hearing more about that. ⁓ yeah, well, definitely. thanks again, John. And, ⁓ and as always actually

If it comes off I’ll come back to you.

Thank

You

for the viewers and the listeners, you know, thanks for tuning in. If it’s provoked any thoughts or questions, we’d love to hear from you. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, please do spare 30 seconds just to rate and review the show. It really does help us to spread the word. Now, next week, we’re delighted to be joined by former England cricketer, Laura McLeod, somebody that John knows pretty well. After finishing her

playing career, Laura moved into cricket administration and most recently was head of women’s cricket at Warwickshire County Cricket Club. She’s now gone back into coaching for her local club, Nantwich Vipers. So really looking forward to hearing her story and her perspective. So that should be a really great show. So John, thanks ever so much again.

Thank

Thanks for inviting me

both of you. I enjoyed it.

Thank

you. Thanks, John.

So it’s fantastic for you to come on, mate. And Briony I think we’ll call that stumps, hey?

Yes, let’s see you next time.