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Coaching Culture with Ben Herring
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring is your weekly deep-dive into the often-overlooked “softer skills” of coaching—cultural innovation, communication, empathy, leadership, dealing with stress, and motivation. Each episode features candid conversations with the world’s top international rugby coaches, who share the personal stories and intangible insights behind their winning cultures, and too their biggest failures and learnings from them. This is where X’s and O’s meet heart and soul, empowering coaches at every level to foster authentic connections, inspire their teams, and elevate their own coaching craft. If you believe that the real gold in rugby lies beyond the scoreboard, Coaching Culture is the podcast for you.
Coaching Culture with Ben Herring
REFLECTIONS Interpersonal Sensitivity (The Secret Weapon of Elite Coaches)
The difference between good coaches and great ones isn't found in tactical knowledge or technical expertise—it's their ability to read people. This fascinating exploration of interpersonal sensitivity reveals why the world's elite coaches prioritize human connection before anything else.
High-performance manager Chris Webb, who has worked with multiple World Cup rugby teams, shares his powerful observation: "The real difference comes down to interpersonal sensitivity—your ability to read a moment, read a room, read a person." This skill—noticing what matters even when it's not said aloud—creates the foundation for exceptional coaching relationships and team performance.
At the heart of interpersonal sensitivity lie two critical components: emotional intelligence (EQ) and adaptability quotient (AQ). Your EQ functions as an emotional radar, helping you detect when a player is struggling before they verbalize it. It's about listening before speaking, reading the room accurately, and knowing exactly when to push versus when to pull back. Meanwhile, your AQ determines how effectively you and your team handle pressure, bounce back from setbacks, and adapt to changing circumstances—essentially transforming challenges into teaching moments rather than defeats.
The most successful coaches implement practical strategies to develop both qualities. They begin sessions with genuine personal check-ins, create psychologically safe environments where players feel comfortable speaking up, expose their teams to varied pressures in training, and deliberately celebrate resilience as much as outcomes. These approaches create teams that not only perform better but also demonstrate remarkable emotional maturity and adaptability under pressure.
Remember—what your players carry in their heads and hearts, they carry onto the field. If you want to coach them well during competition, you must start by caring about their lives beyond it. That's not being soft; it's being switched on to the human factors that ultimately determine performance.
Welcome to Coaching Culture Reflections, the midweek spark for anyone who loves leading teams and growing through that journey. I'm Ben Herring and I've been loving this Soda game for bloody ages. Each week I'll break down key components of leadership, from culture building to communication, from mindset to motivation all to help you lead with more impact, heart and clarity, and level up. Let's get into it. Hey, all hope everybody is well.
Speaker 1:We're here today to just have a little bit of reflection around something that was said to me a little while ago in a good conversation I had with my good friend, chris Webb, high performance manager of some of the world's best rugby teams, been to multiple World Cups, worked with some of the very, very best rugby coaches in the business, and what he's seen and what he's heard from these people proves that there's a new way of coaching. In fact, it's not new, it's always been there. But the best coaches do it and it's the real difference and I want to start with this quote from Chris, and here it is the real difference comes down to interpersonal sensitivity your ability to read a moment, read a room, read a person. Some coaches get it right, some don't, and what I've seen is both the ones that get it right. They're present, they care, they understand what's going on around the player at home, in their head, in the world. That stuff shows up at training, it shows up on game day. Now that is the key to the podcast we had. We talked about this interpersonal sensitivity. The best coaches in the world have it and I want to dive into it because I think it's one of those sort of gray, soft skill things that people struggle with understanding how it's connected and what it's all about.
Speaker 1:Now, whilst I talk about it as a soft skill, it's what it actually is is your ability to notice what matters, even when it's not said out loud. It's the ability to watch a player's body language and sensing something's not quite right. It's knowing when to push and it's also knowing when to pull back. It's actually seeing the human side, not just the athlete or the player. And in today's world, particularly today's world, having that skill is absolute gold. Chris Webb also quotes this from his time with both Eddie Jones, steve Hansen and the like. If we just focus on the technical side the kicking, the passing, the scrummaging we miss the point. Our job is to help them be the best humans they can be. That is where performance starts, and he's so right. Like if we just start, the first thing we do when we get into environment is just talk pure technical and tactical. We miss the great connection piece.
Speaker 1:I had a lovely conversation with Ryan Martin, whose MLR team, the Boston Freejacks, have won three in a row titles, and he made this statement to me when he talked about his pre-season. The first day when all the teams arrived, the only thing they did is disconnect. They didn't talk at all about technical and tactical stuff. It was just about the people side. The first thing that he did for that team is sat everybody down in a room, put the calendar up on the big screen and said this is when our breaks are and the reason I'm telling you first up when the breaks are because I want you to plan, I want you to be able to get away with your families. I want you to go see places in America if you're not from here. I want to put this in now. So you know and we commit to that now. Because I want you to enrich yourself as a person. Book something in advance, take your partners and family and kids somewhere cool, have an experience that runs parallel with what we're doing here on the rugby field. I want you to get that right. First, get that right and then you're going to turn up here more engaged, ready to go. And he had instant feedback on that from some of the senior players who said that was outstanding, that that was your focus, he said. One of the the captain, actually said to him a lot of coaches talk about the value of people and family and that sort of thing, but their actions don't reflect it. What you've just done has highlighted how much you actually care about people having experiences going away with their families. Now you've set that stall out, that that's what you value and you've done it Well done. And I think it's a really important thing to remember.
Speaker 1:Now, when you're talking about this concept of interpersonal sensitivity, it's actually made up of a couple of things, and you might have heard these phrases the EQ and the AQ and they are tools that every great coach needs. Now, eq is emotional intelligence. That's probably something we've all sort of heard. And then we've got the AQ, which is their adaptability quotient, and now I'll run through what these things are.
Speaker 1:Firstly, emotional intelligence, your EQ. This is your ability to recognize emotions. Now, not everyone can do that, but a lot of people, a lot of the best coaches, can. They can do it in two people. You can do it in yourself and in others, and both of those are equally important. Recognizing what's triggering you and also knowing that helps you recognize when someone else has been triggered in a certain way. Life experiences actually go a huge way to helping this. The more you've had yourself, the more exposure you've had to the broadband of emotions, the better you're able to pick them up, providing you're aware enough. Your EQ is also your ability to manage your emotions effectively and those around you, having ways in which you can actually calm yourself down if needed or excite yourself up if needed. That's a skill set which is so valuable. And your EQ is your ability to respond in such a way that doesn't hamper the growing of your team but does the opposite builds trust connection.
Speaker 1:Now, in terms of coaching, for any sport and any leading in business, eq is your radar. It's what helps you pick up if that player or that team member is off Before they've even said a single thing. This is how you manage your own reactions when things get tense too. It's what allows you to coach the person, not just the performance. This is being attuned. When something bleeps on the radar, you're ready to go.
Speaker 1:What it means as a practical takeaway for us as coaches is a couple of things. People with high eq one listen before they speak. They do a lot more of that. Mike cron talks about having big ears, listening not just for the words, but for the context, the body language, the subtleties underneath the spoken word, and I think that's really, really important. E-high EQ also means your ability to read the room before delivering a message. The amount of times I've seen coaches come in and blow up when it's completely not needed or, reversely, say nothing when a good blow up is is needed. There's the ability to scan and read a room which is absolute gold dust, and the best in the world can click their fingers and understand what needs to change and what doesn't.
Speaker 1:High IQ people can also motivate, challenge and support people without burning them out, without frazzling them with stuff. You can have a hard conversation and not have that reaction which actually tears people down. Now, this is a skill set. This is saying the right stuff at the right time. Essentially, and to be honest, you need to practice it, and the more you practice in everyday situations, the better you get at it. Now, your IQ, your adaptability, is your ability to handle pressure, bounce back from setbacks, and your ability to change. Now, this is a hard thing for a lot of coaches ability to change, adapt to change, to be going in one direction, having to tack and go the other one because the winds are not right in that one, then tack back and tack back and tack back it.
Speaker 1:A certain personality types. Yeah, it's the ability to have a bit of flex in there. It's what gets you through. You know, through those tough times, the rough seasons, maybe I don't know the injury crisis or the unexpected losses. What keeps you know your players level when everything's going to shit. High IQ means you don't crumble when things get messy. Instead, you use those experiences to teach players how to respond.
Speaker 1:I think for me, though, that is the gold dust with higher AQ people is you use every opportunity as a teaching moment. If you blow up and you react, that's not a negative to slam, that's an opportunity to teach. Righto, look, this is how you reacted when this happened. You blew up and you abused your teammates. Now you need to reflect on this. How would you go about doing it differently? What would be the optimal way of doing it. What happened to your head? Where did you go emotionally, when you get the sort of ability just to educate around setbacks, you create teams that ultimately stay in the fight because they're thinking that every opportunity is a chance to learn, love that Even when things aren't going to plan, there's opportunities to learn and grow. That massive growth mindset concept. Nothing's fixed. Just because you're losing doesn't mean you're bad. It's opportunity to grow.
Speaker 1:So why do you need both of these? Well, eq gets you connected and AQ gets you through, and together they make a coach who leads with heart and resilience. And that's what we want, you know. We want to be a coach that's, you know, strong under pressure, that that has that passion and heart. You could say this I is that EQ is knowing how to feel and AQ is knowing how to keep going. Love that, absolutely love it. So how do you build these things into your team? How do you actually do it? Well, here's a couple of ideas which I love and I try to do myself regularly, all the time, and some of them come easier than others.
Speaker 1:Number one, when you're trying to grow EQ about yourself, is to regularly check in with your players Like do that first, like the first thing you walk onto say you're an amateur club and you walk onto your training at whatever night of the week it is. The first five minutes should be check-in time, not about the sport, not asking how your hamstring is, but asking how you are, how's the kids at home, how's the family, how's the soul, and do more than just ask that and walk away. Make a little point to pick a number of questions which follow up. So if you ask you know, how is the soul? That's quite a deep question. You might get an answer like this oh, it's pretty good. And you might respond with someone like this well, yeah, what's stopping it from being outstanding? And they might say, well, gee, oh, I don't know. I suppose me and my partner had a bit of a scrap last night. That would have been nice if that didn't happen. All right, okay, then what do you reckon you'll do when you get home tonight to help remedy that?
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden you've asked three quick questions follow up, follow up, follow up. And you're diving down into some real close to the heart stuff which is nothing to do with the sport you're about to play. It's about how that person is as a player. And then, after once you've walked away from that conversation, that player thinks wow, I've really shared something deep and powerful with that person and a level of trust and respect and rapport happens which will then make everything you do from then on land with a lot more rapport. So it's a good thing to do so. Make that a regular part of your start. Start with that Check-ins.
Speaker 1:Number two I reckon it's really important to reflect as groups how the feedback is given and received, because we don't always get to do that. So if you've got a coaching group asking that question, how's that going? Are we are we are we nailing this? Are the boys understanding? Are the girls responding to the way I'm delivering this, even taking selected groups or individuals out of training or their post-training, and just, yeah, get their opinion, ask how things are going. Did you know what I meant when I said that? You know when I presented like this at the start, do you think everyone bought in? You'll get some pretty good answers when you're being a little bit vulnerable, you're sharing and you're asking for their input and their involvement and again, that creates a bit of respect and a bit of trust. To be fair. You've got to do it in such a way that doesn't come across as like you don't know your stuff or you're very unsure of yourself or you lack a bit of confidence. You've got to do it you know, build it up so it sounds like you're giving them input, you're respecting what they do and think, you're respecting what they do and think.
Speaker 1:Third thing to help grow eq in you and your players is to keep building that environment where players feel seen and safe to speak. I think this is a huge one because, particularly in rugby, it's not always environment where putting your hand up and answering a question or speaking up, having having a crack at an answer, is one. That's you know, said A good friend of mine. Ryan Martin, head coach that coached those free jacks to three in a row, used to say something like this, and I love it about how in primary school every single kid puts up their hand on you know question and answer day, or what did you do on the weekend At five years old? Hands go up, everyone's having a crack at the answer. But as you progress through schooling that slowly dies off and you're not so confident to put up your hand because all that teenage stuff and you're worried about what people think and you might get it wrong and look like a dick and all that stuff like that, and that spreads right through to our sports team, and it's just the evolution of that.
Speaker 1:So how do we flip that back to where everyone was when they were five years old, those new entrant classes when everyone was so excited to tell their news? Let's get it back to that. How do you do it? Well, let's make it fun. Let's make answering questions fun, and the first way you do it is to never slam someone for putting up their hand and having a crack at it. We don't say wrong, because when you're saying incorrect, wrong and you're being harsh about it, what you're really encouraging is people never to put up their hand and risk doing that again. So the way you respond to questions which aren't quite right are massively important. So the way you respond to questions which aren't quite right are massively important. Don't put out a flame, don't fizzle a candle wick by what you say. In those environments, make them feel safe. Well done. Well done for putting up your hand and having a crack at that.
Speaker 1:I'm looking for a little bit more, though. Or has anyone else got another version of that Praise the thing you want to see, which was actually that safety and that confidence, to speak, grow your IQ. How do we do it? How do we grow that aspect? Well, the biggest, easiest way to get adaptability is to expose your players to different sorts of pressure. So, in our sport of rugby, change your scenarios, make drills messy, add in a bit of chaos, throw some different scenarios at people, change the dynamics of things and don't worry if it's all over the show and messy, because that's the chaos we want. That's a good thing to get the players used to it. So I've got that exposure.
Speaker 1:The other thing, number two, that we can do on your aq is understand and guide your group through reflection how you respond to losses or or setbacks of any kind. I think it's really important that we actually celebrate the things inside, that which worked. For example, we don't blame. I love the group, how we didn't blame a single person for what happened out there. Today, when we have these losses, we've got to now just work back through our processes Check, check, check. Here's where we could have gone wrong. Is this legitimate? Did we have vision, decision? Were our options good, instead of just looking at the tries scored against us and blaming the person that missed the tackle, because that's not helping people grow.
Speaker 1:We've got to use losses as an opportunity to grow, which brings me to number three, which is essentially this you've got to celebrate the bounce back bits, the bits as much as any sort of win, so celebrating the resilience or adaptability that you actually want to see. A great example might be a player gets absolutely barreled trying to make a tackle. Then they get up and they run as fast as they can to the next ruck trying to make up for it, and that happens a lot, right, but we don't have to dwell on the fact that they missed the tackle, but let's celebrate the attitude and efforts of bouncing back, getting up and going again. It could be even like there could be a try, but you watch someone come from the other side of the field to try and narrow down the conversion kicks where it goes from and you just celebrate that effort and the resilience under pressure. And if you celebrate things that you want to see, you're going to find that's going to be the catalyst for those things happening more often. It's a golden rule of coaching and many of us forget it Celebrate the things we want to see.
Speaker 1:Send your reviews. You show the bits you want to see again. Here are the exemplars. Here's how we want this to be done, and then you can even show in the negative versions. You can show, whilst this didn't work, have a look at the work rate of this person. That's what we want to see. If we could all deliver just like this every single time, gee, we're going to get some results. Love that concept. If you want teams that perform consistently and leads itself almost, you gotta grow their eq so they understand each other, that everyone's connected everyone's emotionally connected to each other, and you got to grow their aq so that they can get over things together. I think that's massive. That's the mix, you know, that's the edge, that that's in modern coaching, and particularly modern coaching, because the athletes coming through these days are definitely a different generation to the ones that have been before, and EQ and AQ are things that are really important to work on. So how do you actually practice some interpersonal sensitivity?
Speaker 1:I love that phrase that Chris Webb talks about in the podcast. Here's one for each Number one pause and observe more than you speak, so when we're out there, we're not just running the drill. But get out there and watch faces, watch who's withdrawn, watch who's sharp, watch who's flat, and you'll start noticing patterns about people. You'll start seeing, for example, who likes what drill that you're doing, who hides at the back, who puts themselves forward, and if you coach as a team, it's often really good to mix up who's watching, for that One person might be watching running the drill, one person might be managing one part of it, the other person can just be watching. That sort of thing, just observing and just getting used to observing and getting a feel. I think it's really important.
Speaker 1:Number two, as we talked about earlier, start each week, each day, even with those little check-ins, and just do two minutes, not even Ask the person how they are, not the hammy as we talked about how was your week, how was your day, how was the soul? And as you get going, yeah, you can ask more intimate questions from the outset and then dive deeper into that, but you've got to probably start a little bit more generically then, uh, and then get into it. Number three debrief your gut Now, after a session. Just reflection in general is important, but just have those honest conversations with yourself. What did I miss today? Did I miss a chance to ask a question? What moments felt off today? By just asking these sort of questions, it trains your awareness like a muscle, so you get aware and it rolls around the head what did I miss? What fell off? And these are gut feelings and it's important that you actually listen to your gut, because your gut, gee, it's got a amazing ability to be right a good chunk of the time and chances are you should trust what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So why does it matter for coaches? Well, what your player carries in their head and actually, for that matter, in their heart, they actually carry on to the field. It's, it's. Not many players can really separate the head and the heart from what's going on in their lives, from what's going on the rugby field. It's amazing, it is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1:And if the player is off, it's not always because of the effort, it's often because of emotion. They might be dealing with something at home, struggling with confidence, or just just mentally cooked, and if you can't see it, you're gonna miss it. Okay, and I think that's a good phrase, the best coaches don't just plan sessions, they actually read moments and that's powerful. So interpersonal sensitivity isn't about being soft, it's about being switched on, because what's going on around your player will show up in your player and if you want to coach them well on the field, you're going to have to start by caring off the field. And that is the real difference that Chris Webb has seen in all his experiences in the highest level of professional rugby. Until next time, stay strong. That's it for today's episode. If this sparked something for you, hit, subscribe, share with a coach or teammate, or just sit with the questions. That's where the good stuff starts. Catch you next time.