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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
Joey Mongalo: Learn from Everyone, Everywhere: The World as Your Leadership Library
What makes a great coach? Joey Mongalo, defense coach at the Sharks in Durban, doesn't hesitate when answering this question: it's the ability to understand context, connect authentically, and treat leadership as a core skill rather than a "soft" one.
Joey brings extraordinary perspective to coaching culture as someone with both elite rugby coaching experience and multiple academic degrees, including industrial psychology. His approach bridges technical expertise with profound human understanding. "Culture is simply the way we do things here," he explains, stripping away complexity to reveal what truly matters in building effective teams.
The conversation explores Joey's journey from losing his father at age seven to becoming an influential coach who prioritizes human development alongside athletic achievement. His triangle approach—understand the process, develop conviction, then package and sell it appropriately—offers a blueprint for effective leadership in any context.
What sets Joey apart is his ability to see beyond the game. "We will win a few significant things and have some players that might develop into Springboks, but most will become husbands and fathers. Influence that," he shares, revealing his ultimate coaching purpose. This passion extends to his consultancy business where he applies sports leadership principles to transform corporate environments.
Perhaps most compelling is Joey's perspective on navigating South Africa's complex cultural landscape. Through heartfelt examples of connecting across language barriers, he demonstrates how small gestures of cultural understanding build stronger teams than any tactical system could. This episode isn't just about coaching rugby—it's about coaching life, with lessons that resonate far beyond the field.
if you've got that belief and it's a conviction, and you've seen it work across many teams, across many age groups, you you get the sense of this is an absolute truth. Highly dislike what we do being called a soft skill. I wish I could get rid of that. No, it's a soft skill, this is soft. I'm like are you insane if? If it was a soft skill and not a core skill, then it would be easy to run anything. It needs to be coached, it needs to be trained, it needs to be developed. I'm almost getting goosies about that word context, because a perfect thing taken out of context is a stuffer right. So we're just not batting heads but always challenging each other constantly. Are we going hard enough off the line and are we doing it with enough connection? So that's how the two of us built a very good working relationship.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Coaching Culture, the podcast about cultivating culture and leadership. I'm Ben Herring and I've been loving this side of the game for bloody ages. Today's guest is Joey Mongalo. Joey is currently a defence coach at the Sharks in Durban. Before that he was with Jake White at the Bulls and before that he coached at almost a decade across every single role at the Lions Along his coaching journey. Not only is it coaching, but an impressive academic career with marketing degrees, industrial psychology degrees, life and leadership coaching, and a business to boot. Joey is a great thinker of the game, of what's really important inside the game. Joey, welcome to the Coaching Culture.
Speaker 1:Podcast Jeez Ben great introduction. If I could blush, I would blush right now. But thanks, mate, I appreciate it. It's been a dream of mine to get onto here to have a conversation with you, so I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 2:Wow, mate, what a pleasure to have you, and all the way from Durban, which is absolutely lovely, mate. We're going to start Joey with. The first question is how do you define culture?
Speaker 1:Yeah, great start. I was actually sitting in a third year lecture at the University Witsch University in Johannesburg and one of our lecturers said culture is simply the way we do things here. And I sat there and I thought, man, this world, this word has been thrown around the world, in corporate, in sports teams but this lady just took it and said it's the way we do things here. So something about that was so intentional, about nailing down how we do something right. So you do dinner at your house, I do dinner at my house.
Speaker 1:Some people have dinner watching TV and that's fine, that's how they do it. Other families have dinner sitting down, speaking through their day, that sort of thing. But it's so embedded in who they are and what they're trying to become as a family. It's same thing with a sporting team. It's our culture or the customs that's another word I love using is the customs. The things that we do regularly here build the culture which is the way we do things here. So when somebody steps in is to say hey, we super appreciate where you're from, what you're doing and how you do things. We do things here this way, and when you're falling into that, you're starting to become part of our culture. So I thought it's such a nice simplified way of approaching that concept of culture.
Speaker 2:I love it, mate. I actually love the analogy around dinner when you go to someone else's place for dinner, because I think everyone can see that analogy. When you go to someone else's place, you have to mold to their customs around the dinner table.
Speaker 1:Yep, 100%. So imagine how awkward that is right. So imagine I come to your place and you've got a better family than mine. So let's say your family is sitting down, you're discussing the day back and forth and I come, I take my plate, I sit in front of the TV. It's like but what are you doing? You're having dinner, but you're not having dinner in the right way for this context and similarly to us. You might find us feet up having a laugh and then you come in formally, want to take out your knife and a fork and sit down. It's like Ben, what are you doing? So there's nothing wrong with supper. It's the way you have supper. For that context that matters, the quality of that supper.
Speaker 2:The context is always so important, isn't it? Because it's very easy to hear different things, like on this podcast, different people saying, oh, I'll do that, but unless it fits your context, it's 50-50 whether it's going to work at all.
Speaker 1:Right, bro, I'm almost getting goosies about that word context, because a perfect thing taken out of context is a stuffer right. So I'm busy reading this book now I forget the lady Amy, somebody, it's called the Right Kind of Wrong. Yes, it's so good. And in there she explains how you have a context that is consistent. It's something that you do regularly. You do it all the time. So you on your podcast, you're doing this thing. You are so used to it you almost don't have to get yourself extra prepared for it because you're doing it often.
Speaker 1:But if you do the same podcast in a different let's say across a different cultural group, for example, you might prepare slightly differently because it's the same thing but the context is slightly different. And then you get things where it's completely different. So now, let's say you go from a podcast to a radio interview. That then is a different context. So understanding the context helps us deal with the performance. So if it's a completely new context, you kind of go in saying this is new.
Speaker 1:So my expectation of getting something right drops because this is a new context. So then I give myself grace to fail, or the best one, to sorry, to go on to elaborate on the one of the varying context is saying if you know how to bake a cake at your oven, if you come over to my place and you've got to bake the same cake, you'll sort of be a little bit more on your toes because you don't know. Is this oven's 80 degrees the same as the other oven? So it sounds similar. But if you don't give space for that you might fail and you wonder what's wrong with me. It's not what's wrong with you.
Speaker 2:It's understanding. The context is not exactly the same as the context as when you did it at your own place, Mate. Well, if you came around to my house, Joey, the context would be you wouldn't be able to find a cake dish in the whole place and you wouldn't know what to do.
Speaker 1:I still don't know what to do, because my wife does most of it here as well.
Speaker 2:Mate. I really love that, mate, because I I think that whole thing around context, around the softer side of skills and not just rugby, but in all team sports, in fact, most relationships is all about context. Just because it works over here or this works for this person, doesn't mean it's going to work for that person and that person. Such a massive element, isn't it like just understanding it, have you? How have you grown that, in the ability to read that context when you're dealing with players from all different walks of life?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think a friend of mine once said this thing about context. They said, taking something that's for them then and there. And how do you bring it to us here and now? So them then and there. And how do you bring it to us here and now? So them then and there. And how do I bring that to us here and now? So what I like about that is for me, in my head I can see a golden thread between them there and there and us here and now. So what is that golden thread? The golden thread is potentially a principle that you believe in.
Speaker 1:So let's say, as a defense coach, I'm a massive believer in connection. So the old way, not the old way most people defended in the past as a connection system. So if your number's down, you'd go up and out to use the touchline. That's the safe way. At the moment there's such a more bigger line speed focus. Okay, so you must still get line speed, force them to pass over your head, scramble and then sort yourself out from there. But in that there must be something that's common is that you're still connection. So the connection is we used to be slightly behind each other. Now connection is still the main thing, but now we might be ahead of each other. So we're still defending the ball in your inside shoulder, but instead of a lagging defense it's a up up high defense, if that makes sense. So there's something about a common thread principle that feeds into both systems, because that's what keeps the commonality. So it's almost saying how do I then take them there and there is by finding a golden thread that's relevant here and placing it in an appropriate way in the new context or the new system.
Speaker 1:How do you find that appropriateness? I would say there's probably two ways. I think one is outside, in as the coach, as like a major conviction on what you believe in. If you've got that belief and it's a conviction and you've seen it work across many teams, across many age groups, you get the sense of this is an absolute truth. It's something that I'm building the career, the system, everything about in this way and then saying, okay, for this specific people, what version of that do they need to get the best out of them? In the past it might've been hey, I'll tell you what it is, and certain cultures enjoy being told.
Speaker 1:So if you work with boys in Pretoria, it's predominantly Afrikaans speaking boys and black African boys. They love hearing hierarchy. They love hierarchy. They love coming here. Tell me what to do and I'll do it for you, full tilt. As long as it makes sense to me, I'll do it. Where in South Africa you get some English speaking boys who are more, they want to be conversational, they want to have this thing of hey, you think that, but I think this. Have you thought about this? And that's interesting. But it's figuring out what. How do they understand the truth? How do they want to be sold this thing and sell it to them in the most context appropriate way? So it's almost like it's not a false truth, it's a truth. But which side of it are you looking at this truth? Um, connectionion is connection. How does it best suit this particular group, and is it them being told or is it them being part of the conversation? One of the two will get the best out of them.
Speaker 2:Well selling in the most contextual appropriate way. Hey, you might want those.
Speaker 1:Can you patent a phrase like that, Mate?
Speaker 2:that's a good one that's real good Sell in the most context-appropriate way. So I love that you have something you believe in and then you're not just selling it, but you're selling it not even in the most appropriate way, but the most context-appropriate way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's so many layers to that, isn't there?
Speaker 1:Yep, because context could be an age group team. It could be an age group team. It could be an established team that's done something for a long period of time. It could be like our unique situation at the sharks where 10 of our players are out with the spring box when we're busy building our team in pre-season. So imagine now bringing that in. So how do you bring this concept across to guys who have won two world cups and try to say, hey, here's might be a slightly different way to the way you've done it, winning world cups. You know that's a nice opening to your conversation you better?
Speaker 2:yeah, you hope the hierarchy systems are in good order. If you're trying to do that, then 100, 100.
Speaker 1:So it is it layered. I agree with you fully, mate. Have you had any struggles with it? Missing the mark yourself? Yeah, I think. No, I would say definitely not. I think I think I know definitely. One of them was myself and Dwayne Vermeulen.
Speaker 1:When I got to the Bulls, that was 2020. So they had just come off winning the 2019 World Cup with this massive line speed system and he was a senior player at the Bulls. I had just finished with the Lions and I'm completely on the other side of the spectrum. I'm like, when your number's down, you slow down, you go up and out. So I did some research to say, okay, if you're coaching a senior team, it's less hierarchical. You're not going to tell them what to do. You're going to have to get into a discussion to get into agreements, especially with guys who carry a lot of sway in the group. So, naturally, going to the Bulls, I thought, okay, dwayne Vermeulen, world Cup winning number eight, carries a lot of sway. So I had a conversation with him and, great, we had this great discussion and 80% of what we're saying is the same. Then we get to the conversation what do we do when we're numbers down? And I say, yes, we obviously connect, we go up and out, we give them the edge, we set ourselves wide. Like he's, like there's no ways we are going even harder than what we do when we have numbers. I'm like, oh my goodness, like so this is like a direct opposition to what I believe in.
Speaker 1:At some point we just had a call. I was like, listen, I was never ready for what you're telling me. Now I need to go away and rethink this thing and come back to you about how we could potentially merge these two worlds that are so different. So yeah, so I think that one caught me unawares, but thankfully I think I was just able to be honest enough to say, dude, I was never ready for this, for that answer. So give me some time. Let me figure this one out and see how we can find something in the middle.
Speaker 1:Did you manage to merge those two worlds? We did. It was such a cool thing Even now when I was observing them the Springboks in camp because he's there as the breakdown coach and he was just saying the first thing we do we laugh Like, hey, do you remember the convos we used to have, the back and forths, and then we sort of like appreciate how he then took ownership of making sure that we were always getting hard off the line and always took ownership of making sure that we always had connection. And then we were just not batting heads but always challenging each other constantly Are we going hard enough off the line and are we doing it with enough connection? So that's how the two of us built a very good working relationship.
Speaker 2:That's lovely, man, that's lovely. And how did you retrain your brain against something that you were so polar against? How did you manage to just essentially let it go, like most coaches would struggle with that, like you believe in something wholeheartedly and someone says nah, the complete opposite, and you've got a compromise. How did you do it? How did you get through that one?
Speaker 1:yeah, definitely not with ease. I think it is a challenge. Like we spoke earlier, this is a point of conviction for me. I had seen teams win age group level, lions play in a super rugby finals that's been success. So to think, okay, shucks, how do I let go of this thing? And I think two ways is.
Speaker 1:The one is I need complete understanding before I can get conviction about something. So at the time it looked to me like just get off the line and it's a hit and miss system and I just couldn't make peace with that until I sort of studied and thought okay, if you do miss, there's an element you can coach around, how you force them to go over you and how you recover from that and get back into a good position. So I needed to understand that process, make sense of it, because then I can coach it. I think it's a struggle for me to coach anything that I don't have a conviction about. And that's what at the time.
Speaker 1:At the time I didn't have a conviction that this was the way to go about the fence. Until I understood it, until I knew I could work, word it, package it, simplify it so that when I'm presenting it over to somebody they can see. Okay, listen, this guy really believes in what he's asking us to do here. So I will say that's the core thing for me is gaining understanding, then it's conviction, then packaging it and selling it as if it was my own. Before then I would feel uncomfortable because I think there's a lack of authenticity that players will pick up if you're selling something that is not what you truly believe in.
Speaker 2:Understand the process, have conviction and then package and sell the product.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Cool man, it's a lovely little triangle and that understanding first is a great one to start with, because I'd say it would have been so easy for you just to dismiss that right, just to go. Nah, trust me, you're wrong, even though he's on a world cup with it yeah, and I think those are the two sides.
Speaker 1:I love what you're saying now, because the one side is dismissal, like I want nothing to do with it. The other side is to adopt it without doing the work. So then you sort of you how do I say it? You, it's like peer group pressure. You're saying, okay, I have to do it because he's saying I'm doing it, so I'm doing it, but you're sort of fumbling along the way because you just don't know the full extent of what you've agreed to. And on the other side you've got like a fixed mindset. You say I'm never doing this thing, I'm never going to go that way. And I think those two worlds come together in a place of conversation. I think that's where that model you built the triangle, the understanding, conviction, packaging and simplifying. I'd almost add to that happens in the middle, when those two worlds come together instead of being on this polar or that side polar, but it's those two worlds coming together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, yeah, it's very easy just to go right, especially in that situation where you've got a World Cup winning number eight saying this is what we're doing. It would be easy for a lot of coaches just to adopt that right, Just to go yep, that's clearly won World Cups. Let's go that way and jump on board, but probably, working backwards, your conviction wouldn't be quite there, right, like it wouldn't be deep because you haven't done the understanding piece. Yeah, that gets seen right in teams. People can see if you're not all aboard with something right yeah, I'm learning.
Speaker 1:I'm learning that players are so much more observant than we realize. Like I know I've got a six-year-old girl and a four-year-old and often the six-year-old will say you can't do that, but you told us not to do the same thing. So she gets it at that age, that sense of don't tell me something that you aren't doing or don't tell me something that you might change your mind on a bit later. And I sense that players are so much more observant of what's going on in team environment, so much more observant of how we deliver our messaging across and the conviction with which we do it and whether or not you're going to go away from it. You know, like, are you going to stick to what you say? You're doing it, what the way we're going to do it? Or, if the right person in the room asks you the question, are you going to change your mind then? So I just think they're super observant. You know, like us who played in the early 2000s, even if we were observant we wouldn't say anything.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes it's embarrassing. Sometimes, isn't it? When the kids do something, you're like gee, that's what I do. I haven't I haven't said do that, but they're doing it anyway, mate, on that it like. Another quote which I, which I've chatted a few people about, is that the team actually and the players in it actually reflect the personality of the coach in a lot of ways. However, your being is, whether you like it or not, that will be mirrored and transferred onto the group that you're leading. So if you're a little bit iffy with your convictions, you might find some of the, some of the teams might be as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I fully agree with you and I think one of the coaches that I look up to hectically is Jacques Ninaba as a defense coach. And part of why I look up to him so much is that he was one of the fathers of defense coaching in South African rugby and there was such a static defensive system holding people up like really tackling above, and how he flipped 180 and went to massive line speed tackling legs and it's like how does this guy do this and be world-class in both right. So that says a lot about the way he does his work and the way the conviction with which he coaches the system is incredible. There's a sense of of.
Speaker 1:If you coach this sort of high press, high line speed, you can't sow doubt into players' minds. You can't be like get off the line hard but this or get off the line hard, don't do that. If there's any ounce of doubt in it, it won't work because it's such a high risk, high reward system that you need to be going there with everything in your mind that you're going to make the defensive play to kill the attack. And the way he is as a person and the way he coaches this thing is so passionate, free-flowing. If you make a mistake, move on, do the next thing that you can actually see his team living that out. So it's not just, I think, what they hear us say it's they're watching and observing how we go about life, like our kids do, and they're like, well, if the father of the house is doing that, I've got to follow that way. So I think, between the words and the formal stuff, the informal interactions and the actions probably speak just as loud as the formal meetings and the chats.
Speaker 2:I love it Out of interest with such, in that particular example, with the super high line speed you can't have, maybe do this, maybe do that Love, that Is the instruction, just so passionately just go, and if you miss, you miss, I don't care, just go. Is that the kind of mindset he says, or is there a little bit more? Obviously there's more technique and subtleties in there, but is the general premise just go for your life, life, and I'm not worried if you're missing and going hard. Is that the tone that he would take?
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely that, and, like you said, there's definitely a technical element to that that all of that is built around. But there is a sense to the player that he's got grace to make the big call. The system will back it up. You know, like, go for it back yourself, don't be in between. I remember speaking to Jack Crawley after the quarterfinal of the URC game and we were just chatting here at the home after that penalty shootout and he was just saying the few times that they got to us, it's when he could feel, as a receiver getting the ball out the back that he had. We weren't coming with full conviction. There was a sense that we were sort of thinking we're going to swim off. And he says that moment he can pick it up, he can go. But he can also feel, when we bring the full fire, how it goes to him.
Speaker 1:And the conversation was in about like if you're half pregnant, you don't have a a great review point anyways, because it's like you never know if the system would have worked. But if you go fully at it and you stuff it up, you can at least know okay, well, this is what we're going to do to fix next time. So there's that reckless abandon, but I must say it takes I don't know what the word is it's a different level of courage to coach this because logically the system doesn't make sense like get rid of the first three and don't worry about the last three. It's like everything about you says this cannot work. But if you do it enough times and that conviction is in you, then that looks normal. You start to normalize that picture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's something also very cool in a rugby context, when oppositions have to change what they fundamentally do. Because of what you're doing, you're already winning, aren't you?
Speaker 1:Bro, that's big. That's big. I think I was having the conversation with in our coaching group we have all these conversations Warren Whiteley, springbok, number eight, and Dave Williams he's coached around the world, their tech coach and John Plumtree. We were just chatting and I was saying that's one of the things that I'm enjoying about this role and doing this at the Sharks is that specific week, the let's do more of what we've been doing better. It's like, oh shucks, let's prep for this differently. So let's do a different attacking set and let's hold our feet a bit longer. Let's pass a little bit deeper. That's beautiful. You've just got people like you said. I'm just affirming your point. You've got people slightly out of their comfort zone. You've got them thinking a bit extra about you.
Speaker 2:You've got them out of their norm, out of their rhythm. So, yeah, it's a good point you're making there. Yeah, you got them worried about you. Like, if you're a boxer, that's exactly what you want that little bit of use. I don't know what this guy's doing there you go I love it now.
Speaker 2:Joey, you clearly already into this conversation. It'll be no surprise to the listeners that, um, you're, you're a very intelligent man, but I think it's really interesting your journey so far and your own journey the way you're talking. You haven't had a traditional, by the normal sense of the word, upbringing in coaching. You obviously played. You played to a really good standard with South Africa A, but you also went down the study, the academic route. I heard a quote from you saying that education has always been a priority for you. How has that worked? Alongside your coaching, you've got multiple degrees, and pretty heavy ones too industrial psychology. That's pretty heavy stuff. How did you balance that and how does it help you and your coaching all your degrees?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just going to record this part where you said I'm intelligent. I'm going to play that over to my wife over and over again so she can believe that I'm going to do that for sure. No, ben, there's a guy Ashley Everett is his name, he is, I mustn't get teary. He's like like such a critical part of my life. I remember I was 19 years old, I was in Pretoria, I just finished school. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I had no idea, like nothing, nothing. I just finished this cricketing career at school, having played with AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis and having played Craven Week rugby with guys like Piers Spies, all these big names, marius Dalport but for myself I didn't know what I was going to do with my life like no idea.
Speaker 1:He phones me on my birthday on the 6th of January. He says Joey, what are you doing with your life? I said I've got no idea. He says I've got something for you. He has a bursary to study at the University of Pretoria and you come train with the Bulls, the training squad, the contract that plays. You're going to stay in the residence of the University of Pretoria. The two institutions are like walking distance from each other. So he's given me a lifeline.
Speaker 1:And he said to me from day one he says there's absolutely no ways I'm giving you this opportunity for you to act like a pro who gym in the morning, go home, rest up and sleep and then come train in the afternoon again. He says you're going to do your six o'clock in the morning, get up, go to gym, do your skills. Then you're going to ask for a lift to go to university. You're going to spend your mid-afternoon, mid-morning in classes being an academic and then when you finish that, you'll go back and train again. So you've got enough capacity. And he said this to me. He said you probably can make it as a pro, but I'm telling you, I've been coaching for a long while. This is not to break your dream. Even if you do make it as a pro, at some point you're going to have to go. But I'm telling you I don't think you necessarily got the top end thing to go all the way through. And I first looked at him I thought what's he saying? But he was so right in knowing my capabilities, not just as what I can achieve in rugby, but also what can happen outside of the game.
Speaker 1:So what happened to me then, ben, is I normalized rugby and something else. It's not like it's, it's, it's a, it's not a. It's not like I'm doing something different, it's like this is norm for me. So when I had finished that marketing degree in five years, not three, so it tells you I had a good time as well. I enjoyed my varsity life.
Speaker 1:When I decided in later life to say to myself okay, you've got a marketing degree, you are early 30s, late 20s. What happens to you if rugby is taken away from you? Do you want to go be a marketing person for coca-cola? And I thought, no, that's what I do. I want to be in psychology. And so I started to do that at vitz. And then I started third year at vitz at uj, did my master's degree while I was coaching you are, I mean super rugby with the lions, and then moved to the bulls in covert time and finished my master's while coaching Curry Cup.
Speaker 1:What was it?
Speaker 1:Super Rugby, unlocked and URC Season 1.
Speaker 1:So that to somebody who hasn't normalized that might feel like a lot, but for me it felt like this is part of my capacity, this is what I do. I do rugby with something else. So I wouldn't give myself a pat on the back. I would say that I've just normalized, that I've got enough capacity, and you know what it does, ben, it keeps me so fresh, like we've had a six-week break now from rugby. I've literally only gotten back into rugby the last week. The other five weeks I've been trying to see how do I build this consultancy and advisory business of mine to a degree that rugby becomes something I do just as a passion and not something that I need to rely financially on my family. And when I go back to rugby I'm so energized because like how do I say I don't know my esteem outside of the game is so high, so full, that it fills whatever I'm going to go do now in preseason. I see it as that, really, and the two worlds do that. When I get enough of rugby, then this helps me.
Speaker 2:When I get enough of the business stuff then the rugby helps me. So the two interlink and make my life interesting. I guess does it ever threaten?
Speaker 1:to overburden you, or or you balance it really well. I would never think overburdening, not, because it's also clear in my head that the main thing remains the main thing. Rugby is always going to be the main thing, that I know that. So it has to stay the main thing. It's got to get all my all my capacity, everything. It's what I do with my reserves. So you know, and I always like I mean, if I go play golf on my off day, that is at least six hours of my day. So sometimes I do go play golf, which I love, because that's always an indicator for me that I've got capacity in life but I can take those same six hours and invest in how I want to grow this consultancy, you know. So it's what somebody else is doing anyways, on the off day I choose to do this and it doesn't feel like work. So part of it is doing online leadership training, coaching.
Speaker 1:So I was with a guy and he says how are you doing? I'm still on leave. He says but what do you call this? Isn't this work? I'm like this is not work, bro. This is passion like I get to share with you about how to build teams and how to build a leadership skill set. How do you call that work? That's passion. So I don't see it as work at all, I just see it as a passion I love it, joe.
Speaker 2:So then you go back, they go back to the rugby field, and that's. That's a passion too. So you're just doing passion both times. Do you think modern professional rugby players don't double up enough? Do you reckon they, generally speaking, narrow down to one thing? Would you suggest it's probably we need to break that mold.
Speaker 1:I would say yes to your answer and how I see it in our context in South Africa is when I was at school I know it's 20 years ago now all the sportsmen played all the sports codes. So for me at Pretoria Boys High School, term one was athletics first and cricket. Sorry, athletics and cricket. That way you did term one. Term two was rugby. No, I'm lying to you. Let me start all over again.
Speaker 1:Term one was cricket. So I gave myself fully to cricket. We could keep a batsman, do my thing. And towards the back end of term one I start thinking about rugby. Now I've got to get a bit fitter, I've got to start passing the ball a bit. You know, get that stuff going Towards the back end of term two. Term three is athletics. So now it's okay, let's make sure I get some sprint training in with the back end of athletics. And then again, term four is cricket.
Speaker 1:So what that taught us how to do is sort of manage our bodies, manage our skill sets, start transitioning well between sports codes. But it kept you almost like growing different skill sets. At the moment now kids are like getting a bursary into high school as a rugby player. So what they do is they just play rugby. So you can imagine now the stimulus that you get from cricket and fielding and facing a ball that's 135 kilometers an hour. That must be helping your rugby in some way or another. But these guys specialize this way.
Speaker 1:So what then ends up happening? Just like I had the privilege of normalizing two things, they normalize one thing and it feels to them anything they add to that is a burden, where I don't think it's a burden. And I think, if you think about it, Ben like to be able to finish a rugby game, let's say on a Saturday, and be able on Sunday to give your life to something else completely different, or your off day to something completely different. That gives you esteem, it gives you purpose, it gives you, just like, a hope for the future. No, no, more importantly I'd say this it gives you an identity outside of the game. That, for me, is huge, Like that's what I love about this thing alongside is that it says, Joey, the something else, the advisor, Joey, that Because one day, for a fact, for a fact, the what do you call it?
Speaker 1:The carpet of rugby, professional rugby, will be pulled out. And when I land, what do I land on. I don't want to then start building another identity. I want to have that identity. Having been built and being aware the whole time that I'm glad I'm going to make a new word, gladfully Is there such a thing? I'm gladfully going to, gladly, gladly, I'll stick to.
Speaker 2:Gladly, I'm going to be gladly bouncing into this next transition of my life because I've been thinking, feeling, living this and getting joy from it already while I was playing. That's good, and probably just to add to that a little bit too, is like if you're going outside the game and you're meeting, even making friends and acquaintances from different spheres. That too, because I do know a lot of players. When they do finish playing professionally, one of the big things they struggle with is that's their identity. But it's all their mates, it's everything in there and there's nothing outside. So when you're then cast out, because you always will be, there's no other social circles, there's no other links to human connection elsewhere in different spheres. It's all bunched up into that one collective, isn't it? So I think what you're saying is massive. Yeah, gives you an identity outside the game. That's gold.
Speaker 1:I think it should be taught from professional development managers for pro rugby players. Anyway, I agree with you and what you said. I'm just adding spice to what you've just said. Now, if I'm building relationships and things in a different context, I'm getting to hear their. So you might hear then a chartered accountant who's just finished, like studying long, and they're saying my salary outside my first year salary is, let's say, 15,000 Rand a month and I'm a player earning 40,000 Rand a month. And this is a guy who's the same age as me. I'm starting to appreciate, shucks, look where he's on 15 now, but his career progression is going to do that. And then I'm understanding that when I finish it's so likely that my first job out might only offer me 10,000 a month. So that's a reality that I get to see somebody live out and be like goodness. How do I start thinking through this thing? So it's not a major shock.
Speaker 1:Or I walk into a social environment and nobody knows who you are. You know how beautiful that is for somebody who's? I'm not talking about me, I'm not famous, I'm talking about a famous player. So imagine walking environment with people who are artsy and they come in. Who's you? Oh, no, rugby player for the Sharks? Oh wonderful, and they move on. It's like sort of teaches you hey, that's fine, I'm allowed to be just another person in the conversation, it doesn't always have to be about me. So those things are sort of desensitizing professionals into what life after rugby is going to be. We need that desensitized, Otherwise it's too much, it's too big a blow. Like I don't know how you handle that. How do you do something from age 12, where you get to be good at rugby? You get rewarded for that up until you're 28, 30. So we're taking 18 years of your life and then we say, hey, good luck trying to go back into general population. It's like what?
Speaker 2:Like how, how can that be any way close to succeeding? Hmm, mate, just that phrasing, mate. Sensitizing professionals. Right on, mate, if we're talking about sensitizing people. And another aspect, joe, which, like, I'm really intrigued to hit you up about, is about some of the stuff you've done with being a black coach in South Africa and about how that transition has been. Has it been good, bad ugly? A lot of this audience will be outside of Africa and we have very limited cultural insight into how that journey has been for someone that's in it. And is it a thing? Is it even a thing or am I just? What's your journey on it?
Speaker 1:yeah, that's cool, man, and I think, because you've asked the question so well, I think it's helpful just to paint context, you know like. So South Africa was a racially segregated nation back in the day before 1994, before we became a democratic republic. What then happened regarding sport? Because sport has always been central to South Africa, south Africans predominantly played cricket and rugby, with the Capetonian colored or mixed-rate population also taking to rugby. And also there's, like the Eastern Cape, which is also predominantly black African province, was also rugby players. But they like that was the exception to the rule. Most other black people in South Africa would have seen football and soccer as their primary sports code, growing up aspirations, that sort of thing. So the 1995 Springboks that won the World Cup, they sort of became this thing of hey, rugby can be a sports code accessible to everyone in South Africa and similar to the I think that was the Hansi Kronier cricketing era. So these guys sort of ushered into hey, this is a sports code for all South Africans, but still it's still the sense that cricket, rugby, are predominantly still white sports in that way. So you're not going to go into a location in somewhere outside of Durban and find kids playing cricket or rugby, you're mainly going to find them playing football. So that sort of sense is still there, let's say, the ripple effects or the fingerprint of apartheid. South Africa is still sort of existing in a healthy way now because people have an option. It's not unhealthy as what it was before, while it was an apartheid.
Speaker 1:So for me, I think I was 92. I was seven years old, my sister was two and my brother was four. My dad was shot and killed in the location we stayed in. So my mother made big calls to move us into a more like a predominantly white suburb, into predominantly white schools. And why I'm telling you this is for me, it became such a norm to be either one of only, or a minority, black person in a white context. So I've sort of just normalized that from a young age. It was when I remember when I arrived at Pretoria Boys High in 2009,. It's a school of 1,500 boys, 300 in boarding school, 100 in each boarding house and about 20 in each form. So my form. One year I was the only black guy and the rest of the guys were white, and I didn't walk into an environment thinking, shucks, what's wrong with me? I had normalized that through the sports teams I'd played in the place, I'd stayed.
Speaker 1:So when you ask me specifically that question, I've never really felt to describe myself as a black coach. Not that I don't see my screen color Clearly I'm brown. You are what my girls say, you are peach. I'm brown skinned. That's how they call it. We go peach and brown in our household.
Speaker 1:It's the sense that I've never seen myself that I've always seen as I want to be the best version of Joey Mungalo and I want to be one of the best. So the element of race has never been central to that picture. It's never really featured. So but yeah, having said that, I think there's almost like a responsibility now that who I am is to say the better I do as a black, brown skinned coach in South Africa, the more the sense there'll be of almost like.
Speaker 1:I see it as a pioneering role, as in, to say, whoever the young black or brown-skinned coach is in the Eastern Cape coaching a first team, he's like, it's possible, like one day I can also be the defense coach at the Sharks or the head coach of the Curry Cup team, or maybe potentially the head coach one day of a URC side. So that's how I see my role. I see my role as the system has been good to me. I've been able to progress through the system. Now I'm a 40-year-old young man and I'm trying to think okay, what does the next 20, 25 years of my career look like? I want to make sure that those following me is like hey, that's a possibility.
Speaker 2:I want to get there. Yeah, man, what a great explanation and yeah, what a story. And I've got a. I've got a quote from you which, like you, wrote a thesis about um, the, the professional identity, um, and one of the lines was advocating for better integration and understanding of lived experience yeah, so it was.
Speaker 1:The topic was, um, looking at the professional identity of black rugby players in south africa. So it's just to say, okay, how do these guys land into these environments and what is the experience like? Like it's not the common experience, it's becoming more and more common, but for the longest time it was the, the minority in the room, the other in the room um, whether consciously or subconsciously that way, that was the truth. And one of the things that came out there was the usage of language. So we've got what nine, I think 11, official languages in South Africa. None of them are black African. There's Afrikaans and English as well. So most environments will be Afrikaans dominant, with some English and then not much black African language spoken in a rugby context. So the study showed that when contexts were predominantly Afrikaans, where a black African person didn't understand the language, they felt like an outcast. They felt like they didn't belong, they didn't feel valued, because language is almost it can be exclusive. Is that? I literally don't know what you're saying. So how does that help me? So that study sort of got me almost even myself because I can speak Afrikaans. So I had coached some teams in my younger years using a lot of Afrikaans. I still use some Afrikaans because for me it's important to make sure the Afrikaans kid in the room gets me. The English kid gets me Wherever I'm in Durban now. So the Zulu speaking kid he must feel like I can get him at his language.
Speaker 1:But coming in originally I felt like I need to make a mark as the black African brown kid coach who can speak Afrikaans, because I always felt like it's how do I say it? It just sort of puts me on the map per se. But I also realized the other side is that there might be a kid who's black African. They're saying listen, dude, if even you are speaking Afrikaans, what chance have I got in this environment? So it's not about not speaking about Afrikaans, it's about using all the languages to make sure that everybody in that space is feeling valued, seen, appreciated.
Speaker 1:So I could go through a training session at the Sharks, which the Sharks is probably the most diverse environment in South Africa. It's unbelievable. The sharks, which the sharks, is probably the most diverse environment in South Africa. It's unbelievable. Like could go in one session speak Setswana to a guy, zulu to another guy, afrikaans to another guy and English to another guy. Not because I'm trying to show that I sort of understand languages is to say, in that moment the feeling this guy needs to be heard in his own mother tongue and that should get a better response out of him wow, man, and such a such a big dynamic.
Speaker 2:With 9 to 11 languages or so, there's a lot of. How do you create one language? Do you actually try to create your own sort of language, your own way of speaking inside that group, or do you just have to acknowledge? Do your best to try and get a little bit of everybody?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in our context, South Africa, english is the predominantly agreed upon business language. Let's call it that. So. Everyone would probably say, if in doubt, speak English, because the expectation is that we'd all all other 10 languages will link around this. Let's all understand English. So I would say in formal settings it's predominantly English because we're trying to accommodate for everyone.
Speaker 1:But in the informal stuff it's like you've got two Zulu speaking guys, let them go off, do their own thing. If there's two afrikaans guys doing their own thing, and even in the coaching space, while we're on the field and you're barking orders behind somebody and it's directly to ben, it's like ben is afrikaans speaking guy, I'm gonna say in afrikaans to ben and then pepsi is a zulu speaking guy, I'm gonna fight in my broken zulu to say to Pepsi something. And then you know so and I think even that is that. It's not even that the language is perfect. I think it's to the person seeing that listen this person is. They're doing their best to articulate themselves in a manner that most appeals to me or that I'm most likely to respond to, is the idea.
Speaker 2:Mate. I think that is absolute wonderful piece of knowledge to pass on to, because rugby team by general nature is multicultural. Generally. It's quite a multicultural sport and making the effort to speak in the mother tongue, or at least articulating in a way in which resembles an effort, is a wonderful gesture, if nothing more. Right Like it's showing you care enough, you're empathetic enough, you've got that level of understanding and empathy to make that effort. And do you find when you do that sort of stuff it flows onto your leadership and your coaching and what the outcome of the sport you're trying to teach is?
Speaker 1:Definitely, definitely. I'm always a believer that. Get to the person before the performer, right. So what does this person need so that they can perform? And it's not soft. People always want to say this no, but it's not.
Speaker 1:It's that, if you understand that I'm speaking my broken Zulu to try get to you, it's showing you that I care. And because you know that and you sense that I can come as hard as I can at you, because you know that the caring factor is there, but without the caring factor, there's a sense that you're making a sounding gong. You know you're speaking to me but I'm not really hearing you because there's no sense that you are in it for more than the performance. And yes, it's high performance sports. Yes, it's critical. Yes, we only get judged on winning. I don't I don't what you call it I don't compromise on people's performances. That's what we're saying. We're saying that maybe the potential seed is better planted on soil, where I'm reaching out and trying to make you feel and understand that I get you and where you're from.
Speaker 1:And one of those things it's such a two-way learning thing, ben is that in Isisulu, which is the predominantly black African language in Durban, when you greet somebody, you say salbona. Salbona literally means I see you, like so. So when you start to engage in somebody else's culture, like you, you get such golden nuggets right. So greeting, let's say as a team thing to greet somebody, it's actually saying I acknowledge you, I see you. And then the opposite is also true, that if you walk past me and I don't bother to greet you, I'm almost saying that I don't acknowledge your personhood, you know.
Speaker 1:So those, those are some of the benefits that we get by integrating all these cultural things into this melting pot to say what is the best of here and how do we use those things to drive this thing forward. Like you and I said earlier in the chat, is that rugby is the easy part. Man, the sport and the performance on the field is the easy part. It's around the other stuff outside of that that acts as the foundation for what the people see for those 80 minutes. That's the point of difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I love it. I love it. And where do you think you've picked up your ability to do this? Is it experience? Is it in the courses and the degrees you've got? Where's been the big wins for you getting better at this side of the game?
Speaker 1:I would say there's like so I come from a biblical, religious side, so I think some of it is just a grace, like it's giftings that I've been given. I think there's definitely that. But I also think the exposure to different environments. And then also so let me say this in those environments, having lost a dad, young rugby coaches have always been a father figure of some sort to me, not that they would have said it, but I would have viewed them as that. So because I'm seeing them more than just a coach, as a father figure, I'm trying to look to learn and say how's this person getting the best out of these people? And then I've always said to my wife that I see the world as a massive library that I can just take books from, I can just take principles, frameworks and take them from them to make myself better.
Speaker 1:So from a young age I remember there's a cricket coach called Grant Morgan. He coached the under 18 Coke Week team, which is our provincial team cricket team, and that team had Faf Duplessis, ab De Villiers, aaron Pangiso, a guy called Stefan Meiberg, another one called Haino Kuhn. All these guys played professional rugby, I mean international cricket. All of them were in the same side and I watched him treat 17, 18 year olds as young men. And that was such an odd one for me because for me at school we're in a very good school, prim and proper he was always the father figure, you the son, and you're kind of listening. For the first time I saw this almost older brother, younger brother or older brother, uncle relationship in a coaching thing. I thought, wow, man, that's interesting, so let me steal that.
Speaker 1:And then you go somewhere else and there's a guy called Jeff Clark who's also a cricketer but he's super hard and he just wants to make tough men. The reason he coaches sport is he feels that the world needs more tough men. So that's his way. He's going to take the 11, 15 of us and he's going to make us as tough as he can. So I can go through many examples, but I think it's almost going out in life with a lens of I'm going to steal as much as I can from as many people as I can, and still not practical stealing. You know what I mean. Take concepts, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you can steal both ways, can't you? You can steal the good stuff, but also, you know, throw back the stuff you don't want. To right, have you seen a few examples of that around coaches? Have you actively said I'm not taking that part, I'm leaving that part right out of my repertoire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and I think part of that is I always believe that people are seeing me and they're doing the same right, because not everyone's stuff is a cup of tea. It doesn't mean it's wrong, it just means it's different. I could be in an environment where somebody is winning and the environment is clinical and everyone knows what they're doing, but the human element is not that big. I'd say that's great. But if I replicate that, I would add a human element to it. Or if it's the way they review games'm always fascinated by that. I'm always fascinated by how teams review a loss, because I think that says a lot about environment. And there's some people who are just critical, hardcore, and there's some who are bringing people in, and I know there's moments for both. You know like you can be super disappointed and go hard at people. I think that's normal, but I think the way you review losses or poor performances is always such a nice indicator of what's going on in the environment.
Speaker 2:It is too right. The way people react to their worst is actually a good judgment of how the culture is, isn't it? I think, just to build on what you just talked, joey, I love that concept about that lens, looking at that lens about the world. Every time you go out and not just in a rugby setting right, but like every interaction you have is a potential opportunity for you to grow, an element of your leadership, even your coaching, even the interaction between the girl or the person behind the counter at the supermarket is an example to practice something. Or if they don't look you in the eye, you might go. You know, when I talk to my players, I'll make sure I look them in the eye, like the eye, because that didn't feel good. We felt real, transactional, but those are everywhere if you're looking for them right. And as coaches we're in the people business and understanding how to be really effective in our dealings with people is so important and people are everywhere. There's a playground to practice and take and steal and also to say not for me.
Speaker 1:thanks every interaction, you like it 100% and I think it's going in with that lens, like you said. So that's the lens you want to view it. I remember one of my critical conversation. I was still at the Bulls just after COVID and we always used to eat lunch at this place at Loftus Park and I asked the lady once, the owner. I said who is your most faithful waiter here, or no? No, I said how did you choose your manager? It was a Zimbabwean guy, the manager. She said no. She said yeah, because he's one of the most faithful guys here. He's always on time, he does all of these things. I said okay, great, thank you. Then I asked him. I said, dude, what do you think your greatest quality is that this lady's made you the manager? He says it's passion. He says I just love what I do, I love coming here, and then I promise you I wrote that down.
Speaker 1:I said, joey, you can get many things wrong, sometimes get it technically wrong, even you might get the people element wrong, but don't ever walk away from something that you did and people can't tell that you were passionate about it and like I'm, like it might've been a gem.
Speaker 1:It's like it's formed a part of who I am and how I do life, and I might've never found it, or found it much later, if I didn't pose the question. So I mean, if you think about it, everyone imagine you went through life and you asked everybody what's the greatest lesson they learned or what's the? So everyone's just giving you their gold, like people want to speak that, and then you can just walk away at the end of each day with just these beautiful gold things and, because you know yourself, you're like, okay, that's wonderful, but that won't work for me, let me put that away. Or that's huge. That fits right in the center of what I'm trying to do, so let me add that to it. It's going to build me and I just think, yeah, man, it's a library of knowledge and experiences and people from different contexts, knowledge and experiences and people from different contexts and they want to give you the best of life is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:Oh man, far out now, I just love it. I just love your sentiment all around, joe. It's, it's absolutely beautiful and I'm gonna, I'm gonna add another one to make. So I gotta, I want to. I got a quote I want you to talk to. This is from you and I just read it. When I read it, I just thought my goodness, I need to chat to this man. You said this about your purpose statement in what you do. Quote we will win a few significant things and have some players that might develop into springboks, but most will become husbands and fathers. Influence that, and I just went. If that's a leader of my son or daughter, that is exactly the type of leader that I would love in whatever context I'm doing, mate. Why is that such a big thing for you, mate? About influencing more than the game, but influencing the people that people become. Why is that a big thing and why is that a passion for?
Speaker 1:you, yeah, and I almost want to qualify all of that in saying like I'm human right, like I'm flawed and I make my mistakes and I do laugh, so this is not a saint speaking in front of you. Um, that's just to qualify everything. Then I want to say you've got a big.
Speaker 2:You've got a big ball patch in here I made should we just make that really clear like right on the crown, you just try to shave it off, to hide it.
Speaker 1:You're good, you're not you're not supposed to tell people that I'm balding. It's supposed to be a secret.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm just helping with your saint complex you're having.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Thank you, I think. For me, ben, it's such a lived experience, right? So if I look back on my life, there's a guy called Marius van Heerden who was the guy in my primary school who took me away from football and said, say, try rugby and cricket. So if he doesn't intercede there for me I don't get to go to Pretoria Boys High. If I don't go to Pretoria Boys High, I don't meet Paul Anthony within the first team rugby coach. If that doesn't happen, I don't go play Craven Week and then meet Ashley Everett, who then does that with me.
Speaker 1:I can name all these men. I don't go to the Lions and meet Bafana Ntleko, who's also a coach. Who's like aspiring to be a head coach. I'm like dude, can black guys want to be a head coach? He's the first guy I saw as a black dude in South Africa wanting to be a head coach. I'm like so all these men in my life have been major building blocks to try for me into something that I'm still developing into.
Speaker 1:So back to that quote is to say, because I've lived and I've seen what a transformative influence it can have on my life, I thought, well, can I just do my little part to influence someone. So when I wrote that quote in 2016, the first year as a head coach of the Lions on the 19th side, this one kid, he's the first guy in a team meeting to disagree with us as a coaching staff he put up his hand. He said no, no, I don't agree with that. And I was like you are 100 the captain of this team. I think I said it in that moment. I said, because I can trust you, you're the first guy in three months of prep who's put up his hand and said they don't agree. I said you're an honest human being. So we made him captain us forward 2025, that's nine years later. He, he invites me and he says dude, I'm getting married, I want you to co-pastor my wedding. Right, you come, do that, bring your family, go to Robertson, which is a beautiful place in the Cape. And in that moment I realized I will take that any day, any day, above a guy who goes on to play a hundred test caps for the spring box but his life is destroyed afterwards. I'm like it's like not even like a tussle up, which one I'll take, because one day I know we'll walk past each other and he'll get up somewhere and say, listen, kids, come here, I need to meet this guy. Or I'll walk past him and I'll bring my kids and say, come meet this guy. Because we met each other at a level far greater than just performance. We met each other at the person level and we left fingerprints, like permanent fingerprints in each other's life that have made us better people, and not just the sake of better people, but literally the influence we had on each other formed part of who he is as a man and who I am as a man. So yeah, that's rewarding. I mean you want to come to the end of your life and have those stories. You know you don't want people.
Speaker 1:And if you think about it, how many of your mates do you speak about when you finish a rugby? Do you remember that trophy one? It's not that, it's like remember that night we did that. And do you remember we? Or when you selected me for this? How here's, here's one. And this is not bragging, I promise you, this is just trying to share the influence of this thing.
Speaker 1:So, mornay vanderberg, the under nine, the springbok nine, and vincent satuka those two boys, I'll speak about vince now. Vince was a club rugby player for the university of johannesburg. We just needed a loose forward. We, vince, was a club rugby player for the University of Johannesburg. We just needed a loose forward. We went to watch a club game. We brought him into our system and he was just like. We just enjoyed him. We thought he's an athlete and he loves to work, so bring him in, we'll coach him, right, right. And then he goes through this whole thing, becomes a Springbok. Now that's a great story, bigger than that for me.
Speaker 1:Earlier this year in black african culture, when you get married, you've got to do this process where you got to do a labola negotiation. You've got to bring uncles of yours to go to your future wife's house and have this negotiation about a bride price. And he's like joey, you're gonna do this for me. I'm like like, what do you? What do you want me to do? So, yeah, it's like here's my budget. I've got, let say, five rand. Go into this thing, have this discussion. Their first offer was like six rand 50, and he's got this five rand. And I'm like, oh, my goodness, I'm going to fail this guy. Thankfully, we got into the discussion, I tried my best and we got the bride price down to like four rand 50, which was still within his budget of five rand. I'm just using figures now, but that for me was such a joy. Like watching him make his test debut is awesome, but the fact that he would invite me to be one of the uncles to go negotiate the bride price man, good night, that's proper.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is cool mate. That's actually beautiful mate. It's amazing the little sparks that really set you off. And it's amazing what you said said meeting each other at different levels, different from performance, has such power and mate with this stuff. Now, joey, this is what you do, isn't it? You said earlier in this conversation that you want to work on the business, which is leadership, consulting and this type of thing growing better human beings in in the corporate space as well. How is that journey going for you, mate? Going down that route? It's your IP3 business identity, purpose and process business. How's that going? How's it affecting your coaching? How's it affecting you as a person?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the heart behind it is I enjoy so much doing what I'm doing and I've got a lot of friends in the corporate space who just feels like sometimes it's a slog. So I was like how do I influence that? And I thought if you can have effective leaders who build cohesive teams, it might just give more people a more enjoyable and productive work experience. So I thought, ok, well, take what you guys do naturally in sport, which is your coaches, your captains, leadership. You can't run a sporting environment without leadership and teaming helps naturally to us. So how do you take those principles and drag them across into the corporate space for that context, make that relevant and run with that thing going forward? Um, so, so it's almost like coaching leadership and coaching teams. How do you become a team? And your question how does it help me?
Speaker 1:I get to sit sometimes in corporates and listen to them speak about IT jargon. One of the clients I've got now is like his major IT company and I'm listening to them speak about jargon and how they bring these BAUs business as usual and bring that into these projects. And then we co-create models for them. And that's what I love about what I do. I don't go and say Mackenzie said this model is for teaming. I go in there, listen to them and say what are you guys going through? Okay, cool, create something. So recently literally now, we created with this team a model called CAFE, so C-A-F-E, and what it is is.
Speaker 1:The C is whenever we do something, let's get collective understanding. That gets us all on the same page, understanding what is required, who's going to do when, what. And then the A is then for assign roles. So once we all collectively know as a management team what needs to be done, now we assign roles who's going to be primary, who's going to be tertiary, who's just going to be supporting? You do that. The F, then, is we formalize the agreements. Okay, department A is going to do one to B. They're going to hand over to department C. They're going to do that. And how we keep this thing going. We establish feedback loops, so we keep giving each other feedback. So now we speak about let's go meet at the cafe. Like something comes up, meet at the cafe, do that.
Speaker 1:So I love the fact that I can go in, hear from them, learn what they're doing and then co-create their own models of how they lead more effectively and how they team more cohesively. That's the beauty is that it's natural, it's real. It's partly me, partly them. It's taking high-performing principles. Like from the visit with a spring box, I created like an alignment tool, which is pretty awesome. I can't wait this one, I might paint it, I think that's how big it is. I created a lineman tool to summarize my experience of having been at Springbok camp when they were preparing for the test match. But I've said a lot, but the short of the long Ben is my desire to influence the corporate space. How do you influence it? Influence, effective leadership, influence that the people team better together and then do it at the highest level of the organization. Because when you've got your CEOs and your executives, when they're living that out, your direct reports and the ripple effect down there just flows well or better, because these people are doing a good job right at the top.
Speaker 2:Joe, we were talking earlier about coaches being the reflection of their environments, and when you listen to yourself talk, you don't listen to yourself talk, but I do. The passion, the inspiration, the energy and just the sheer joy in what you say is very evident to anyone that hears, mate, and I would imagine businesses and business leaders would be very lucky to have you on board to guide their teams. My friend, it's inspirational. I love it. Now, joey, it is now time, mate. We try to keep roughly about that hour, mate, just because that's about the commute people have to do on the London subway to get into work. So I finish with this question. To sum us up is what is one thing that you believe about culture or rugby or any of those things that you believe in that you reckon your peers, your contemporaries, would disagree with?
Speaker 1:I would say in the I'm going to address this on the business side if you don't mind yeah, Is that this concept of soft skills has to be changed to core skills. So whenever you want to go into a company and they want to speak about leadership and team, they always say no, it's a soft skill, this is soft. I'm like, are you insane? Like if you've got put it this way, if it was a soft skill and not a core skill, then it would be easy to run anything. So if you wanted to be the best engineering company, just spend money and pay the best engineers in the world, put them in a room and you must be successful. Because this is leadership is just a soft skill and how they team together is just a soft skill. It's not.
Speaker 1:If you can get average engineers who are super well-led, they're effective, they know where they belong, they got role clarity, they know how their career is going to progress. The leader's creating leadership capacity for them to grow into and to fill in. He's becoming redundant because he's delegating so well and he can think strategy, so he's doing all of this stuff and then they sort of in a team their, their roles are so clear, the where the batons are handed over, the sense of it's our mission and when we drop the ball, when we go into a project, it's our pros, our cons. We speak those ahead of time. We attack them together. An average group who understand that for me will be more consistently over a longer period of time will outperform the rock stars without leadership and without teaming.
Speaker 1:I swear by that. So if you're asking me and I'm sorry I got so passionate about it is highly dislike what we do being called a soft skill. I wish I could get rid of that concept. It's core, it's critical, it's actually a a soft skill. I wish I could get rid of that concept. It's core, it's critical. It's actually a bloody critical skill. Never around a core skill. It's a critical skill and it's a skill set, which means it needs to be coached, it needs to be trained, it needs to be developed, it needs to be lived out. That's a skill set.
Speaker 2:Mate. That is absolute music to this podcast is, joey. Couldn't agree with you more, even though the whole purpose of that was to find something that would be disagreed with. But I think you raising it is just beautifully articulated, my friend. And what a way to finish this podcast, joey, if I may. It's that point now, mara.
Speaker 2:What I'd just like to leave with my three takeaway points from this conversation with you, joey. Number one is the process. A little triangle that you talked about was just a three-step thing which really resonated with me was understand the process, have conviction in the process and then package and sell. And you really emphasize that understanding of the understand first and then be really convicted of it in the way that you coach it, and that flows through. And that brings me to point number two, which is don't let anyone ask where your passion was, and when I listen to you talk, that is through in spades, and you said this quote, which I thought was lovely around. That is, when you fully commit, you get a full review and if you chase something passionately and you go for it, at least you're going to know either way whether it worked or not, and I think that is a cool sentiment for all coaches, leaders and anyone that's leading, anybody. Just commit to it because people will follow. Just commit to it because people will follow.
Speaker 2:And number three, that concept you just talked about the shift in language from calling something soft skills to calling them core skills or critical skills is a huge shift in mindset and thinking that soft skills or the core skills are not an add-on or an extra. They are the foundation. And because they are critical skills, they need to be trained and you need to approach that mindset. You need to have that lens on those when you're going around the everyday business. They're not something just I might get better at my empathy or I might get better at being able to communicate with that person. No, that is the base of being an awesome person, an awesome leader, an awesome teacher, coach, whatever it is. That is the foundation and you highlighting, with that little subtlety and language shift, it's that little ripple that you talked about that happened in your life. Joey, what a pleasure to have you on the coaching culture podcast. Thank you for joining me, uh, from durban today thanks for having me, ben.
Speaker 1:It's a good one, mate.