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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
Pat Lam on Culture: Why Love Defines High-Performing Teams
What if the secret to building championship teams isn't found in tactics or talent, but in a single, powerful word?
Pat Lam, architect of the Bristol Bears' transformation from strugglers to European powerhouse, offers a refreshing perspective on leadership that challenges conventional wisdom. At the heart of his philosophy lies an unexpected foundation for team culture: love, defined as "sacrificing oneself for the benefit of others."
This conversation reveals how Lam has masterfully cultivated environments where players willingly put themselves at risk for teammates - from a 75kg scrum-half throwing his body into a ruck to protect a ball-carrier, to coaches offering spare cars when colleagues face transportation troubles. Rather than abstract concepts, Lam demonstrates how culture manifests in daily actions, large and small.
The discussion explores Lam’s innovative approaches to leadership development, including requiring players to apply and interview for leadership positions, having them present their personal "why" to teammates, and establishing a middle tier of leadership to develop future team leaders. His practical wisdom on giving honest feedback ("No one will respect you if you're saying one thing but meaning something else") and managing relationships creates a blueprint for coaches at any level.
Perhaps most compelling is Lam’s perspective on setbacks. Having been fired from the Blues in New Zealand, he reframed the experience for his children as an exciting new adventure, believing that joining the ranks of world-class coaches who have been sacked is a "privilege" - provided you learn and grow from the experience.
Whether you're leading a sports team, managing a workplace, or simply trying to bring out the best in others, Lam’s insights on building trust, fostering genuine connection, and creating environments where people willingly sacrifice for each other will transform your approach to leadership.
We've all signed up for something and we come together. We're accelerating that process. It's massive. You give them a framework, but the most important, the people that are there have a desire to be there and they want to become leaders and they want to become better leaders. It's not about getting sacked. It's about how do you reflect? What would I do different? What have I learned from this? And then move on. I woke up in the morning, come downstairs and my wife had 50, every 50 cards, 50 signs, 50, 50, 50, 50. And I looked at it and I just looked back and she's this is the happiest and most content I've been in my life.
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 Pat Lamb, who has been involved in professional rugby since his debut as a player for Auckland in 1990. He's played for a lot of teams but had some awesome stints with Northampton Saints, newcastle and Samoa, amongst a whole lot of others. He has coached professionally since 2003 and has had big stints with Auckland and the Blues in New Zealand and then Europe with Connick. In the last eight years transformed the fortunes of the Bristol Bears to be one of the powerhouse teams in Europe. As a personal side, as a 10-year-old I played for the Marist Rugby Club, the same club as Pat, where I looked up to that guy as one of the best loose forwards in the business, and the guy I admire is a player and a bloke. So, pat, welcome to the Coaching Culture Podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you, ben. Privileged to be here. You know you're doing a great job and when you asked me to do it I was like what, joining these other guys that have been there. So, no, absolutely privileged to be here. Honoured to be here, honored to be here, Awesome mate.
Speaker 2:Well, we will start with this question.
Speaker 1:How do you define culture? One word love.
Speaker 2:L-O-V-E.
Speaker 1:What's the deeper roots of that? Your reaction there was the exact reaction I get when I roll that out to 40, 50 odd rugby players. It's a little silence, a little. Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 1:But I think the biggest thing around it is once you define it and you know the word has been sort of, you know so many different meanings and people make of it. But when you bring it right back to what it really means, it's sacrificing oneself for the benefit of others. And when you think about you know I always ask the guys, think about the person that comes to your mind that you love. Would you do anything for that person to benefit? Of course, everyone, as you can see heads shaking and so forth. And so once you define it, and then it's really about being able to see it. And what sort of things do you see? You know, I see it often. I see coaches, players go who would like a coffee you want a coffee, I'll make you a coffee or you just see guys picking up stuff, cups in place and taking it away for others. That's a little, that's a lot of love. You, that's a lot of love. You know another place I might see it where on the field, harry Randall, our little scrum, half 75 kilos, dripping wet. He's coming to a ruck and there's a big 120-kilogram forward about to get over and steal the ball of his mate that's presenting the ball, and he drops that height, that little body of his gets underneath him, secures the ball for the next forward because he's gone and now there's a halfback to get it and our next forward clears the ball and away we go and we probably score a try. And I come back and I said, man, what a lot of love. That's a lot of love there. It's like when you know Ben Hard, yancey Van Rensburg's rushed up on D like he likes to, and the guy steps on the inside and there's a gap, but then AJ McGinty gives it a bit of acceleration to cover him on the inside, chops the guy down and makes the tackle. What a lot of love there. I actually had it really recently. Ben. One of our coaches' car's broken down, so he's taken it back and he's had a week without a car, so his wife has dropped it, and one of the other coaches had a spare car. He said I might use my car for the week. And so you get that sorted, man, a lot of love, and so I think it's like you know, we've got kids. When I lived in the farm in Pukako, we had dogs and animals and it's like anything.
Speaker 1:Define it, see it, praise it, define what love means. All right, in the culture, in the group, in the team. When you see it and you see examples, praise it and I'll use it. The boys will hear me and say, oh man, that's a lot of love. I'll do my review. A lot of love here, mate, love the love there, you know, and so the word is just getting recognized in our team. Someone's making sacrifices for someone else, someone's doing something to benefit someone else. Um, and I love the fact that you know when we get visitors in here or people in here, or when people are leaving to go elsewhere, or you know, they just see man, they love the culture. I said what do you mean? He goes just everyone's, does things, everyone's so friendly, everyone comes and shakes his hands, gives someone a hug, does things for people. So then, basically, making sacrifices for people. So that's that's culture for me. And, um, when, when people can feel it's not only see it but feel it, it's special. So, uh, that's it for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. It's almost reframing the traditional connotations around that word, and especially in an environment such as rugby, which you potentially wouldn't use it traditionally as much as other places, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, because you and you want you define it and bring it back to its true root. It's just used in such a really loosely seen as sexual, if you like, but really love is ultimately you doing uh for someone, uh, so they can be, they can get benefit out of it, um, and I think when you um, when you uh use it so often and that connotation, it really helps the one-on-ones, it really helps the relationships and what I find you know, I have so many conversations in my office here. I've got normal, normal chairs like desk chairs, but I've got two sofa chairs. Those sofa chairs are when people want to come and talk non-rugby. They'll just sit in the chair there. If a player goes and sits on that chair, wants to have a chat, that's a love chair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a love chair. It's a relationship about something that's bugging him, something that he wants to talk a bit deeper about, something that he wants to talk a bit deeper about, and it just opens up so much dialogue between people when they know that the culture is based on love, the culture is there on helping and honestly I love it. I know some organizations bring people, spend lots of $100,000 to get our culture right and so forth, but when you just define it like that and then you see it, that's the most important you can define it. It becomes a word on the board or we have it up in our war because it's such a big, important l-o-v-e. But it's really about praising it when you see it and um and recognizing it, and if you do that, it comes to life all the time and the people suddenly, instead of talking about, oh yeah, good culture, good geez, a lot of love here, there's a really good feeling in here. They start talking a bit like those lines which is effectively bringing about, and that's what I find rewarding. It's the reason why even the hp I was very fortunate I had the ability to change um and design this theperformance center and I put all the operational staff right next to the dining room and the main common room and everything like that, because they're normally tucked away.
Speaker 1:But they're important people and you know, when people come in, everyone wants to be valued, be appreciated, be respected, and those people are just as important. So now we've got our accountants, our media people, our HR. They're loving the place. They feel it Because I have the mantra of one team we're all, one team, everyone. If they weren't important, they wouldn't be here, we wouldn't actually have that job. But everyone adds the piece to the puzzle. So putting them in that right place was all part of them feeling, part of what we do.
Speaker 1:And, um, and we also have a expectation. I used to say rules, but it's just an expectation. Now we have our dining room and basically fill the dining room first. Uh, fill each table. So, instead of going two people at one table that can fit eight people around it and then another three over here, fill the table first. So it's a lucky dip. You walk in there's HR sitting next to HR, you could be sitting next to the media manager or the CEO, or you're sitting next to one of the academy players or one of the senior boys and find out more about them. You know and have a great conversation. So you know while you have, you define what it is. Then you've got to set situations up where it can really come alive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I love it. Would you put an emphasis on? Would your percentage of praising the behavior you want to see versus criticizing negatives? Would it be like massively in favor of praising the behavior?
Speaker 1:When you've been around a long time, you know, and you have five children and you've had dogs before. I knew nothing about dogs, man, the dogs were all puppies. I got them as puppies because the kids wanted two little puppies, brother and sister, and I was like, oh yeah, great, cute, let's get some. And then they ran wild. So I started to read the book around the dog listener. When I was coming up, when I was coaching Scotland, I was flying back. I read it all the way there, read it back. I was going, oh my goodness, we're doing everything wrong. So we came back and we trained the dogs. It, dogs is brilliant, but it's the same thing. Praise, praise, what you want to see. It's the same with the kids and in fact, funny enough, we do our optional skills session. We had about 28 boys show up for optional skills session with the coaches.
Speaker 1:So I just poked my head on the balcony to have a look and they're doing the passing drills and we talk about when we pass passing point. You know you don't, you don't have to, but you'll always deliver a good pass. And so I was watching. A few boys weren't doing it and I just shouted out from the top of the balcony sammy, unbelievable pass. Uh, passing point, love that. Guess what happened after that. That's the point. That's the point everybody. Yeah, love it, boys, love it, love the work, great stuff, you know. So rather than saying, focusing on all the others going, come on, guys, pass a point, I picked the one who did it, praised him and then everyone else started to follow. So it always yeah, it works.
Speaker 2:Isn't it a big shift in, like coaches and teachers, by nature, looking for the things to critique and to make better, but the power of actually focusing on the good stuff someone's doing and highlighting it. It has this exponential compounding effect on a group, right on the good stuff someone's doing and highlighting. It has this exponential compounding effect on a group right on the team. And that help builds a feeling and a mood and a culture and a desire to be the best. You can right and you.
Speaker 1:You would have seen that over and over right yeah, over and over again, and of course there's that spectrum as you go through. So, um, there are times where you need to be firm, you know, because you might have just to get absolute clarity. So players want clarity of what their jobs are, what they do in this sort of situation, all right. And then our roles is obviously to teach them the how or discuss how we do that or how we can be better. But the feedback you give, without a doubt you get more benefit of highlighting someone who's doing it correctly.
Speaker 1:I always say to the coaches, when you do your review and I got asked this recently how come you start with all the good stuff first and then you go to the work-ons? And I said because if you start with the work-ons to be a player looking at it going well, it's not too bad, that's not too. What's the problem with that? But when you highlight exactly what you want, this is brilliant. Love that. Look at the technique here, look at the height here. You know class, the reason this happened because of this, this, this, and you're reinforcing all your coaching stuff. So then when you go show something which might be a little bit out, they don't even question it. They can see. Oh yeah, in comparison to the good, I can see that's not quite right. So I always encourage the coaches when they do your, your, your review clips, put all the good stuff first, followed by the if there's work on, because players will be able to see it.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just taking out the grey aspect of a critique first up yeah, yeah, love that, Particularly if you're dealing with the international players, the big guns, you know, because if you show it and then they can see, yeah, fair play, you know, and if they can see the good, they're much open to seeing. Yeah, my bad, I'll tidy that up.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah, you can't go wrong when you start with the exemplar right. Yeah, that's the highest bar you can get right. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got Stevie Lua, too, about to be critiqued. I'll praise the guy. Look at this. We all see that. That's great. All right, old man, what do you reckon? Yeah, yeah, maybe a little bit more tighter here, mate, I think that's. That's a little tip for anyone dealing with the big guns.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. And how has this evolved for you, pat, over time? Have you always been this way or is it been a learning process over here since you started pro coaching, or even in your playing zones? What's a transformation of you, learnings wise?
Speaker 1:100%. Every day, every experience, you're getting better and over time. I mean when I had my 50 I'm 56 now remember when going to 50, I woke up in the morning, come downstairs and my wife had 50, every 50 cards, 50 signs, 50, 50, 50, 50. And I looked at it and I just looked back and she, jesus is the happiest and most content I've been in my life.
Speaker 1:And you know, I know they talk about experience because I look, I was just reflecting back on my life and I'm thinking, know, when you're in your teens and 20s, it's all about you. Then you have I had kids young, got married young, and then it's like I got a mate for my family and all this stuff here. But now when I look back at life, I think, geez, I've got so much experience to draw on and still have this desire to get better and to learn and and see the world and the transformation of my kids that are now going into adults, all of that sort of stuff, that when I look back on my coaching, it's like being able to, when I have staff or players want to talk about, you know, personal issues or stuff there that being able to draw from what I've been through to be able to listen and know where they're coming from. And then the same with the players. I look at the players now when I first started coaching I actually started in 2001, actually when Ian McGeachin asked me to join Scotland and I was coaching my peers and so for the first five, six, seven I was coaching guys I played with.
Speaker 1:Then I went to my 40s and then I was like one generation. Now I'm two generations. All the players are the same age as my kids, right? And so the relationship I have with the players has grown over time from a different perspective, which is why all my assistant coaches around mid-30s to early 40s, because they're one year closer to that. I deliberately do that as well, but my relationship with them is based on, in a way, I suppose, a father figure in that size. I just see so many things from my kids and their friends and my upbringing as a school teacher and learning from there. Like a lot of times coaches will say to me wow, how did you know that? Teachers College learned it from teaching the teaching games, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Then through my coaching experiences what works, what doesn't work, what could be better.
Speaker 2:Do you think, as you've evolved as a coach I'm often interested in this one that you've dumbed down your focus on the technique stuff and really bumped up your personal skills around relationships and that side of things? Has it gone like that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think certainly the director of rugby, the head coach. I think I've seen assistants go to head coaches and have struggled management of your staff and of your players and understanding the difference between relationship and performance. Making sure that the key things I find is absolute clarity of roles, of expectations, and then honesty on feedback and then support. Those are the three main areas. I believe If I'm dealing with the head of medical or the head of athletic performance or the head of recruitment analysis, you know the number one thing they want, just like when I find I interview players one-on-one or I do my staff appraisals, they need clarity, Job description.
Speaker 1:When someone signs up, what's my job description? What do you want me to do? And then it's like then you're giving them feedback on how they're going, or they're giving feedback and then you're saying, well, how can we be better? What's going well, how can we be better? And then they want honesty on that feedback. You know, I mean when I was asked as a player and I've asked every player of my whole coaching career, right, what do you want from me as your coach? And it's amazing how many of them say, man, coaches never asked me that before. And I say what's the first question? I want to know how can I help you? What do you want from me? Guess what they all say Honesty, I just want honesty.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? And they go. You mean, well, just feedback, I say. Then I normally say, can you handle that? And they go oh, yeah, of course. I say because I normally find people like feedback until it's something they don't really want to hear. They go no, no, no, no, I'm a bit of a devil and I normally say look, don't worry, if I'm giving you honest feedback it's because I actually want to help you. And I tell really comes in handy.
Speaker 1:I remember Troy Flavel when I coached him of Auckland and he just came in from North Harbour. You know, troy was a. You know, some people were a bit fierce Troy and I hadn't really coached him much. But when we had that one-on-one and we talked through that, when there was an issue I needed to deal with Troy, I just brought him in. I said Troy, remember that thing.
Speaker 1:I asked you about what do you want from me? What do you want from me? And you went, yeah. And what did you say? He goes. Oh, honestly, feedback. And I asked you if you could handle it and you went yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I'm going to give you some feedback now. Is that all right? Yeah, yeah, go for it, pat, go for it, and I've done that many times with players that some people would perceive difficult to talk to. But you just get that the time we're not here to be liked, we're here to be respected. Um, players won't respect you if you're saying one thing but you're meaning something else. You know if you're, if you're saying, oh, you're great, you're going really well, but you're not getting picked, yeah, so, uh, better to be very, very honest with players and uh, because that's what they want and that's what we all want.
Speaker 2:Did you have any early ones where you might have gone too far on the brutal honesty? I'm always interested in this one. Did you have any kickback on any of this?
Speaker 1:Probably. I can't think of a time I have, because I learned that one-on-one process before any player joins. Every time no player will come into my team unless I have that interview and the negotiation process, so like we just signed Lewis Rees-Samet all right.
Speaker 1:And he was all over in Florida at the time. So we did a Zoom call, spent an hour and I asked him these questions and quite a few of the normal questions I ask. But I asked that question. You know, what do you want from me as a coach? And he said the same thing. And so, even before he came into the building, we've established what he wants and I've established what I would like. And so when we get to a situation where I need to give feedback, I normally reference the chat we had, the one-on-one chat we had before I started. If I think it's really really going to come strong and I also talk about you know, do not take anything personal. If I'm giving feedback, well, however way you know, if you feel it, just let me know. However, the bigger time to worry is when I'm giving you no feedback. Yeah, that's when you can Because something's feedback.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's when he can see Because something's coming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I've stopped caring. I've stopped caring. I just don't think you want any feedback. So yeah, so I normally tell them up front, in a jovial way but a truthful way, so you know, they know that they want it, don't be afraid of it.
Speaker 2:And I'm there to help them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. Like I always say, look man, I understand. I don't want you to take personal, but we're emotional people. If I give it in a way that you think it's too emotional, just let me know. But I am trying to help you.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of powerful psychology in that, where you're delivering of what they've asked and you always know that, don't you? So it's on you. You've asked for this and you're getting it. So, like rugby players and probably people in general, when you're said you want something and you're getting it, you just have to go yeah, right, this is exactly what I signed up for, and you're delivering on what you said you'd do. And that comes back to your respect, not necessarily to be liked, but to be respected. I think it's a really cool statement.
Speaker 2:I just have something here, pat, which I've just a quote from you around relationships and building them, and I just heard you speak a while ago on. You had a huge emphasis on building relationships and quote not because you're trying to make more friends. The reason you build relationships is so, under pressure and there'll always be pressure, you can be true and honest. Is that a big part of what you do? I know building relationships in your first year, year one was relationships and building relationships. Do you still stand by that kind of sentiment eight years in? Oh, 100% 100%.
Speaker 1:The way I speak to players, from the moment they come in four, five, six months, then two years, three years, four years is completely different. It changes. Yeah, it completely changes, because I now know what makes them tick. And we got to. You know, the stronger the relationship, the more authentic you can be, because there's trust in there. I use this often, you know.
Speaker 1:I look at my beautiful wife Steph. We've been together since I was 19. She was 17 and still happily married. But we both recognize that when I look at her, the way that she will shout at me or have a go at me she is no one else in this world that she ever talks that way to. You know, when she's really annoyed with me, I see that as a blessing, I see that as a compliment. That when she's really emotional, that honestly, if someone else, anyone else, she'll just keep to herself and okay, and she won't erupt. The way she erupts with me is a privilege. I'm the chosen one, I'm the one that she feels that she can be herself and say what it is, and I love that. You know, of course I don't. You know the friction and all that, but I know, okay, I've upset her, all right. But the fact that she can do that with me, we are the privileged ones.
Speaker 1:So when I can build, when you build a really strong relationship with someone and that you can say, like on the field, I need you there, get effing there like this, you know you will say that to your best mate. Yeah, gotcha, bro, gotcha, you know A, b. Just say it under pressure compared to you. Don't say it because I don't really know him, I don't want to offend him, I don't want to upset him, you know. So when you can get your best mates on the field or in your coaching group that we are so cohesive and we have that trust for time together that we can just generally be ourselves under pressure, that's where the magic happens, I believe. So creating because we don't choose to necessarily be together, we've all signed up for something and we all come together Accelerating that process is massive, which is why you have your team building, your bonding, all of those things to really accelerate those friendships.
Speaker 2:What sort of examples do you have of how you guys do it? How do you build that sort of connection?
Speaker 1:Well, the first thing I'll do is I'll get everyone to present their why. I normally do no more than 10 minutes. They get up and talk about who or what's important to them and you normally just use pictures, photos and explain it. And I tell you it's a powerful exercise. I have staff members, everyone. So we meet every Monday morning, everybody's in for 30 minutes and we normally start with a staff member, a senior player, an academy player, and they'll get up and explain.
Speaker 1:I tell you they can be quite emotional. I found when I was in Ireland they got really emotional. What I quickly realized when I was in Ireland how strong grandparents are. Very similar to Pacific Islanders, yeah, and they would talk about their grandparents with so much pride, where they come from and they'll be tearing up and everything. And I realized family is huge, extended family and all of that.
Speaker 1:But when someone can get up and be vulnerable and really talk about their situation and why they, uh, what's important to them, um, someone sitting in that audience goes geez, I didn't see, you didn't realize that's. I didn't know anything about that person really, I just know he plays rugby, you know, and and that genuine that generates conversation in the locker room and the change room, coffees, and then you just see people get together. We have cohesion groups, so I'll put guys into positions where, for instance um, an example now tom jordan's coming to our group first time doesn't really know anyone. So then when we do groups, I'll have them with harry randall, I have them with Jimmy Williams BV, the guys that he'll play rugby a lot, together with key positions. So I'll make sure you know they'll take him on coffee groups, dinners, golf, all of those sort of things as well. So we do a lot of things either as a group or in these small groups to build the cohesion.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, and then that's every season or just with new players, or, yeah, every season some will get up, so we went through pretty much everyone, um, but it's great for staff members too. So when you're your finance head of finances getting up and talking and people go oh, jesus, like I find a bit more about him and where he's from.
Speaker 1:You know, and and then that they just humanizes the person out of the role, just like it is. Well, yeah, you play rugby, but you're a person. Yeah, you happen to work in the media or the community department, but you're a person and we want to know more about you. You know, and bringing it back to the love you know the more you know someone, the more you want to sacrifice for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. I think this stuff is just a breath of fresh air, pat, it's awesome. But what would you say to coaches that can't necessarily, because some of the stuff is like it doesn't. Sometimes it's hard to see how this impacts scoreboard stuff. You know when, especially younger coaches, who they hear this sort of commentary and go well, you know how does this, you know, make us win games of rugby, what, what? What would be your answer to that? Because you have created at Bristol a very successful team, which wasn't always and this has been your philosophy which has driven through, and you guys are always right up there as as one of the threats these days. So what would you say to coaches that are thinking like that?
Speaker 1:I think, at the end of the day, if you're going to get into coaching, why? Why are you getting into coaching? Yeah, of course you want to win, but certainly you want to be helping your team, you know, become better rugby players and better people. You know, that's the beauty of our game, that's the real values of our game. So if you want to do that, you need to know why they're here. You need to know something about them. You know, and you've got to talk to them right, and if you talk to them, you find out. Don't assume that they're here to play rugby. They're just here to win. You know, some of them are doing it because it's their identity. Some of them are doing it because they want to get a professional contract. Some of them are doing it because they just love working as a team. Just find out a bit about them. And then the next side of it, too, is that if you want your team to play the best they can, in my coaching philosophy, which I wrote, I believe that no one will be able to be successful in any team unless he truly believes he belongs to that team. And if someone who feels they belong, they'll give more for that team. When you're looking at clubs that are trying to keep retention I'm talking in the amateur days as well make that experience so enjoyable. They'll bring their mates. When you're looking at clubs that are trying to keep retention I'm talking in the amateur days as well make that experience so enjoyable. They'll bring their mates. Make that experience so enjoyable that you know that whatever you're coaching, they're enjoying it and getting into it, because my coach cares, you know, and I love being here. You know.
Speaker 1:It's like I always say to the guys when I talk about. I always ask them who they choose for the best man. And if they're not married, who would you choose for your best man? And they will go, oh, my brother or my mate from when I grew up. Why him? What sort of qualities does he have that you would choose him over all the people you know in the world? I trust him. He's got my back, um, he's honest with me. Man. Those are unbelievable qualities.
Speaker 1:Those friendships are like 10 out of 10 and I would say by the time you're in this life, you're probably only on your hand to count. You'll have lots of friends, lots of acquaintances, but you might, if you're lucky, you'll be able to count them on your hand and I said imagine you're, you're a scrum half. Imagine he's your 10. How would that feel? Oh, easy, why? Well, I trust him.
Speaker 1:I got his back and I said so when you look at the 10 and our team, how well do you know him in relation to? If you put him eight, nine or ten out of ten, he'd be your best man. Uh, two, okay. Well, how are you going to grow that number? I probably got to get to know him a bit better. And I said, well, or a guy says, yeah, I know him well, and then I normally say what's his? What does he have a girlfriend? Uh, yeah, he does. What's her name? I don't know, all right.
Speaker 1:So maybe when you're doing some asking casually, warming up, hey, you got a girlfriend. Yeah, what's her name? Sarah, oh nice. Where'd you guys meet? Yeah, we met, oh cool. And how long you guys been going out together, all right.
Speaker 1:And then I go get on your phone, save your mate, john and Sarah In about a week's time. How's Sarah doing? All right. And what does that person think? And you care, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, all right. So start taking an interest.
Speaker 1:And then suddenly your relationship with that 10 is going from a 2 to a 3 to a 4.
Speaker 1:And as you play, a bit more, getting to each other, starting to build up to a 5. And now you're getting close to playing on the field and your cohesion as a 9 and 10 are just growing because your relationship's growing. You know, and so I know you're good mates with the loose head prop, you know, but that's okay, they're all important, but the relationship with the ten, that's the most important one, and the other ten in case he plays, because one thing you can't do is control selection. So I put that ten in. You're close to this guy, make sure you're close to this guy too. Make sure you're close to this guy too, so that you guys can operate so smoothly on the field. So I really think it comes down to coaches who might question, that is, if you really genuinely want the best for your players. Get to know them and get them to know each other. And, like so many people, when you look at all the good teams that are going, they love the environment, they love what they're doing, they love being together.
Speaker 2:That's rugby. That's what we play, mate. I love that. I love how you ask that question of each other like make it like your best man. These are awesome little human skills you have, pat is to just get a little bit more out of making people, you know, convincing them to do it themselves. Rather than you enforcing the culture and driving it, you're essentially just prompting them by these sort of questions, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's really important. I see my role in that and then obviously then I see it spin off into my heads of department, the captains, the leaders, trying to role, model what you want. But if you don't see it and praise it or identify it, it will die. It will die and people will quickly forget. Oh, it's just a word on. So I think that's it's just like children If you're getting behavior issues, you know you need to highlight what they're good at and you'll see the difference right away. So if you are a coach and you just test it out yourself, you'll find the more you praise what you want, then you'll get what you want.
Speaker 2:Mate. I love that and similar like maybe on the same sort of topic about getting players to you know be proactive around that stuff and suggestions. I heard a while back you did a lot of teams talk about the leadership groups and that sort of thing and I loved hearing you talk a while back about how you actually made players have to apply for that leadership position. Is that still rolling? Are you still rolling that out as a commonplace? Because I think it's just a wonderful practice which I've never heard of in a rugby team before, where you don't just pick the captain and say you're it, you actually make it a process. They have to do an interview for it. I love it.
Speaker 1:Definitely, definitely. I was fortunate because I was big. When I was younger, I was always playing up and then eventually, so I ended up in a lot of leadership roles. What I found in there, I mean I loved it, but I knew I was with guys in there that didn't really want to be there. They were just oh, coach has told me to be here and we're in here. But I think it's such an important role that you've got to have a real passion and a desire to be there, and it's just like finding out why you come in to play rugby. You know, why do you want to be in front of the leadership group. But I think one of the other things I found too was a lot of players who come straight through academies and into the team had never done any interviews, so it was a really good practice.
Speaker 1:I used to video them and they had to come in, and some of them came in suits and sit down and I just want to know why do you want to be in the leadership group? What can you offer? And um, uh, you know what value could. So what value could you bring to the leadership group? And what does the ultimate leader look like? You know, and so they'd come in and I'd have someone, a couple of guest judges as well, and they just come through and they talk through. But the really cool thing is that when there's a video, they could look back at it from a perspective of growth, of interview, but they can also hear their words. And the good thing when the power of when you say something, you can hold people accountable to it and in a way of supporting them. You know, I know that you mentioned this here what does that look like? Very similar, like you're asking me okay, what does that look like? We'll give me some examples and so forth and um, but then you generally know you got guys who want to be there, um, and then what I normally do is give them some says already, well, you're a leader, cause you're here, but how do we grow them? Give them some responsibility and some like a job description, clarity on what they could do, and then give them that freedom to go and do it, get some feedback on it, give them some support behind it, and then what we have now it's evolved, cause I've been here now this is my ninth season with our, our group.
Speaker 1:Now we have a middle tier. So I've said to these guys I want you to stop doing everything. I just want you to make the decisions on what the team does and then have your middle tier guys. So instead of Alice Ginge looking after running the community you know all the get out in the community stuff everything comes through him, comes through to the leadership group. He's now got three homegrown boys who run that. So they're the ones who get out and organize everything. Alice is just the one who meets like a subcommittee. Right boys, we're all going and they fire off there.
Speaker 1:It's like I've got a guy, jake Wilmore, who oversees all the culture stuff, but he's got two guys who run everything and get everything organized. So these guys now who used to be down there and run everything, they're like managing the next group down below. So what's really cool is like we had a guy today, one of the trainers here. The guy was late. I said, okay, I'll just drop it to the leadership boys, they'll deal with it and I love that. It's only after three. If something's continuous, they'll come to me and the team manager and if there's anyone breaks the law, go to me and the CEO. And I've found it's worked in Connick, it worked here it's generally. Players are driving everything, which is great, genuine players are driving everything, which is great, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you're essentially putting your trust and faith and showing that you're doing that to your team, and the response that you get is better leaders and they actually own it better, is that?
Speaker 1:what you're saying? Yeah, 100%. You give them a framework. But, the most important, the people that are there have a desire to be there and they want to become leaders and they want to become better leaders and we often have chats, uh, in the, as a group or individually, so we have this thing here. Let me find this is a great tool. By the way, this was from the um. You know the personality profiles I got when I did an island oh, it looks like my boy's duplo set, is it yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's brilliant. My one's like this. Really, that's my colours. But anyway, when we have coaches meetings or leadership meetings, whoever has this has the voice. No one else interrupts. Let him speak and then he passes it on when we started.
Speaker 1:Like I normally say, let's just review the week boys, pass it to the first guy and he'll give his views and so forth, and then, when he finishes, any questions then we'll move it along. So everyone knows they're going to get a chance to speak. But also it helps everyone listen because you'll always someone says something, someone interrupts and the conversation goes back and forth and he's forgotten. He hasn't been able to have the opportunity to finish speaking. So same in the coaches meeting. Forgotten. He hasn't been able to have the opportunity to finish speaking. So same in the coaches meeting At the end of the day, at the start of the day.
Speaker 1:End of the day, whoever gets this, he feeds back everything that he wants to say. We all make notes and so forth. And the really cool thing with AI now I've got this app, I can record it, transcribes it, summarizes it, and I drop it all to them off the back of it. So, yeah, and so it's just growing them as leaders and getting genuinely everyone's thoughts and feedback on everything we do. I love it so those colors on that?
Speaker 2:do you say that was personality types?
Speaker 1:Is that what the colors mean? Yeah, red, blue, green and yellow.
Speaker 2:So you adjust it to the one you are. Yeah, so everyone can see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is one that sits here. Sorry, I just give it to the. I just use it as my tool. I could easily use it in a book or whatever, but we have all done it. I know who, all the players' colors, which is amazing. It's really good because you realize everyone. We're all a bit of everything, but everyone learns or takes messages completely different but everyone learns or takes messages completely different.
Speaker 2:Man, I just love hearing this creative thinking around, getting out of the box of what an old-school, traditional rugby program or any team sport looks like. I can see why when you watch the Bristol Bears play. They just play with freedom and enjoyment. You can see it in the way they play and it's no surprise that some of this stuff is in their everyday environment. Another cool thing just in relation to this, which I was listening to about you guys, is this year, I believe earlier this year, your principal partner was a game park, macheltu, and I just thought and that's not even in the same country, and it's, it's a, and you said the words it's inspiring our community. And I just was loving this creative concept about partnering with um, a reserve in Africa that is is doing great things from a rugby club in the middle of England and I just I'm inspired. It must inspire, like you talked about inspiring the community. It must inspire some of your players and your staff when you're doing these inventive things. What's the rationale and the thought process behind that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, our owner, he has that park out there. But what he's done in Mashatu with the local people and the development, well, the safekeeping of it and what he's put around there was huge. So all the local people he's created like a reserve where, yeah, tourists can come but not where they can ruin the environment and so forth. So it's a it's a special place. Some of the players went out to it recently and so so that's why we had we connected with them.
Speaker 1:But the prior, the way, the process that he did, that which was all around community and and the reason we have our vision around inspiring our community, came off the back of my conversation with him at the very beginning, when he wanted me to leave Connick to come to Bristol. And I asked the question, which I did because, after my getting sacked from the blues, I always asked this question what's your vision, what's your vision, what do you want me to do? And he talked about community, people, bristol, so forth, and I said to him man, you're a football player, yeah, but I understand what sport can do for a community and all the values of sport. And then I realized he's put his money where his mouth is and he owns the football, the rugby, the basketball, and so all I did is take an hour conversation and put it into a statement, because I knew the framework of understanding vision. Everyone needs to know it. Well, I just said inspiring our community through rugby success. Is that what you talked to me about? Bang on, I made that as our vision to represent what our owner wants, and then we put that up and we went for a process to establish that with everybody.
Speaker 1:But then when I, what he did in Mashatu was an exact replica that he wanted to inspire the community by giving them opportunity to protect their land, look after their land and people to come and see a game park in its natural habitat as possible, protect the animals and so forth. So it was like in another part of the world, him doing exactly the same, which, well, we got a lot of respect for the owner, which is one of the reasons I came. If anything I learned from my time in New Zealand Rugby Union and so forth is you've got to be really clear who calls the shots. You've got to be really clear who makes all the decisions on things, and I've turned down a few jobs since based on uncertainty on who actually is in charge, and when I met this guy he flew with his wife to the middle of nowhere in Ireland and met me and my step and that that pretty much what sold me. I've got the right person there. I love it, mate. Who backs up his talk, yeah, who backs up his talk with action.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. Well, what you just said there just inspired me of another one of your little mantras that I've heard you talk about is this little sequence of words, quote vision drives leadership, leadership drives the culture, culture drives the performance and that's what leaves legacy. And I just loved how you started with vision, and I think there was a reference you made when you got to Connick that one of your first questions is what's the vision? No one had it, and so you said right, that's the start point. We've got to get aligned on that. And that's the start point, isn't it? Before culture even gets in you, you got to have that, that vision, and then boil it down to a statement like you just had about, you know, inspiring our community through our rugby success, or something like that yeah, the credit to that mike chu.
Speaker 1:Uh, he was in when I was with new zealand rugby union. Uh, mike was the coach development manager and he would come and talk and sit down and talk about your coaching journey. We're all young coaches. There's myself, jamie Joseph, dave, rennie, Mark Hammett.
Speaker 2:Oh good crew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's all three of us together and then we were coming through together. But Mike was brilliant. He'd facilitate our learning. We used to get prime minister scholarships. A lot of us particularly myself was really interested in mental skills, sports psychology, and so a lot of us went up to the US with Dave Hadfield as well. And in my discussions with Mike he talked to me, he gave me that equation and I went that's brilliant, that's exactly. It sort of gave me an equation to the way that I thought it's like without the goal, without knowing what you're going to do. You know it's very difficult for anything else to happen and everyone talks about culture and everyone talks about leadership, but you really got to have the purpose of the vision. What are we here for? And so what I learned after the blues scenario it was the only job that I never had to interview for. It was the only job in my career that I was just given. And I look back now and at the time I thought it was a blessing. I'm getting a pay rise, I'm going into super rugby.
Speaker 1:When I came to do the Auckland job and when I did teaching jobs, I had to go for an interview. But when I did the Auckland job. There was 11 on the panel Grant Fox was in there, gary Witt was there, brian Williams was there, graham Henry, john Graham. I had the who's who of New Zealand rugby, but I loved it. I was able to find out really clearly what the vision of Auckland rugby was. I was able then to say this is what I'm going to do, and we all agreed on it. And then away I went. And then, because of the success we had at Auckland, they just and the Blues were struggling they offered me the job. I went oh great, brilliant. And then I quickly worked out afterwards I never had the opportunity what exactly? Who's running the show? You know, yes, there's a board, but I quickly realized there's people above the board. You know that sometimes you don't even know the names. Well, you do know the names, but they're not publicly known. And then you realize you know, pat, don't worry about all this, you just worry about this. But this has an effect on this.
Speaker 1:So when I went to Connect and when I came to Bristol, I made it really clear I wanted to meet who's in charge and I wanted to know what you want. And then, most importantly, I was able to say this is how I do it. If you're looking for a guy to coach rugby, you've got the wrong guy. If you're looking for a guy who is here to coach rugby, will drive leadership and will drive culture, you've got the right person. And I said because they all go hand in hand, and I'm talking about leadership and culture of the whole organization.
Speaker 1:All right, because what I found is that you could have your rugby team going really well, but what's happening above the rugby team, board level, operational staff they're not living by the same standards. They have an exception to the rule and so that affects your team. If a team's going to be truly successful, the whole organization, if you wear a Bears jersey or a Connick jersey, or if it's a Blues jersey or you work for them, you're in the same. You should be in the same um uh, culture, vision, leadership team.
Speaker 2:You're doing everything to help as well oh, I love it, mate, and yeah, I. I actually heard another quote from you which sums you up beautifully. You've you said you've been blessed to be with some fantastic teams and you're also blessed to have been with some horrific teams which, as you've just alluded to, that you've taken those learnings from the bad ones, which just suggests that there's no bad experience, it's just some fantastic learning opportunities, right, like. And then you've taken that you know incident and said, right, that's not going to happen again, as me, as a coach, I'm going to not walk into that again. And that's the art of coaching. In a lot of ways, that's how you continue, that's why you stay in the game so long, isn't it? Because you're just adding to your skill set, your toolbox of a coach, and it's not always bad when there's bad experiences, right.
Speaker 1:Easy to say that now, though, right mate.
Speaker 1:Well, no, no, I generally came out of that situation. I remember the day it happened and I generally came out of that situation. I remember the day it happened and it was Gary Whitten and Andy Dalton. They gave me the news and the beauty of that was closed doors. They gave me the news. I could speak honestly and truthfully how I felt to them, which would never leave that room. And I ran into Gary recently and he was. We had a really good chat and so forth, but that was done.
Speaker 1:Then I signed off with the players and everything and I went home that day and I grabbed all my kids into the room and I said kids, great news, great news, we are going somewhere else. Now I'm not sure where we're going somewhere else. And they went, oh yeah, no, go. Can we go to disneyland, can we go to this place where we go to that? I said don't, but we're going to find it. And I look back at that reaction of what I did with my kids then instead of you know the mindset of it they were like, okay, and then five, six months later, because my contract was going to end the year and I could spend time with the Salmon team, I I did on development and so forth. And then when I got the connect job, I brought them all into the same room I said, right, great news. We're going to Goy, ireland, we're going to go to America on the way we're going to Disneyland, we're going to go up here and it just again.
Speaker 1:The how you frame things is huge and particularly for you know, I use that example as my kids is a great one, but it's exactly the same with the players. You know, when you lose a game and win a game, the consistency of you is so important. What did we do well and what could we do better? We won by 50 points. What did we do well, but what could we do better? We lost by 20 points. All right, not a great day, but what did we do well?
Speaker 1:And you keep that consistency because that reinforcement of what you did well reinforces that you in relation to what we're doing, that you're all good and some good things and, um, the other one is your growth when you're trying to get your learning. So keeping that balance is huge, um, but yeah, certainly, um, uh, the the mindset is as huge as you work through it, and I said that I genuinely am proud that I joined world-class coaches and finally been sacked. Graham Henry got sacked, Wayne Smith got sacked, hanson got sacked, everyone Eddie Jones has been sacked. You know I said it's a privilege to be sacked, but it's what you're going to do about it. It's not about getting sacked, it's how do you reflect, what would I do different? What have I learned from this? And then move on. Whether that's a loss or win, whether that's a bad day at the office okay, well, what could I do better or whether that's you losing your job, another door open, as long as you decide to go actually try and open that door.
Speaker 2:I love it, mate. I love that reframing of it. It's powerful psychology. Again, pat, love it. And there's actually I was watching one of you after you guys lost to Bath and your interview after that was wonderful, I thought, because it was positive. It could have easily been emotional and negative, but you said something to the effect of credit bath. They played awesome, but I'm so proud of my boys. And then you just you highlighted all the behaviors you love that you saw out there. You actually you were saying they stuck together, they fought through two yellow cards, there was tough times but they stuck together. And I just this conversation is highlighting that kind of concept where publicly the players are hearing you again praising the stuff that you wanted to see, the love essentially, and I think that's a testament to you as a coach and it's a great example for anyone in the coaching realm that could potentially get derailed with being sacked and only being able to see the negative or a loss. I think it's a wonderful example, mate.
Speaker 1:No, thanks, mate. I always remember Eric Rush used to always say it's only one man's opinion or one board's opinion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, that's right. Awesome, mate. Well, hey look, we've got one more question, and this is the question we ask at the end, because it draws up some really interesting responses. And the question, pat, is this what belief do you hold? Do you believe that your peers around rugby and culture of it would disagree with?
Speaker 1:All rugby teams are the same. Now, what do I mean by that? The only thing that's different is the people, where they come from, the people you're working with, but ultimately they want to win. All right, they want clarity of how we're going to do it. They want feedback, they want support. Then they want to feel valued, they want to feel respected and they want to be appreciated. It doesn't matter what country. So, in Argentina, felipe Contempone is doing exactly the same, but he's doing it in Spanish. You go to TUCPC with the Salmon team. He's trying to do exactly the same, but he's speaking Salmon and the English. All Rossi, a little bit of English, a little bit of Afrikaan, but ultimately they want to win. He would you know, um, and you know, of course, the way we go about it, but generally, I believe it's the same. When you look at all the successful teams, um, it really is about having clarity of your vision, having a really good leadership to drive it, which creates your culture, which creates your performance, and then legacy off the back of it.
Speaker 2:It's a fascinating concept, mate, because I can imagine a lot of people would actually disagree with just the statement from the start, like that they're all the same. Maybe the instant response is that's not true. But when you just put those points down right, win clarity, feedback, support, value, respect, be appreciated that's, they're universal traits, like I don't know a team that I've been with that any of those are out of place, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I think you know I'm 56 now and I've been through so many teams the amateur day, professional day, from when I played rugby as a five-year-old right through to first-team rugby, school rugby when I go back and look at all the teams that I played with or coached with even Barbarians teams when I played for Barbarians all these players came in for a week. We enjoyed ourselves off the field but ultimately we still wanted to. We all wanted to win. You know, we all wanted to. We just need clarity. Okay, how are we going to play? And we'll just get some feedback and feeling valued, respected and appreciated. That's when I felt really good. And you know, some people get it right, some people don't get it right, but everyone's still trying to achieve the same thing in different ways. So they're all the same but you do it differently.
Speaker 2:Pat. Thank you very much, brother. What a pleasure for you giving up your time in between sessions at Bristol. If I could, I'd just like to wrap up here with just my three takeaways that I've really got out of this segment, and they are this Number one love is a definition of culture Sacrificing oneself for the benefit of others.
Speaker 2:I think this is a beautiful statement, one that's not heard of a lot in rugby circles or even team circles, and that could be a business or an office. It's not bandied about commonly, and what I loved is just how you separated it out, define it, see it and praise it, with the praise it part of it being the most important one to really capitalize on instead of any negative stuff. Praise the behavior you want to see and you'll get supersonic results. Number two unquestioned for coaches to ask their players is this what do you want from me? As a coach, I just think that's an awesome thing to just get in your vernacular of what you do and deliver it regularly. And then the follow-up question was can you handle this? Honest feedback I'll give you, and it's just, you're not here to be liked, you're here to be respected. And then, when you deliver on what they've just said. That's super powerful psychology and I just think it's a wonderful thing to just make part of your coaching repertoire.
Speaker 2:Number three the last one, is to always remember to start with your vision, and you asked this question of the people that have employed you. Is what you want me to do and actually be really clear on it from the outset. Start with a vision, because it's very difficult for anything else to happen if you don't have this. And your mantra care of Mike Chu at the New Zealand Rugby Union, which I think is a lovely four sentence statement, is this vision drives the leadership, leadership drives the culture, culture drives the performance, and that's what leaves the legacy. Pat Lamb, you are certainly the embodiment of that, and I appreciate your time and I'm certain that everyone that will listen to this will enjoy it equally. Thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 1:My pleasure Ben Great to chat mate. Really enjoyed it.