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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
The Gold You Didn’t Know You Were Mining
Have you ever had a moment when someone's casual comment completely transformed your thinking? In this deeply personal reflection, I share three unexpected insights from players that revolutionized my coaching philosophy over decades in professional rugby.
The first revelation came in Japan, where after stubbornly trying to implement systems that worked at Leicester Tigers, a captain gently explained, "Just because it works there doesn't mean it works here." That simple observation fundamentally changed how I approach new environments—reminding me that context and culture matter profoundly in leadership. The second awakening came when a player simply asked "Why?" during a warm-up drill, and I realized I had no substantive answer. This taught me that purpose must underpin every aspect of coaching if you want genuine buy-in. The third transformation happened after I missed celebrating a player's debut due to post-game frustration, when he quietly said, "Stay with us, coach"—a powerful reminder about emotional consistency and authentic leadership.
What fascinates me is that none of these insights came from coaching courses, books, or planned development. They were golden nuggets that appeared unexpectedly in the stream of daily interactions. Coaching isn't about mining harder for knowledge; it's about developing the awareness to recognize wisdom when it passes through your hands—often from the very people you're trying to lead. The question isn't whether there's gold in your coaching river, but whether your eyes are sharp enough and your hands steady enough to catch it when it appears.
Are you listening closely enough to catch the wisdom flowing past you every day? Subscribe now and join me each Wednesday for more Coaching Culture Reflections that might just spark your own leadership breakthroughs.
Welcome to Coaching Culture Reflections, the midweek spark for anyone who loves leading teams and growing through that journey. I'm Ben Herring and I've been loving this side of the game for bloody ages. Each week I'll break down key components of leadership from culture building to communication, from mindset to motivation, all to help you lead with more impact, heart and clarity and level up. Let's get into it. Hey team, welcome to the show. This title of this Reflections podcast is the Gold you Didn't Know you Were Mining, and the reason for this is I've had a really reflective week this week. I've had a few things I've been dwelling over in my own head. It actually started with a friend of mine offering a mentorship and around leadership and to do things a little bit differently, and he said, ben, give this a crack, come see me for the next 12 weeks, let's go down every week and let's work through a couple of things I think would be wonderful for you. So I've booked in the time with him and he's highlighted a couple of things that have really stuck with me and sparked a bit of a mindset shift and I'm loving that feeling to start this new journey and I think it's cool to share that kind of thing, because it's sometimes a thing you don't reach out to people and hear other people's way of doing things, and I just felt like I needed it. And he was there and he's doing a bloody good job and I'll document how that goes over time. But when you hear about that sort of stuff, when you sit down with someone and you go through things yourself gosh, it unlocks stuff in you and I walked away from our first session with some real reflective mindsets and I sat down on a journal about them and put them down on paper and it got me thinking about this midweek reflection show, which is me just reflecting on stuff, and I thought it was perfect. So this podcast is about sharing lessons from some of the best in the world their highs, their lows, the goods and the bads, so that we all, as coaches, can take something away, and I thought if I'm asking my guests to reflect and be really open and honest, then I should do the same. So today I want to share three moments, three things that players have said to me over my coaching career and I've had a pretty good one coaching professionally, and it's little comments at the time that players have made, but they've stuck with me and they've actually massively shaped how I coach and they've had an indelible mark on me and I've talked about some of them. But I'd like to just have this moment to talk about this the gold you didn't know you were mining. So here they are, in no particular order.
Speaker 1:When I first went to Japan my first in Japan I came from Leicester and at the time Leicester Tigers was winning everything. We were probably one of the best clubs in Europe and I went to a mid-level company team in Japan and I pretty much cut and paste everything I'd done at Leicester the concepts, the structures and I came and I just went, this will be it. And I put in place things that I took from Leicester. And when I got there and after a couple of months, the captain came to me, great man, and said look, ben, this doesn't work. And I said look, honestly, it does work. I've just come from a club which is one bloody everything. Trust me, it works. And he goes. No, you don't understand. It may work there, yeah, but it doesn't work here. I said, no, but trust me, it does, he goes. No, you're not hearing me, he goes. Just because it works over there doesn't mean it's going to work here and I loved it that he said that.
Speaker 1:Then he expanded on it and said Ben, you can't just copy and paste something that's done over there, because we're completely different and you don't even know, as a coach, anything about us. You don't know why we're here, the type of people there, how we learn, what we have already come from. You've got no idea of our background. And to think you can come in and just put something in place without the context behind it, you're missing it. It won't work. And he was right, because it actually wasn't working. We weren't getting the results and I was getting frustrated because I knew this did work over there in England, but it clearly wasn't working here in Japan. So that was a powerful statement. Just because it works there doesn't mean it's going to work here, and it actually shaped massively my whole coaching philosophy.
Speaker 1:After that I've got to get to actually know what I'm working with first. To think you can just cut and paste or regurgitate something from somewhere else and put into this place is a misanoma. It can work, but it's the minority of times that it works, and I can actually see this a lot. And when you're watching the best rugby teams in the world. It's very easy for club sides or lower level coaches to go I'm going to do what the All Blacks are doing, or the Wallabies or the Springboks or England, and you try to do that complex stuff in an environment in which we can't even do that, we can't even catch them past properly, and we're trying to do these elaborate moves. It's the same principle. I think it's simple but powerful. Context matters, culture matters. The work in one environment can be poison in another, and I just think it's important we as coaches remember that and I certainly remember that all the time. Every time I change places, I realize what I did over there doesn't necessarily going to work there. I guess you could also apply it. Whatever you learn in a course or on YouTube or you see on TV, just because it works in that context doesn't mean it's going to be right for your context, and I love that sort of setup.
Speaker 1:The second thing that a player said to me which really struck a chord was when I was a very, very new coach and I happened to get a wonderful role with the Canadian teams across the board and I was working with the women's team in the national program and I did a drill, a warm-up drill, and I just said, okay, ladies, let's just, uh, go and do this drill please. And one of the players stopped and just went, said this question why? And it wasn't in a cheeky way, not not pushing back, just a genuine why. Why are we doing this? And I got a little bit flustered. I was only young, I was only a couple years into my coaching professionally and I just was like let's just do it please. And I got a little bit short.
Speaker 1:But I went home that night and talked to my wife and that's probably some of the best person you can sometimes talk to as your partner and I said what do you think? And she just said this to me she goes well, if you can't answer why you're doing a drill, then you've got to reassess why you're even doing that drill in the first place. And I got to the bottom of it. I just did this little warm-up drill just because it's what I'd had as a player. I enjoyed it, thought it was a good one, and so I just did it. But there was no reason for it. It was just a. It was just what, something that I've done I'll just again regurgitating something from somewhere else and it really struck a chord with me is that the answer to why you're doing anything when you're on the field.
Speaker 1:Coaching is massive. If you can't answer why we're doing this particular drill, how does it relate? If someone answers you that then you've got to say why you're doing it in the first place, and it's a great way to plan sessions. Why am I doing this one? Sometimes you're just getting the loop of. It's the easiest. I don't need to think about this one, just do this. But if you haven't got the why underneath, then it's weak. It's a weak trill and players can feel it just like this lady said to me why. I don't understand why, ben, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't compute to me, and if it doesn't compute to the players, then. And if it doesn't compute to the players, then the buy-in's not there, the real buy-in. If I could have answered her with exactly the reason why like we're working on the right hand pass here, because this week we're going to tack down the right hand side a lot more, I want us to really focus on her she'd probably have gone oh, brilliant, awesome, great, I'm in, I've bought in because I couldn't. It was two things I hadn't thought about the session deeply enough and I hadn't related to what we were going to do. So that was my second big reflection that I had and it stuck with me from that moment. I'm glad I had it early on in my career, because then it's just gone with me. Now I actually think deeply about sessions. When I do plan them. I actually plan them out really hard on that front, coaches.
Speaker 1:Now the third thing that a that a player said to me is something that happened relatively within the last five years and it really got me. Um, it was after a game and, uh, there was a bit of pressure, external pressure on me and I thought we'd had a one, a win, but it wasn't the type of win we wanted and I got a little bit ropey. And sometimes you get that as a coach and you get a bit fired up and you say things which you don't always stand by in the heat of the. You know, straight after a game and the heat of the battle's just finished and I said some choice words to the, to the team, and as soon as it finished I saw heads down. I know I didn't nail it and it probably wasn't justified and all that stuff, but what a player came up to me is he said stay with with us, coach. He put his arm around my shoulder and just quietly said stay with us, coach.
Speaker 1:You know it was this player's debut game this weekend and in that moment, that small phrase, stay with us. What he was saying to me was mate, you're not quite being yourself here, you've just missed something which you don't normally miss. And he just said stay with us. And I just always remember that night I actually sent him a text message and just said hey, mate, thanks for that. It really impacted me the fact that you were able to see that in me and we had such a relationship that you could say that it just allowed me to then recalibrate myself and I just I think it's awesome, it's really important to stay, stay on board with the team, like when you go up and down. Yes, it's emotional, but stay with us as who you are.
Speaker 1:And something I'd always said as a coach is I wanted to make sure I didn't miss too many milestones or any, and in that moment I had and I'd acted in a way which is not in congruence with the way I wanted to be as a coach and in that moment I went. That's who I don't want to be Mentor earlier, had said to me you don't always know what you want to be as a coach, but you can always say what you definitely don't want to be. And I never wanted to be a coach that missed milestones. And in that moment I had and I was like bang, straight away, bang, you've missed that milestone. Stay with us, coach. He said, and I thought that was a real powerful one and I know if it was, and I was really proud of myself around the culture and the relationship we created and that one of your senior players can say that to you. And I think it's always stayed with me that sentiment that a player would be able to read you as a coach, just as you read them as a player and understood the pressures, the stresses that you're going through, and put an arm around and said stay with us, coach, had the buy-in. So I was really proud of that and I was also really conscious of it that I want to keep that going, keep environments like that. Where you're not, it's not the dictator at the top, it's you're all together, you're the team. Stay together Now, coaches.
Speaker 1:Those three comments for me have been real bits of gold. And the thing with them is I didn't go digging for them, I wasn't even looking for them and often they just sort of hit me in the face. But I caught them and they stayed with me and they've ultimately shaped me massively in not only my coaching, but I caught them and they stayed with me and they've ultimately shaped me massively in not only my coaching but me as a bloke as well. It's made me think Coaching is a bit like panning for gold. You're standing in the river every day. Most of what passes through your hands is just the silt, just water even. But if your eyes are sharp enough and your pan is steady enough, I suppose every now and then you'll get a nugget that stays behind. And for me these three were my nuggets.
Speaker 1:The gold isn't in your plan or your presentation. It's often in the words of the people that are right in front of you your players, your staff, your peers. The job isn't to mine harder, no way. It's really just to tune your antenna to notice the small flecks of gold that float by, because one sentence, one honest reflection from a player, as it's done for me can shift your whole philosophy. But that's only if you're listening for it. Stay well. Hope this has sparked a little bit of something for you in your own reflections. That's the point of these midweek sessions to spark your own reflections. I'll see you on Sunday for our next guest and the following Wednesday for our next reflections. Until then, stay well. The following Wednesday for our next Reflections. Until then, stay well. That's it for today's episode. If this sparked something for you, hit subscribe, share with a coach or teammate or just sit with the questions. That's where the good stuff starts. Catch you next time.