Yes, We Ran A Christmas Beep Test And Loved It

Want a team that shows up, leans in, and stays connected when it matters most? Start with one small tradition. Ben shares a simple holiday story—a family beep test before Christmas lunch—and turns it into a clear playbook for leaders who want stronger culture and steadier performance. From youth to grandparents, everyone takes a role, and that shared ritual becomes a model for belonging, clarity, and care that any sports team or workplace can borrow.

We unpack why traditions work so well: they make people feel like they truly belong, they turn big words like work ethic and cohesion into tangible actions, and they lift engagement so effort becomes consistent rather than streaky. You’ll hear easy, repeatable ideas to try this week: short weekly shout-outs that reward effort and attitude, tight meeting openers that focus attention, and monthly rituals that celebrate values lived over time. We dig into how to adapt rituals to your group’s identity, how to rotate ownership so leadership grows across the team, and how to measure whether a tradition still serves its purpose.

If you’re inheriting a team with strong rituals, you’ll learn how to maintain what works and retire what doesn’t. If you’re starting fresh, you’ll get two or three low-friction ways to build buy-in without heavy speeches or gimmicks. Along the way, Ben shares what’s next for Coaching Culture: new guests, live shows, fresh writing, and deeper work with teams ready to level up their culture. Subscribe, share this with a coach or manager who needs simple tools that actually stick, and tell us: what tradition will you start this week?

If you can SUBSCRIBE, RATE, and SHARE the show and series, you would be doing your bit to grow this show. Very appreciated. Ben

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Chapters

• 1:34 Welcome And Show Focus
• 1:58 Christmas Reflections And Family Rituals
• 2:31 The Beep Test Tradition
• 3:14 From Home Rituals To Team Culture
• 4:00 Practical Traditions Teams Can Start
• 4:48 Three Reasons Traditions Matter
• 6:01 Bringing Traditions Into Your Team
• 8:29 Year-End Thanks And What’s Next

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

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 everybody, Merry Christmas. Hope everyone's had a wonderful Christmas and looking forward to the new year. I just thought I'd step out from my own Christmas because I've had an absolute beautiful one with the extended family all getting around each other as you do on Christmas Day and having an awesome time. And what's to come for us is a massive uh day and a few days following. So I just sort of step out right now and just my little bit of reflections on what this time of year is and how it relates to the coaching culture podcast. Now, here's a couple of traditions that we do as a family. My brother has been doing for the last five or six years a beep test on Christmas Day, which we have just done. And a beep test sounds ridiculous on Christmas Day, but it's probably quite good in terms of making sure you're actually getting a bit of exercise in before all the festivities kick on later on today. But he's a good runner, and so a few years ago he wanted us to uh join him. So now what happens on Christmas Day is all 20 of us get together and run a beep test, old, young, from five years old all the way through to 70. We all start on the beep test line, and some of us only make it a little way, but a lot of them go a long, long way. But everyone buys into it, and it's a cool tradition which we all look forward to. And I'm pretty sore after it already, but it got me thinking about this traditions, about creating traditions, and Christmas in itself is all about traditions. Everyone buying into the traditions, and furthermore, what we've just done post that run is now we're all setting up for our big uh big luncheon, all get together, and everyone's buying in. Even the littlest kids are out there sitting up knives and forks, napkins on tables, all that sort of thing, doing their piece, doing their little bit for that community, that culture of what it is. And I just thought it was a lovely little reflection that we can take to our sports teams, and particularly probably our rugby teams, is what traditions are you creating, which is creating some real buy-in? And if you're not, why not start some traditions in your teams? Make them up if they're not already there. These can be things such as like weekly shout-outs. Once a week, just shout out for something, something you want, like an effort or a trainer of the week or a spirit of the week, things like that. You can have monthly rituals, something you do every month. It could be for the same principle, someone who's been consistently good or adhering to the values you want, whatever it is. You could even have a tradition of the way you start meetings. I remember uh a number of years back, we started with reading the newspaper. Just pull out someone, writer, read out what's happening in the news today. And that was just a little tradition, and the buy-in grew and grew and grew, and it became wonderful. So I just wanted to elaborate, because I'm thinking this way before we kick off to our Christmas celebrations pretty soon, is why you create traditions. What what does it do for your teams? So here's my three reflections on what it does. Number one, it creates belonging. Now, this belonging is a word which a lot of people talk about. Owen Eastwood talks about it in his book, Belonging. And I just think it's a lovely concept. Um, because it matters because when people feel accepted, uh, when they are valued, when they feel safe, they are more engaged, they collaborate better, they're more resilient, and they're able to do their best work. Now that's a quote. Um and I think it's important just to really that belonging piece that traditions give. It helps create a little bit of consistency too. I know what I'm supposed to be doing and it has clarity. I do this part, which leads to this bigger part. I know where I stand and and I feel really safe and and and I belong to this group of people. And when you feel like you belong to something, you always give more. And when you give more, the results at the other end are gonna be better as well. So that's the first thing that creating good traditions does is it creates belonging. The second thing it does is it turns these kind of abstract values into actions. So for example, just doing our beep test, like that that a value is work ethic, but it doesn't mean anything. But by doing a beep test, it's actually putting that that concept of work ethic into an action. It's not just a word, it's an action. And you can do the same for things like cohesion, where us getting together and setting up the table together, preparing the food together is working cohesively. Same with leadership. What happens is people start owning the different aspects of the tradition. Uh my wife stands up and she runs a secret Santa game. One of the kids steps up and hands out all the presents. A couple of the older teenage kids get up and do the dishes. And this leadership arises in action form, not just in words on a wall or a slogan on the wall, as we say. It's actually turning those abstract values into actions, and that's what having good traditions have. That's what it can do. And number three, the third thing it does is it actually boosts engagement, right? Like how much more uh you know connected and engaged you are around these traditions. It creates sparks a bit of fun, right? And when you engage, you're more likely to perform consistently. You just want to help too. You just want to get stuck in. You see it all rolling and you go, yeah, I want to be part of that. And everyone buying in to these traditions helps the engagement levels. And I can certainly see it around the living room. Now it is a hive of activity. I've had to step out and just have this little yarn before we sign off for the year. And I love it. So that's what creating traditions does. One, create belonging, two, turns abstract values into actions, and three, it boosts engagement. Now, where does it go for your teams? Well, sometimes you walk into teams, and I've walked into a few where your traditions are already in place, they're established, it's structured, it's gone for a long time, and you can just maintain and it's there. You don't have to do too much. But sometimes, and in some regards, you actually have to make them up yourself and you have to think about what's going to resonate with this group. And not everything is the same. So have a think about that. Think about what weekly shout-outs you can do, what monthly rituals you can do. How do you have traditions around the way you start and finish your team meetings or your team trainings? What's something you can put in which creates some sort of belonging? A lot of teams do like little songs to finish off or little warm-up claps. You see a lot of teams getting together and doing a some sort of clap, clap, clap to finish or to start. And they're traditions which create a bit of belonging. They turn a little bit of abstract values into action and they boost engagement. So there you go, team. There's a little thing just to think about in this reflections episode is how you can add tradition into your trainings. Now, this is the last midweek reflections before we kick into the new year. The next reflections will come out in the new year. And I just want to say Merry Christmas to everyone, and thank you for supporting the show throughout this year. In January, we come up to one year on the show, and I'm absolutely pumped about the community we've got. And I'm already thinking hard about how to make this level up, this podcast in 2026 and all the things around it. Already started writing new books. We started up the consultancy around some of this stuff in person and talking to a lot of groups around coaching culture, going in in person and speaking and talking, and I love it. We're also thinking about live podcasts in the new year. Where that will be, we don't know yet, but we have got some great guests that are lined up already. We've had an we've got some big scale guests coming next year already. Some of the world's very best international coaches have said, get me on the show. I want to chat about this culture thing. What a pleasure to be chatting to you this year on the Coaching Culture podcast. I am pumped to see you all in the new year. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. We'll see you there.