What If Losing Is Where Culture Begins

A team loses a final. The microphone shows up. Most leaders reach for explanations, soft excuses, or someone to blame. We don’t. We play a short, stunning post-game interview from Gav Hickey, who coaches the Naval Academy in the United States, and we slow it down to hear what it reveals about real leadership, coaching culture, and what your players learn from your voice.

Gav’s message is all pride and perspective: he talks about the character of his players, the joy of spending time together, and the idea that the “ultimate prize” isn’t only a scoreboard. That single minute shows what values-based leadership looks like in the moment that tempts you most to abandon your values. If you coach rugby, lead a staff, or manage any high-performance team, you’ll recognize how quickly your words become the culture people live inside.

We also connect the interview to psychological safety, including Amy Edmondson’s research that the best teams report more mistakes because they feel safe enough to speak up. When leaders don’t blame refs, conditions, or luck, they remove the easy escape hatch and keep the focus on learning, ownership, and growth. We even talk about the “car ride home” and how parents and supporters can either reinforce excuse-making or help young athletes build accountability.

If you want your team to be braver, calmer, and more honest after a loss, start here. Subscribe, share this with a coach or parent who needs it, and leave a review with the line you want your team to hear after the next tough result.

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If you want to chat directly or explore options for your school or club, flick an email to ben@coachingculture.com.au
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Transcript

Midweek Reflections And A Lesson

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Hi team, welcome to the Midweek Reflections. I love this segment, midweek, because we just get that little bit of opportunity to chat about stuff which has gone on recently that I've picked up in the moment, practicing stuff, coaching stuff, coaching a lot of people, mentoring groups and things like that, which I do regularly, where the uh coaches tune in and ask me questions. We run these little mentoring workshops quite regularly, and things pop up which I just love dwelling on. And we had a conversation this week with uh a team that I'm mentoring about something that was said that was absolutely beautiful by our podcast guest that we had, Gav Hickey, who coaches the Naval Academy in the States, and he spoke after they lost the final. And the way he spoke and what he said was absolutely class in my eyes. And it's uh it's something we can all aspire to be like. Because after a game, when we're talking to an interviewer, in fact, when we're talking to anybody, when we're talking to the parents of the children we coach or the fans of the of the team we're representing, the things you say go a long way to showing your team what you're all about. And what Gav did with this aftermatch speech, where they lost the final, was absolutely beautiful. And I'm gonna play right now, word for word, this is his interview after a game. So have a listen to this and reflect on this sentiment post the game, immediately after, when the emotions are high. This is what he said.

Living Values Under Pressure

SPEAKER_00 2:47

I mean, it couldn't be prouder, you know. It's hard when you lose, it's very hard when you lose, but um the manager of these men is just phenomenal, you know. I hope my children turn ahead like these men, and um if they do, I'll be a very fortunate father. They're the greatest young men in the country, and um win or lose, you know. We we won the Ultimate Prize by spending more time together, and we that was we said that a while ago, so I could not be more proud. And um just so fortunate for myself and our coaches and and the midshipmen to be able to spend more time around each other, and um on a selfish perspective for my children to spend more time around these midshipmen for the last three weeks. So we're devastated, but we'll survive. The sun will rise tomorrow, we'll be okay.

Psychological Safety And Mistakes

Removing Excuses And Referee Blame

Parents’ Car Rides And Culture

Coaching Culture Workshops Invite

SPEAKER_01 3:43

How beautiful is that statement. That little minute clip says a word about him as a leader, what he values. It shows where that team has been led by and how it's led and what the environment is like. It's just amazing. Now, if your child was playing for that guy and that team, wouldn't you be proud that that's the statement he says after losing a final? Just magic. Like you're sending your ch child off to play and be and learn from a coach, and that's what he's saying publicly. And knowing Gav, he's not only saying that publicly, that's how he lives by. Now, there's a couple of things in here which I I really want to just just talk about briefly because what he's done there is he's put out his values not by writing them on the wall or preaching them to his team and and putting slogans up and A2 bits of paper with these words on. He's actually living it. When emotions are high and they are highest after a game, he's not blaming referees or pulling people up or critiquing the wind direction or their injury levels. He's saying what he's most proud of. And he's saying how much he enjoys the company of these young players and what they've done for him and the value that he has on them. He talks about things like he'd be proud about his children learning and being like his rugby players. Now, if you're a player listening to that, how proud are you that your coach has said something like that? The most important thing in his life is his children, and he would be proud that they're getting influenced by his rugby players. So he he's putting his values right out there. How proud he is. He doesn't need to do much more after that. You listen to that and you go, Yeah, I know exactly what the sort of guy he is, what he values, and that sort of thing. He's living it, and that's awesome. The second thing I think it's important to note is he just talks about, he creates a safe space where he can talk like this. If your leader's talking like this, it's allowing you the same room to talk exactly the same way. He's modelling the behavior. He's not blaming, he's not finding excuses, he's finding the value that he's getting out of it and the positive value. So now, in a psychologically safe place, what that does is it allows people to speak up, to put their hand up if they make mistakes. The research on this by Amy Emmonson is she did a lot of research uh on the psychological safety phrase through businesses, hospitals, high performance environments. And what she found was the best teams report more mistakes, in essence. That's a short of it. The best teams report more mistakes. And the reason they do that is because they feel like they can. Because there's an environment where putting your hand up and saying, Oh, I mu I mucked up there, or I did something wrong, or someone else did something wrong, the more you do that, the more you can learn from them and fix them and get better and grow. So you want people to be able to put up their hand and say when they have made a mistake. And if you create an environment where you're making it safe to do that, then you're gonna get more people doing it. And what Gav's interview afterwards did, it didn't pull people up, it didn't highlight things, it just talked about the things you value. And I think it was I think it's absolutely lovely, and I think it's something that we all can do and remember to do that whenever you're talking publicly, and by public, I mean to the parents, to the fans, to the those that support your team, what you're saying is actually saying a lot. And it's been seen and heard by your own players, and they're taking that on, and they're learning right, we can put our hands up for mistakes, and we're not gonna get blasted by the coach, or that's not gonna come back to haunt us, that thing. And in a safe place has been created, and I and I absolutely love it, I think it's absolutely sensational. In fact, the other thing, and the and probably the coolest thing as well, is he's actually killed every excuse that you can muster. We talked about things like the refereeing, and this is like how many times after a game will you hear someone talk about the referee in rugby particularly? Like the referee stitched us up, we were unlucky, could have gone either way because but the referee's call, all that sort of stuff. Now, he didn't go there, and he he the the there's uh by not mentioning that stuff, you're actually not making it an excuse. He didn't blame anything, he he removed the excuses and just talked about other stuff, what he what he values, what he's proud of, the behavior he wants to see, that kind of thing. And therefore, players are more inclined to make less excuses. And it's really important. I've had a conversation to parents the of the players that I talked to about the way you handle yourself on the car ride home. And I think it's important to talk to parents about don't encourage or give an avenue or a vehicle for players to blame other people, and referees being one. If your if your son or daughter says, Oh, the referee was terrible, well, you need to nip that in the bud. You need to say, it's not the referee out there playing, the referee is monitoring two sides, they are doing the best job they can to create an even game. Blaming the referee is you know, it's it's a there's a ripple-down effect to that. And Gav sort of stamped it out by blaming nothing. I love that speech that Gav did because it showed real leadership from him. I know him as a falla, and he is he is a champion man and leader. And leadership isn't tested when everything's going perfect and well. Anyone can talk about the values when you win, anyone can say we're accountable when the scoreboard's looking good and all that stuff. But under pressure, when you've lost, that's when it shows up a little bit differently, when your emotions are high, and potentially you're going on autopilot. And when you're on autopilot, what you're at what actually comes out sometimes is actually you know the underlying sentiment. And there's a ripple effect, you know, because we're all going to be in teams that make mistakes. It's amazing to think how what you say after a game, particularly after when you're losing games, can actually have a massive rippled effect on so many different parts of your organization, your team, from your players to your fans to your supporters to the whole community, including the staff they operate in, is powerful. So what you say and what you do and how you act is a massive representation of your culture. So we want to get that right because it has a massive impact. Now, if this kind of sentiment is resonating with you, if you're sitting there thinking we could be better at this as a group, and you want to get your crew together, whether that's your wider management, your staff, your coaches, even some of your community members, that is the space we are working in. We actually get groups together online, and I facilitate unpacking how you actually want to operate, you know, how you're actually doing things now, what it looks like in behavior when it's done well. We're facilitating the coaching culture workshops built around this idea. Giving sessions where people leave Claire. And if that's something you feel your environment would benefit from, drop us a note in the fan mail in the show notes, and you'll be directed through to a booking page where you can book in and I can facilitate a culture session based on my experience and the awesome weekly interviews I do with some of the world's best coaches, what actually works, and just to be aware of the things you're potentially getting wrong. Until next week, stay well.