Joey Mongalo: How to Deal with the Pressures of Coaching

Ever feel like your work is judged on the tiniest slice of time while everything that matters happens in the shadows? We sit down with Sharks coach and leadership consultant Joey Mongalo to unpack how identity, conviction, and a clear model help leaders thrive under pressure—on the field and in the boardroom.

We start with the uncomfortable truth: people judge coaches on 80 minutes. Joey explains how he anchors himself by revisiting his track record to counter noise with facts, then shows why the strongest coaching rooms share pain, not blame. From there, we dive into the power of a pervasive model—the kind that dictates recruitment, training blocks, and language—so decisions get simpler and performance becomes coherent. Think Pep Guardiola’s keeper call, explained in detail and translated for any organization.

The heart of our talk is narrative and alignment. Joey makes a compelling case for “leading up”: enrolling boards and executives with a clear time horizon, milestones, and phrases they can repeat under fire. We frame strategy as story—plot, journey, characters, outcome—so fans, families, and teams know what to expect in year one versus year three. A Spurs ball boy moment becomes the blueprint: when everyone understands the model, everyone becomes a game‑changer.

We translate high performance sport into business with practical tools: move from silos to fences with doors, use shared language to build repeatable behaviors, and coach teams to manage work‑ons, maximize strengths, and then mold and mobilize others. Joey’s Team IP3 framework—Identity, Purpose, Philosophy, Process—ties it together, giving leaders a simple way to align at the top and create cohesion on the ground. We close by reframing adversity: life is unfair and leadership is tough, which is exactly why clarity and courage are competitive advantages.

If this conversation helps you sharpen your model or your message, share it with a leader who needs it, subscribe for more culture-first coaching talks, and leave a review with your three-word model—we’ll feature our favorites next time.

For all your rugby and sports gear needs Check out Silverfern here: https://silverfernsport.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=coaching-culture

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Pressure On Coaches

SPEAKER_00 0:58

All people have is 18 minutes to judge your ability on. Um, and the beautiful thing about that is actually in those 80 minutes, your influence of the as a coach is very limited. You want your threats to come outside the room, not in the inside rooms. There's um there's a biblical verse, I don't know the address in the Bible that says, but with where there's no vision, people perish. If we start speaking about cricket and test cricket now, I promise you'll think I'm not a rugby coach because I I'll get up four in the morning to watch the ashes. The saying, I think that says the highest trees catch the most wind.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Welcome to Coaching Culture, the podcast about cultivating culture and leadership. I'm Ben Herring. I've been loving this side of the game for bloody ages. Today's guest is Joey Mongalo. Joey is back by popular demand. His first episode lit it up, and I've had so many people loving his messaging that we had to get him back on. If you don't know, Joey is currently coaching in the Sharks in South Africa, and more than that, Joey brings extraordinary perspective to coaching culture. Having lost his father early, having elite rugby coaching experience, multiple degrees, and even his own leadership business. On top of that, he is an absolutely champion man. It's a pleasure, Joey, to have you back on the Coaching Culture podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Ben, thank you for that resounding introduction. Um, I was actually saying to my wife, I was wondering why you brought me the second time. You know, usually when somebody calls you around the second time is to redo it again because it wasn't good enough. But I'm glad, I'm glad you've said that it was by popular demand. So no pressure. Um, but it's always a joy to be here. And I want to compliment you as well. I've just been watching all your other episodes. I think your ability to unearth um knowledge from people and to bring it out of them, I thought, to draw it out of them. I think it's quite a skill. So keep doing what you're doing. You're changing many lives out there, bro.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Thanks, mate. Well, it is a pleasure with people like yourself on the show and the the people that I surround myself over here in Australia just love hearing your voice too, mate. And and and you're doing great things yourself, not only on the rugby field, but on some of the on the business side too, mate, and the leadership side, which we will get to later on, because whilst the show's vehicle is rugby, it is for everybody that runs teams, um, whether that's corporate or otherwise, on field and off. And your perspective there uh is very unique, and I'd love to dive into that later on the show. But first, mate, I'd love to talk to you about some of the pressures of coaching. Um you've already talked about culture in the previous one, but very topical at the moment where when the stresses and strains come on in rugby, why is the pressure on coaches so intense?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Um there's a saying I think that says the highest trees catch the most wind. Um so I don't know if it's a South African thing, but we we often speak about that. Um so it's almost like a a realization that we all want to climb the corporate ladder or the rugby ladder. Um, as an 19 coach at the Lions, I was thinking, you know, one day I want to get there, I want to do this. And but the minute you get there, you must know that this is what you asked for. You asked for that the highest winds are gonna catch the most, the highest trees are gonna catch the most wind, which means you are highly exposed. Um and what I mean by highly exposed is that there is no covering, you know. So once the players go out of there, all people have is 80 minutes to judge your ability on. Um, and the beautiful thing about that is actually in those 80 minutes, your influence of the as a coach is very limited. Um, what you do before then and what you do after that matters a lot. Um, but the actual 80 minutes of rugby, your influence is very little. Um, and that's all people have to judge you on. They nobody writes a narrative of, hey, look how well you reviewed on Monday and how you your review preview linked well, look how well you helped the guys recover. That's not in the discussion. The discussion is the 80 minutes. Um and I think that's where the pressure comes from, is that it's a yes or a no tick. There is no maybe and in between. Um, I think if you can think of any assessment where somebody assesses you well, they'll say, build a burger, you know. So tell Ben, hey, listen, um, you started this well, you did this, and then this you can do better. And then, well, you're very good at that. So we build this burger where the bun on either side is positive. So you enter positive, you give the constructive criticism, and then you close the bun with something positive. With coaching, it's raw. It's it's only the middle pit, it's only the patty, and the patty is either good or it's not good. Um, and you get to hear it, you know. Um, I probably envy the coaches who coached in the before the social media era as well and the media, you know. So those guys, I'm sure they went home and the guys at their church or in the grocery shopping mall walked the other way when they walked around them. Um, but these the coaches now, the guys get to cop it um everywhere. Um, it's everywhere out there. So I think that's probably part of it, um part of the start of that conversation.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Isn't it amazing? Particularly in more so in other sports like soccer, isn't it? Like they're ruthless, aren't they? Like you lose a few games in a row and you're gone. Like the the there's the the patty's not cooked right, you're out. And that's the reality, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 6:01

It is, man.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Uh how do you separate that feeling, like you as coach, from the 80 minutes? Like, how do you remove yourself and and not let it destroy you as a coach? Because that's yeah, a fear and a pressure which is real, right?

Identity And Belonging Amid Criticism

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Yep, that's good. Um, I would say in the back end, a habit that I've gotten into doing whenever I get into a place of doubt or concern, anything like that. Um I I like to go back and write out my CV. So I literally remind myself, um, I write it back and I say, okay, 2011, you're with the Lions first coaching gig, you won the Lions under 19, so that coaching group, then 2016 and 2017 again, 2018 super rugby final. So I write those things not as um an arrogant or uh whatever thing, is to say, remind yourself of who you are. Um, because noise does that, right? Like noise distracts you from your identity. Like who is Joey Mungalo at its core, both as a man and as a rugby coach. Um so as a rugby coach, I write those down so I can remind yourself to say, hey, you're okay. You you belong here. You know, so I think once a coach or whoever is in that the the tall tree, you can remind yourself that you belong. Um, I think then the level of noise gets muffed up a little bit because the first question you can't be asking yourself is, do I belong? I think if you get to your points of asking yourself, do you belong? Then every jab that comes at you carries a lot of weight. Um but if I've made peace with myself and the people around me that I belong, well, I can flood flood Mayweather, you know, I can just take the jab off my, you know, I can, it goes off my off my shoulder onto the thing. I feel it, but it doesn't carry as much weight because I'm reminded that I belong here. Um so that's the one. Um I think the other one is the strength of a coaching group. Like I remember one of my fondest memories was the 20, 2023 um end of the year tour with the spring box. So I was able to travel with that group. Um and I just got to see close hand that incredibly tight relationship back then, which still is with between Russi, Rasmus, and Jacques Ninoba. Um, I think we lost that test match. We won the team bus. We lost a test match. That must have been 1813 or something or 1815, very tight test match. But when you saw these guys seated opposite each other of the aisle in the bus, and you see the equal disappointment and the equal pain, the equal hurt, the equal investment, the equal mourning. I realized in that moment, if you can be in a coaching group where the first thing is you don't look internally whether something's wrong. You first connect together, you feel the same, you know how much you've put in, there's no internal enemies, then you can together deal with whatever's been said outside. So I think that's a great source of support. You know, you don't want to be looking around in the inner room. You want your threats to come outside the room, not in the inside room. So I think, and we don't all get to coach the coaching, we don't get to pick the coaching groups we are in, but if we can find one where we can have that level of support amongst each other, it's again like a shoulder jab thing, right? Like it just stops the pain. It's not a hit because there's nothing worse that can hit you in that moment than feeling like internally there's some jabs coming. I mean, that is a painful jab, you're not expecting it. Um, so you want to sense that, um, that sense of security first internally.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

And how do you how would you suggest you go about like in most coaching teams, you don't get to pick everyone you're working with. How would you how do you grow a relationship so that it's such that you don't look internally that you're you're creating those relationships where you're actually coming together? What would you what have you done and and what would you recommend people do to strengthen internal relationships?

Strong Coaching Rooms And Shared Pain

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Well, one is I haven't achieved it fully. So I'm not speaking to anybody here as a as a guru of some sort, but what I've seen as principles is on a practical level, Ben, when a team has got um a clear way of play and what that means, it helps a lot. So for example, if I'm a defense coach for an attack coach like a guy like Swayze De Brain, um who I was with the Lions, and his his mindset is attack, attack, attack. He literally leaves a change room, and the last thing he says is attack, attack, attack. That's what they know him for. So as a defense coach to a head coach like that, I've got to know that defense is about just get them to concede, just concede less trials and points than that than us, because that's all that matters. So I can't go into a game expecting 21, 18. It's more like 35, 25. So if I know that and he knows that, then already, because we understand the game model plays towards that, then there's less tension because I know he's satisfied with a game where we win 45, 35. Because he's just saying, well, flippin', you did well. We know our game is high risk, we know our game plays with our territory, we know it's high ball and play. So if we make mistakes and teams score from counterattack, it's okay. So already we know the model is protecting us as a coaching group. I think that helps a lot. Um, and then the other one is almost looking for synergy with assistant coaches where the work overlaps. So, for example, if we come up against a team that is massive on malls and they score a lot of mall tries. So the connection with the forwards coach to say, I hear that, I know that this week the pressure's on you, us, but on you, for stopping malls. How do we tweak our defense to make sure that the mall is a place of security for us? They don't get any joy there. So he might say, listen, it'll help a lot if we tighten up the vacuum and everyone comes slightly tighter. So I think then the guy feels like flip. This Oak is not just in it for himself, but he's in it for the greater group, right? Then it's like, okay, well, when his turn comes and he's under pressure and he's asking on a seven-man defense whether he can go with six-man so we can have one out, I'll gladly give that to him because he's reached out in Olive Branch, so I can myself reach out in Olive Branch, you know? Um, and it's easier said than done, Ben, because I know when pressure comes, we easily become silos, right? So when the pressure comes, is as long as we're conceding few points, I know that my job is safe. But that is almost like the primal animal instinct, right? Um, but if we think beyond that, we're actually all in it. Because if the team is doing badly, it's very rare that one department shines. All of them will just meander to mediocre. So if we can like just step outside of that animal instinct part and say, okay, as thinking humans, uh higher order thinkers, can we see how little connection points can make all of us better? And hopefully all of us getting better makes the team better. Um and again, a lot of it's theoretical, but it takes a lot of um boldness to go out to people and reach out that way and also trust that what you're putting in there with another assistant coach, they'll do the same to you.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah, that's awesome. So effectively you're saying you don't you don't work in silos as a coaching group, do you? Yeah, you you have to you know understand that all the the game is interlinked, and all these little niche points flow on to someone else's area, so you've got to work with it. Like if your scrum's having a big week, it's gonna affect the ability to attack because you're tired and you're gonna have players out of the defensive line, right? So you've got to work not in your own little side, you've got to break that down. That's essentially the essence of it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah, I think you're spot on, you've nailed it. Like it is it is intertwined. And I think a generation or two ago, rugby was sort of like that. You almost had your attack, you had your defense, you had your set piece because there was a lot of like stop, start, rugby got your penalty, kicked out, did the mall, got a penalty, kicked out again. But now the kicking game itself and how you play between the two 22s has become such a critical way. Um, the way I've tried to articulate it for myself is that you almost see a team's desire to win by how they play in the opposition 22 because they want to score. Like you just see a massive desire, like we're gonna score. Um, you see a team's character for me about how they defend in their own 22. Um, but their style, I find you see in between the two 22. So if you look at the Aussies play in that area of the field, it's like high ball in play, many touches, many integrated moves. Then you're like, okay, well, they want to win the middle third with the ball in hand. If you look where England is, where the the springbox are, it's more teams who are saying, we're gonna win the middle third without the ball. We want to create transitions. So we want contest in the air, ball falls, in that moment we want to strike. And if we don't get it again, well, we're gonna go to the air again. So that is showing more of the identity, and hence when a coaching group for me can be clear on what that identity is and how all its respective areas um align with each other in that part of the thing, then I think it takes away from Ben, your attack is not working, Joey, your defense is not working, and Sam, your line outs aren't working. No, it's collectively how is what I'm doing affecting you, and how's what you're doing well affecting me as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

And you said earlier the model is protecting us as a coaching group. But I guess I would s suggest people need to know the model. And would that be the head coach's job to actually relay with clarity what the model is and what the expectations are around the bigger model?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yep, Ben. Um and you and you said we're gonna speak about the the leadership stuff later uh later, and and and where it stops and starts for me is with the leader and their conviction of their inverted brackets model, whether it's corporate, school, whatever it is, that model. If you can think about um Pep Guardiola, I love the story. You know, when he first got to Man City, sorry about that, I think he got rid of Joe Hart, England number one, before he even stepped foot at Man City. Because he's so convicted that his keeper must have the skill set to pass the ball. And everybody told him, you know, the way you play football is never gonna work in England. Everyone plays long balls, it's strong players, it's not this Spanish way of ticka-taca. And he said, Well, I'm gonna come do it that way. So if you ever go to him, he'll tell you, my man, I need guys who in a five by five meter room can pass the ball a hundred times in two minutes. He's gonna live and die by that. So when you come as an assistant coach to him, you can't be thinking, how are we gonna kick long balls to number nine and he's gonna chest trap and score? It's like even with Holland um there, they don't even do that, right? So it's it's it's such a conviction and it's gotta be pervasive. Everything you do, train, speak about, you everything is is is um I I got a friend, um Dave Williams. I should actually get him on a on a show sometime. He's brilliant. He speaks about how everything should be subservient to the model. Your recruitment, your advertising, your everything. It's almost the center point is around that model. It's everything.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

And also you use pervasive when you said it, like it just seeps in everywhere, like you can't get away from it, right? It's almost like a disease on you.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

100%. I like that. I've never I've never seen it like leprosy, but that's a great way. I'm never gonna forget it, right? Like because it's like you can't miss it. You can't miss it. If somebody's got that, you see it from afar, you can smell it on them. It's everything. It's so once you have that, it takes almost unnecessary decision-making out of you. So let's say recruitment. If you are Pep Guardiola and you see central backs, and there's guys who you see struggle to pass the ball and interchange the ball, but even he's the best in that competition, you're looking at him, you're thinking, even though he's the best there, he's not gonna be the best for us. We'll rather take the guy who's maybe a tier lower, but he understands and he's got the primary skill set to do what we do. So we're gonna take him. Everybody else can go go for the other guy, but we're gonna take this person. What are we gonna do in preseason? Well, how do we improve short passing? Because that's what we do. And what are we gonna do with our personal development? Well, we're gonna go look at sports codes who pass the ball a lot in a short space of time because whatever we can learn there is gonna help aid the model. Um, so I hope you can see in those three short examples how because it's pervasive, it influences every decision that we make. And takes unnecessary decision making out of the way, Ben. Sorry, I had to add that.

Breaking Silos: Interlinked Game Roles

SPEAKER_01 18:41

No, that's important, man. Unnecessary decision making, it's just done. You don't need to need to think, do you? Because you know, you just go it's done. It's like the kids at home, they just know dad is gonna say no to a dog because he's staunchly against pets. So they don't even ask anymore because they know my answer. It's everywhere, they know it. It's it's simplified. But mate, how do you get the um that sort of conviction in in a leader? Like, how do you grow that in someone? Because it's for most people, there's a bit of doubt and they're not quite sure they're working things out. How do you be have that pervasive conviction about what you stand for?

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Just one quick one before I answer that one. Uh with the pets, um, we've told, we've told our daughters um that mom and dad are allergic to pets. So one day they'll be old enough to listen to this and say, what were you doing? But um, we also we're not pet fans, so we love animals, but we're not pet fans. So we've told ours the same. So they know that they won't ask us for pets. Um, but on your question, I think it's uh it's a it's a massive one. Um I think a couple of things, Ben. I think one is sometimes you enter an environment and things are done so contrary to the way you want to do them that you say, I'm gonna do the exact opposite of that when I get my own opportunity. Um so I remember in my early coaching career, I worked with a head coach and he just never backed me. Like he just like it felt like he was always watching over my shoulder. It felt like he was second guessing everything I was doing. And while this is going on, I thought to myself, the first time I'm a head coach, I'm gonna give those assistants so much freedom, so much backing, so much support that they never, I never want them to feel an ounce of what I felt from that guy. So when they did their units meeting, I'd literally sit with a physio under the poles, on the backpacks, or just watching on the behind the poles, just watching and saying to them, you do your thing. I want you to know at that moment, you're the head coach of your unit. I'm fully trusting you to do your job because we spoke in the coaches' meeting. You said what you're gonna do. I want you to feel the freedom that I didn't feel. So I think there's a sense of when you've experienced something and you never want somebody else to experience it. I think there's that. There's definitely that element. Um, the other one is if you've backed something else. And didn't get the result that you wanted. And you in your review process are saying to yourself, man, I wish I was reviewing now what I backed and that didn't work. And not, I did what Ben suggested I would do and that doesn't work. So my first review, and I was thinking, shucks, I should have just backed myself. Right. So first I've got to reconcile the fact that I backed Ben and not myself. And then after that, I can start to then try and process the rest of the review process. Where I'd rather be sitting there saying, I've lost this on my own sword. I've died on my own sword. Therefore, the review is, well, what about what I believe is not working anymore? I can comprehend that, I can fix that. But it's hard to fix something that I went to war with that I didn't believe in from the beginning. So that's the other one. Then the other one I think is a sense of winning and success. If you've won doing something in a certain way, there's a surety, there's a conviction, there's a clarity to doing it all over again because you know it's highly likely to bring you success. Um, and I say that with a with a caveat of it's not blind success. It's not Nokia who says we've got the 3310, we're always going to have the 3310, we're not going to change our technology and then you become obsolete. It's not that sort of, it's it's it's partly that we've got a 3310, it is working, but there's a 20% there that's saying, even though it's working, how are we continuously evolving to stay ahead of the curve in what we're doing? Um, so I think, yeah, in summary, it's that sense of something you've experienced that you really didn't enjoy, um, a sense of dying on your own convictions. Um, you've experienced this thing, you're gonna go to war with it, especially in the most scrueling matches, one where if you don't win, you don't get your job again. You want to go in that way. And then the last one is that sense of repeating a success that you've done, but repeating it in a way that's got some evolution to it, um that it's not exactly the same. So you can identify it, looks similar, but there's something different because you're evolving, the game is evolving, people are evolving, technology is evolving. So you're evolving the same model in a slightly different way.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Mate, I really love your first example there about the experience you've had. And I think that's a real easy one, right? Like it's it's sometimes you don't necessarily know what you want, but you don't you know what you don't want, or you you know pretty clearly what you don't like. And you talked about the behaviour that a coach did to you, and you said, I didn't like that. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do, but I'm definitely not gonna do that. I'm gonna do the opposite of that. And yeah, like I I tell this example about that mate where it's like a kid in a candy shop, right? They're looking at all the choices and they're like, Oh, I don't know which one to take. And then you go, curry up, hurry up, and they can't decide, and you go, Well, which one don't you want? And they go, Well, I don't want that licorice, also, they're yuck. They know straight away. And you go, Right, oh, any other thing but that, I'll grab that, it's fine. And you're away. You're reducing the choices there. Yeah, mate, it's it's fascinating, mate, around that side of growing that leadership thing. But w this is where we started with. It's it gets tricky, right, once that pressure comes on. Like it's it's it's all very well to stay to talk about you know, dying convictions in a perfect world, right? But when you are getting, say, losing streak and you've got board members coming at you going, what are you doing? Why are you doing it this way? And you've got these external pressures coming to you, that changes the dynamic, doesn't it? It changes the internal swirls in your head. What would you suggest is a is a good way to steady that ship and and just keep going if you think it's right, or do you think you need a little bit of flex on some of the stuff?

Models That Protect Coaching Groups

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Um I would say pre-work is an important part, um, Ben, with this, is that it starts with the convection. So you're a coach who convicted about a way, um, and hopefully you can then get the assistants who got the same conviction, a playing group that's got the same conviction. But this concept of leading up is very important for me is that if you can get your board and all the decision makers above you understanding the model and understanding how long it's going to take to implement and what you need to implement it, that pre-work matters because you go into a season saying the support level that you are giving me in equipment, players, etc., is at 50% at the moment. So although you know where we're trying to go, you know that your investment in this thing is only 50%. So the likelihood of us reaching full success this season is probably not there. So if we can work out a two or three year plan, um, and sometimes let's say two years, because realistic, you've got about two years in rugby. So year one, let us settle, year two, let us find success, which is still quite early because ideally one three to five years, but let's be realistic, it's probably got two years, is to say, can we agree and shake hands that in year one, what you've given to this thing to succeed is only 50%. So you're gonna start seeing it, but you're not gonna see it fully. In year two, if you guys can level that up to about a 75 to 80%, then the degree to which you agree and give what we need is to the degree that which we'll grow and you guys will see this model. So I think the power to one control a narrative, two, to have the power decision makers understand, even if it's roughly what you're trying to do, it just gives them something to say when they're speaking. So if you can imagine you are the president of whatever football team, let's make a football team, and the team is two-one down in a game, and they keep playing the ball at the back to build from the back with a keeper, because that's the model you've said. We want to break teams down by building from deep. And they're sitting there, and some person is sitting there too saying, but Ben, why is your team taking such risk? And that board member can say, Do you know that he's explained this to me? The probability of breaking down a team deep makes your likelihood of scoring 50% better by what they're doing. I know it doesn't look like that. It looks insane. Just the fact that he feels empowered with basic understanding of your model to share that means that you've done a good enough job in pre-work to help him articulate his frustration, his, because that's what happens, right? You've got people there who know the game, but not necessarily throw themselves deeply in the game. Then they get influenced by either ex-players or media by saying, well, uh, this team, Ben 11, is playing high-risk football. It's like, then it's like, yeah, but why are you guys playing high-risk football? It's like, no, no, remember what we spoke about? We spoke about taking risks low down the field because they're going to give us rewards high up the field, even if that's just a narrative. So now you've got a narrative, you've given him words, you've given him phrases to articulate what this model is, and therefore that's powerful. So when he comes to you and he says, listen, you've got to win in the next three games, you're like, okay, I hear you, you've said this, but remember we are in year one, and we said in year one, it's going to look like this. So I would propose the narrative is yes, they said we've got to win in the next three games, but even if we win one, draw one or draw two, if you're seeing progress in the model, can you buy us more time? Because if there's not understanding of the model, then it becomes that 80-minute thing, right? That you've got people watching you and saying, you lose pin, you're out of here. Or I saw you losing with your model, and I can see that there's hope for this thing. I can see it growing. What you look like in January doing what you're doing, and what you look like in March is vastly different. And because I can see that growth, I can go back to the board and say, guys, just hold on, hold on, one more preseason, one more year. I know I can see this thing is going off in the right direction.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

I love that mate, that narrative. And that's a skill set too, right? Being able to explain yourself clearly, right? And and and pre-work on the vision, like sell the vision to the right people, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

So there's um there's a biblical verse, I don't know the address in the Bible, it says, but with where there's no vision, people perish, right? So so when when there's a clear vision, we're all throwing ourselves towards something. Um I've had a guy um address vision as an address. So if you give people a clear address of where you're going, then they can sort of strap up and say, well, I'm in this thing, like I'm in this journey. So if you've got key decision makers on board with where you are going and they've they are bought in because your narrative is so clear, it's like we are here right now, we've got the option of playing conservative football, kicking long, and we might win some games, but in the long term, we will not build a championship team. But if you can trust me that it's gonna take time to break down a team that's used to kicking long, to play in contests risky, risky, short passing, many passes, football to go to the other side. If you can trust me that it's gonna take time, but when we get there, we're gonna have fanfare because we're gonna have people coming to support us knowing there is no other team in the league that passes the ball more effectively more times than this team. So I'm already giving even the social media people a narrative. They've got things to post. Look at them in training, passing 50 passes in two minutes. Look at them in that translating into the game. Look at it translating them into scoring a um a goal. Then it's like, wow, man, I can see it. It's not just words you gave me. I saw you train it, I saw it come alive in the game, I saw it in a result. So then it doesn't because without vision, the perishing happens. Uh, this just came to my head now. The perishing happens because then the result itself on the weekend is the judge and the only judge. Right? Because there's no progress. It's no vision. So all I want you to do is win, and you'll do whatever it is to win, but you're winning often without design. The best teams win by design. Like you know, like let's say the Bulls of old at Loftus. You knew you were gonna go there. They were gonna kick out, they were gonna maul you, they were gonna come around the corner. People even knew their plays. They could give you their playbook, but you still had to stop it, Ben. So that is a team winning by design, right? So, so yeah, I don't wanna, I think I've I don't want to lose train of thought, but I think you're getting me. Like I'm getting passionate about the vision and that articulated well because it helps people understand what your Monday to Friday looks like. So Saturday is not a once-off result thing, is it's it's uh, they can see your design, they can see your process in making what Saturday is.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

It's this is this is awesome, man. And I don't think it just equates to sports, it's it's everything, it's business, it's life too, it's even your relationship with your spouse. If you like I was just thinking then when you were talking, like the more, the better I can articulate what I'm thinking and why I'm doing what I'm doing. Like, honey, I just need four hours to nail off this stuff because once I get this work done, I'm then there for the kids 100%. I'm not distracted, and you're gonna get a different fella there. And if you can give me that, then this is the outcome I'm expecting to see. And if you articulate that well, your partner goes, Okay, yeah, I'm on board. I I I understand. And the kids go, Where's Dad? Oh no, no, he's he's working through this thing so he can be back here and be really present when he comes back in four hours time. And if you just went quiet on that and kept it to yourself, the flip side is everyone in the family's like, what the hell's going on here? Like, what's where's dad? What's he doing? Man, this he's been he's been a d a dick. Like he's just mucking around, like, what is he doing? And then the that sentiment spreads the same as what you're talking about, right? Rather than my wife being able to cut it off right there, bang, because she knows she's been enlightened, you've let her into the narrative and she understands the why, and so she she's with you, she's on board, which is what you're talking about. The CEOs and the board members, bro.

Conviction, Evolution, And Pep’s Lesson

SPEAKER_00 33:47

I've never had like continuous goosebumps. So the whole time you were speaking and how you articulated that, I promise you cut that off, cut that off, and sell it somewhere. It is it is probably the best I've heard somebody articulate this in. Because think about what you've just said. There's the same scenario, the one, a narrative is articulated, it's enlightened. So your wife comes across as a partner, your kids buy in. So whether they asked you or asked your wife, it's the same answer because the narrative is the same, and therefore they buy in. So she can protect you on the back of that. But if the same thing happened and you're stuck in your in your studio trying to flip and work through this Joey thing to see if you can find any gold in it, and she opens the door and you're like, no, no, I'm busy, I can't do that thing. She walks out reluctant because she doesn't understand. What was that response? When the kids ask, What's dad doing? Oh, dad's being dad again. So suddenly, same scenario, but the one goes left field wrong way, the other one is understandable. You probably get to a point where your kids say, Dad, we flip and love the dad that you were after those four hours. So the next time they see you going in there, they're thinking, Flip, it's awesome. Dad's gonna be there for three or four hours, but when he comes back, he's superhuman. It's a different man. Um, bro, it's that is it, man. That is that is the point of difference between a narrative that enlightens people or a lack of communicating or not not having or not communicating adequately where you're going with people. It's exactly that. And think about what you just said now about the pressure. High trees, we start with high trees, the pressure. If I'm a fan and I get let into this, somebody says, listen here, Joey, you're the head coach of the Blue 15 and you've just come in. And I say to you guys, listen, guys, you know where Blue 15 is, Ven. In our first year, can you just judge us on effort? We're not gonna win match, but you can come to the stand and I can promise you from minute one to minute 18, you're gonna see people try. And in our second year, you're gonna start to see our style of play. And in our third year, you can bring anybody to come see a winning team. So suddenly, when somebody's sitting at a bar and they said, But what's this Joey guy doing with the blue 15? He's like, dude, did you not see them? They lost that game. But did you see how those guys scrambled in the corner to make a try, saving tackle, even though they lost by 20 points this week? They lost by 50. They start telling your narrative to the rest of the world. But if he doesn't know that, and the guys are what's wrong with the blue 50? Yeah, that Joey guy, man, he's useless. He never won with a green team, he never won with a yellow team. He's doing the same thing here. Same narrative, two different ways, because you were super clear about where you're going. I think this is power. Flip.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Yeah. Just letting people win, right? Just letting people into the story. And when we're talking about the story, man, I was just thinking of another little side um segue too. It's like like a story, any story. I've just read the Odyssey to my kids, you know, Homer's Odyssey, and every story has a plot, a journey, an outcome. And along the way, there's characters along the way. And it's the same as when you're creating the narrative, you're telling the plot of what's going to happen. And there's a journey, and there's there's an outcome at the end, which you you address. And then along the way is the characters. You just talked then about the characters, it's about effort this year. This part of the journey, this chapter is about the characters are gonna give you 100% effort. That's what this little chapter, this segment in the story is gonna be. And that effort is gonna lead to all sorts of things. So I just kind of love framing what you're talking about, the narrative, like an actual story. But like, and I guess too, to really double down on it, the more conviction you have in telling this narrative, the more passionate you get, the more into it you get, it just drives this like belief in you. Like he knows what he's doing, this fella. Like, look at him. He's just uh we we don't know if he's right or wrong, but he's so into it. Let's just go with it, man, because this is cool to see. And so finding your little story, and your story doesn't even have to be the right story, does it? Because there's no right or wrong stories, there's just stories. So tell your one and tell it with passion and authentic authenticness and have a bit of an outcome and a journey along the way, and what the little little stories that are gonna help people remember what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Brilliant, bro. I just wrote you because I thought that plot journey, outcome and characters is massive for stories, so I'm definitely gonna use that in the future. But I just wrote you passion, conviction, and model. Right? So if you if you've got this passion, is it just like we said, uh, the model is pervasive, you can't get away from passion. Like, if you speak to somebody about something and they tell you, like, I mean, if we start speaking about cricket and test cricket now, I promise you'll think I'm not a rugby coach because I I'll get up four in the morning to watch the ashes because I can't wait to see basketball. So as soon as I start speaking to you about it, you're like, flip, let me, even if I don't like cricket, I want to hear more because the way you're coming across is there must be something to this thing. It's maybe something I didn't know about it, or nobody ever explained it to me this way, but passion already locks people, like flip, there must be more to this. Let me hear. Then, because passion can be widespread, the conviction almost channels the passion. He's convicted and he's passionate about test cricket, but he's super passionate about day one, first ball, first session, because that set the tone for the test series. Now, suddenly you take all that passion and you put it into this. Who's opening the batting? What is the field set like? What's the day of the morning? You know what I mean? So you you bring that all into this, and then you say, okay, to win the first session of the first test match that sets the tone for the test series. This is how I believe we do it. We set on on when we're fielding, we set attacking fields, we whatever, we flip and chirp the batsman, whatever it is, you do that. When we're batting, we don't want to concede a wicket. So we don't care about one run rate, for example. But it's your conviction about so there was a passion, you convicted by bringing that passion together, but now you bring all that together into the model. Because when you're asking the characters that you spoke about, you're asking them, can you buy into this way? If you've got an opening batsman, is are you the type of guy who can bat for us? I don't care about the run rate, but can make sure we don't lose weakets in that first morning. Are you a grinder? Yes, I'm a grinder. My guy, you belong in this team. You fit into this thing. When you're picking your captain, setting fields, are you the type of guys willing to put three slips and a galley and only two guys on the on side and you might have fours scored against you, but you're willing to do this? Cap Skipper, I love that coach. Let's go with that way. Then now the conviction of the model comes in. Then you start pulling the right people into this thing who will then share the same passion, share the same convictions, and then give themselves fully to this model.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Jeez, I love it, mate. I love it. It's like you're sort of you're you're you're wrapping it all up into one, isn't it? Like you you've I love that little sentiment. Like the if you've got a present, it's not just a toy tractor. It's the passion is the wrapping it up. The conviction is tape, the tape that connects it all together and holds it all together, gives it, it channels it. And then underneath, once you get through those two things, the passion and the conviction, you've actually got the the the thing you're there for, which is the game model you believe in. And yeah, yeah, it's exciting. That's the passion, Peter's ripping apart that ripping paper. And you go, yeah, let's have a look at it, and you get down to the core root of why you're here, and let's yeah, let's chirp that batsman, let's let's get some wickets with our bowling, all that stuff. Mate, this is cool stuff, mate. Is is is this uh it's is this part of your there's some of your leadership framework stuff that you put together as in your other life outside of the 45?

Selling Vision Upward To The Board

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Um, I'll say one more thing on your thing. You spoke about characters. So you said the wrapping paper, the tape, and then the excitement is the model because that's a real toy. Then the character is the people who buy into it, right? So the the receiver of the toy is like, yes, this is this is what I want, man. And what they then end up doing is they disciple others. Like, have you seen my toy? You say, and it's like, this is about my toy, and that's about. No, no, I also want a toy like that. Then you've got this whole group of characters, you know, filling around this thing because I'm so passionately and convicted about this thing that I bring people along with me. Um, but I thought, anyways, that's Wait, wait, can I just add, can I just extend to this?

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Because I'm loving this metaphor that we're rolling here. And you're talking about the characters of people who unwrap it, but like imagine it's that childhood game, it's past the parcel and it's multiple layers, and when it stops on you, the music stops, you rip it open, and then there's another layer, and you pass it around to the music stops, and then that person gets to rip it over. And so all these different people along the way are having their little bit of passion where they get to have their little say, their little opening. And by the time it gets to the last person and they get the toy in the end, everyone's so excited because they they were part of it. They they don't actually mind they didn't get the toy. That's irrelevant. They they they go, that's cool, that's the toy. That's a nice tractor, that's cool. But what they're actually loving is that whole thing together, that the the whole the whole thing wrapped together, the the game that everyone was part of. Like unwrapping the game. That's what I when I play with the kids, like when we play that at Christmas, as old as you're never going to win the prize, and you don't want to win the prize, it's just you're part of it. You're you're you're watching the joy, you're watching the passion, you're watching the kids just into it, and and that's kind of like all the characters in your sports environment too. The more passion they can have, and you're part of the narrative, you're the person that's actually making that that game up, you're making the the the layers, you're putting that together and saying, Here you go, you're in, you're part of this play, play musical pass the parcel game. And they go, Cool, yeah, we'd love to play it. And then you've got your you've got your evangelists after that. Next time you say, Should we play that game again? Everyone's like, Oh yeah, we're in with you. We're with you, coach. You've got us. Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

My last ad. You might add another one. If you can think now about that pass the parcel, two things I'm thinking. One, in a coaching group, when you're passing the parcel, we all are part of it. So it doesn't matter who the gift ends with, as long as we won, right? So if we maul 10 more tries, I don't sit there as an attack coach saying, but yes, we didn't play beautiful rugby. It's we knew that the present was going to be about the mauling. So it landed on him, we mauled. Beautiful. We're all excited because we're part of this thing. That's on a that's on an internal one. But if you can think abroader, the next level. So imagine in a rugby team, your medical staff, your media, your social media, your everyone is just as in enthralled with this thing. So when the team doctor is getting somebody ready, they're like, this five locks is so critical to this model, I'm gonna actually get them a scan on Sunday morning, which I usually wouldn't do because I know how critical this guy is to this thing. Because you've let me in, I'm a part, now I'm an invested part. Does that make sense? So it's doing this way. Then the social media person says, Well, flip, man, I know that the team's a bit of a downer, but if I can put this up as a reminder of what they look like when they're doing this model well, I'm gonna put this up. Or if I want to give a little snippet to the people out there so they can also feel like they're part of this thing. So suddenly you growing this thing from an internal investment and a part, and it just keeps growing layers out and out and out until you've got fans speaking your narrative with the same passion, same conviction, and feeling like they also getting the toy passed to them in some way. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

And and we could even say, just to branch it to everybody, this is not just professional level. You can take this down to amateur club rugby, for example, where you can say it's the lady in the kitchen, it's the guys, the old timers who lean on the bar, it's the little kids who run around the sidelines eating sausages. They're all part of it as well. So for you as a leader in that environment, these people are all you want them playing the game. You want them in. So how you get them in, well, that's that's the that's the piece which is so important because they're they're the narrative spinners. Even if you think of the seven-year-old kids running around chasing after the ball after it's been kicked at the goalposts, they their excitement, their passion for what you're doing is is just as important sometimes as what the team's doing too, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Hundreds. I need to tell you one more thing on this. It'll change your uh I'm gonna get you a clip. There's a clip on YouTube. Jose Mourinho is at Tottenham Hotspur. They're playing in a Champions League knockout game. The opposition kick out the ball. This ball boy runs, picks the ball up, throws it to a um Spurs player. The Spurs player throws the ball in quickly. It's a one-on-one with the keeper. It creates an opportunity. One-on-one with the keeper, the guy scores. Jose Mourinho, in his celebration, goes to the ball boy, hugs him, puts whatever, shakes his head, just to say, you don't understand what you've done. The next Monday, they get that ball boy to come meet the team. So this is what happened. When I do some stuff with the corporates, I say this is this organization is so aligned that from the main guy who's the head coach all the way to the ball bull boy, they understand that their game model is playing so quickly that it actually influenced the result. Because here's the difference. If that ball boy doesn't know, he's sitting there like this, thinking, oh, flip another Spurs game, the ball comes in, he holds it. Should I give it to him? I don't give it to him. Okay, here's the ball. And then that moment is never created. But because again, he's let into the narrative, he understands the model, he takes that ball, throws it quickly, another quick throw score. Well, how much more aligned are you as an organization when the head coach who's the pinnacle of this thing and a ball boy who nobody knew before that day are on the same page about how this organization works? Man, Ben, you get that right? You've got an organization. You've got a team, you've got a school, you've got a family, you've got everything.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

I love it. And and this segues nicely into what you're doing now with this corporate stuff, right? Because we're we're our our reference point, our vehicle is rugby, but this stuff, this is this is the business, this is regular office jobs, this is corporate stuff, this is businesses too, isn't it? Like it's it's just not as obvious sometimes in that setting, is it?

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Yep, yep. And I'll say this, Ben. There's two to into that segue, it's almost like there's three things that I'm always thinking, how do we answer these questions? Um, the first one is the sense of um life life is unfair and leadership is tough. Right? So that's that's always the premise that you're never gonna get to the ideal picture. So if we start on that premise, it helps us understand that we've got work to do. Life is unfair and leadership is tough.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

So what's this, Joey? Is this is this is this what most people, this is the perceptions most people think of those two things? That that's a very common one, is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 49:07

I'm saying that a lot of us are living life expecting that to be the opposite. Life is fair and leadership is easy. So it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Yeah.

Narrative As Story: Plot, Journey, Characters

SPEAKER_00 49:19

With our kids, often like we'll give them a chocolate and they'll measure this one, this one. I say, Ziana, I try to cut that down the middle. And if your sister's got slightly more, it's okay. Life is unfair. It's not always gonna be a hundred percent equal. I'm trying to make it equal, but it's not equal. And all I'm saying by that is it's just building a robustness. It's not a negative towards life, it's a robustness. But I think for the sake of what you asked, let's let's put that one aside for now. Let's start with the first two. The first question, the first question we're trying to provide solutions for is this. Most people, you go to school, you study, you enter the workplace for yourself. I didn't study a marketing degree thinking, how do I go into the workplace and go work in a team? I studied a marketing degree thinking I'm gonna be working in marketing for Vodacom to extend and grow my career. Then the first thing that happens is you get thrown into a team and you get asked to perform on a team. So, so everything that you've been primed for since seven years old, you do that for the bulk of your life. And the first thing you do, you get judged on how are you gonna work within the team. So we're asking people to do something that's unnatural to them working in the team. So that's my first point. Is that okay, then how do we normalize this? How do we give you basic principles to take you, and not you're not a bad person, out of your individualistic way and make you somebody who's more understanding of the collective and the power of the collective, how to build the collective. So that's the one area. The other area then is a lot of people, we all know this, who excel with the technical ability. The easiest way is a salesman. I sell cars, I sell the most cars for two years in a row. The company needs to give me an increase. The only way they can justify my increase in salary is to make me a sales manager. But who on earth has taught me the skill set to be a sales manager? Because selling a car and running a department of people who must sell cars are two completely different things. Completely. The one is a go-getter, do your thing, the other one is a facilitator. So now you've put me up to a level, but you've given me zero, zero, zero, like zero training to help me get this right. You are hoping my ability to sell cars is gonna help me lead 10 other people to sell cars. And yes, maybe I might give them the technical know-how how to sell cars because I know how to sell cars. But when person one and person seven in a team are having a rift, or this half and that half are having a rift, or getting all 10 to understand that if they're behind the same vision, we're all gonna sell cars. Nobody's taught me that from a bar soap. So starting with those two, as a I believe is a premise in most people in the world, is to say, well, then how do we then create as a big umbrella organizational alignment by growing leadership skills that then become leadership alignment and then team cohesion? Those are the two main areas leading and leading cohesion, uh leading uh what you call it with alignment. Um, and I'll explain it further now, and then how that trickles down into the um team cohesion. So let's do this bit. If I'm a sales manager and you are the marketing manager and somebody's the finance manager in the small company, you've got your own ego, I've got my own ego, the other guy in finance got his own ego, and we're running great departments silo-wise. At some point for the company to reach its full potential, we need to align around houses work. So, in order for sales to work, marketing might need to have a smaller budget because sales need to take more of the budget. Because if we don't sell, we can market as much as we want to, but we're not going to be here because we're not selling anything. But marketing is saying, but flip, guys, I need to get you out of there so people can actually know who you are so we can sell. Then the finance guy is saying, listen, guys, I just need to make sure that we meet bottom line so we can pay salaries. If we stay in our silos that way, what happens is the finance people working in my team look at these uh marketing people say, all you guys ever do is want money. Then the marketing people look at the salespeople and say, You guys don't understand that if we're not here, you won't be able to sell anything. Then the salespeople look at the you guys just sit on your backsides and you advertise stuff on social media, but you don't actually do anything for the company because we're the ones who are actually selling. The same scenario, but the marketing manager sales to the sales manager, yes, I can see we're going through a bit of a difficult tip with our sales. What can we do as marketing to help you? Can we give you some budget? Can we give you one or two resources in this thing to help you the sales element because we realize we can do that? The money person says, I completely understand that. So I'm gonna give some of this budget to go there. When the people and the teams underneath us hear the story, suddenly they look at each other thinking, Flip, man, I've got so much respect for you guys because you're actually willing to give us an extra resource to help us sell more because you're seeing our value. Then we're looking at the finance people and saying, wow, I actually admire the way the sales and marketing team work together because I can see when the one needs the other one's willing to give, so they can see how they're washing each other's hands. That can only happen because the two, the three heads at the top got onto the same page. So when the leadership is aligned at the top, the people doing the work at the bottom can be more cohesive across teams. I've said a lot. I want to hear what you have to say because I've got more to say, but I at least want to hear what you're saying so they don't sound like a monologue.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

No, I love it, mate. I'm just I'm just writing notes, mate. I just think it's like what you're talking about here is is going back to that sort of narrative, like aligning everybody in this process too, right? Like making sure everyone feels like they're they've got something to say that and you're not working in silos. We talked about that from a rugby perspective. The forward coach can't not be with the attack coach or the defence coach. Same, same in any sort of team, your your marketing team can't be disjointed from your sales team. It's it's that they've got to have that connection because it's it's a layered approach. And I just think mate, the the crossover that high performance sport and business is just it's there. And and I think the interesting one is whilst it's normal in sport to work as a team, you you you're addressed in the corporate world, it's not like you go into a rugby environment and you learn from a young age, you've got to work together as a team. You you learn that when you're seven and start playing, and it's it's the whole way through. So by the time you get to pro, you you've got all those years of working in a team professionally. Whereas, like you said, you go to university and study from for uh to be an accountant, you're working on your own and you you've got your own agenda, and it's only later you get thrown in it, and you've got to adjust, and that's where all the stuff you learnt from the sporting environment, professional sporting career, lends itself so well to the business world.

Spreading Passion And Conviction

SPEAKER_00 56:40

And and I think where where you spot on there is that you're we're almost primed into one or the other, right? And that's the beautiful, you primed into sport and teams, you get that. And if you can think about a team, why we love teams so much is there's things that I realize early you can do that I can't do, but the team needs it in order for us to win. So if I'm a if I'm a if I'm a bowler and I'm playing four-day cricket, the batters who can bat for time and bat long and get runs on the board, I love them because I know that I'm gonna get my massage, I'm gonna get my feet rubbed, I'm gonna get my quads rubbed, I'm gonna get time because this guy, the longer he bats, the fresher I get, the more I can bowl gas when I get the second innings. But if I don't appreciate that, if I don't know that about you, I'm only gonna think bowling, bowling, bowling, and my whole world becomes bowling and I forget about everybody else. So if you spoke about the easy translation, is like when when we'd enter a corporate environment to say, if you guys looked around the room, whose skill sets, what do you bring to the table? And what don't you bring? What doesn't the what can't the team rely on you on? Because you're just not great at it. And whose skills do you admire in the team? A basic exercise like that says this. I'm Joey, I like um admin. Let's say I like admin. But what I don't like is critical thinking, thinking of ideas. Just give me stuff that's done, that's ticking boxes, I can do that for you the whole day. The next person sitting there says, Jeepus, I'm so glad you're here. I absolutely hate admin. Like it's it's I can't. I can't, I hate it, but what I can do is I come up with ideas. I do this thing incredibly well. It doesn't mean, it doesn't mean this. It doesn't mean the person who hates admin will never have to do admin. It means that they'll do the basics, but they might leave the overall team admin to be supervised by the admin heavy person. And it doesn't mean the person who's admin heavy will never have to think about ideas, but they'll always be able to know there's a point person I can go to and say, man, I thought about this thing. What do you think? Good idea, bad idea? Actually, that's a good start, Joey. Well done. If you think about it more this way, this way, go this way. Oh, flip, I knew I could come to you. So that way we're starting to value each other. And that's why there's not a jealousy to it, because it's just you have a skill set that I don't have, so I just want to maximize it. And you have something that I don't have, so I want to do well. So the the leadership model, when we're doing leadership training, we often speak about is how do I manage and maximize my strengths and work-ons? Because once I know how to manage and maximize my strengths and work-ons, I can then as a leader mold and mobilize others. So when I'm coming into the team on that same model, I'm thinking in this context, how are my strengths, how can my strengths make this team better? And how can I manage my work-ons in such a way that they aren't a detriment to the team? The team's aware of them, but they're not a detriment to the team. So there's a sense of self-awareness and all of that, but I'm I'm I'm consciously aware of how am I rocking up in the environment. And when I can do that well on an individual and then on a team basis, then we can look out further and say, okay, now that I know this and we've got a solid foundation, how do we then mold and mobilize others? The molding and mobilizing others is that part again of selling a narrative, selling how we do things here, and then we mold people around that, and then we mobilize them to say, well, go forth, go do more of the same. You're a believer now, you're a disciple in this thing, go evangelize to other people on the same model.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:28

Manage work-ons, maximize strengths, mold and mobilize others. And you do that through the narrative you create, the how we do things around here. This is this is cool. Like, and and as a general, when you're talking to businesses and groups, is this this is game-changing for them, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

In the funniest way. So I'll say two things. One is, you know how we just sort of built this passion, conviction, um, model, character model? Is my approach is always to come in and sit with them and hear what they're doing. And as I hear Ben and I ask questions and we do this, we often come up with a model in that moment because it's it's not a uh, and I'm nothing wrong with Mackenzie, please, and they mustn't sue us for this, is that it's not like a model we found somewhere and we're gonna come take this square and try to fit it into the circle because somebody said it has to fit. It's no, what is the circle going through? Talk to me, share ideas, talk through this thing. What do you think? What do you think? Yes, that's practical, that can work. And then there you come up at least with a narrative. You might come even come up with a principle or a framework. And once you do that, and here's the beauty, Ben. Of your question that you asked is once you get people starting to speak language and use frameworks, you start actually building cult-like behavior. There's nothing more satisfying. Like there's a company I'm working now with uh in South Africa, and they often say this, no, no, no, I was speaking to this person and we decided to have a quick alignment meeting. And now I'm aligning with this person. So because we had been building this thing of going from silos to fences, like think about that narrative. It's like instead of a silo, it's a fence because I can look over your fence and it's a safe boundary and the fence has got a door, but I can look into your garden and say, look how that is going. Oh, you can look into my space. Now, because that was all built in alignment. Now you suddenly start them speaking. No, I had an alignment person with this year, or I didn't send the email. I first went to have a belly-to-belly conversation with them, and then I sent the email as conversation. Then I'm like, yes, this is sticking. Because what it is is that they were doing certain things, but now we're naming them. Now we're framing those things, and suddenly we're going in the same direction. So it's taking haphazard things that either were done or weren't done, but now you're putting them into a framework. Um, I'm gonna stop speaking now, Ben. My pattern with this stuff is is um is like uh it's like a cult. Hey, like I'm sensitive to anybody who's been part of or been affected by a cult, but if you can think about a cult, it's always got like a cult leader who's got these strong passions and convictions, right? They've always got that. Then they're always selling you a narrative of there's always a baddie in it. So if the cult is built on let's live at the coast, the baddie is everything that is big, big cities. You don't want to live in New York, you don't live in Joburg, the air's bad, there's always a baddie. But then afterwards, they always tell you a narrative and they all speak the same language, isn't it? Like you come in and you say, Oh no, did you know Ben Haying's podcast? Um, Ben was the founder of A, B, and C. It's like you speak to one, you've spoken to all of them. And then because it happens that way, whether you spoke to Ben, to Joey, to Sam, you hear the same thing over and over again. So it's almost taking an organization that is more likely to be fragmented, individualistic, and making it more cohesive, more collective, more aligned, and then giving them framework, principles, narratives, phrases, and words to use to ensure that they're going in the same direction.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:10

Mate, that that is awesome. And I actually really love we just got back to the analogy around stories, and you have to have a bad guy. A good story has a really strong bad guy. That's just you know, someone you dislike. And right, and and using that sometimes in in your in your workspace or your rugby teams or any sort of sports team, this is what we're fighting against, this bad guy. And it could be just a concept like playing stodgy, stale rugby, or you know, we're against, you know, fleet cars over, you know, personal cars, whatever it is. But if you create that sort of thing you're working against, sometimes that's just as a powerful, probably more than what you're actually loving, and sometimes flipping anything uh except the bad guy is the great way to go. Exactly. Now, now, mate, you also I want to bring you back um just quickly because you you talked about there's something which I really was intrigued that life is unfair, leadership is tough. Can you just quickly give me the synopsis of what that sounds like? Because I think for a lot of people um they resist that stuff, and I think it's important for leadership just to just to touch on it.

Everyone Plays: From Ball Boy To Fans

SPEAKER_00 1:05:15

The reason I did that, Ben, I was if you can think about leadership, there's probably not another topic that's the most written about, that's the most spoken about, that's the most whatever it's been used, abused, misused. It's it's it's it's just been there. But if you look at the output of just leaders across the board, I mean you can look leaders of nations, leaders of teams of organizations, it's still lacking in its application. And there must be a reason for it. And and what I've then tried to drill down in watching my own personal experiences, I mean, having seen leaders like Heineke Mayer all the way to John Plumtree, and having sat somewhere in Rassi Rasmus's environment, I've seen some of the best leaders in rugby. And what when I when I look at them, and even leaders you read about away from the game, is there's a sense there that they've always overcome some sort of adversity and they've normalized it. It's just they there's there's a thing to them. If you hear their life stories, there's a sense that they've overcome a lot, they are overcoming and they know they're going to overcome. You don't get a sense in them that I've overcome once and I never have to overcome. There is that sense of that that life is unfair part. And the leadership is tough part, is this. And this is why I believe leadership is the most written about, but the least applied thing is that the principles and frameworks are simple but not easy. Right? So leadership, it's it's bloody tough. Like having to let go of people is tough, having to drop players is tough. Having to tell people that we're going in that direction, we're no longer going there, we're going that way, is incredibly tough. So at that moment of having to make those leadership decisions, those tough ones, I think, I think there's in us, because we got an innate desire to be liked and wanted and valued and seen, we often can compromise and make the decision that we feel is the most pleasing to the crowd. Not the best for them, the most pleasing to the crowd. If you can think about, if we can take leadership just to mom and dad, and if you think about most people who are raised like by solid mom and dad, most of the decisions you looked at and said, Why is he making me do that? Why do you make me come home from school as a primary school kid and shine my shoes and wash my socks? My friends don't do that. But she was teaching me a principle that has made me a better man now. Do you think it was popular for her to do that? No way. The popular thing will go, go do what the rest of your friends are doing. So without losing the line of thinking, there's just a sense that if we the premise is that life is unfair and leadership is hard. If that's what I know, leadership is tough, and I enter it that way. And I'm not entering into a popularity contest, I'm entering into a place where people all they need to do is respect me. And I believe you are respected if you take a direction with conviction and you help people understand why you're taking it. And if it works and you keep taking it, beautiful. And it doesn't work, and you've got the ability to come back and say, Man, I was with all conviction convinced about that thing. I gave it everything, we gave it everything, but you know what? It might be time to think that there's a different way. And I'm gonna ask you to follow me with the same conviction to the same different way. Um I hope I've explained it well, man. But I think the crux of it is that yeah, it's it's not easy.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:46

I love it, mate, but I'll I'll I'd probably just flip it just a dash, mate, too, because life is unfair and leadership is tough, and that's the truth. But you can flip that to actually make it a good thing for you and excitement thing, because life is unfair and that's cool. Because you if it's all fair, then we're all getting the same. And I you don't want it to be fair. My my kids, when I say that to them, they say, Why does you my brother get to have the big spoon of ice cream? And I say, Well, do you want me to treat you exactly the same as your brother? And No. No, they say, and they understand why, that it's different. And then the same leadership is tough. Well, if it wasn't tough, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn't have this opportunity to get ahead. And I always think about like rugby, I remember when uh rucking was a thing where you get stood all over, and people say, Oh, you must you as a number seven must be glad that that's out of the game. And I was like, No, because I love that side of things, because I mean I if I was braver than everyone else, I'd be better than everyone else. And so it was I you just flipped that narrative, and I think it's important to do that with those two awesome concepts. You acknowledge them, life is unfair and leadership is tough, but there's a good challenge in that, and that's what you go into knowing that reality. Now, mate, I would like to just quickly talk about this cool company you're doing, if I may, because we've been going for ages, mate. I could honestly talk for hours, and I don't want to do that because I know you've got things to do. Team IP3, that's you, that's your business. That's you're running this leadership company. Just what is it, mate? So people know that you're more than just a rugby coach and a lot more. You you run this leadership um alignment groupings. Give me what what is it about, mate, and how can people find out about it?

Translating Sport To Business Alignment

SPEAKER_00 1:10:22

Yeah, that's good. Um, and I think the crux been is I always loved running something alongside rugby. I was always challenged to do that. So I love that part of life. Um and now it's to run something that takes what I'm learning in rugby and um appropriately puts that into the corporate context. So team IP3, firstly, with the name is the name has got um it's got meaning, right? So start at the name to say every time I work with people, the sense of team is important to me and unity is important. And how do you gain unity? Is how I've seen is that there's a strong sense of identity. That's what the eye is. Like, there's people who identify with something and they're super clear on who they are, why they're here, right? Like there's you know that if you go to Willwards in South Africa, it's going to be cool temperature, the food is going to be of the highest quality. If you go to wherever, there's just a clear, you can identify them and say they are that niche in the market. So when you're looking at your team, is the sense of do people say, well, this is what those people stand for? I can just see that in them, right? So it's it's it's pervasive, it's clear, you can see it. Then the P is the the first P because it's IP3, the three Ps, is purpose, um, is to say, as an organization, as a group of people, is it super clear to people what our purpose is? Yes, the first purpose is to make money and feed our families. That's definitely there. But is there a purpose beyond that that people buy into when money is not a thing for them anymore? Do we, do we, do we play? You can play rugby to win rugby games, but is there a way to, when you've won enough rugby games that you're changing people's lives, that marriages are being um uh what you call it, highlighted, that people are growing as men, that um there's beyond the game, people are growing as people. Is there that purpose? Is this that super clear? Beyond making your money, are we are we doing more with our money than just making it, right? Is there is there deeper purpose? Um then the other one is your philosophy. So what do you live and die by? If these people sell cars, you sell cars. For somebody to come sell cars for you, what is your way? Um, are we people first or are we just about sales? Or whatever it is, somebody coming into you say, Wow, man, I can see that this dealership is different to that dealership. There's a sense there that how they do things, uh, you can almost interlink philosophy with culture. They're the same. It's the way they go about doing business. There's a clear philosophy to it. It's not a one day this way, another day this way. There's a consistency to that. Um, that part. And then the last one is then I put together processes and people that the the people and what they go about doing on the daily is super clear. Again, that 80-20. It's 80%. Everybody knows where they are, what they're doing, with that 20% leeway of this is how we can get better, this is how we can improve. But there's such certainty and understanding and systems and those processes are so clear. So we know what we're doing. So that's what the name is about. And then ultimately, I would say this, um, Ben, we are an organizational alignment team. So we get joy from helping organizations align. Um, and the two areas that we speak into is leadership alignment, is having the people at the highest level of the organization be aligned. And that alignment is only judged by how the teams underneath them are working cohesively. So we're arguing the degree to which an organization is aligned at the leadership structure level, like we did earlier about the marketing, sales, and um financial manager, when that alignment is proper, the cohesion at the bottom here within the teams, the people on the ground happens a lot better. Similarly, so if you can imagine, the narrative is this that we use. So imagine we go, you and I are coaches of a rugby team, it's half time. You, the defense coach, you tell the guys, listen here, we're under pressure defensively, kick long because we need territory. My turn to speak as the attack coach, I said, guys, we need to score points. So I need you guys to take high-risk rugby and play from everywhere. That team walks out and they kind of think to themselves, what the flip just happened? They didn't actively disagree with each other, but they actually just told us two different things. The other change room, somebody says, Listen, we're under pressure defensively, but we're a brave team. So keep taking risk from deep and a half. But if we make a mistake, just kill the ball. Then the attack coach comes out and says, Boys, we need to score. We're playing high-level rugby. We're gonna risk, we're gonna kick cross kicks. But as Joey just said, if a mistake happens, just kill it. We'll defend from set piece. That team walks out and says, Man, we're gonna go. So often in companies and even in football teams or rugby teams, there's people giving such multiple messages so that people on the ground are going there thinking, I literally don't know what you guys want from me. Because the one came and said, kick the ball, the other one said take high risk, the other one said kill it. It's like, what do you want for me? The other organization says they both said we're a brave team. The one told us to be super brave, but just kill it. The other one said, Go extraordinarily brave and from everywhere. But I'm reminding you, even though it's not my role, my department, just kill the ball because we know it affects other department in another way. That's what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:49

Joey, I'm I'm mate. I'm I'm I'm excited just hearing about I want to be involved in this, and and and and I'm a million miles away from you in Sydney. Now, mate, I I think people would be uh just um amiss to not connect with you if if they're running any sort of team which is struggling for alignment to get a hold of you. And you can reach yourself on joemegalo.com. It's all in the show notes here. And I I couldn't recommend it more, mate. The way you talk um uh and your experience, your articulation, your values, values and vision is absolutely gold for any organization, mate, wanting to grow their teams. I think this is probably gonna be a a third, uh a third chat, mate, because we just get carried away on this and we just dive deep into analogies and stories, but we have to knock it on the head, mate, because I want to keep it into a nice, succinct little level where people um can listen to it on their way to work. If I may, Joey, I'd just like to do a really brief sum-up because and just highlight the three key points that I got out of this chat with you. And they are this number one, own the narrative. Now we talked at length and we made all sorts of crazy analogies about this, but just that concept of articulate yourself well. You know, do that pre-work, do the leading up work, and making sure that the story you tell excites people. And I just think that's a wonderful one, not just for sporting context or business context, but your family and relationship wise as well. Number two, don't build silos, make fences with little doors you can walk through and look over and see what other people are doing. Too often in groups, we we hold our little things close to our chest and we think it's all about us. Where in teams you've got to let others in. Yeah, you've got to be connected because everything affects everything, and there's no such thing as a silo in a team. And number three, this cool little concept that we came up with, a passion conviction model. And as a leader, part of your massive job is that passion piece to be the person that people just rally in behind and love what you're doing, make them come to life. We talked about the pass the parcel game, that exciting game you play at Christmas time with the little kids and making people want to play the game with the layers and layers and layers of things until you get to the main thing, which is the toy or the present at the bottom. Joey Mongolo, once again, what an absolute pleasure to have you on the Coaching Culture podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:16

What a joy, Ben. It's a joy speaking to you, and I look forward to episode number three together, mate.