- The Great Coaches: Leadership & Life
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- Ben Darwin
Latest Podcast
My co-host Professor Eric Knight and I are continuing our emphasis on Thriving Teams this week with a podcast featuring a fascinating interview with Ben Darwin, the former Australian Rugby Union player. Ben represented his country 28 times before retiring at the age 27 after sustaining a neck injury.
From there, Ben moved in to coaching before co-founding Gain Line Analytics - a company that uses empirical analysis to understand the way professional sports teams work and succeed with each other.
One of the main reasons why this interview stands out is due to the way that Ben’s views and experiences challenge the ‘traditional’ drivers of success that many of us will be very familiar with.
One example of this is his belief (based on examples from the military and history) that it’s team cohesion, not the size of the talent pool that you pull from, that plays a key role in success. This means that even small teams and groups can be highly effective, if the right groundwork is laid.
As for cohesion itself, Ben’s description defines it as a sense of understanding shared between the component parts of a team. It’s slowly built, but can be destroyed in the blink of an eye.
This understanding, he says, is much more predictive of outcomes than individual skill.
On the topic of effective cultures, Ben shares some insight on normative behaviours. These behaviours are established over time and can be learned more easily across the components of a team - but they are hard to change, and so leaders should be careful to ensure that the right behaviours are present in the team environment.
Finally, I’d also like to shine a spotlight on Ben’s approach to stress, which he considers to be an outcome of ambiguity. He shares some ways that this can be effectively managed - take a listen to the podcast to hear his ideas in a bit more detail.
Thriving Teams: Free Diagnostic
A great number of you have already given our Thriving Teams diagnostic a go, and I would love to hear how you’ve been getting on with implementing the Thrive model in your teams and groups.
Back in 2022, we were challenged by two Great Coaches to find a model for team leadership that aligned with the insights and advice that we’ve gathered from over 200 interviews with Great Coaches from across the world of sports.
After a lot of research and investigation, we discovered the Thrive model - a model that encompasses six integral elements for achieving the success and well-being of your team.
We’ll continue to focus on the topic of Thriving Teams on our podcast and social media posts for the next few weeks, but if you really want to make the most of the Thrive model, you’ll want to head over to our website to try our free, simple diagnostic which uses 18 questions to identify how close your team is to thriving, and (importantly) what can be done to improve.
Thriving Workshops
In addition to the podcast episodes and diagnostic tool, we’re taking things even deeper with our Thriving Teams workshops, offered both virtually and live. Some workshops can even include the participation of the Great Coaches that we have interviewed.
For leaders who really want to move their teams closer to Thriving, we’re also offering individual coaching sessions.
For more information, please get in touch at this address: [email protected]
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Leadership Insights
How do the best teams in the world create a sense of belonging? They pet their dragons.
Not sure what we're talking about?
Listen to John O'Sullivan talk about this practical and efficient way to overcome issues as a team in this clip from our episode on Champion Teammates, available now on our website (and wherever you find your podcasts!).
If you like this, you can find more than 1200 other insight videos on our website, covering a variety of leadership topics such as setting up new team cultures, establishing team values, or helping others with their inner voice.
Partners
This newsletter is brought to you by Macquarie University Business School’s MBA program. Designed to empower, challenge and transform, the Macquarie MBA gives you the business skills and knowledge you need to succeed in an evolving global economy.
Find out more: https://www.mq.edu.au/macquarie-business-school/
Contact Us
If you have any feedback or if you would like to speak to us directly feel free to contact us at [email protected].
