John Kessel: Be A Guided Discovery Expert

Welcome to the Great Coaches: Leadership & Life newsletter.

This week we’re releasing our interview with the brilliant John Kessel, who delved into decades worth of leadership and consulting experience in order to help us all uncover new ways to better lead our teams, families, and communities.

If you like our content, then you’ll probably want to explore our Great Coaches annual membership. For just $4.50 USD, you can enjoy a year’s unlimited to access to all of our existing and upcoming content, including more than 1,800 leadership insights and our library of leadership lesson episodes. It’s a great resource for leaders, coaches and parents alike. Find out more on our website.

Swifter, Higher, and Stronger With John Kessel

John Kessel has had a profound impact not just on volleyball, but on various other sports and leaders through his extensive career, books, and consulting work. Naturally, he has decades of experience and leadership insights under his belt, and we delved into those insights together for this week’s interview.

One of the topics we discussed was that of helping others to learn. In order to do this John uses guided questions, and during our interview he illustrates this through the example of a backwards bicycle. It is, as he summarises, a “grills, not drills” approach to practice.

Another way that he encourages learning is by creating problems for his athletes to figure out. John views the role of a coach as being a “guided discovery expert”, and this view has had a significant impact on the way he approaches leadership.

There are a number of other fantastic points that John raises during this week’s podcast, such as the power of the word ‘yet’ and the impact of asking for advice rather than feedback. He also shares a story of helping his own son to recover from being the last one cut for the USA Olympic volleyball team, leading him back to the essence of Olympism and subsequently challenging all of us to go swifter, higher, and stronger.

There’s a lot of wisdom waiting to be shared in this week’s episode, and I hope you’ll make time to listen to it in full — it’s definitely worth it.

Listen Now: Apple | Spotify

This Week’s Guest

Our Great Coach this week is John Kessel.

As a volleyball player, John participated in 16 US Open Championships and played professionally in Europe. He then began coaching in the USA at the Collegiate level in 1971, leading teams to national titles in 1986 and 1987.

John was the team leader for the 2000 USA Olympic Beach Volleyball teams in Sydney, bringing home a gold medal, and for the 2004 USA Paralympic Women’s Sitting Volleyball team in Athens, winning the bronze medal.

Through his work as a coach and as an administrator, John has had a profound impact on the game. His career has seen him spend more than 30 years working at Volleyball USA, and over 20 years at World ParaVolley. Additionally, John is the author of over 12 books, including the IMPACT coaching manual (now in it’s 33rd edition).

In 2007, the Institute for International Sport named John a Sport Ethics Fellow, and in 2024 he was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame.

Today, John consults with over 20 other Olympic sports and travels around the world talking about coaching, particularly in the youth space.

On Authentic Implementation

In each issue of the Great Coaches newsletter we share a different short lesson on leadership, inspired by the insights and ideas shared by our podcast guests.

Just like our podcasts, each of the clips we share here in the newsletter contain a piece of actionable insight that the speaker has successfully implemented in their own coaching or leadership. We share these insights because we believe that they can help you to better lead your own team, family, or community — but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can provide a one-size-fits-all solution to the problems you face.

In this clip, Bob Bowman shares his belief that Great Coaches don’t simply copy what they have learned from mentors and others. Instead, he believes that they ‘evolve’ the techniques and practices, infusing them with elements of their own personalities and philosophies. The authentic nature of this approach helps to build trust with team members and is ultimately more successful than attempting to copy or imitate another leader’s style or personality.

Think of the ideas that you have taken from our previous interviews with the Great Coaches, and the results you experienced when trying to implement them with your own team. Did your actions feel authentic and in-line with your usual leadership approach? Were the people around you receptive to your new ideas, or did you struggle to get everyone onboard?

Which unique traits of your personality and leadership could be incorporated with new ideas to evolve successful practices which truly work for both you and your team?

If you’re looking to further develop your own leadership skills and ability, then make sure to head over to our website. For an annual cost of just $4.50 USD, Great Coaches members can access more than 1,800 clips, 30 special lessons, and more great content designed to help them become better, more effective leaders.

In Case You Missed It…

Exploring Inner Excellence

For this section of the newsletter we often share book recommendations from the Great Coaches, but today we’re looking to the athletes for inspiration.

This year, two athletes at opposite ends of the world have been spotted reading Jim Murphy’s ‘Inner Excellence’, leading to a surge in sales and taking the book to the No. 1 spot on the Amazon bestsellers ranking.

First published in 2009, ‘Inner Excellence’ is not a new book, nor has it recently been extensively publicised. Instead, much of its recent success has come from sports fans curious to learn more about the content that the athletes they support and admire consume.

This article from the AFL investigates the success of ‘Inner Excellence’ and its author Jim Murphy — will you be ordering a copy?

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