Coaching tips from Bill the Bard

Former Hockeyroos coach Ric Charlesworth thinks business has it too easy. It takes something special to reach the level of elite performance, as Mark Pownall reports.

It’s pretty clear from the first moments of conversation that coaching supremo Ric Charles-worth likes to analyse everything he deals with.

Be it the performance of the Fremantle Dockers football team, hockey administration, or the trouble with the publishing industry in Australia, Dr Charlesworth has critical eye for the causes behind the symptoms as he sees them.

In the case of the Dockers it’s their mid-season fizzle, with hockey it’s the opportunities to make it a major niche player in global sport, and when it comes to publishing, don’t get him started. Let’s just say his latest book, Shakespeare the Coach, is already out of print after just a few weeks on the shelves.

“I can’t even get a copy,” the sports consultant, hockey coaching legend and author laments.

If he had been born 20 years later, the former Hockeyroos coach could well have been a corporate doctor rather than pursuing medicine and Federal Parliament before taking the women’s team to back-to-back Olympic gold medals.

Perhaps the option of business consulting isn’t beyond him.

Admitting he has put his hat in the ring to challenge incumbent Barry Dancer for the role of coaching the Australian men’s hockey side, the gold-medal-winning Kookaburras, Dr Charlesworth said he wasn’t sure that his days of finding new careers was over.

In fact, he recalls from his time in Federal politics in 1980s Barry Jones’ Commission for the Future which, among other things, predicted that young people would have six or seven careers in their lives.

“I sort of think I am ahead of my time,” Dr Charlesworth said.

“I am confident there are other things I can do. I have young children. At my age! So I will have to work a little longer.”

Hence, perhaps, the move into writing books – though he suggests that it is not something he’d want to survive on.

Shakespeare the Coach is a simple guide to managing a successful team using the timeless wisdom of the English bard’s plays to illustrate and support his views.

The book, which follows two previous efforts, The Coach and Staying at the Top, is a chapter-by-chapter account of each of the key components of managing a winning team.

For instance, Dr Charlesworth uses the line: “All things be ready, if our minds be so” – from Henry V to illustrate preparation as the key to success.

Good preparation, he believes, provides confidence and belief when setting out on an enterprise.

He suggests that this usually requires drudgery and repetition.

“If you aren’t tuned in, attentive and alert you will miss things that might make a difference,” he writes.

“The most important work you do as a coach is preparation,” he told WA Business News.

Dr Charlesworth also provides some insights into running a champion team, which invariably contains champions, and all the management issues that come with having stars in your side.

He believes depth, or flexibility, is a key attribution to a successful team with members prepared to play different roles as required.

“That culture makes for an internally competitive team,” Dr Charlesworth said. “No-one cuts corners because they know they are not indispensable; someone can always take their place.”

Honesty is also an element of this, especially when dealing with difficult yet talented people, as well as keeping them interested in the job at hand and balancing praise, reprimand and redirection. But again, preparation is vital, according to Dr Charlesworth.

“You have to know your stuff or they will not respect you. Often the difficult people are clever,” he said.

“When they get bored and there is no excitement or dynamism, so distraction brings destruction.

“There is a mantra about treating everybody equally. It is nonsense.

“You just have to treat everybody fairly, that is not explained sometimes.

“You don’t have to get rid of them just because they are difficult or you don’t like them, it is a calculation of pluses and minuses.

“What people misunderstand about teamwork is they think it must be harmonious. Conflict is ok, it is a sign of a vibrant team, but you have to have a process to manage that so they realise it is normal.”

Dr Charlesworth’s ability to motivate his team of stars may well be summarised by his choice of quote for the team noticeboard on the day of the gold medal Olympic final in Sydney.

Notably, it was not Shakespeare but from a book called Words on Courage. Proclaiming that such matches are not won by timid hearts, Dr Charlesworth asked of his team that day: “Where is the University of Courage? … The University of Courage is to do what you believe in!”

While many of these messages might be appropriate for winning a gold medal, they may also seem a little over the top for everyday business.

That might be because business isn’t always striving to be at its best.

Dr Charlesworth notes in his book, The Coach, the big difference between sport and business is that success in the commercial world can be claimed without necessarily being the best.

Business, he observes, can make profits and grow without being the top of the heap. In fact, it is possible to be comfortable sitting in the corporate pack whereas a sporting team would rarely be seen to be successful without winning the premiership or gold medal.

That “focus” of seeking the sporting success of a champion team is something sport can provide managers seeking to transform good business practice into best practice.

BEST BUSINESS

• Preparation is the key – you won’t miss developments that might make a difference.
• Depth and flexibility – provides internal competition, “no-one is indispensable”.
• Sports focus on achievement – business rarely has to be the best to achieve “success”.