Sean Dyche on managing egos & why basic manners mean everything | High Performance Podcast

welcome to the high performance podcast which is a chat where we delve into the minds of athletes entrepreneurs and visionaries sean lovely to have you with us thank you so shaping a club in your own image does that ring true when we talk about what you've done here in the years yeah it could be um with me suave sophisticated cool thing yeah sort of rob lowe looking back in the heyday maybe tom cruise in there as well but no i think you know the reality is um some of the values i think possibly and i don't think literally everything's about about me i've had to add it up like managers do and i think the longer you're into a club then you rub off on what's around you more and more um but i think it's a collective attitude or i think it is i have to lead that but i'd like to think the staff the players people at the club buy into some of the key core values that we've led down and once they were laid down we've built around them so what are those key core values if i say to you a sean dyche team and and this is really so that you know people at home that don't even work in football are not involved in elite level sport i want them to sort of get takeaways for their own world so what are the things that you believe make a successful organization whether that is football finance well i've gone back on on record many times and said you know it started for me as a young kid when the first club ever played for eyes lodge football club little you know sunday league club the coach dave i'm not saying he's amazing coach but he's had a great attitude everything and it just stuck with me all my life so that's not a bad start if you've got people around you've got a great attitude towards whatever it is whatever goal you intend to try and achieve if they've got a great attitude towards it that's a great start for me coming into burnley the first thing was to get a feel of the hour i've been up here many times many different teams i know that the town is dominated by the football club and the people of the town back the football club so i knew that already so really i thought well what what would they want to see well the first thing you want to see in my opinion is a team that gives everything so the first thing we sell my first ever interview i said i can't promise you'll win you know or lose i can't promise your major success but i can promise you you'll have a team that will give everything that will be sweat on the shirt and i meant every word of it i think you know from a fun point of view we know it's changed now i'm sure we'll talk about you know brand and you know styles and the culture of football has changed but a modern fan even would still want i think to see a player give their lot give everything they can so that's a good start so a lot of the simplicity of it that came off the back of that and then if you're talking about that before you worry about four four two and four three three you're then going into the world of mindset and if you go into mindset what are the key core values that you want that mind to be set on well hard work passion pride um enthusiasm um you know a joint an agreed work ethic an agreed application to the task and all these things start kicking in and we we were looking to put that in way before we worried about 442 and 433 because we felt that with the the bedrock to build not just a team but to build on beyond a team and build it into the club if you like so i guess i'll take some lead on that you know of course and some good news from that if you like when people say well it's a sean dyche club or a team but trust me there's been a lot of people have bought into them thoughts to actually make it happen and to get us where we are today can i ask you though sean because to inherit a club like that is often on the back of somebody being dismissed beforehand so how far away was the club from those values that you've just described when you first came in well it was slightly different because eddie had been here and and jason and done a pretty good job overall they were they're in a bit of a tough start to that particular season but not um not in trouble or anything um i think when i got here there was 16 um and they'd had a couple of losses then on the pitch they conceded a lot of goals eddie eddie wanted a very open style of football and they conceded a lot of goals so that was the easy not easy to stop that what i mean his easy message was look you all know we've got to stop conceding so on the pitch that was that cultural difference different style style of manager um coaching styles you know that sort of thing was different of course not right or wrong by the way said he's gone under brilliantly yeah he had his style i've got mine and more and more about shifting the culture then so it wasn't a bad culture or a good culture it was just shifting it to what we wanted um and a lot of that came originally from feedback i asked the players i gave him a very simple questionnaire i said i want complete anonymity i don't you know i'm not interested if you want to write on it stupid words and draw funny pictures which one player did you're more than welcome to if you want to answer it seriously you're more than welcome to if you want to be flippant you can but i remind you of this this is your chance to say everything you need to say about what's right wrong about it currently and what you expect going forward if you choose to throw away that chance that's up to you but i said don't think there'll be another one in any time soon because once this isn't an agreed thing but from buying from them as well and i listened so we got on with it like that and then what's the feedback factor on that questionnaire well you know the hardest thing you'll do you'll definitely know this is not loading them with the words in the questions so it's trying to keep the question so open that it doesn't guide you because i didn't want to guide them into the answer i wanted i want him to be as honest as possible just really simple well trying to use similar wording like um what does the outside world think of you now as a team this is what do you know so they were in columns like team individual um way forward or something like that so the team one was like what does the outside world think you now what do you want them to think of you say something like that so trying to keep it as minimal words but but clear understanding um individually similar questions you know uh where do you want to go you know tell us where you want to go so just leaving it as open as possible and there was some really good stuff there was some standard stuff you know what i call it anything still the hardest thing in any feedback scenario is classroom answers i call it so you know there's the the teacher at the front you know you think they think sorry they want to give you the answer that you want and i was like absolutely not i tried to get them i said look give me the answer you want give me the answer you believe is correct don't give me the answer you think i want as the new manager because it's not going to get us anywhere um there was things like they felt they were a bit soft as a team they felt they could have been beaten too easily that was you know so that's more team stuff um there was things like um you know the um sharpness and fitness but not uh not being detrimental to eddie just a different style of fitness like strength fitness you know conditioning and stuff like that so there's some physical stuff which is they're pretty standard by the way there's a few you know more a bit more depth there was a few saying i want more from my career i want to develop my career you know those can you can you help that outcome you know questions as well so yeah so it's a mixed bag um and i wasn't expecting anything profound by the way i was just expecting really to first things first let them know i'm here to listen yeah i'm not here to tell you everything all the time i will listen second thing is see who can just find that moment to give you the truth because like i say someone class room answers and third thing you know you just get a feel of what's going on because even from that you're looking at body language you're looking at the words they use you're looking at when they feed it back so after that we had an open feedback so they fed it back to us i made it clear that i've read them all this is what came out these were the things that came out the most often and then we spoke to them about it so then you get tonality body language you know the the meaning the words they use is it them twisted words like positive negatives or negative positives and you start learning about the group very quickly and who emerged so i can imagine in an exercise like that that very quickly you'll see your leaders your architects start to emerge when when you do an exercise like that how how quickly did that happen for you well i found that leadership's changing you know in in back in my day when i was a player you know from so i play from 87 onwards you know that era for 20 years and i've seen leadership change radically in football you know the football leaders back then were usually vocal um consistent um not just at their messages in the way they played they were pretty stand up you know they'd have a laugh but they didn't want to be serious that type of leader but leadership's changed now you know you started looking at well the first kind of leadership shift i noticed was like david beckham you thought well ian he's definitely not going to be leading through his words and all that stuff but he's going to be leading by the put me on a foot pitch and i'm going to give you everything and i'm going to do it with a bit of style and a bit of class and you know conviction so you know you start opening your mind in when i was playing i said i think well there's more to this you know than just being a vocal leader so i i think it's changing i think you're then watching the group who's saying what but also the the depth of what they're saying so you know there could be a true leader who's quieter but he comes out the really you know you think that's that's proper that's someone who's thought about that somebody's delivering that with a bit of conviction so about that as well you know a quiet leader yeah so i think you're picking you're picking uh trying to pick these golden nuggets out of these people but all the time thinking group leadership is always better if you can get them to maximize their leadership potential as individuals in their own styles and then usually the manager is kind of the leader of that and then you get this collection of not always obvious leaders yeah leaders of a different side but i think we've tried to form that over time so what do you do in that scenario where you want the david beckham type character the standout footballer the maverick who comes in and makes a difference to your team along with a group that you can still manage and mould in the way that you want your team not just to operate on the field of play but the way you want them to interact with each other well so back to the start point key core values whether you're good bad indifferent whether you're the classiest player or not you should be able to respond to a simple line of what we stand for um after that you're then looking at you know can they mold can they bear maverick as you know not the you know terrorist types you know you've got to get rid of your dressing room you've got to get them out um wrong word currently but you understand the trump assassins um yeah assassins you know energizers uh clive auburn said energizers and sappers yep so we bought that in you know we've got to remove the sappers give them a chance to realign if they don't realign you get removed um but also there is a bit of flexibility within what we're talking about i think if it's too hard and fast and it's like my way out of the highway that can equally lose belief in what it stands for but they can't undermine your culture though because as soon as one player does that everyone else looks and goes our shaun's or something but like i say that's when the energizer and the sappers have come in the the biggest that you when you know you're on something is when the group starts sorting it out that's always when you know when they start self-policing you know you're on something now that takes time to build that of course um because most uh footballers have a survival instinct it's me first you know then beyond that they start buying into the group and then if you have success of course they start protecting the group so you know you you want to lead at first and you lay down a lot of things that you think are important as it goes longer and longer i do less of the leading and my staff take control and i summarize and you know look from a distance and and join in and move in but that takes time to build that so i think there's a number of different things that are important within it um but i think feedback i think is important removing uh no how can i say realigning professional ego i think is important explain so well so when we when we were here i made it clear leave your ego at the drive well you've just come down that drive it's about a mile long for the listeners they're about a mile long i said leave it at the gates and i said when you're in here we're all the same we remember he goes we're all humble we're all getting on with our work and we're all working as hard as we can when you go back to the gates put your ego back on do whatever you want act how you want etc etc but when you're in here we build a one mentor one team mentality and a one club mentality ways we did that um taking it away from people footballers it's not an ego ego suggests sometimes it's a bad thing you've got to have an ego to walk in front of 78 000 at old trafford you've got to have a certain kind of ego but there's got to be a humble side to that ego you know so we had players who we used to do dance-offs sing-offs and everything and it makes people uncomfortable but once they realize actually these are laughing with me they're not laughing at me yep then they their ego comes off them and they go do you know what yeah fair play you know we had i'm not going to tell you it's not fair we have one player who was so now and again would do a small side again if you're lost you have to do a dance off in the middle of a circle the lads clapping i'm not kidding one player i swear i don't think he lost for about 10 weeks and it finally came round and at first you could see it he was dying yeah but afterwards of course the next time we come around he's like yeah okay so you know you just you're just stripping it back a little bit go look we're all together you know you've got to go through the bad times the good times together and and with that humble edge and that feeling that yeah your mates are with you you know they're not there laughing at you they're actually laughing with you now that sounds a weird thing and a simple thing but i've seen it work right in front of my eyes sure see what i love about that sean is that one of the things that i've seen with the best coaches is that they see every opportunity as coachable so we're talking about a mutual friend of ours tony smith where i remember that he used to stand at the end of a canteen queue and see who were the players that just filled the place up without any regard to the guys behind them and whether there was enough food for everybody so he felt that that would give him an insight whether somebody was selfish or team-minded do you look for opportunities to reinforce the culture well that was you know back to the days when i was at forest brian cluff you know honestly if you didn't show good manners he's on you we do that here not because of brian club by the way but things you remember when you grow up you think why can you not just speak someone in the right manner where where did that never go out of fashion in my world yeah so therefore speak to being in the right manner we travel clean as a group we don't have one person with flip-flops one person with ear phones on one person with one arm one sleeve turned up one sleeve down and one leg up and one down and all that nonsense we don't have that they're the non-negotiables the negotiables are wide and varied the lads know that here can't name them all but we we do days off we listen we you know so there's way less non-negotiables than there are negotiables but certain things are important how we look how we conduct itself to me are very important as a team we get loads of good feedback here from traveling at airports and train station people writing emails by the way your lads are terrific they do it my kids we don't do the security virtually every single premier league team now has some big security firms with them and teams we don't do security we just travel why is that because i think we we we're we're a little club and i'm not doing this down we're a little club relatively speaking in the premier league i don't remotely think we're team of superstars and i think that humble edge is important it's important to our town you know there's a connection here with the players the club and the team it's not a corporate club really you know there is a real connection and i think them little things are important now i must make it clear i totally understand i'm not judging i've seen mancy their players are all world stars they do need security sometimes so let me make that clear you know i've heard stories where man you're in the far east and you know they've got the hotel and there's like 10 000 people there so they can't even just go for a walk so let me make that i do understand that but while we while we're not that and while we can be open and control our situation you know in a good way then we will if a time comes when year on year this club was growing and putting more money in and signing superstars then we would have to look at it so i must make that clear but at the moment we don't need to do that so we remain humble remain open we speak to people in the right way we treat people the right way and i think that's still an important thing so so when you so yeah as i say so when you're looking to recruit somebody to come into the club then these are all like very human characteristics that that that you're looking for how do you go about making sure that there is that right cultural fit that you're going to bring somebody in that that will observe these traditions well the the you're trying to do as much background is that there's a load of stories about you know because i've been here seven years and we don't spend a lot of money then it's like we won't sign foreign players anyways it's a load of nonsense i've said it in many interviews we haven't got the depth that we need this is not a club we want to sign foreign players who we don't know if about for 20 million quid and sell them two years later for seven million quid this club does not want to be doing that this club is built on trying to buy players who we know stuff about we can develop them and one day they get sold or they're so good in them years that maybe they grow older being part of the club so they've given you the money back in value you know for what they do and what they give so that's that one out the way that's that one clear so beyond that of course it stands to reason when you've been in the game as long as i have then you know loads of people throughout the game i know youth code i know i bring um a couple of education officers you know to ask about the character of a player to ask what they're like i've rang youth coaches i've players i've known have been on the scene for 18 uh since they're 18 sorry playing in first teams well i've gone back to when they're 18 and spoke to the youth coaches to find out you know by the way not about their ability who are they yeah that's a really really powerful thing i believe i believe my belief is that and i know like you said you've got to work with mavericks and all that of course you have but there's no manager out there you know because i often i'll give you an example people say to me oh you always sign good characters i said show me a manager who doesn't want to sign good characters i'm telling you they all want to sign good characters it's just so much slightly flawed but their skill set is so good you'll put up with the flaws and then i do remind them everyone tells me about good characters i said well i signed jerry barton you know said would you were you all thinking he was a good character because i guarantee you weren't no so they go were they all good characters then but i thought underneath all he was the right character and a good character and which we found out he was so you know there's a lot more to it you can't just make out that every player has got the perfect attitude they haven't once they're here we try and mold them into what we've first of what we've put it and equally what we believe is important yeah and do you buy into the adage that talent gets you into the room and your attitude keeps you in the room it's not a bad show um you know on the other hand you know is it is it the attitude that can build the talent you know so if that has to be a sign of talent particularly if we're now aligned in the premier league right there has to be enough talent of course but can the talent be mold sort of mold friendly that the attitude will take the talent to another level that's the deciding that's really the bit that's really difficult to analyze are they good enough in the first place but capped or are they slightly less good but have growth and that's the hardest thing to analyze you know some people come out the blue and fly some people plateau and some people actually drift and they can't quite find the moments that got him where in the first place you know when you sign a player and he might be awesome yeah and you get them in and they can't refined it so you know that's why it's so difficult signing players it really is recruitment is difficult whether you've got loads of analysts loads of teams of scouts or whatever you've got it's still very very difficult and that's why you see some enormous sums paid for players who end up being all right you know they're not wonderful they're all right because it's difficult and how long would you would you give a player to to to come in and prove themselves so if you were bringing somebody in and you felt they had the right attitude and they weren't quite quite blossoming in terms of performance how long would you yeah we've had a few of them with james tarkowski like that he had sit tight while um ben me and uh keno were doing great keeno's another one he played came in played about 18 games in the premier league learn didn't quite happen for him um came back in the championship was awesome premier league excellent got sold for a fortune we've had a number of them nick pope he had to sit tight while tommy was doing well he was learning in the background as in bailey now you know they're learning in the background and you see their attitude then you see are they sticking to task are they sticking with what the end product is going to be then players i've just mentioned absolutely 100 sense sorry nice you know sticking in day in day out attitude great training hard and then you think your day will come it's just like something about life you know they find a way they just force their way through it just by being them and just by doing it right all of the time the ones that do that are the ones that usually get paid back i don't mean pay as in money but yeah with a chance or a break or something happens which rewards them well jake and i were talking about this in the cab we were talking about um many years ago i spoke to alex ferguson when danny welbeck was coming through and um we were talking about his development and one of these things was the reason he persevered with him was that he was the kid that would always go and collect the balls after training and he said i always noted he went for the most difficult balls the ones that were furthest away or the ones that were stuck up in a tree because he felt it told him something about his attitude which would mean that he was prepared to be patient and persevere with him well yeah i mean i understand his strengths he's been brilliant with me when i came up to the north he he stretched out to make sure he made contact and said come and have a coffee with me and i've kept in touch ever since he'd been brilliant not just me by the way a lot of young man at one slightly older manager but young manager at the time and you know he often explained things like that to me you know and but i remember that from brian cliff back in the day like i said good manners he'd search for that you know you and if if you didn't honestly you would get it you would i'm not going to use the words but you would get it in no uncertain terms you know your conduct around the place um simple things you know like you know a cultural shift it seems to me a lot of kids now they seem to be grumpy kids like you pass them in the corridors all right would you stop and go no no no you're a young professional footballer or you want to be and you do that do you absolutely just go have you ever looked around oh yeah yeah yeah so now you go right good morning morning super no it seems crazy but these little things eventually rub off you know and it's you know yourself your muscle memory your actions how you remember things how you conduct yourself in future they're all things that make a difference because not every player you know i'll give you an example this is my belief i've got i've got children and i say i use a lot of this with them because i treat my players similar really yeah i'd say to my you know my kids i go look there's that many kids it seems to me out there with that kind of action because i see them a lot if you just do them basics you look someone in the eyes you shake their hand you speak to them in a proper manner that will get you started straight away straight away yep before you do anything in life that will get you started so these are simple life skills that they haven't always got or they haven't always been taught or they've lost the belief in them yep the point of the story is that if you don't become a footballer you'll stand out because of them things you go into an interview and people god i like the way they handle this i like the way they can do this i like the way do you get them in yeah yeah so we're always trying to reaffirm just good life skills by the way you know what's interesting we've been talking for a while now have you noticed we haven't even gotten to four four two and four three three exactly because there's so much more to it yeah but that is the case what we've spoken a lot about though is you constantly improving your players helping your players sometimes changing your players you've now been here for a number of years what do you have to do about yourself to change and evolve so that they're not hearing the same message in the same way from the same guy every day and eventually they kind of are desensitized to it it's really difficult um as you know i've got a certain sound um and it sounds negative a lot because of the the the roughness of my voice so i tend to use probably about eight to one positives to negatives because my voice sounds like that anyway so i'm quite self-aware so you're aware of that yeah absolutely yeah so behind that i go on i keep my mind open i i visit places and when i can and you know lately it's been the rugby thing more because of the culture um someone says football what do you like about the rugby culture i just think that it's it's not where football is now um you know financially and and that can change things and it will do in rugby um there's still that kind of inner core uh belief in groups and they're very they have to be by the nature of the game they have to be extremely competitive and therefore they're extremely competitive in their groups in their packs if you like but how do they keep the respect lines even though they're cracking into each other every day constantly so things like that you know i like that i like the the training children i like how they look after themselves loads of different things you know what they're thinking about culture about environments and things like that i went down to the oxford boat crew absolutely made sure modern he's still there and i emailed him last year i think he's still there and he was terrific i learned what did you take from my pro license well you got non-professionals who are the most professional people i've ever seen i mean a raw super raw they they were in a gym they just had a blackboard with literally the date and the time of the boat rate wrist boats boat race written on it but blackboard got like some trendy amazing poster with lights around it just a blackboard and they walk over they get their their own machines down do it all theirself get on the rowers here we go bang start absolutely smashing out you just think that's a rawness you know there's a there's a belief in that rawness that gives them that edge you think football might have lost that a bit it can it's not it's not that it's lost it i mean don't get me wrong you know you can't you can't take it back there yeah you've got a feel of our facilities here you know we were just talking about before we started this and you you you're not going to take them back to the scruffy gym that the box has started in you know you're not going to do that so but it's making them aware that the reason why these things are here so it's not like a crutch to lean on these are actually here for elite performance and therefore we've got to keep that mindset and that sounds easy it's not easy yeah yeah because it does soften your edge sometimes you know if all these things are so amazing that you end up doing not a lot yourself yeah um so it's kind of it's a fine line to for example when we did the training round when we did it with the designers we had a lot of input they were great the the architects and the designers and we said look it's got to be nice enough because their lives have moved forward including our lives you know players here now are any good money they'd expect a certain level because they've grown into that but it can't be so nice it's not you know like uh gowns and slippers yeah i mean i can assure you you know there's got to be an element where no no it's a workplace you know it means something yeah so it's a fine line that but that that's to try and keep that that little raw edge in the background you know so the good boxers never forget the first gym the ones who maybe lose their way have probably forgotten that i imagine i don't know box but you understand the triathlon still joel let me quote and say that it's hard to run when you're wearing some pajamas yeah yeah yeah exactly element yeah can i ask about these cpd visits that you've done to other environments because i see a lot of coaches go into different environments and then they'll often come back with a gimmick that they'll try and introduce and it might last for a short period of time and then they'll forget it so i hear a lot of coaches will say oh we sweep the sheds and then when you say why do you do that they say well i've read that new zealand rugby do that and he said well i understand why they do it but yeah but i think i i've always thought you i try i attempt to my staff attempt to put things in place that are meaningful and they last right and that was like including myself is authenticity authenticity sorry you know it's got to be authentic if it becomes like a a silly throwaway thing yeah that might have started seriously it loses its edge sure you know so i think anything you put in has to be authentic so the stuff that and i also i also believe that you know the best coach about the best thieves so you you choose the things you're stealing you know and you choose the ones that you think will work in your environment and and you know i've looked i i i i think that duncan i don't want to pontificate there's others out there doing this sort of stuff but i've been to kpmg i've done a talk for them but equally had feedback you know what what what do you think what do you think of what i'm telling you yeah and it barred pharmaceutical this summer and you know what what did you think what do you tell it what what was the things that you thought were interesting what were the things that yeah did you get i mean so all these justin virtue motors last week you know and but the point is not me always telling them it's like what comes back what what were you listening to out of that that made sense what what what strength what were you not so bothered about what do you throw out there and what do you keep because then you know are you on something because if usually if different areas of life think i like that you're usually not far wrong yeah so what would you say has been the the best idea that you've stolen from another culture that you've implemented with the best effect um i don't know uh let me just put me on my toes because i've had that many influences i've played for 20 years i had loads of different coaches loads of information i played all the different levels um and then i coached through the system at watford with 80 boov so eddie booth roy right sometimes gets not so much light at least i'm great with the england set but you know got a bit of stick he plays this way but behind it super organized great with feedback um you know a good method to his thoughts on on the planning forgetting about styles not on the planning so nicked a lot of ideas about feedback structure the late dick bait unfortunately passed away a big friend of mine and someone i bought here as a consultant but you know been years as a coach he's like a professor of coaching so the use of powerpoint use of language the use of getting points across the use of a mistake he used to deliberately make a mistake for someone to correct him because now they've remembered the fact that they corrected them you know lovely lovely little little twists and tweaks you know um davey dodson was with me at watford you know working with young players you know done it for years and and working for him speaking to him you know in a certain manner and yeah trying to get the best out of him you know john duncan i played with it chesterfield maximizing a group but that we're all right and turning him into a group that split up for millions of pounds at a club that never sold a player in 40 years or whatever you know so there's all these different influences you know and i've named a few but there's loads loads more than that were you consciously absorbing these when you were a player do you know what i always have this plan no i think i think you reflect on them more so later on in life i reflected on some of them so when i got to the first time i thought i was going to go into this side of it was under john duncan at chesterfield i started getting intrigued by because we started having good success for a small club and i started thinking this is not my accident this is by design we're now you know we we all couldn't stand him for the first year i certainly couldn't i tell him now he's a good friend of mine i use him now i bounce things off him um and then when we worked him out and he worked us out and then we built that trust and then we got on brilliantly you know and his planning and his organization and kevin randle the late camaraderie passed away but he i bought him here as well to work with me because i trusted him and he and he had you know great organizational skills so things like that you know and he's not a massive name but i tell you he had it down he just had it lock and lock down the organizational point of view things like you start using all these things you know and that's when i first started thinking i'm having this i like this then at millwall i work with mark mcgee a really terrific young group of players richie sadler unfortunately got injured joe dolan another one got injured but top young players um timmy kale of course you'd know him and stephen reed and paul eiffel and you know there was so many lucas neil these were quality young players had a real edge to him and i was the older pro-mean stewart never caught in these guys and steve claridge come in for a bit but you rub it they're rubbing off and you think right this is a good mix some old boys like me keep it right and these young whippets who have different class you know so you know you start reflecting on that and you start piecing these things together took me bee license got me a license at the end of my career under colin gold and another one i thought was excellent right the end of my career really enjoyed him went on the a license got that done and by the end of all that and all my thoughts got the biggest twist of fate ever went down to watch davey dodd's work at watford just to see him coach remember eddie buford had got rid of me as a player sat on a bench spoke to him about what we're thinking about now my thoughts on it got a phone call out eddie wants to bring him in and he got rid of me as a player but he liked what i said what was it you said on that occasion what we're talking about just that i finished playing this is what i've learned yeah so lady this is what i've learned right and he's a really receptive guy i like addie a lot i've got a lot of respect from he's a bright guy and he and he was listening you know he wasn't pretendless and he was listening and listening yep i didn't know that he always said he said you got you got the best way of selling yourself without selling yourself he said it was just authentic he said i just sat and thought no you're right so he got me in and then you've got a chance then and that sounds really simple it wasn't similar to you know android teens jobs you know hard to come by you know so i was very lucky to get in with really good people straight away and then you're off and running and then you're re-molding some of your thoughts adding your own thoughts in and you're learning every day from the feedback from these young people who are trying to be footballers i loved it absolutely loved the youth setup really did so what's the thrill for you then is it three points on a saturday is it learning about people is it improving people is it improving yourself what's the truth for me i got in it to help others i thought i had a decent career and i didn't think all of it was helped along the way and i thought if i ever get a chance the first port of call will be make you better than me or give you the chance guide you to be better than me that still really is the underbelly of what i do the three points you know is funny winning true success like say like because because staying in the premier league is a different form of success but say like when we won the league right when you win the league that is that is an awesome thing that's like a season's work of true an adult raid find a way to win the only way you can get promoted is to find a way can't always be sexy and lovely sometimes it's got to be grind it's got to be powerful you've got to do what you've got to do and when you do that that is a massive achievement so don't get me wrong i can you can never take that away that feeling because that's unbelievable but deep down behind that why do i actually do it is really to give people a better chance than i had that's that's it and when players come in here and they improve some have moved on for multi millions some are still here doing great that's what i really like and you know what sometimes if you can also help just add a bit to their lives as people then even better you know that's really what i i think is important that's probably a really really healthy way to approach football management isn't it rather than the kind of manager that lives or dies by three points on a saturday well i think the sign of any healthy culture is can you improve somebody from where they are is isn't it that doesn't matter well i mean i'm still learning by the way you know i'm sharing with you the thoughts i've got from seven years here and a year at watford and 20 years as a player but it doesn't mean i'm not this is not all right i'm not saying this is all right as in or fact this is my thoughts on it you speak to another manager it doesn't mean they're wrong they might say no don't do any of that i i work with 433 and that's what they should be doing and i'm not really bothered what they do off the pitch it's up to them that's maybe their style i'm not saying it's right or wrong i'm just giving you my view sure what i think is important so what when you look at the end of a season how much difference do you make in points terms for you as a as a manager what what difference do you think you make i don't i don't think i don't really look at it like that i think the group make a difference i mean last year was a perfect example of a group of people who turned the situation around you know we were in massive trouble at the halfway point we had 12 points at 19 games we'd just been stuffed by everton loads of noise about it probably the first i mean a long time had been heavily questioned or you know can we move forward i must say the fans were great i will say that because that's not easy for fans but they they stood stood by me and what was going on and when they could have down tools but then you got a group of people you could almost smell it when they went right enough's enough and we turned it around talking about the players there yeah no earned staff and me included but a group a connected group who possibly had been at stretch the connections the belief in what we've done the belief in what we do probably been at stretch actually probably not possibly a minute stretch to gather it back together and to make it go forward again and not only go forward we we smashed the second half a season which is not easy in relative terms yeah you know outscoring some of the top guns and you know all that that's actually my biggest success so people think that my success here you know the promotion we got to europe night that's not in my view that's not my biggest success as a manager but i'm using my because i have to take the accolades or the stick what i mean is hour really yeah um and the players played a massive massive part in that turnaround what made the turnaround that season what was the moment a number of things i think there's a thing that i believe in when you bottom out there's a collective mentality where it bottoms out i believe and when did that bottoms out after we got done by evan you know you remember that that feeling yeah you could sense in the room it was like right enough's enough forget about what i did i said i think the groups went lads we're better than this right you know it's hard to explain it's like a collective you can almost smell it you know and you can you can taste it in the room you think right you've bottomed out i could sense it so actually after that there was no slanging matches and all that it was very simply and me in a powerpoint of probably about eight things that we've forgotten and i said lads this is what we're about this is what we do remember what they were i'm just not off the top miad but basics um shape alignment alignment was a big one an aligned mentality we all know what is needed but we've chosen decisions to decide we don't need that we've actually chosen as individuals i don't think i need that anymore through what exhaustion thinking well you get a little bit for the first time don't forget the scene before you finish seven yeah and it's human nature to think i think i've correct this human nature here now we don't have staff but not because we're mega intern just because you're a bit older and worse you think no no you've never cracked football trust me you never cracked it but when you're a bit younger and you've got a few quid and you've had a bit of kudos because now you finished seventh and you're getting interviews and things that have never come your way before yeah and actually people go no do you know what i think cement burning players are the real thing i think they actually are that whatever that is and then all of a sudden you've got this weird dynamic and then you've got europe european football which was odd and it's it's you know very tiring very hard injuries and all these different things start going so if that happened again and you finished six this season for example resign go home go to the beach apart from the brazilians go to the beach was there a learning for you that right i now know what i do if we finish things well dragging me on reflection i was pleased with yeah no panic yeah there's no panic in the camp no panic from me no panic from the staff no doubt players there's always doubt you can't you don't you don't you don't get the elation of a win or the the the feeling to push unless you have doubt i don't think you have to have doubt it's just a human trait um you know all the things that we've laid down backed up by years of doing it backed up by no panic backed up by clear alignment this is what we need to do that is what put all the noses back in the right direction but the key was the acceptance of a group of people who said right we're with you that's always the key you know because people go oh no i'm not believe that haven't it but the group went yep okay and we just you know realigned and delivered and the players delivered it wasn't me i can't deliver they delivered you know and honestly it's the biggest success that's why i speak so enthusiastically about it because it's hard and really not enjoyable at times but on reflection without doubt the best management success but put down to a group of people not just me it's just because i have to take the name of it because i'm you know i'm the manager so how do you harness that to then replicate it again and again well you you gotta you can always go back to it and go hey lads remember staff remember and you do anything right yeah so you learn from that you know it felt don't forget you know how how wrong it felt to realign it to be right so they're all things that do help you know you have to you see our favor and you know is it jag over you you never know you don't appreciate the view from the top of the mountain unless you've been to the bottom of the valley it's that kind of thing you know unless you've been down there you don't really know how it feels how it affects you of course because it does affect you how you are how you're dealing with it me as manager my staff the players how are they actually dealing with it forget about whether you're winning a loser how they actually dealing with it in their own lives you know all them things become really important and they become really acute you know you become acutely aware of all these little things um and to come through that you know you conduct it you know they conduct it and it's always something to reflect on when when needed so if we were a bad run this week you know three bad bad losses one not so bad two mistakes but the other two heavy losses but if you get i mean because we've been down that road before there's an alignment lads we need to do better but there's not that kind of oh it's all wrong there's no that thought it's like no no we know what we're doing so it's now about delivering and delivering better so who plays the part for you then shawna being like the voice on your shoulder like the voice in your ear that sort of keeps you you got your own self-talk quite obviously and i have plenty of that sit on the m6 for half my life yeah and so there's plenty of that you've got your staff of course and especially if you've got trusted staff you know i say we have an agreement tell me don't don't ever talk about just tell me good news bad news just tell me um so you've got that you've got outside um family in a different way they more of a relaxed it's not that they absorb my misses don't know about football you're not bothered about what she can absorb in a different way she knows when to take my mind away from me and go right we're going out with the kids she knows i don't really want sympathy don't really like that yeah i'm a bit of empathy now and again a bit of like dad just needs an hour you know his perspective outside the game yeah i mean i use that a lot you know i because football can be really intense and it can be really overbearing at times i use that a lot you know i i i haven't lost we want to come out what for example i've got the sack there and i said after that oh you know you must be this must be that i said well i said people are a lot worse off than me both career-wise and financially you get the sack you know and they're in real trouble i'm not in trouble so i said no no i'm not going to start crying in you know it happens it's one of the challenges of the job that i'm in um no i use that a lot you know i'm i'm you say i'll be careful what you wish for i try not to cry into it there's days when you get fed up of course and you know in balance that you know people sort of have this weird thing when they're always like oh well it doesn't matter because you've got money or whatever and it has nothing to do with it there's no relevance whatsoever whether you've got money or not at that moment when it's all feeling terrible and but it is a it is a thing that you learn to deal with but but back to your point outside of the world of football i know there's a lot of people a lot worse off than me so if my day comes which inevitably will do either you leave for good reasons you go on somewhere else or you leave for bad reasons you get the sack trust me i'll be all right i'm not i'm not going to start crying either so again a question that jake and i were sort of reflecting on in terms of a lot of the stuff that we've read about you and we know that the principles that you've introduced here at burnley how replicable do you think they would be outside of the world of football whether it's out to a different sport or some of these businesses you've been to speak to well they seem to think the business i've spoken to and i do quite a bit of that for a charity actually so when i do it all goes to a charity the kidney charity that i support um i do it for my development because i think it's still important that you different voices you're looking at different faces don't forget uh different voices you're listening to sorry different faces you look at the feedback is different from the business world of course um and i think it's it's all part of you know continue to improve you know and and we were talking about earlier you see pd um and i forgot what your question was i was asking answers to the outside transfer i mean sorry yes spoken culture very transferable yeah most businesses i've spoken to really intrigued by how you align the culture they've all got a good understanding of setting it and all the keywords and the buzzwords and different ways of setting it but how do you actually bring it to life how do you actually align people to believe in it they're very interested in that because if you think about crossover that's not relevant like he's talking about now he's no he's not four four two or four three three it's just a crossover of life they're very interested equally i'm interested in how they do it um so that's always one environment's very similar but most companies good companies have got a good environment you know the obvious ones people like talk about the the open mindedness of google say you know they've got this amazing way of working it's all very freelance-ish feeling and yet you've got some of the top gurus in the world working there you know how do you how do you align that one at first they're going are you kidding me there's no structure to this but in that world lack of structure works if you might be an accountancy you might need structure you know so therefore it's you know that sort of thing um a lot of the individual thing comes out a lot of companies ask me about how do you deal with the people how are you as people forget about the job they're doing how do you deal with them as people because they always ask because obviously if it was very stressful so you're dealing with them companies are but what i mean is it's internal stress football can be external stress in fact often is fear of failure in front of thousands millions you know of people when you're 19 years old yeah and twitter and all that sort of stuff yeah um they're the usual things they're the usual things but but i like give my opinion but i like it when they feedback that's the point of saying oh we have this you know question answer i go sometimes i ask them i go well you must have something what what do you think you know what i mean so i really enjoy that side of it really really interesting right before we finish we've got some quick fire questions three non-negotiable behaviors that you and everyone around you have to buy into to be part of the journey here um first no nonsense in interviews as in cans and hats and one color up and one color down and trendy sleeve i'm amazed that that bothers you so much how they dress because that's not going to win you three points is it it's important to show the image of what the team stand for yeah i think that's vitally important i i well i was brought up in different areas less you know before i've gone to your quick fight because this ain't a quick fire answer i was wondering i was wanting an era when then things counted if you're in a room and someone's talking whether you like what they're talking about you listen you look at them and you listen i was going to be that way of thinking i think that's still relevant if there's millions of people watching my players on a screen i expect them to respect the people through the screen it might be old-fashioned but i'm not really bothered it's non-negotiable so don't wear cans don't wear you know i saw someone do it it's not fair to say i saw someone doing an interview there today with you know the earpods yeah i think are you kidding me i'm telling you if one of my players walked up to me speaking to me with earpods in i'd snatch him out of his ear and stamp him on the floor i wouldn't really throw that that would be going through my mind i'd be like are you you're actually going to have a conversation with with earpods in your ears you haven't even thought i'd better take them out for it that's not funny yeah that's just not for me that just comes down to respect now that's not about you know what i mean that comes down to respect uh sorry next one so response number one yeah yeah yeah it's a good way of putting it so out of that story respect really yeah um i think professionalism true professionalism which means goods bads good form bad form uh bad doubt at the office we stick to certain levels of what we believe is right for the team as well you know like professional respective different kind of respect but professional respect so self-respect is the first one professional respect would be the second lovely and the third um the manager's always right no definitely not manager's not always right although i never tell them that um alex ferguson actually told me story about i said when was it you know when did you show everyone when did you first say you're wrong and he said oh i think it's about five and a half years and we've won three titles um do you know what non-negotiable is a great attitude just just just everything you do just be open-minded work hard give everything you can in fact that's probably number one that's probably number one would be non-negotiable but i will educate that though because don't forget you don't know what you don't know so some people don't know what a great attitude is they've never really felt it so we will speak to players and remind say listen these are the guidelines to help you find what that really is yeah because some don't actually know it some it's instinctive you know they built into them love it yeah so what advice would you give to a teenage sean starting out um well some somebody's not fair because of how modern trends have changed you know it's not fair to look back and start talking about diet and what you want you drink i was just in a different era yeah so taking them things out i think um absorb more from the coaching staff i mean not just listen absorb it actually think it through i think that's a big one i think don't be i was always the but guys so you'd tell me something i got bert which we as we know negates what you've just said so i was i'd go right shut your mouth listen more talk less that'll be another thing definite for me it's a good one more thoughtless you know because you you know what i mean so you say something i'll go yeah but i was always that kid so i'd definitely get rid of that um yeah them two things would be a good start point how did you react to your greatest failure or your biggest disappointment i don't like the word failure because i think it's all learning whichever way you look at it not sound nonsensical or silly about it but i do i think it's okay though yeah yeah of course well it happens it happens um my biggest failure to use that word was at bristol city i moved down there um for a few quid at the time like 375 grand but that was first division first videos that was quite a lot uh i had a disaster off the pitch with injuries i had a disaster on the pitch on the played fifteen thousand singing we want dai chow and i was captain not the highlight of my career yeah but this is a good butt to negate that that turned around my thinking of the truth of what it is so now i don't fear that if i get sick in the gut never really bothered me because i've had it so i go yeah i actually you know the next day you know you get up and you live and you carry on so it doesn't really bother me um i don't enjoy it but it doesn't bother me i learned about myself i learned about the manager and the coaches how they dealt with that moment i learned about the club and how they dealt with it i learned about fans of course the feedback from fans and how that changes that period taught me more in my career and about me as well than i've ever learned in my life so what came out of a really dire situation because it felt dire at the time trust me my mum was there and she's crying because people are calling me the names we're not going to use now lots of people calling me them names that hurts yeah but i learned so much about myself and my career from that then and on reflection got through it moved on and had more successes after that as a player than i did before it so that was a key failure that actually ended up being the best failure i've ever had brilliant is legacy important to you i think it is here but i didn't come here to build a legacy i came here because we wanted to try and add to what was already here and make it successful now it's become somewhat a legacy because of all what was this building all the training ground and everything so eventually we looked at that it was under my rem not my remit under my um period that some of these things went on as we've discussed there's a lot more to it than just me there's loads of people playing massive parts in this but i didn't come in to build a legacy or prove that i could build a legacy i just came here to try and be successful and with that has become attached to it like some form of a legacy okay and finally for the people listening to this the one golden rule that you would either live by or would want to share with them for living a high performance life i think be honest be honest with yourself starts with yourself just just tell yourself the truth take away the nonsense take away your ego sometimes just think no hang on a minute because your self-talk is really important i'll be honest with others you know if you're gonna if you're going to deal with other people which inevitably if you're in my job you are going to always rely on honesty as a great start point you can you can hard honesty or soft honesty but just be honest well that's what i believe brilliant you know what that's been fascinating we've sat here for all this time i've not really spoken about football but football is all we've spoken about at the same time interesting yeah you'd only say four four two kick it forward so don't worry everyone says there you go that's that's the first challenge thank you for your time cheers

Channel: The High Performance Podcast

Views: 114,929

Rating: 4.9166288 out of 5

Keywords: Football, Podcast, The High Performance Podcast, Jake Humphrey, Damian Hughes, Liquid thinker, Sean Dyche, Burnley, dyche, burnley fc, sir alex, high performance habits, eddie howe

Id: Qn9WXJBTijE

Length: 51min 34sec (3094 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Trainform]

Thanks for sharing this--great video that has implications well beyond managing a football team. Love his approach & his openness about continuing to grow/learn in this approach.