Building the world's most successful rugby team with All Blacks legend Steve Hansen (E214)

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance App. Download the High Performance app and use the code HPAPP. Hi there, you're listening to High Performance, the award-winning podcast that unlocks the minds of some of the most fascinating people on the planet. I'm Jay Comfrey and alongside Professor Damien Hughes, we learn from the stories, successes and struggles of our guests, allowing us all to explore, be challenged and to grow. Before we get going, please can you do me one favour? Just hit the subscribe button. And if you can subscribe to our shows here on your podcast provider or on YouTube, it allows us to grow high performance to attract even more incredible guests to have even more impact.

1:07Right, today is a special episode. Here's what's coming up. The job of the coach is to take something that's complex and complicated and make it simple. Then I come up with the idea of, OK, let's be the greatest sports team in the history of the game. and I don't even know if some people thought we could achieve it and I don't know if we did or we didn't achieve it, it doesn't matter. What mattered was we had a whole group of people collectively owning that idea, trying to achieve it. The hardest thing to do at World Cups, this is why they're so hard to win, is go back to back to back. You've got to have three great performances to win it.

1:45For a long time, the All Blacks didn't want to admit to ourselves that we were chokers at World Cups. we won two world cups because of the fact that they allowed us to have another go and we took the learnings and you know bob's your uncle got the job done you know there's one thing we love here on high performance and that's showing you a side to elite sports people whether that's the athletes the coaches the executives or the leaders that you just don't see or hear anywhere else. And today is special. Recorded ahead of a game at Twickenham Stadium, the home of England rugby, we were joined by the legendary All Blacks coach, Steve Hansen.

2:28He's the first ever coach to lead the All Blacks to a successful defence of the Rugby World Cup. But this conversation actually is about so much more than rugby. It's about life. He is one of rugby's greatest leaders. He has led the most famous team in the sport of rugby. But Steve rarely gives interviews like this. He rarely opens up in this kind of way. This interview is honest, it's emotional, it's entertaining, and it's enlightening. So on the eve of the Rugby World Cup, let's hear from a coach who has won it, as we welcome Steve Hansen to High Performance.

3:33We'll see you next time. Your first two orders with code APRON20. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com slash terms for more. This episode is brought to you by Opera Air, the first browser with mindfulness at its core. Now, most of us spend hours every day online, but how often do we pause to take care of ourselves whilst we're doing it? And that's where Opera Air comes in. It's a lightweight, fast, secure browser built not just for productivity, but for your well-being. With Opera Air, mindfulness is built right in. You'll find free breathing exercises, guided meditations and soundscapes with ambient sounds, lo-fi music and binaural beats, all designed to help you focus, relax and even spark creativity while you browse.

4:22Steve, thanks for joining us. It's a pleasure and looking forward to it. Let's start then with the question that I guess defines the name of this podcast. What is your version of high performance? it's a number of things really, but if you're looking at skill, it's being able to perform the skill at the highest level under the most pressure and keep your mental fortitude in the now as opposed to in the past or being distracted by what's going around you. And, you know, off-field, it's about making sure that you're doing the little things that make you better, you know. So we often, I think, understand the on-field stuff, but we struggle a little bit with the off-field, particularly young athletes when they start, and that's where we have to educate them a bit.

5:07And where did your own personal desire to find high performance to improve yourself and those around you begin? I'm not sure, really. I think my father was a coach well before his time. We talked a lot about rugby and sports and reasonably competitive human beings. How competitive? No, very. Probably too competitive because my pride gets in the way, or used to, probably still does a bit. However, you know, I think when you start doing things and you don't do them as well as you'd like to do, then you find ways to get better. And if you want to win things and you don't win them, you find ways to get better.

5:52And it grows within you and, you know, it's like something's just tapping away in the back of your head all the time, demanding that you got to front up. And I was lucky in my early coaching career, I came straight out of playing and went straight to coaching. And I had a coach who'd been a teacher, a coach, you know, all his life, and he taught me something that stayed with me forever. You know, after the game and you haven't won or you haven't played as well, it's not about what the guys haven't done, and it's what could you do better during the week to help them be better? And he said, that's the question we've got to ask ourselves.

6:32So that stuck with me, and I think that's been wonderful help. So I'm the son of a coach as well. My dad was a boxing coach, Steve, and I think sometimes in this modern day and age we often overcomplicate a lot of the messages, and I think common sense is common practice, and it goes right the way back. Don't get me going on common sense. Go on. Well, it shouldn't be called common sense because it's not that common. The job of the coach is to take something that's complexed and complicated and make it simple. The simpler you can make it, the easier it is for your athlete to be able to go and do it.

7:09If you've got athletes that have got to think about what they're doing, then it doesn't matter what sport it is, they're going to be slow at it because they're too busy thinking rather than doing. I always say, like, you drive your car, you don't think about how you drive it. You just drive it until someone either cuts you off or you just about have an accident. And the next 15 minutes, you know, the sweat coming off the brow because you're thinking that much, but you're not going very fast. And it's the same. Like in our sport, continually we over-coach them, we over-complicate things that should just be simple messages.

7:43So it sounds simple to say, make it simple. How did you do it? Good question. I think over time, come to understand for the game I wanted to play and the players I had to play it, I wanted to find what's critical. And you can't have too many. There's a lot of important many things, but what's really, really critical, if you know we do those really good, we'll give ourselves a chance to win. So identifying those and then for each one of those five things, you find two or three things that are really critical for them to be successful. What were the five? For me, set piece, breakdown, tackle, catch and pass, and then position-specific skills like kicking for fullbacks and stuff like that.

8:37So where among making the game of rugby more simple comes the culture, the messaging to the players, getting to their heart, not their head? How do you make all of that simple? because the people that listen to this podcast are constantly looking for ways in their own lives to do that. Culture is probably the most overused word in the planet, I think, because is there a culture or is it just how you live? And so once you establish how you want to live and then you go about living it from the top down rather than the bottom up, things are either going to be great or they're going to be dog shit because there's only two types of ways to live.

9:15It's either right or wrong. So it's a matter of establishing what's not negotiable, what is negotiable, and then getting aligned on it. So from my point of view, it was making sure the other coaches, the management were aligned. Then we'd take it to our leaders, get them aligned and give everybody the opportunity to disagree and robustly discuss it. and eventually someone may still be disagreeing but they have to commit to it because the majority wins. Then you take it to the rest of the group and give them the same opportunity. So we all own it. It's not just Steve's idea, it's everybody's idea right down to the guy that's just arrived first time in the All Blacks and his opinion's just as valuable as everybody else's.

10:05So give them the opportunity to, as I say, robustly disagree or agree, at some point, boys, okay, well, we've still got a 23 split here. What are we going to do? And obviously the 20 are going to outvote the three. So you guys coming with us, and that means if it works, you get the credit. If it doesn't work, you can't sit there and go, well, I told you it wasn't going to work. We're all in it together. So we disagree and commit to it. And that's been the philosophy for a long time. and then living it from the top down, I think, you know. It's really, really important. So what were the non-negotiable expectations that you did set then?

10:46The first one was team first and individual second. I always felt that I wanted to care about my athletes, but I didn't want that care and love and support to get in the way of making tough decisions. So if I made the team more important than the individual, then the team would demand that I'd make those tough decisions. And if we could educate our athletes and our management to understand that as well, then we'd all make the right decisions in the moment that we needed to make them because it was more important for the team than it was for myself. Now, we didn't get that right all the time. You know, those guys, they're young men and they make mistakes, but we got it right a lot of the time.

11:28So that was non-negotiable. Having alignment was non-negotiable. so we couldn't do it if we didn't agree that we had to be aligned. And then the third one was that the players would drive that alignment. They would lead it both on and off the field. I wanted them to drive the bus as opposed to me being the driver. I love what you said there about caring about players because I think often people assume elite sport is quite a brutal, harsh environment, and yet to hear somebody as successful as yourself talk about caring and wanting to get along with players is important. Would you explain for those outside of that world then that maybe would be surprised at hearing that, why it is so important?

12:13Well, it's a tough job, as you've just said. It's a really, really mentally pressured environment. And human beings, just by nature, want to be loved. People who care about us, we want to be valued. and when I started coaching, I always, like I'm a reasonably simple person so I'd always use the philosophy of my own career and things that happened to me, the good and the bad and of the bad things I didn't want to happen to other people. Like people not being brave enough to tell you the truth about selections, not being honest enough to say where you sit in the pecking order, not caring enough to be able to say, well, look, you know, You don't need to be here today.

12:59You go and sort out what's happening at home. So I just naturally took that into, you know, and over years you refine it and you get better and you grow as you have more experiences. So whilst it's really important the team comes first, your team's made up of a whole lot of different people who have different things going on in their lives and need support. Some need a kick in the bum and some need a cuddle. But, you know, no one's ever been hurt by giving them a cuddle, have they? It's an interesting one, isn't it, this caring for people because it's the right thing to do. But your job actually at the end of the day is to win games of rugby and win trophies.

13:36So can you give us an example of when you knew that caring for individuals actually translated to performances on the rugby pitch? There was no lightbulb moment that said I just knew that that's how I wanted to coach. And when I did it, I knew I had an athlete who would give me more. So I guess that maybe that was the light bulb moment, I suppose. But the more you knew the athlete knew that you cared about him and you trusted him and you were able to be vulnerable enough with him to share things and normalise things, the more they would give you. Can we talk about alignment as well? Because that's something that's come up in the conversation three or four times already.

14:19I think we all learn more when things aren't going right than when they're going well. Could you give us an example of a period in your coaching career when the alignment has not been right and you've had to… Oh, there's two times probably. The alignment wasn't right with the process and it was my fault because I became too outcome-focused. When was that? One was my second year as a Canterbury coach. We'd won the competition the first year and we're away flying and I got so demanding because I wanted to win again that it got in the way of actually caring about the athlete and, you know, came across as a prick really and didn't care enough and value them enough and started missing things because it was all about winning.

15:05And probably the last time it happened was 2.17 in the Lions Tour, again, because I really, really wanted to win that and it became more important than actually doing what was right. You know, but you recognise it and both times I went back to the groups, the two different groups and said, look, I've stuffed this up and this is what I've done and apologise and let's start again. So how do you avoid complacency then? Because that's a really interesting challenge when you describe that first year of it, can't be winning and then wanting to win again but without wanting to compromise your values.

15:41Yeah, I think it's about setting up a blueprint that you can go to when you're successful. So for us, we had five things. We had a, if you thought about them, in columns. First column was about who we were, what's our identity, what's our legacy. And I'll come back to them. The second one was about how fast can we learn every day about what's going on, not just in our game, but take information from all over the place. Third one, what are the inconvenient facts that we're prepared to admit to ourselves out loud as opposed to paper over the cracks. Fourth one was how fast can we adapt and adjust in games when things aren't going the way we want them to.

16:26And the last one was, okay, what's the big audacious goal that we're going to try and achieve? So we sat down and tried to identify what they were and it was interesting because when we went to the identity and it was a word that we'd used a lot, you know, our legacy, et cetera, et cetera, and I asked in a leaders meeting, I think there's 12 players and four management, and we couldn't answer it as distinctly as we wanted to. So I said, righto, well, we have to find out what that is. So what we did was we interviewed every living All Black, past and current, and asked them what were the values or the core things they saw that made them cherish the All Blacks.

17:12And we came up with a series of things, And then we put players, attach players into those different areas from the past. And that's what we're representing. So that's what we have to deliver on every day. We went to the inconvenient facts and admitted to ourselves, well, let's look at the teams we're playing. What are they as good as? They'll be better at some things than us. They'll be the same as us at some things. And then they'll be not as good in some things. So we've got to stay in front of them in this area, catch up here, and try and get ahead of them here. So they're things you do every day, and that allows you to not just concentrate on what you've just done.

17:57So it's bigger than that. And your big, audacious goal, like ours was when I first got the job, we'd just won the World Cup in 2011. I had to go to this interview, and I'm thinking, well, what am I going to say to them? you know, like we're number one in the world, so I can't come and say, oh, we're going to be number one in the world. And they'll go, we already are. And I look like a dick. So, you know, I thought about it and talked to Tash, my wife, about it a lot. And then I came up with the idea of, okay, let's be the greatest sports team in the history of the game. And then once we had that established, what I wanted to do was be able to say what that looked like and would feel like.

18:39So I came up with these ideas and anyway, that's what I said to the board when I went to the job. They gave me the job but then I took it to the team and did what I was talking about before, give the management a chance to rip it apart and they all had a crack at it but they liked it enough to keep it the way it was. Then we took it to the leaders and they liked it and then we took it to the young guys and they all liked it. So it basically stayed the same. but what it did do was it moved people's arses from being comfortable in the back of the chair to the front of it. And I don't even know if some people thought we could achieve it and I don't know if we did or we didn't achieve it.

19:20It doesn't matter. What mattered was we had a whole group of people collectively owning that idea, trying to achieve it. And, you know, as I said to the group, it doesn't matter whether we achieve it or not, guys. It's what the public, it's the story we leave behind. They'll tell us if we've achieved it or not. and you're only going to achieve it to have to do it again. So it's never ending. And then we would set immediate goals for up-and-coming competitions and then mid-term goals. So as an example, when we come here in 2015, the World Cup, one of the goals we wanted to do was become the second most supported team behind England for the English fans, because if they got knocked out, who were England going to fans support.

20:07And we thought, well, why can't they support us? It'd be nice to come to Twickenham for a change and have them shouting for us. So everything we did off the field had that in mind. And again, the boys all bought into it really well. And by the time we did get here, we did have a great fan base that was English-based. Would you truly take us inside what life is like when you take on the All Blacks? Because there can be very few sports teams where the pressure is similar. Yeah, well, that's the – pressure's the word. It's the one constant. You know that. And we would talk about it a lot during my time, and every time we'd come back together, we'd talk about it.

20:49We'd go, righto, well, the one constant thing we're going to get here, guys, is pressure because we're going to be scrutinised. But don't be frightened by that. Actually embrace it and understand that whatever the external pressure is, will have an internal pressure that's even higher. So therefore that external pressure can't touch you. Right. We lost in 07 in Cardiff. People go, you know, they don't know what to say, but they say some stupid stuff. Oh, yeah, really. Jeez, it really annoyed me when you lost that game. And I said, well, what do you think it did to me? You know, like I'm annoyed too, pal, you know.

21:31He said, oh, yeah, but I had to fly all the way over. and I have to fly all the way home. And they sort of get it but they don't get it. It's because they love the game and they love the team and that's why you don't want it to change. Yeah. You want people to be there really rooting for your team because it's a hard job when they're not. But you need to understand it's there. You need to have to admit to yourself it's there. And then you can put some plans around it. So what pressure you feel might be different to the pressure I feel. what Dame feels could be different to both of what we feel.

22:07Identify what it is and then what's your plan? When you start feeling that, what are you going to do? Because if you don't have a plan and you're feeling it, you're gone. You're not going to pull it out your backside and say, oh, I'm going to do this now because you just can't. What sort of plans would you put in place then? Because obviously some players would thrive under pressure and we've all seen players. Yeah, but they thrive under pressure because they're prepared for it. Right. It's not the pressure that's making them thrive. It's the preparation that's making them thrive. And they've planned for, okay, when this gets hot and, you know, it's tug of war sort of time in the heat of the game, they're not worried about the scoreboard.

22:49Their plan is forget the scoreboard. Their plan is to stay right here where my feet are. Stay in the now. What's the job I've got to do? Let's do that job as really good as I can. and hope like hell the guy across me, he's worried about the scoreboard or he's worried about the mistake he's just made. And I think that's the difference. So having those mental skills, like for a long time, the All Blacks didn't want to admit to ourselves that we were chokers at World Cup. And the reason we didn't is because the people at the top didn't have to own it because you got the sack. So the next guy coming in, well, not my fault, I didn't choke.

23:29So I'm not a joker. But in 07, we got the opportunity to do it again. And, you know, we had to sit there and say, well, shit, what are we going to learn from this? What can we take out of this pain and put it into a wee parcel that's going to make us good? We won two World Cups because of the fact that they allowed us to have another go. And we took the learnings and, you know, Bob's your uncle, got the job done. So what were those learnings? All about pressure. We have to admit to ourselves that there is a lot of pressure. So how are we going to deal with the fact that we haven't been in a final before?

24:01What is that pressure doing to each of us individually that we haven't been there before? Things are going to go wrong. So what are we going to do if they do go wrong? I don't know if you remember 11, but we lost more first fives than most teams have hot dinner. So we get into trouble because we don't expect some things to happen, so we feel threatened by it. And then we either get aggressive, fight, flight or freeze, which we all understand that term. We don't know how to deal with it. The simple thing is we go there every day. Something will threaten us that we didn't expect. So the more things we can plan that might happen that we don't want to happen, the better we'll be off to react to when it does happen.

24:42Does that make sense? Yeah. That can't take you away from what we want to happen. So this is how we want to play. This is what we want to do. This is what we want to achieve. Okay, so we've got that and we've spent our week making sure that we've got clarity, we add the intensity, and once we've got that clarity, and then we add the accuracy, right, okay, we're ready to rock and roll. But have we taken any time to think about, okay, well, what if we don't get that? Where are we going to go, both individually and collectively? So we would spend a lot of time, we used to call them what-ifs. So what if this happens?

25:17And most of the time, it's pretty successful. See, what I find fascinating on that is because it makes perfect sense, but it challenges, again, this notion outside of that world of thinking that everything's got to be positive, that you can't allow room for the negatives in. Particularly this generation, I think, of Z generation, they like the world to be positive. They also like to have an opinion and they also like to voice it. So, okay, we'll give them that opportunity to do those things and take some ownership of it. And, okay, what does positive look like? Okay, well, now what's going to happen when we don't get that, boys?

25:56We can't go all helly-belly and say, well, we're not going to do that. Yeah. Opposition aren't going to stop. Look, I look back at the 19 World Cup and the hardest thing to do at World Cups, this is why they're so hard to win, is go back to back to back. You've got to have three great performances to win it. If you're in a draw, on the side of the draw where you've got real big opposition, like we played France in 15, we played South Africa, and we just got through that game. And then we had Australia. It was probably the hardest game of South Africa. 19, we'd had a few problems with Ireland. They'd beaten us, I think, just before the World Cup.

26:33And we came out and smashed them. Played really well. Then it was about getting ourselves back in the right frame of mind. And you're not talking about a big drop. You're talking about 1%, 2%, 3 % across the board of the team. And you're comfortable. but you can't go into a test match, a World Cup semi-final comfortable. England had come off a disastrous 2015 World Cup. They was hungry as heck and they wanted us. But what happened to them the next week? They couldn't reproduce it because subconsciously they thought they'd done the job. It's not a conscious thing, it's a subconscious thing. So you've got to work hard at those things as well.

27:16So I am conscious as I'll tell you that hindsight is the foresight of a gobshite. That's well said. When you look back on that period now, what do you think you maybe could have done differently to have spotted those signs? Oh, look, I should have known because you're always vulnerable straight after that. And I did feel it in my bones, but at the same time we had a couple of injuries and one of them was a skipper. And we didn't know if he was going to play or not. And I didn't want the group going in, shit, we've lost a skipper. But, you know, coaches have been in it, demanding, demanding. Now we lost this cup.

27:52We can't win this. So you're trying to keep positive around that, and I think probably got two positive. And, you know, it's a slippery slope. Explain two positive. Well, you know, we were in the right space, boys. We were ready to go, you know. Knowing if Rideau wasn't there, then we'd lost a big chunk of who we are. And they had a lot of belief in this cup, you know. He was an important part of the cog. So you're trying to, I don't want to use the word bullshit to make them feel good, but you're putting them in a place where, well, Reid is not here, but we're still okay. Coach says we're ready to go, we're ready to go.

28:32But probably in hindsight, I might have been better of just, if he's not there, then he's not there. They'll cope with that and let's be really focused on being demanding and let's set that attitude where we're going to take this game rather than wait for it to happen. Like England came out and took the game. We waited and got smacked, smacked, smacked. Oh, shit, now we better start now because this is not what's meant to be happening. Yeah, it's very interesting getting the line right, isn't it, between building them up and so even if as a coach you're having some slight concerns, is it ever a bad thing to say to the guys, look, this is the situation we're in?

29:09No, it's not a bad thing. But I think like when you look at that week, you know, it irks me. But when I look at the whole time, the 107 test matches as head coach, we've got most of those weeks right. So can I keep giving myself an uppercut? Yeah, I probably can, but get over it, Stephen. How harsh are you on yourself? Yeah, pretty harsh, yeah. Does it benefit you? Sometimes. Now that I've finished coaching, it doesn't benefit me to keep still beating myself up over it. I can't change it. I can't say Eddie can we replay that game hey World Rugby can we go back and have that week again so we can fix it so you do have to get over it you know you put your big boy pants on and get on with it and I've heard you speak about you have an alter ego I can't remember the name you gave your alter ego when you get hyper competitive oh Stanley I didn't give it my wife and a couple of friends gave me that for Stanley Yeah, Stanley comes out because he just becomes a bulldozer and there's no care, there's no love.

30:20He just charges, I'm winning. We're playing cards, whatever it is. And what often tempts Stanley out? What are the circumstances where that happens? Ego and pride because you want to win. Pride is the biggest stumbling block in the world because it doesn't allow you to admit your mistakes. It doesn't allow you to lose. And it's just another word for ego, really. So your ego, we all have an ego and we've just got to master it. And when your pride becomes a problem, you don't master it. So it gets in the way, I guess. And, yeah, so then Stanley comes out. He's just charging. And does Stanley only come out playing cards with the family or doing stuff or did he also come out in your coaching career as well?

31:06Well, I think Stanley came out in the second year with that Canary team that I was talking about in 2015. And Lionsy, I think Stanley came out then. But we didn't have a name for it back then. Stanley's reasonably new. He's probably coming out more since I haven't got that avenue to be competitive. We've got him under control now most of the time. So, I mean, that's something I can identify with, as I'm sure a lot of our listeners can. How have you learned to control that side of your character? Well, you see the reaction it has on other people. No one wants to play cards because Stanley's going to come out.

31:46Right. So I want to play cards. So I've got to check Stanley. And, you know, the kids don't want to play. Well, I want to play with the kids. So, you know, I've got to allow them to win occasionally. That's what happens. You see the reaction of what you're doing to other people. Like I'm reasonably sharp-tongued and quite often people would say, oh, you know, he likes the last word, Steve. And I'll go, well, it's because I can think of the last word. however I've come to understand that it's not a bad thing sometimes okay well you can have that and walk away from it because early doors I've probably punished, hurt people and not necessarily because I wanted to but because of what I, you know, just to win that argument that bent a conversation our next partner you won't be surprised to hear is ag1 look we've been working with ag1 for months and months now and it is something that for me is a non-negotiable in my day uh one scoop first thing in the morning and i've got 75 super high quality vitamins minerals and whole food sourced ingredients inside me and i honestly believe it increases my immune system improves my mood i think i sleep better i've got more energy i've told you this so many times over the last year or so that I thought I would invite someone onto my podcast, making their high performance debut to tell you what she thinks of AG1 because we take it together.

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35:23the reason why that's interesting is because obviously you know you create these really fascinating and winning cultures with your rugby teams but where you can't control is is outside factors so you know you've spoken about your players coping with external perception I wonder how you coped with external criticism I'm thinking mainly from the media and you know a lot of people listening to this won't be in the position you're in but they will feel judged and challenged by other people. What advice would you offer them? Yeah, look, I think none of us like to be judged in a negative way. Like we're all pretty happy to pick up the positive judgment.

36:01Yeah. But we certainly, it hurts when you get the negative stuff. But you've got to come to understand that you're doing the best you can. If you can look in the mirror and say, look, I've done the best I can here. I've been honest. I've thrown my ass off. Is there anything else I could be doing? No. Do these people know all the circumstances? No, most of them don't. Are they hurting because they're not getting what they want, which is a team winning or whatever it may be? Yes, probably. So you just forgive them and move on because it's better for your own mental health. People have perceptions because you win all the time, well, you must be a great coach.

36:45They have the same perceptions. if you're losing, oh, you must be a shit coach. And I often have a chuckle to myself because I coach a team that has the most losses in a row at test level and I have a team that has won the most. So I'm a shit coach and a great coach. So I just say to myself, we're just a coach, Steve. So don't let it knock you. Like, you know where you want to go. And if you're taking your group with you and they want to come there too, then eventually you'll turn it around. Sport is so good because it doesn't let you win all the time. It just doesn't. No one can. So eventually you get a kick in the bum and as you said before, we learn a lot more from that because we go deeper, because it hurts, there's adversity.

37:34And that was one of the things I always used to say to the boys, why do we have to lose to learn? Why can't we learn when we're winning? If we can do that, we can win more often. because that's what we all want to do. Accepting that, we're still going to get beaten occasionally because subconsciously we're going to get comfortable. And once you get comfortable, then you'll make mistakes. Talking about high performance, like you compare yourself to a surgeon and he's going to do an operation on your knee. You don't want him getting comfortable. I want him doing the best job he can do on that knee.

38:05And we would talk about that. And I would say, boys, we're going in to do an operation here. are we going in at 95 here or are we going in and totally committed? That's part of high performance, isn't it? If you get comfortable, you're going to get punished. So what would you say you did judge your coaching success by? Because like you say, you've had the most losses and the most wins. So if I can just give you an example of when a coach gave us a really fascinating answer to this was when we sat down with Rob Baxter at Exeter Chiefs and he said it took him 10 years into his coaching to realise the most important question was, would I be happy for my son to be coached by me?

38:43What would you say your criteria was? I've always had the same criteria from the day I started to the day I finished coaching. And it's the greatest pleasure I get is when I can get an athlete to achieve something that he or she wants to achieve and couldn't achieve until you came along and gave her a little help or him a little help. I get a real buzz out of that. I get a buzz out of teams, individuals within teams, being able to achieve what they're trying to do. And you can do that at any level of catching. I was never, ever worried about getting sacked because I knew, well, that's where I get my buzz from, so I'll just go back down to the local club and do it down there.

39:31Brilliant. And how much freedom in your setup is there for you? Are you a control freak? Do you want to know everything that's happening at all times? I would say that I'm an empowerer, but when I first started I was probably a control freak because I think we all are because we think that's what we have to be and we're not trusting enough in our own abilities to not want to know. but as time went on, hopefully others would say, yeah, he would let us do our job. I'd be demanding though and we had one mantra in the group, in the management group was, if you're going to make a decision that's going to have or possibly could have an effect on the performance on Saturday, I want to know about it before we introduce it.

40:23If it's not going to do that, then don't have to tell me. So I saw myself as the helicopter over the group. We had a leadership system that went, coaches, which Fozzie drove, well-being, which Gilbert and Oka drove, logistics and commercial, which Darren Shan drove, and then the leaders group driven by whoever the captain was. The two captains were basically Ritchie or Rita. So they got on and did their bit, and yes, you had moments where, like, for example, Nick Gill's a strength and conditioning coach and we're having trouble with Dan Carter in 215. He'd been pulling calf muscles for a couple of years and one day I just, because I've got an interest in horses and I understand, a long time ago an old trainer said to me, he said, son, just because they're biomechanically, they don't have the right shape legs, it doesn't stop them from running fast.

41:24It'll just stop them from being able to do that for a long time. Now, if you look at Dan, he biomechanically is a mess. And I thought, well, what if we took some weight off? And, like, he wasn't fat. So I asked him, I said, well, what weight were you when you weren't pulling your calf muscles? And he said, oh, I'm, you know, 93 maybe. I said, what are you now? 95. And, like, he's doing the jockey ads at 95. So there's no, it's muscle, it's not fat. So I went to Gillian and we talked about it and I said, why don't we take a couple of kilos off and see if, you know, because we both agreed biomechanically it wasn't great, would that help?

42:02Well, we did and he never pulled another calf muscle. So, you know, that's your role as the helicopter is not to get in the way but to actually find solutions for some things and think about some problems that they probably don't have the time to think about. And so would you set quite strict rules then? Because the great thing about that is you're standing off and you're empowering your people. So are rules important so they know exactly the parameters they're working to or not? I hate rules. Do you? I hate rules. Expectations I like, but I don't like rules because they stop people from sometimes going where they should.

42:41And I often say rules are there to guide the brave and inhibit the foolish. and when I'm working in Japan at the moment and it's a society that's got a lot of rules and it does inhibit them, you know, and we're making some progress and getting some change there but it's like pulling teeth out of a chicken. Like what in particular in Japan have you challenged? Well, you give me a glass, you're ranked higher than me in the pecking order so I have to go down there with my glass. Right. You know, or you bow, I have to bow. Like they're beautiful cultural things that are all about respect and honour and they're great traditions but they're getting in the way of progress because they're inhibiting me from being able to challenge you so we can get your idea on that table and then we can smack it with a hammer and turn it into a great idea or say, well, actually it's a shit idea, let's get rid of it.

43:40so you know I torment everybody because I'm meant to be at the top of the pegging order so they're all trying to go low so I'll go down here and make a joke of it and make it it's okay understanding that is it is their culture and respecting it but when we're in this environment it's okay to be yeah there'll be people though listening to this where that that scares them a bit they might be a business leader going well the rule is you come in at nine o 'clock, the rule is you don't work from home four days a week. The rule is we all sit together for lunch. People often use rules to create culture.

44:16What would you say to those people? Well, you just repeat what you said. You used the word create culture. Yeah. I'd say they use rules to force the culture. And if they're forcing it, they don't have a culture. It's got to happen naturally. It's got to be something that we all own and we want to be responsible for. So you can't create something with a rule. You can only force something with a rule. And every rule will get broken. So then what? Now what are we going to do? We've broken the rule. Like if you break an expectation, well, we can live with that. There'll be a consequence, but it's not the same as your bro, oh, he's broken the rule.

44:55You're going to have to drop him or you're going to shoot him or whatever you have to do. I don't know. So personally, I'm about expectation. I expect you to live the values and the things that we've said we want to live. I want you to make decisions that are based around those things. I don't want to make a rule that's going to make you have to do that. What I love about that as well is that allows people to fall occasionally without being punished or ostracised or demonised for it. We all fall. I see players and all human beings from time to time who want to be perfect. I've never said, like, I go to our guys all the time and I go, tell me the best game you ever played.

45:40And he tells me, I say, right, did you make any mistakes in that? Oh, yeah. I say, well, there you go. So stop trying to chase something that no one is ever going to do because you're always, human nature will say, oh, I could have done that better, I could have done this better. Just be satisfied that you're actually doing these things really, really well. And then what is it we can take out of that performance that we can keep and what is it that we can go away and grow and get better at. What about people then that are in your group and you're allowing the culture to mould them into the people you want rather than the rules but they're just not getting it, they're just not right?

46:17How would you advise people to deal with that? Well, again, I think there's an old, old saying that we use, if you can't change the man, change the man. At some point, if they're not going to come with you, then that's not the place for you to be. And what did you employ to try and get people to come with you? Well, you try all the things we've been talking about, you know, give them opportunities to understand that this is what the expectations are of the team. You've sat through meetings, you've sat through one-on-ones. I'll give you an example. Alfie Thomas, probably the second best athlete I've ever coached.

46:55Superb athlete, you know, behind Sonny Bill and he'd be next. when I first came to Wales he wasn't a leader but he was seen to be a leader by his peers because when I always find it ironic when people name captains or you're a leader and you know who the leaders are when the shit hits the fan and everyone goes what are we doing and it may not be looking at the captain well they would always look at Alfie what are we going to do Alf anyway Alf he was in a part of his life that wasn't quite clear for him and he was drinking and, you know, but the best physique you could ever see. So it was obviously training.

47:36But he'd come during the week and he wouldn't try. You know, he just didn't want to be better than anybody else or work harder than anybody. He didn't want to show, didn't want to bring his book and write things down. So we had a conversation. I said, Alf, I've got to let you go. But the door's open. If you change, then we'll look at bringing you back. So he went and, you know, I just lost my best athlete. And I'm hurt and I'm thinking, God, I hope you change, man. And three weeks later I got a ring from his coach and he said, oh, look, you've got to have another, this guy's changed animal. So I said, okay, thanks.

48:11And again, back to the same horse trainer that taught me about the legs. I'd once said to him, oh, that horse looks really fit, you better put him back into training because we used to graze him on the farm. and he said, you give me a yell when he's, he said, oh, why is that? And I said, oh, because he's bucking. I've seen him bucking today. He looks real fresh. He said, well, you give me a ring when he's bucking every day and I'll bring him back into work. So I put the phone down and thought, right, oh, if he's really serious, he's changed, he'll ring me back in another week's time to say, shit, I meant to, come down, which he did do.

48:42Then I sent Scott Johnson down to see him and Scotty had a chat to him and he came back and he said, oh, I think you need to talk to him. He seems to be on a different plane. and so we brought him in and sat there and we had a great conversation and I said, righto, mate, I'll judge you from this day forth on the things that we've just talked about that we need from you. And he went on to be one of the greats and captain of the Lions and that was satisfying when you see him being successful because we tried to change him. We had to go right to the bottom of the world to do it but we tried other things but that's what I mean if you can't change a man you have to change him so if he hadn't changed we wouldn't have got him back but he did so you've got to be flexible enough in your thinking to be able to say well let's give him another go if he's serious bang we've got a great athlete out of it We always like to talk about a specific moment on high performance and just delve into it a little bit more deeply and often when it comes to the life that you've lived it's about winning the trophies and the titles and all of that but I'd really like to talk to you about the moment that you decided to walk away?

49:53Because I think that that is a really interesting thing. We spend our lives being told, never quit, never give up. You know, sometimes the best thing you can do is to step away from something. Yeah, well, look, 20 years is, you don't get 20 years for murder, do you? So it's a long time. And it's a long time without your family.

50:18Sorry. Don't apologise.

50:25Yeah, it's a long time without your family and, you know, you owe them something. At some point the team needs you to allow them to try something different. Yeah. And you just know it's time. So pull the trigger and get out. I think, you know, the emotion around the family is totally understandable. And I think sometimes it's only when you step back and you're in probably quite a reflective period of your life now where you look back on what happened. And I think we can't have a conversation about your success without actually paying the respects to the amazing blended family you've got and how the people around you had to allow you to do what you did.

51:08Yeah, that's right. And, you know, you keep talking about them, I'll keep crying. So they miss out. I don't know how many birthdays you miss. Tarsh did a wonderful job trying to keep everybody together and then you come back and you're in and you're out. So it's easy for me, not so easy for everybody else. So you're just so grateful because we were allowed, I think we're in a great place as a family. everybody's achieving the things they want to achieve they're all striving I guess to be better within their own set ups and some of them are still finding their own way and that's fine, that's life but as a group we love and care about each other and you can't ask for any more than that Thank you for that I think you've got to acknowledge to yourself that it's ok to feel emotion and and were you were you sort of aware at the time the cost or is it only something that you kind of realize when you act when you finally are there for those things well you do you do know i think you know as you're going along you can see it and you overcompensate and by overcompensating you're not actually parenting as well as you possibly could be because you're you're feeling guilty about not being there for this or that or the next thing and then you're you know like you can't come home and try and run the house that was you know because you've got someone else there that's been doing that and doing a great job of it so don't come in and stuff that up so you've got to come home and find your place and sometimes you know that can be a bit awkward too difficult i don't know talk about ourselves yeah the trouble i think the other challenge you've got is you know i know that you've got a blended family and you always wanted all your kids to feel totally at home whichever house they were in i think what i love about that is you talk about team before self in your rugby career it feels to me like that's your version of team before self in a family setting as well which is then puts challenges on other people right it does and you know their happiness is what's most important nice well i'm so pleased to chat to you here in london where you get to have a bit of a break with the family yeah no it's great before they get even louder outside let's do this um we finish with a few quick fires the first one is the three non-negotiable behaviors that you and ideally the people around you would buy into?

53:39Honesty, loyalty and hard working. Very good. What's your greatest strength and your biggest weakness? My competitiveness is both of them. Your greatest strength is always your biggest weakness. How important is your legacy to you? To me, I think what you leave behind is pretty important. What story you want your grandchildren to hear. Massive. What advice would you give a teenage Steve just starting out? Be mentally more aware of how to use mental skills, be a little bit more patient, don't be in a rush to think with certain parts of your body as opposed to your bigger head. And the final one is, for people that have listened to this, it's been a really fascinating conversation is the final question really that you'd like to leave with the answer ringing in their ears, what would you now say is your one golden rule for living a high performance life?

54:47Be the best version that you can be don't compromise yourself don't compromise your integrity just because you think it's going to be something beneficial to you, it's got to be a bigger cause than you so try and be vulnerable enough to put your hand up when you don't know. And you don't have to tell the world everything you know. Sometimes it's better to listen to what other people know. I love that. I think we've caught you in a really nice reflective period in your life and thank you very much for spending a bit of time with us, sharing the things you've done and the thoughts you have from it.

55:28Yeah, thanks. It's been wonderful. Thanks. Cheers. Top man.

55:36Damien. Jake. One of those conversations where when he speaks, you listen, and he's quietly spoken, he's very considered with what he says, but so much impactful conversation in that chat. I think it was an utter privilege to be in the presence of somebody that you might dub them as old school, but like he said at the start, he's just a purveyor of common sense and help him make it common practice. And that's what I've taken away from it. I mean, I love the fact that, you know, he shared with us in pretty deep detail, you know, how he would run the most famous rugby team on the planet. And I love this idea of no rules because I think people get caught up with believing that, I mean, what about when I said to him, you need rules to create a culture?

56:23And he's like, no, that's not creating a culture. That's forcing a culture. And I think it's a brilliant distinction. It's one that I hadn't even considered. I'm like, right, set the rules. That sets the culture. And everyone follows. And then he comes with a total curveball. And it does leave you thinking long and hard about rules, doesn't it? Yeah, that lovely line that he used about rules are there to guide the brave and inhibit the foolish. The idea of catching people out rather than catching people in. We know that people are going to make mistakes. Why? Because they're human. So rules are there then to punish people for that.

56:56Whereas the distinction of having high expectations, non-negotiable expectations, goes back to you know like when we've had this conversation in the past around the work of a guy called robert rosenthal that did famous study called the pygmalion effect where he went into a classroom and picked kids out at random and said these kids are going to be high performers and over the course of the year those kids outperform the rest of the class and then he revealed that actually he just picked them at random but it was our expectations of those children that meant they lived up to them and i think when you have high performance expectations people will naturally want to strive to live up to them yeah i thought it was really interesting and you know the thing i love about doing these interviews when you do them face to face is that you realize that the things they tell you they actually live them so he talks about family first and you know people need to understand that he had like six of his or five of his six kids were with him at twickenham when we recorded the interview and you know they all went and had a a load of drinks afterwards.

57:56And, you know, to see him getting emotional while talking about his family is one thing. If he's then travelling the world, never seeing him, doesn't pick up the phone, isn't trying to create, you know, this great family atmosphere, then you question it. But the fact that he wells up talking about his family and you look to your right and you've got his five kids all standing in the room is a really good reminder that he lives what he says. Yeah, another example, he talks about having this inclusive culture. You know, I brought my son along today and he's been adopted as a member of the Hanson family.

58:27You know, they've incorporated him into it, they've made him welcome, they've been interested in engaging with him. And again, it's another sign that this is a family that really does practice what they preach. You know, his daughter Whitney was there. She was the coach of the Black Ferns that won the World Cup just at the end of last year. That this stuff that they're passing on is not just rugby knowledge, because that's obviously specific. This is knowledge about how to engage a group of people and take them with you on a journey. For us, it's been a privilege to have been able to experience a small part of that.

58:58Thanks, mate. Thank you, mate. Well, there we go. Another incredible conversation. We were really moved actually talking to Steve and I'm sure you were as well listening to this. I would love you to do one thing for me and it's to share this episode with somebody. Please spread the word on high performance. We basically rely on people like you to talk about this show and to get others to come and listen to it. So if you can, please help us to grow this podcast by sharing it among your community, whether it's mentioning it to someone, WhatsApping it to someone, sticking it on your socials, I don't mind, but please continue to spread the learnings and the lessons that we're all taking from these conversations.

59:35Remember, there is no secret. It is all there for you. So chase world class basics. Don't get high on your own supply. Remain humble, curious and empathetic. And we'll see you very soon.

59:52Thank you.