E193 - The inside story of Brighton's greatest season with CEO, Paul Barber

0:00Hi there, I'm Jake Humphrey and you're listening to High Performance. This is the award-winning podcast that reminds you that it's within. Every week, people around the world tune in to us so that we can be your armour, we can be your partner, we can be your guide in a world that so often feels negative, divisive and confused. We really hope that these conversations remind you of your power, of your potential and what all of us are capable of. So right now, allow myself and Professor Damien Hughes to unlock the mind of another fascinating guest so they can be your teacher. Today, this awaits you.

0:37I remember joining the club 11, nearly 12 years ago, after one season in the Championship, back in the Championship, having been promoted from League One, and talking about getting Premier League ready. You know, I said at the time, you know, we were going to go on a big journey, that some of you in this room were going to be on that whole journey and would enjoy different parts of it and maybe not others. Some of you would be on part of that journey, but then we'd need to make changes in order to progress further. And some of you, I can just tell by looking at your faces, won't be on this journey for very long at all.

1:06And again, about being honest and open, that if you don't believe now and you're not prepared to commit now and you're not prepared to get behind what we're trying to do, there's no point in you even starting the journey because all it's going to do is hold the rest of us back. How resilient are you? How quickly can you overcome that big bump? What have you done to prepare for that big bump? How quickly can you turn people's minds from it being a big bump to being a big opportunity? And how quickly can you get back on that path that you've been trying to follow. For me, that's almost high performance in a nutshell.

1:39It's exactly how Roberto described it happening before the game. If we do that and move the ball there, they'll do this, then we're going to do that, then they'll do that, we'll do this, they'll do that, and then we'll get a chance to shoot on goal. And he said, Paul, it was like poetry. It's exactly as he had described it. You aim high, you treat people well, you like to exceed expectations, you like to make it special and you act with integrity. So we welcome the chief exec of Brighton Football Club, Paul Barber, onto the High Performance Podcast today. And this is a conversation about a season in which his club defied the odds.

2:16We talk about what happened when the sporting director, Dan Ashworth, walked away a few months ago. We go into great detail about the moment that Todd Bowley picked up the phone and not only decided to take away the Brighton manager, Graham Potter, but also his backroom staff, which, as you'll hear from Paul Barber, threw in to disarray their plans for who would take over as manager. And then the phone rang again. Chelsea called again. And this time they decided to take the Brighton Player of the Year. So how do you adapt in this situation? How do you have a plan for these kinds of eventualities?

2:47What do you do to make sure that you don't just survive, but actually you thrive? And thriving is exactly what Brighton have done. They brought in Roberto De Zerbi. They're having their best ever season in the Premier League. They are setting the standard for other teams to follow. And in a game and a league where so much is about the money you spend, this is a story about what you can achieve with culture, with planning, with hard work, with preparation, by seeing the bigger picture, by understanding that football isn't just about getting a collection of well-paid individuals on a field. It's about truly creating a team and not just a team on the pitch, a team behind the scenes, a team in the boardroom, a team in every single part of the club.

3:27You're going to learn so much in this episode, but let me remind you, it's not about football. The lessons and the stories from Paul Barber apply to you, whatever your walk of life, whatever your business, whatever world you exist in. There are so many lessons and so many takeaways. And I'm so pleased that people in the world of football are finally open enough to having these conversations. To everyone at Brighton, congratulations on a great season. To Paul himself, thank you so much for being brave enough, vulnerable enough, and honest enough to come on the podcast and talk in the way that you did.

3:55so many people are going to get a lot from this so let's do it time to go deep and break down the greatest season in brighton and hove albion's history it's paul barber their chief executive on the high performance podcast

4:20well paul welcome to high performance thank you very much let's start as we always do what is your definition of high performance um for me high performance is a mindset i think it's about being the best that you can be in whatever you're doing so what we thought we would do with this conversation if it's okay we're talking to you towards the end of what could be the greatest season in brighton's history certainly feels like it is at the moment could we just plot through some of the sort of the watershed moments over the last 12 months and talk about how high performance fits into those? Well I think you'd actually have to go back 10 years rather than 12 months because that was where the chairman and I started with defining what we thought was the vision for the club or should be the vision for the club which at that time was just one season back into the championship.

5:08We wanted to be a Premier League club first and foremost. We wanted once we got to the Premier League to make sure we could compete and then once we'd achieved that we wanted to make sure that we could push into the top 10 and to start the challenge. And in order for those things to happen, you've got to put a lot of things in place. And, you know, for us, it was about infrastructure. So the stadium and the training ground, then it was about making sure we had the right policies and procedures and ways of doing things. And then ultimately you've got to put the right people in place. And over the years, we've been able to put some really good people in the football club at the right time in the right positions and each of them have played a part to help us to get to where we are now and you know we still don't feel secure in where we are now we still feel that we've got a lot more work to do and each game that goes by is a learning experience and each season that goes by is a learning experience so even 12 months ago finishing ninth in the Premier League our highest ever finish at that level we felt that we had a lot more learning to do and a lot more work to do achieve the vision.

6:12So what do you tell us about the process of how you go about doing that review then Paul? I think it's about looking first of all every department of the club it's not just about what happens on the field you know certainly when I think about high performance it's not so much about the output it's about the input you know what actually goes into the players ultimately achieving on the field lots of things lots of different things off the field that actually contribute to giving the players on the field the best possible chance of success. And that can be anything from the environment that we're creating for them.

6:44So making sure the training facilities are the best they can be, how we prepare them for games, how we help them recover from games, the stadium, the atmosphere, the environment in the stadium itself. Is it the best it can be? Do we have the best playing surface for the type of football that we want to play? Do our ticketing team understand our fan base enough to make sure the stadium's full for every game? Have we organised the fans in that stadium to make sure we're maximising the atmosphere for every home game to give us that little edge that might be needed? Right the way through to the way we present the club to the media, to our sponsors, is it contributing ultimately to the team winning?

7:21Now that's a pretty broad range of different areas of the club from the ticketing to the groundsman to the academy. So you can't possibly have that depth of knowledge in each of those areas. So what are the kind of questions that you're asking when you're having these meetings that get honest answers of, I think I can do this better without people feeling defensive or maybe a little bit reluctant to share? Yeah, I think first of all, I think if you're in a leadership position, you should be always hiring people that are bigger and better than you. That's the first thing I learned right the way back at the start of my career, working with Ogilvy and Mather, the advertising agency.

8:00David Ogilvy always used to say, the agency is only going to grow and grow fast if you employ people that are bigger and better than you. So don't be afraid of getting people in that have got more talent, more brain power, have the potential to be better than you and perhaps even replace you. I think that's a really important first point. The second thing is actually making sure that in the environment they're working in that they feel comfortable enough to be challenged and also to challenge you. Because I think sometimes chief executives are perceived as having all the answers or they're an easy way for people to perhaps not maximize their own ability and their talent because they defer upwards you know we try and have a culture where people are the best they can be in every department every day so we challenge them to be better we challenge them to push harder we challenge them to come forward with new ideas that challenge us to be better and i think once you've got that kind of environment that kind of circle of trust if you like then the organization has a great chance of achieving high performance regularly would you mind explaining how you've done that because we have lots of business leaders, lots of employees and employers that listen to this.

9:02And it sounds great, like a circle of trust, a vulnerable working environment, the ability to challenge the leader. We all know that's what businesses should look like. Many of them don't. So what have you done so that people feel they can go, Paul, you got that wrong? I think you've got to have an open and transparent communication process internally. So we're regularly standing in front of the staff, either in small groups or collectively as an entire organisation. We allow them to ask as many questions about what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it as they want to or need to.

9:34We give them honest answers, even if sometimes that's not what they want to hear. Sometimes the honest answers are not that palatable. Are we going to finish in the top six this year? Possibly, if we keep going on the trajectory we've been on, and it's quite possible because we've got the ability and the talent to do it, but we can't guarantee it. Well, what does that mean for me? Does that mean I'm going to get my bonus or not maybe maybe not you know again there's no guarantees in top level sports so there should be no guarantees when you're communicating with staff if you can be definitive then be definitive but if you can't be then you've got to be honest and I think once you've built that that trust that open and transparent communication process I think that actually encourages people to to be even more open with you and to trust what you're saying and actually to trust in themselves to be the best that they can be.

10:22It takes time. It's not something that you can achieve overnight. And it usually comes with some proof points. There are usually some times in the organisation's journey where you have to prove that you genuinely are open and transparent and entirely trustworthy in certain situations. And we've had a few of those over the last 10 years. Would you mind sharing one? Well, I think anytime you lose a manager or a significant figure within the club, people start to doubt the process. They doubt the journey you're on. They doubt whether the vision is possible. And you have to reassure them that whilst you never want to lose good people, it's not necessarily a terrible thing for the organisation.

11:01The organisation can regenerate. It can actually be as good. It can even be better. so I think you know having a plan for every scenario that affects the club whether it's the departure of a senior person or departure of the head coach or the best player at that moment or in the previous season I think you've got to show people that the organization has resilience that it has a plan to to overcome those situations and it's not going to detract from the journey that you're on and it won't take away from getting to the vision it may take you off in a slightly a different direction for a period until you can get back on the course that you're on but that again is about building resilience that is about actually overcoming setbacks that's what high performance is also about it's one of those inputs uh it's not necessarily a terrible thing so can you give us the example then of when dan ashworth chose to leave to move to newcastle how did you go about communicating that with the team and and then on a wider basis how did you communicate that out to the organization about coming back stronger from it well first of all dan's one of if not the best technical director that i've worked with and david weir who's now his successor at brighton i think is going to be as good in his own way in a different way but dan and i used to talk openly about you know what we would do if he were to leave because again if you're if you're building succession plans you've almost got to understand who the current technical director thinks are the good up and coming technical directors in order to get the best succession plan in place and we talked about david weir and and his background as a top level player for everton and for rangers and for scotland we talked about the role he was doing for us at the time which was a loans manager role we talked about his sort of education and we realized pretty quickly that dan's successor was in the building and it was just a case of making sure that we helped David as much as possible to realise that potential.

12:58And then when the time came, and it did come when Dan moved to Newcastle, that not only was David ready to step up into the role, and I think this is a really important point, but he wanted to. So we gave David, I think it was about six months, as acting technical director. It was a chance for us to see if what we saw in him was going to come to pass as a technical director in the role itself, and also for David to have a good look at the role and see if he liked it. and thankfully we liked him he liked us and therefore our successor to dan was there but internally we talked very very positively about having the talent in the building to overcome the setback of dan deciding to leave to move to newcastle we would have preferred he didn't leave at that moment but he did you can't necessarily predict the the outcome in those situations but you can actually prepare for it and we did there's a few things i'd like to pick up on there so for business leaders listening to this, do you tell David Weir, listen, we've had a conversation, just so you're fully aware, our plan is for you to take over from Dan eventually, so have that in your mind so he can work with that big picture idea?

14:01Yeah, because I think it's important without giving any big promises to give your employees a sense of what you believe their potential is. One, because I think that improves and increases their confidence. Two, because if they then get approached by other organisations offering either something similar or something not quite as good, and you've given them a picture of what could be even better for them, that means there's a reason for them to stay or at least talk to you about not leaving, which is important. And I think also you want them at that point to say, well, that's fantastic, but I would really appreciate some help in this area, or I don't think I'm as good as I could be in that area.

14:37So what can you do to help bridge that gap? For us, that gives us an opportunity to bridge that gap and to make them an even better appointment when the time comes. So I think it makes sense. And sometimes it doesn't work, Jake. Sometimes you highlight someone with that potential and you think that they can go to that next level. And sometimes they're not quite ready when the time comes. So you then have to have a secondary plan that says, okay, if that's the outcome, if that's the situation, what do we do then? Do we have to go outside the organisation or is there someone inside better qualified that we hadn't previously thought, you know, was likely to take that role?

15:09And my other follow-up to that is you're giving, almost giving Dan an exit by going let's talk about your successor all right we think we've got someone let's let him know that he's going to be your successor oh he looks like he's really there's that thought in my head that you're almost making it easier for a really integral person to leave the business and I think that's part of the the two-way process the two-way contract if you like you you can't be open and transparent unless you're open and transparent there's no halfway house here you've got to be all in in that situation and I think you've also got to have the confidence that there is someone out there as good or even better because there is there's someone a lot better than me out there I know that so when my time comes Tony Bloom will find another chief executive that will be as good and almost certainly better so I think if you have that in your mind all the time then that conversation is quite easy and I think from From Dan's point of view, the top talent will always want to test themselves at the very highest level.

16:07It doesn't matter whether they're on the pitch or off the pitch, working football or working banking. There'll always be someone who gives you the opportunity to test yourself at the next level, whatever that may be. And most people will be tempted by that opportunity and that challenge. And I think it would be, certainly in my case, I've moved jobs many times in my career. it would be really hypocritical of me to stand in the way of someone who wants to fulfill their potential at the next level because I've been lucky enough to be able to do that many times myself. But what strikes me there in your answer Paul is the unspoken element of humility that what you've just said there'll be somebody better than me that'll come along at some stage or you're asking your staff to demonstrate humility.

16:49How do you deal with it when somebody doesn't have that kind of humility to assume that there is somebody better or that they can learn from others how do you encourage that first of all i would hope our recruitment processes and and the distinct culture and values that we have within the club would prevent us from hiring that sort of person in the first place but event you know invariably you you you get some recruitment sort of wrong and either that person quickly adapts to the culture and if they're smart enough and bright enough and talented enough that that would be the best thing to do if they want to stay with us or they're just simply not going to work within the organization and you have to then take an even more difficult decision which is probably to part company sooner rather than later because eventually the culture will either swallow that person up or they'll just be rejected by the culture that exists so i think from our point of view we we try very hard to make sure that we get our recruitment right so what are the values then that you're recruiting against we for us we've got very strong values as a club we we have a and and they're not rocket science this is one of the things that i think always surprises people when we do talk to them and they say well you know i've done a bit of work on the values and i've heard about the fact that you aim high you treat people well you like to exceed expectations you like to make it special and you act with integrity i get all of that but what are the real values and i say no no they are the real values you know these are these are things that are really important to us and you know over over the top of all of that is working collaboratively in a team, being the best that we can be individually and collectively.

18:21And I go all the way back to the year we missed out on promotion from the championship on goal difference. And we revisited everything we did that season to see if there was anything we could have done differently. And we concluded that actually we just weren't quite ready at that time in terms of our mindset. We didn't perhaps quite believe that we were ready. whether that was on the pitch or off the pitch or whether that was just a sense around the club but one thing we knew is that the following season we absolutely would be in every area and we'd prepared for several seasons to be what we call Premier League ready you know how can we make every department in the club fit for purpose in the Premier League before we got there and the thinking behind that was it in the summer that we did get promoted we didn't want any kind of distraction from preparing for the football we didn't want to be upgrading ticketing systems we didn't want to be expanding the stadium.

19:12We didn't want to be changing the training ground pitches. We wanted simply to focus on recruiting the best squad for Chris Hewton, preparing for our first Premier League games. And that philosophy, that strategy, if you like, of being Premier League ready meant that when we did finally get there, we were 100 % ready to go in. And here we are, we're six seasons now into the Premier League. I don't think for any stretch of the imagination, we are an established Premier League club. I hate that phrase. I use it, but I hate it because I I don't even know really what it means. You know, we just have to work every single season to be better than the last.

19:46And if we do that in the position we're in, we will be an established Premier League club because we won't be relegated. But we also know things can change quickly in football. So let me ask you then, using that same philosophy, when do you start describing yourself as European ready? I think, again, internally, aspirationally, we have started to prepare for that eventuality. not because there's any sense of complacency or arrogance about our first objective which is to stay in the Premier League but unless you think like that and this is where Roberto Di Zerbi I think has pushed us to think even higher than perhaps top 10 which is what our our vision had been adjusted to I think if you start to think like that then you start to believe that if you start to believe it then you really want to make sure that every area of the club performs or is performing to that that level that potential then you've got a chance of achieving it and I think this year Roberto has instilled that that belief instilled that confidence the organization as a whole has stepped up to it and you know here we are with four or five games to go and we've still got that chance and we'll talk about what Roberto's done how he's done it and what you've learned from him um very shortly but we can't talk about his arrival without talking about someone else's departure would you mind just really giving us the very honest account of how it works when a manager leaves a club like yours not because we want this to be salacious or we're looking for headlines but I just think that for football fans they feel they see so little of what actually happens in the game you know they're allowed to only see the things that clubs or people in your position or are allowed or allow them to see so would you mind just really sharing a kind of as as warts and all as you're prepared to go about how these things actually unfold the impact on you your staff your culture everybody at the whole football club yeah I think inevitably it's starts with a phone call and you sort of wish you hadn't picked up the phone on that particular moment.

21:40For me, you know, Todd Bowley calling and sort of saying... So he called you himself? Yeah. And I think sometimes there's this sort of mythology around how these things happen as if there's some kind of magic room that you go to meet with other chief executives or chairman and, you know, they give you a secret note. It's as simple as a phone call. And, you know, Paul, we decided to make a change. Thomas Tuchel is leaving. Graham Potter is high on our list of potential targets. Would you allow us to speak to him? And in that situation, your heart sinks a little bit, certainly a month into the season as it was, because you've spent the whole summer preparing transfer targets, the squad, pre-season, for that team, that group of players, to play for Graham Potter.

22:24So if you're going to lose him a month into the season, that is going to have an impact. I mean, it would be a lie to say that that's not a big disappointment and a frustration, but also it's life. And, you know, in that scenario, the best that we can be is prepared for that eventuality. And when it comes to know what we're going to do, the frustration, particular frustration for me on that day was it wasn't just Graham and his immediate staff. It was probably what our interim plan was as well, which was Bruno and Ben Roberts to take charge of the team should this eventuality happen on a short-term basis until we've got our new manager in place.

23:00But Bruno and Ben were going with Graham. So not only was it our immediate first-team staff, but it was the interim group as well. So at that point, you've got to go to plan C, which again, because of the type of people we've got in the club, we were able to turn to Andrew Crofts, who was our under-21 coach. and someone who had been in and around close to the first team for a while and to Adam Lallana as one of the senior players and asked Crofty and Adam to come together to take training the next morning because these things happen so fast. And luckily, they've got the mindset and the attitude, which is can do.

23:37Of course we can. Of course we will. Where do you need us? When do you need us? And they stepped up to provide us with that gap. But internally, you go into a process of, OK, there's two parts now to manage. The exit, obviously, of the coaching staff to Chelsea is a blow. But our first and immediate priority is our club, our team, our players, our staff. And that was one priority. And then secondly, move to our succession plan to make sure that we can replace Graham and his team as quickly as we can. And do you put the phone down to Todd and as quick as possible ring Graham Potter and say, listen, please don't leave.

24:13Like, you're a great manager. We love having you as our boss and we've got all these great plans. Don't forget what we've discussed for years. Or do you allow things to take their natural course? I took a few minutes just to sort of process what Todd had said and made sure I'd heard everything correctly. Then called Graham because there's no point in me calling our chairman, our owner, if Todd's made the call to me. But I then speak to Graham. Graham says, well, he may want me, but I'm not interested because there's nothing to call the chairman about other than to let him know that we're okay.

24:44so I wanted to speak to Graham as quickly as I could and find out if he was interested in talking to Chelsea and he was and although I was disappointed I was also realistic that this was a fantastic opportunity for someone who'd done a great job for us over three years who'd built his career literally from the very bottom levels of university football through the Swedish fourth third second first division who had earned the right through the championship with Swansea to be a Premier League coach with us for three seasons. And here was an opportunity to test himself again at another level in the Champions League with a very big football club with a fantastic history.

25:22So as much as I was disappointed, I wasn't totally surprised and I wasn't resentful because as I said before, it would be hypocritical for someone like me who's moved several times to what I've perceived to be better opportunities to block someone's path from doing the same. And I'm very lucky that I've got a chairman and owner, Tony Bloom, who thinks exactly the same. And we think that in those situations, as much as we don't want to lose people, our best people, we know that if we're doing our jobs to the best of our ability and they're doing their jobs to the best of their ability, they're going to get that interest.

25:53They're going to get those opportunities and we should be ready and prepared for that. I mean, there's a real elegance about the way you've described it, but do you pitch for them not to do it? Do you try and persuade them otherwise? Or is it a case of we're going to allow you to decide and we'll step back from? I think you you have to first of all process what they've told you if they if they want to have that conversation then pitching at that time is probably not the right time because they've already made that psychological leap to say well I'm with you and I'm under contract to you but I would like to have that opportunity the pitch comes when they've had that conversation and they've got an opportunity to compare apples and apples or apples and pears you know this is what I've been offered over here so what is it you're offering me you know over over here and and i think from our point of view you know we feel we've got quite a you know a compelling proposition to say the least you know we've got a great owner we've got great facilities we've got a clear vision we've got very distinctive culture we've got we think an edge in in the transfer market in the way we recruit and the quality of the recruitment team that we have and we provide as much support around our staff and our coaching staff and our players as any club I've ever worked with and ever seen.

27:07So that's a pretty compelling pitch to anyone. Against that, you know, someone like Graham is facing an opportunity to work at an even bigger club with an even bigger fan base, with an even bigger global reputation in the Champions League at, in his mind, the top end of the Premier League. Now, ironically, of course, we've ended up probably finishing, in fact, we will end up finishing higher than Chelsea. it doesn't always work out in top level sport that what you perceive to be a higher level opportunity is actually that in the end but nevertheless that was the time you make your pitch that was the time when you kind of put forward your best foot and hope that you can persuade someone like Graham to stay in the event it wasn't possible so you then have to move on quickly Did you, when you made that pitch after he spoke to Chelsea did you have hope then or do you think you kind of knew this is such a big opportunity?

27:58Honestly, I felt that it was going to be too big an ask for him to pass up an opportunity like that at that time. I think if it had been a year into his time with Brighton or even 18 months, I think we would have had a better chance. Just simply because he himself perhaps would have felt that he needed more Premier League experience. But by then he'd had three seasons. He'd had a little bit of European experience when he was coaching in Sweden. and we then had to very quickly focus our minds on the replacement and that was something that again was important to do. So how big is this timeline we're talking about from the initial phone call from Todd to you putting the phone down for the second conversation with Graeme knowing he's off?

28:41Probably 48 hours. Because obviously you've got a whole football club here that needs to keep moving forwards. So then you make the phone call to Adam Lallana and Andrew Crofts. Was there a moment where, and I know they didn't eventually end up actually taking a game, did they because of other circumstances but was there a moment where you thought actually I've got the right to here to just steady the ship for a couple of days yeah I think probably the next morning when when Adam and and Crofty were asked to take training and I remember calling Adam what I hoped would be on his way into the training ground just have a quick chat with him and say thanks again for stepping up couldn't get hold of him was a little bit frustrated only to find out about an hour later he and Crofty had already been at the training ground for a couple of hours preparing the session.

29:22Is that right? So he saw your missed calls, did he? Yeah. And so from that point of view, that's the sort of character, that's the sort of leadership, that's the sort of professionalism, that's the sort of commitment to high performance that we hoped we had instilled right the way across the club. And it's in moments like that when, first of all, the resilience of the club is tested. And secondly, the resilience of the people that you've trusted to be high performing is tested. And they stepped up and they prepared the team to play Bournemouth on that weekend, And sadly, the Queen died. The games were postponed.

29:53And they never got to lead the team in a way that they had hoped and would have liked, I think. But again, they were ready and they were prepared. And they put their heart and soul into it in the way that you would expect from professionals like that. Before we move on to talk about what happened after Graham left, I don't think we would do him justice to not touch on the incredible impact that he had at the football club. And football moves on too quickly sometimes. And I think we should reflect just for a second. is there an example you can give us that maybe isn't the usual stuff like a big win or a you know a good points finish in the Premier League is there a thing that you shared with him that you think actually sums up what he did for your football club and why he was so successful that maybe we don't know I think I think you'd have to go back to the time when we parted company first of all with Chris Euton who was a fantastic manager for us did an incredible job at Brighton over five seasons and we made the difficult decision at the end of Chris's second season in the Premier League with us to to make a change and we wanted to make a change because we wanted to change the way we played football we wanted to entertain more we wanted to try and move away from being a bottom five six club to being a top 10 Premier League club and that was the renewed vision that we had determined as a board we should follow and communicate to staff and in these situations you you can be met with a little bit of derision, not just sort of on the outside, but sometimes on the inside from some staff.

31:18You can maybe stretch their belief just that little bit too far in a couple of places. And I can remember joining the club 11, nearly 12 years ago, after one season in the championship, back in the championship, having been promoted from League One and talking about getting Premier League ready and looking around the 300 sort of people in the room at that time and people shaking their heads and looking at me as if saying, no, no, staying in the championship is what we need to do. Don't worry about the Premier League. You know, I said at the time, you know, we were going to go on a big journey that some of you in this room were going to be on that whole journey and would enjoy different parts of it and maybe not others.

31:53Some of you would be on part of that journey, but then we'd need to make changes in order to progress further. And some of you, I can just tell by looking at your faces, won't be on this journey for very long at all. And again, about being honest and open, that if you don't believe now and you're not prepared to commit now and you're not prepared to get behind what we're trying to do, there's no point in you even starting the journey because all it's going to do is hold the rest of us back. So talking with Graham, we met at a service station. And again, this isn't very glamorous, is it? And people always think you're meeting in some luxury hotel in Mayfair.

32:24We met at a service station, got permission from Trevor Birch, who was the chief executive of Swansea at the time. Finally, Trevor didn't make it easy. He's a good negotiator. Eventually got the chance to talk to Graham. and I talked about the vision and tried to sell the vision to Graham and I can remember thinking this was going to be sort of an interview where I was going to ask him lots of questions and ended up being interviewed where he asked me more questions and I asked him tell me about this vision tell me about why you think you can achieve it tell me about the infrastructure tell me about the people tell me about the owner tell me about the chairman tell me about the kind of budgets I'll be working with what sort of staff have you got how will you support me and I'm thinking hang on this isn't quite going the way I thought it would go.

33:06But Graham's got a high level of intellect, high level integrity, high level of respect for his, at that time existing employer, Swansea City, wanted to make sure if he was going to make a move, it was going to be to the right club at the right time with the right people. And that was way before we talked about football philosophy, way before we talked about style of play, way before we talked about players that he might want or need. And I thought that said a lot about him. get the basics, get that foundation established, make sure he was going to be working with people that he felt he could work with.

33:39And then, of course, you get past that, and eventually you do get to the football stuff. And he started talking about the style of football he wanted to play, that it would be part of a long process, that it would take time to establish, that there would be bumps in the road, that we would lose games, that we would lose some games badly, that players would make mistakes, but he would be encouraging them to keep doing what he was asking them to do and let him take the flack for the mistakes. And again, I was just impressed by the way he spoke, by the way he was clearly passionate about the process that he followed.

34:12Very, very confident without being arrogant and very articulate without being overbearing or in any way arrogant in the way he delivered things. And I remember the first season, we didn't really improve that much in terms of points or position in the Premier League. The football was different and we were playing great football but not really finishing teams off or scoring goals. The second season, we started to improve the number of points that we got and we moved up a little bit. And then eventually in Graham's third season, things came together. Performances, wins, goals, ninth place finish.

34:44And then, of course, the fans then were getting what he was about and what he'd been talking about in terms of this is a process, it's going to take time. And then Todd called. But what strikes me about a lot of what you've said... Then Todd called. It's so like that moment. you're like oh really really have you just done that to me after all these years of planning and i think it's worth reminding people that that's that's high performance like high performance is not living a bump free in the road life it's about having the bumps in the road and having the resilience and the understanding and the and the kind of um mental dexterity to cope with that a hundred percent and you know we've talked a lot to the staff about this journey and that in top level sport, in any sport actually, it's not a straight line to progress or winning.

35:33There are difficult turns, there are difficult moments, there are bumps in the road. Some of those bumps are big, some of them are small, some of them you don't even notice because the resilience the organisation has built just simply acts like a suspension in a car and you just go over the bumps without noticing it. And there are times when you hit really big bumps and that's when I think that the best organisations, let alone the best football clubs, are properly tested. How resilient are you? How quickly can you overcome that big bump? What have you done to prepare for that big bump? How quickly can you turn people's minds from it being a big bump to being a big opportunity?

36:08And how quickly can you get back on that path that you've been trying to follow? For me, that's almost high performance in a nutshell. It's not just about the good moments, the big moments. They are the outputs of many, many inputs of which these bumps in the road are significant inputs.

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38:09there's a factor here that almost is is going unspoken but has been present in a number of your answers you've given us paul which is about the power of patience as well so you spoke that like what resonated there in terms of when you meet graham at a service station is he's not coming in and promising you the earth is saying this is going to take time when you came in in 2009 you're telling the staff this is a long-term process and yet you're in a world of snap instant judgments and speed of decisions is seen as a sign of strength how do you square that circle between being patient in a world where patience is a finite resource it's a really good question I can remember probably 20 years ago not long after I'd sort of moved into working professional football David Dean said to me that you know there's going to come a time in football where you will need to pick your owner and not the club and what he meant by that was that demands for success overnight were already becoming greater the premier league had created this sort of sense of of destiny for some people and and everyone wanted a little bit of it but not everyone could have it you know there was only going to be one champion every year there's only gonna be one fa cup winner one champions league winner so the vast majority of clubs not just in England but all over Europe were in some sense is going to fail but owners would expect them to be successful and so I think at Brighton we're very lucky with with Tony Bloom that we've got an owner that doesn't just plan for the long term and think long term but he's patient he understands that football sport isn't a straight line towards success that you know there will be bumps and you've got to be patient and with coaches like Graham like Roberto De Zerbi who have very distinct styles of play, very distinct ways of coaching, that sometimes it might take time for their methods to be established.

40:04And the challenge then falls, I think, more on the chief executive or the person who's front facing for the club, because you've got the responsibility then of setting expectations at the right level and keeping them in check, managing fan expectations, making sure that from a media point of view, you don't get overexposed too quickly, that in an ideal world what you're actually doing sort of almost lags or rather the perception of what you're doing is sort of different to the way you actually are we prefer to be better and the media to be talking about things that we did last year almost to be sort of you know out of sync if you like between perception and reality because if perception gets too far ahead of reality then I think you're heading for a fall and we know that things can change quickly in football and in sport generally and um you've lost dan ashworth a few months before you've then lost your manager a few weeks into a new season you've not only lost your manager you've lost the two most integral backroom team members that worked alongside him which was your plan b should he leave and then not long after that chelsea come knocking again and this time they take your player of the year and one of the best players in the brighton team in all honesty did you start to fear like is this thing crumbling before my eyes all this planning all this care all this patience all this preparation and now look what's happening i think my first instinct was to change my number and make sure todd didn't get it it's a it's flattering when when one of the richest owners in football keep is coming to your football club you're doing something it did feel for a while it was it was a regular sort of conversation we had and um we got to know each other i think probably more rapidly than we had anticipated.

41:44But no, I don't ever think we felt it was falling apart. I think there were moments when we were a bit, as I say, frustrated and we felt that we were being raided and it would be nice if we weren't raided. But then again, if you turn it around and look at it a different way, it's a big compliment. You know, we've done a decent job. We've hired good people. We've played good football. We've created a perception around our club that we do things in the right way. so it's an opportunity I suppose in that sense to sort of take a little bit of something from that financial or otherwise but it also is an opportunity to regenerate and to say okay you know we have actually got good players in the building already that can for example this season we lost Trossard but we had Mitoma in the building we lost Bissouma before that and we had Cushedo in the building we lost Kukurela but in comes Purvis who's done an amazing job at left back and has probably been one of our players of the season again so actually having sort of a plan to either replace these players before you need to or a plan to replace them when you need to is all part of that succession planning whether it is on or off the pitch having a plan to deal with those situations is critical to not losing momentum and critical to not losing focus.

42:58I was interested in when we had the conversation about I want to get his pronunciation wrong Cuccarella. Yeah. So when you left, when Cuccarella left, I was interested in the fact that you had a really clear valuation because Manchester City were coming in for him and you resisted it at the valuation they offered. But then you did let him go to Chelsea. And I'm interested in the formula that you obviously have here to value a player. How much of it is based on the cost of replacing him? How much of it is the impact on the culture and almost on those intangibles? I think it's a combination of things obviously a player on a long contract who's just come off of a player of the season winning season who you don't need to sell financially who you don't really want to sell to what could be a rival club in terms of battling for a place in Europe if you're aiming that high a whole combination of reasons that the value gets to where it's at left-sided defenders are hard to come by and left-sided defenders that can move forward quickly with the ball and create attacking options are even harder to come by.

44:07So for us, we spent a long time trying to find Mark, so to lose him after one season was really frustrating and our view was if we have to lose him, we have to absolutely get the maximum possible value and if we can't get that, then we won't lose him. And of course, then you've got a different problem potentially because the player sees an opportunity again. like we discussed before to play at a higher level play in the Champions League and actually secure his own financial or family's future you have to respect that but at the same time contracts are there for a reason and you know we provide the security through those contracts and it gives us an opportunity to actually extract the maximum value if that comes to a point where the player wants to leave So what is the plan then?

44:51Because so often football teams are reactive to things that happen here you are being proactive the number of times you said they were in the building right? you don't stumble into that. That is a thought about process. Would you mind giving us some real insights into the actual process you have in place? And is it there just for the playing staff or is it there for everyone? Yeah, we try and identify probably the top 20 or 25 most vulnerable positions within the football club on and off the field. And we try and have a succession plan in place. So if we were to lose person A, what would we do?

45:23Person B, where would we go? and sometimes the beauty of that system is that you get a sense of who's in the building already and therefore that's the obvious place to go so Dan Ashworth leaves David Weir's in the building sometimes it highlights that the person that would replace the person you are preparing to lose isn't in the building and that's really important because where then do you look where's the most obvious place to replace that person and then once you've identified outside the building who that person is how easy is it going to be to get them would they want to come can you afford them would they want to come and could you afford them at the time that you might need them and you almost need them in this system you need them before you need them correct so sometimes it's about investing in on the playing side in a position that on the out from the outside looking in doesn't look immediately apparent that you need and then it's about having a pathway plan for that player not to become disgruntled in that interim period, which is where David Weir's experience as our loans manager was critical to how we work, because it was his job to move those players that we brought into the building before we needed them out to clubs that could then develop them further for us and prepare them for coming back to us.

46:41But at the same time, they've got to be clubs with a culture that was similar to ours, so that that player would feel comfortable, welcomed, as if he hadn't just been brought in to be moved out straight away and felt disgruntled because of that that helps us then when it comes to selling players because the last thing you want to do is to go to market to buy a player when you've got your pockets full of tens of millions of pounds having just sold a player because that's when you're at your most vulnerable from a negotiating point of view so to try and get the players in the building ahead of time is is is important it's not something you can do every time it's not something that's a perfect science similarly with succession planning you know no one would ever say that a war is in any way good fortune least of all for the people going through it but if it hadn't been for the war in ukraine at the time we needed roberto deservey he probably wouldn't have been available because he was at shaktar playing the champions league he's happy there he's doing a fantastic job there with a great group of players if that war hadn't happened and if potter had left when he did and deservey was our first choice, which he was, it may not necessarily have been so easy to prize him away from Shakhtar.

47:49The fact that the war happened, Roberto's back in Italy, he's not working, he's our first choice, Graham leaves, all of a sudden we've got this situation where our succession plan can be activated. And how long was he your first choice for? Well, we knew about the work that Roberto was doing with Sassuolo in Italy. We knew about how they were playing, how they were over-performing, how they were pushing some of the bigger clubs in Italy in a way that I think some of the bigger clubs still reel in shock about when they talk about the way Roberto played against them. So we were aware of that. We were aware of what he was starting to do in Shakhtar and the reputation that he had.

48:27And he was the only person that we spoke to in the entire process to replace Graham. And when we met him and he came with the really detailed knowledge of us and our players, how we played, how those players played, whether they were good in possession, out of possession, what they could improve. Then we realised that we weren't just watching him, but he'd been watching us, which was the perfect scenario, really. So what was the similarities and what were the differences between the first time you met Roberto to approach him about the job and that service station meeting with Graham? Well, one was actually, meeting Roberto was in a nice hotel in London, so that was a big difference.

49:05We must have stepped up in the three years that Graham was with us. Premier League thinking. Premier League thinking. Language, I think, was a big difference, obviously. Graham's Brummie English was a lot better than Roberto's Italian English, for sure. And Roberto was, again, similarly modest, similarly understated, making sure that we understood that his English wasn't quite where he wanted it to be. But if we hired him, and by the end of the World Cup in December, his English was going to be 8 out of 10. He was so determined that that would be the case. And we said, well, you know, you don't need to put yourself under that kind of pressure.

49:41You're going to be coming into the Premier League for the first time. You're coming in a month into the season. You won't have that much time to work with the players. You know, obviously English is important and language is important, but don't put yourself under unnecessary pressure. And he was, no, I will be 8 out of 10 by the time the World Cup is over. And what was he at that moment? I would say he was at least that. At that moment, he was probably three or four. Wow, so a huge step. And how much is his management passion-driven? Like with the players? Because we spoke with Kieran Trippier recently on this podcast and he said to us, he said, Diego Simeone can never manage in the Premier League because it's not his first language, he doesn't really speak English, yet the way he manages it's so passionate, it's so much about language, it's so much about inspiring those around them that without the language, he loses his impact effectively.

50:27I think that's where Roberto and why Roberto was so determined to make sure that his language skills were as good as they could be. Because I think a lot of what he says and how he says it is nuanced. And he wanted to make sure he was able to communicate with the players at the level that he needed to, to influence and the way he wanted to. and I think having seen Roberto in action listen to him that passion, that detail that he goes into every single day on the training field and he is on that training field every day I think is part of what he does with the players which is special and yeah his English now is as good as it absolutely ever needs to be I think But what I was struck Paul is you spoke about when you interviewed Graham he was more, before you spoke about the on the field stuff it was the off-field stuff that really intrigued him.

51:16How much was Roberto interested in that area as well? Well, I think because he'd done some research on the club and because he knew about the way we recruited players, he knew about Brighton's story, if you like, I think there was a certain sense that he'd done a lot of that work already. So when he came into the room, he knew who the owner was and what he was about. You know, he'd done his research on me and David Weir. He wanted to sort of talk about the squad. He wanted to, because again, I think the other thing, the big difference was we were talking to Graham at the end of a season going into a summer.

51:50Roberto's one month into the season, you know, with the greatest respect, you know, he either wants this job or he doesn't. He either likes this club and the people that run it or he doesn't. But most importantly, coming in a month into the season, he's got to hit the ground running. His first game's away to Liverpool. You know, this is... And remind me, has the window closed? Yeah. So there's also no opportunity to make it the squad he wants to make it. So therefore, again, we were very impressed with the fact that he really had done the work on the squad. He knew that squad intimately. So day one arrives, and I assume you're there on day one for him, right?

52:22Yeah. And he meets the squad for the first time. Can you remember how he presented himself to the team, what he said? I wasn't involved in that first meeting with the players, but I got feedback afterwards to say how impressed they were with him. Already the level of detail that he was going into, the belief that he started to instill. And I think if you remember, Jake, we went to Anfield, we were 2-0 up in 20 minutes playing some amazing football. And I remember sitting at Anfield, ironically, with my wife, who's a Liverpoolian and a Red, sitting next to me. And she, like everyone else at Anfield, was stunned at the way we were playing and the fact Liverpool were 2-0 down.

52:57Game ended 3-3 and, you know, he learned a lot about the power of the crowd at Liverpool and that incredible noise they can create when the momentum in the game shifts and how they can help get the team back in it. learned a lot about the Premier League and just how tough it was you know even 2-0 up away from home doesn't guarantee you three points in this league and yeah his determination then to to really sort of get into the squad and into the way he wanted them to play was going to be a lot of work but he was determined to sort of do it day by day and that's what's happened over the seven or eight months that have followed.

53:32What do you think he has done then that has been exceptional in his time at Brighton. And I'm thinking really kind of tangible examples of things he's done that people listening to this can learn from and take into their own place of work. I think an attention to detail. He's relentless on the detail. You know, I can remember again another game we were playing at Stoke in the Cup earlier in the season. We won 1-0 and there was one movement in the game which went from the goalkeeper, Steely, all the way through to a shot on target at the other end from I think Danny Welbeck and afterwards on the bus talking to Steely about why he was so excited by that and he said because it's exactly how Roberto described it happening before the game if we do that and move the ball there they'll do this then we're going to do that then they'll do that we'll do this they'll do that and then we'll get a chance to shoot on goal and he said Paul it was like poetry is exactly as he had described it and it's that level of detail that attention to detail of not just what we're going to do, but what the opposition will do in response and how we can then play around it or through it or over it or whatever it happened to be.

54:39And I think that level of attention to detail, I think the belief that is instilled in the players, the confidence, the fact that he's pushed everyone in the club to think bigger. Don't talk about top 10, talk about playing in Europe. The difference between top 10 and Europe is only three places. We can actually do that. We've got the quality of players to do that. It's going to be hard. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be lots of other clubs that want to do it but we we can do it so let's start thinking like that let's start talking like that so in terms of setting those expectations he was actually pushing us to set expectations higher not lower if you want to be a a club that regularly competes in the top 10 then challenging for european football has to be part of that if it's part of that you've got to start thinking like that in order to start thinking like that you've got to talk about it if you talk about it you've got to believe it and if you start believing it it could happen and there's this sort of confidence in the way that he says that, that pushes even the chairman and myself to just think that a little bit differently and be a little bit bolder in some of the things we say.

55:40But we have to remain humble. We have to remain very, very true to our roots and never forget that we're still on a journey and that we've got a long way to go to prove ourselves at this level. So can you tell us about what I think is one of the most important relationships in a football club which is between the manager and you because I think we don't often speak about managing upwards really effectively we think about like our questions are about how did Roberto get the team to buy into his vision but I'm interested in terms of the relationship that you two have how you help him and equally you said he's challenged you to think a bit bolder.

56:19The way I describe my my job is is to try and make it as easy as possible for our players to win football matches so each day i try and think about what can i do to help that process happen better quicker sooner i'm not going to get involved in technical detail that's for roberto his coaching staff and david weir i'm not going to determine transfer policy because that's not my job my job is to execute it when the chairman needs me to get involved in that i'm not going to be involved in in a lot of the things that Roberto does day to day. But the most important thing I can be involved in is to make sure that everything he doesn't have to worry about is taken care of so he doesn't worry about it.

57:01And that's everything from logistics and travel to the pitch preparation to making sure the players' contracts are dealt with well before they start knocking on the manager's door because they're not happy or whatever. Making sure if we do target a player that we've all agreed we want, that that process is as smooth as it can be. and we've got great recruitment staff that manage 95 % of the process. And I might only be involved in the last 5 % or the last 1%, but that's because we've got good people in good places doing that. And the last thing we want is Roberto distracted from preparing for a game because he has to worry about any aspect of that.

57:36And I think sometimes, perhaps back in the day, managers got involved in every aspect of the club, possibly at times to their detriment, possibly at times to their bad health, because there was so much for them to worry about, so much for them to think about. I think in the modern game and increasingly, certainly at a club like ours, we try and minimise the head coach's time and effort to focus on the things that he really adds value on, which is preparing the players to win matches. Everything else that I can support him to help him do that, I take care of with a good team of people around me.

58:09And finally, before we move to our quickfire questions to wrap up this fascinating conversation, where does your energy and your relentlessness come from because here's the truth right you're on the verge of your greatest ever season therefore there's more eyeballs than ever before on your team therefore there's a strong chance you're going to be having similar phone calls this summer to the ones that you had last summer and already the biggest clubs in the premier league are being linked with your manager so it's almost like the greater the club's successes the greater the challenges that you're going to be having to deal with so how do you retain your drive your energy your ambition your well first of all i think recognizing exactly what you've said is that the better you do the higher the chance or more likely the chance that you're then going to be facing the challenges that we faced before so you prepare more and you prepare better um and you just simply make sure that each time this happens you learn something from the process to make it better for next time because you know with the best will in the world even if we are successful for the next decade or two decades or three decades we've still got a long way to go to catch up with some of the most storied clubs in the country that you know the liverpools the manchester united the manchester cities the arsenals the chelsea's the tottenham's we're trying to make inroads into bridging that gap but we've got a long long way to go so there's plenty for us still to do every year there's more for us to do every year there's more ways we can get better and we can close that gap and hopefully surprise a few people along the way as somebody that has been so diligent about getting better every year.

59:40When we were preparing for this interview, I was thinking about almost some teams that have had similar periods to what you've had. We could be having this conversation in 2014 with Hugh Jenkins at Swansea that just won a League Cup. They've replaced Roberto Martinez with Loudrop and Brendan Rodgers. And yet eventually it all crumbled. We could be speaking to Stoke City that had a similar period or Southampton this season. Have you spoken or explored with clubs like that about what eventually went wrong, that they defied gravity for so long before eventually the bubble burst? Not specifically, because I think it's difficult to do that because clubs tend to be quite closed about what they did well and what they did wrong.

1:00:29Because, you know, from the point of view of protecting those that maybe made mistakes or maybe those that didn't do what they could have done or should have done. but what we try and do is look at ourselves most importantly and how can we create a structure and a foundation that that means that we can sustain this there's no guarantees there's no guarantees that we'll keep finding the players that we've been finding or hiring the best coaches but what we can do is we can eliminate as many of the variables that prevent us from doing that and we can actually put in place good people in lots of different places create a working environment that means they want to stay there, keep challenging them to be better, reward them so they don't want to leave.

1:01:10And then hopefully we've got a big foundation, a big base to the way we work and how we operate, that we can keep this going. And the chairman himself actually regularly sort of reminds us that, you know, there will be blips. It will be another bump in the road at some point. You know, Monday was something we couldn't have foreseen. We've been on a great run. Everton have been struggling. We're playing at home. We've just beaten Manchester United we get an amazing headlines the players are confident we get beat 5-1 at home it's a bump in the road it's something we we we prepared for not happening but it happened and the first and most important thing Roberto did was talk to the players very calmly look at some of the things that didn't quite work for us on Monday in the way that they have been most of the season then I think probably to everyone's sort of surprise he gave them a couple of days off and said look go away do what you want to do relax take take your mind off of this come back ready and focused and rested to prepare to play arsenal which will be a very very tough game at the emirates on on sunday right quick fire questions please paul the three non-negotiable behaviors that you and the people around you should buy into relentless effort willingness to learn and a desire not to stand still what's your greatest strength and your biggest weakness i think probably my greatest strength is a willingness to communicate even in the worst of situations my biggest weakness i really believe in people even when maybe they're not necessarily performing at the level i need them to i'd rather give them more time than less sometimes that's to my detriment or to the organisation's detriment.

1:02:51If you could give one bit of advice to a teenage Paul just starting out in life what would it be and why? Work harder listen more. Ah why? I think probably at school I didn't achieve as much as I could have done because I didn't work hard enough and I didn't work hard enough because I didn't listen enough and I think after school I listened more and worked really hard. Very good. What was the moment that taught you that lesson? Too many to mention. I think probably, probably not, you know, not, not, not, not necessarily getting the best education I could have done when my parents had worked really hard to give me the best possible start from pretty modest beginnings.

1:03:34And I felt, I felt probably I'd let them down a little bit from that. Uh, so that, I think that kind of makes you more determined to, to work even harder to catch up and I felt you know I still feel actually all the way through my career that I'm still trying to catch up I'm not trying it's a good mindset I'm not quite sure who I'm trying to chase but I genuinely believe I'm still catching up I'm still not necessarily I haven't yet fulfilled my potential and and I hope I hope by the time I retire I would at least feel as if I reach that that level nice how important is legacy to you if I can look back and see that every job that I did, I did to the best of my ability, achieved at least what I was asked to achieve and hopefully a bit more, then that would be a good legacy.

1:04:22And if I've done it in the right way and, you know, helped a few people along the way, then that would be a legacy that I would be proud of. Great. And finally, your last message for people who've listened to this conversation, your one golden rule for living a high performance life. What's the sort of one message that you'd really like to leave people with? It's not just about the output. It's very much about the input. And for me, the input is as critical to high performance as what people see in our context on the field at the end of a week on the training field. It's what's gone into that that's created the high performance, not necessarily the performance itself.

1:05:01And you are going to have your best season ever, hopefully, at Brighton. And I get that you have this relentless desire to go on and make next season even better still. but are you going to give yourself a moment where you're going to pour yourself maybe a large drink and sit back and just give yourself a pat on the back and acknowledge what you've achieved I hope so I hope we'll you know we're we're playing in the United States this summer the first time ever that the club has played internationally during the summer the first time we've been invited to do that and that's going to be a quite a proud moment they're only friendlies and and they're you know they're not they're not there's no trophy involved but I think it's another measure of the club's increasing sort of profile and status that we can go to the United States and sell out three matches against other Premier League clubs in big stadiums in a country that's not ours.

1:05:52And if you'd have said to Brighton fans or even to Brighton board a decade ago that that was going to happen, they probably would have said no, not likely, not for a while yet. So here we are sort of just 10 years later and to be doing that is going to be a moment where I think we can sit back and say, look at this. You know, we're playing in front of 60 ,000 people in Atlanta, Georgia. You know, who'd have thought that was possible when we were at the Withdean Stadium and playing in front of 6 ,000 people surrounded by trees, wind and rain in a converted athletics track. You know, that's a big journey in a relatively short space of time.

1:06:26And that will be a moment, I think, to reflect and enjoy. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks a lot. And thank you so much for your time. That was absolutely brilliant.

1:06:38Damien. Jake. What a fascinating breakdown of an individual season in the life of a Premier League football club. And I think if I'm a Brighton fan listening to this, I am just delighted that we've got that man and that owner and those people in charge of a club where, okay, it might go wrong, but it won't go wrong for the want of them doing their best and having a plan in place. And what more can you do but the best you can, which is what they're up to? I thought it was incredible. It was a real privilege to listen to him. what I remembered when he was talking to us was the interview we did with Frank Lampard when he was at Chelsea and he spoke about that misalignment Sean Dye spoke about it as well in clubs where when the owners and the executives are not aligned with those that are out there executing on the field and when I talk to leaders I often talk about the three A's of alignment so it's around you have to have an aspiration that's like the infinite purpose of what you're trying to do then you have ambition which is where you want to finish in the league and a points target that can be measured and then your actions your everyday steps need to align with that and when you get that misalignment it often creates huge dysfunction like what frank and sean have spoken but if i was a brighton fan listening to paul i'd be thinking that's a club that's perfectly aligned from top to bottom i think the other big takeaway for me was when you talk about high performance being the input not the output and how often do we talk about what's high performance and and people talk about the output it's this it's that it's creating whereas he's saying high performance is actually what comes from the input if you get the input right then the output is naturally going to be great and i think that's a really smart way of looking at it yeah powerful again i was thinking about when we like in a selfish way when we started this podcast we spoke about that idea didn't we that that we were driven not by trying to make an income not necessarily by hitting numbers it was about hopefully one person listening to this that it helped and it made a difference to them and again you listen to Paul tell us around that's precisely what they're driven by at Brighton not necessarily getting caught up on the outputs it's about doing the right thing every day which means that you can never really go wrong it's like your famous example from Frozen about did the next right thing.

1:09:03That's exactly what Paul described to us there, even at a high-level football club like Brighton. And I'm sure it's unrelenting because at the end of a great season, they'll just have more vultures swirling, looking to cherry-pick the very best talent they've got. And it won't always be plain sailing, but I tell you what, he is a guy who I don't think could have done any more in his time at Brighton so far. Like, that club is absolutely... Like, he's got... He's sort of, you know, the George Bernard Shaw quote you like about, I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. I feel like he is thoroughly using up his time at Brighton to extract the absolute maximum out of this football club.

1:09:41Yeah, yeah, that's a really good way of describing it. I think the other thing I'd just like to highlight for anyone listening to this is patience. I think in an industry like football where, you know, the average tenure of a manager is less than 14 months, I think what you're hearing there from Paul and from Tony Bloom above him is the power of patience sometimes accepting that you know when they appointed Graham Potter and they said that first year they actually didn't improve that much from Chris Hewton in lots of clubs they'd say oh we made a mistake let's sack him and let's prove somebody else on but they had that patience and it was the third year before things came to fruition there's a benefit in that for all of us that it's that analogy we often use jake about the bamboo you know it takes five years for it to grow above the ground but the growth is happening underneath that we can't always see it's really good thanks mate thank you mate well i really hope that you enjoyed today's episode of the high performance podcast um thank you very much to paul for joining us just a quick reminder for you that you can also watch our conversations as well as listen to them just head to youtube and type in the high performance podcast and there's only one thing that we ask you to do one simple thing, hit subscribe.

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