“The Space Between”

A wonderful kind of wisdom comes from those who understand that performance emerges not from exerting control, but from creating the conditions for performance to flourish.

As I speak with our next guest on ‘In the Arena’, Shane McCurry, this thought comes to mind.

His understanding of performance and well-being reflects this wisdom: "It's not one or the other, it's one through the other," he observes, emphasising that sustainable excellence can only come through nurturing the human spirit. The Tigers' success demonstrated this perfectly - excellence achieved not at the cost of humanity, but through embracing it.

In a world often focused on quick fixes and immediate results, Shane's serenity comes from understanding that true success - whether it's premiership flags or personal growth - comes through patient, purposeful cultivation of environments where people feel valued and capable of their best work.

His legacy isn't just in the silverware at Richmond, Vixens or Storm, but in the many lives he's touched through his quiet, steadfast and compelling commitment to creating spaces where others can shine.

Play on!

As a leader, people do not experience our intentions; they experience our behaviours.

How you make them feel, to elevate and inspire, by not only supporting and encouraging them through the demands of their work, but also when trying to stretch and grow them when you glimpse potential and possibilities they are yet to see in themselves.

I call this the Leadership Promise.

Our next guest, ‘In the Arena’, is legendary AFL Club CEO Brian Cook, the longest-serving club CEO in the game's history, who, for thirty-five years, has delivered on the Leadership Promise.

He is a legacy-driven leader, a good ancestor, a steward of the future, the shoulders on which future generations stand, with the simple expectation of himself:

‘Doing well, doing good, doing right’.

“What change do you seek to make?”

I came to coaching, having been coached, and the coach was Scott Barrow, my guest on Episode 10 of ‘In the Arena’.

This is a different conversation. We explore together. It is an open and sometimes challenging discussion, one that I am glad we had, as I always do, and I hope you enjoy it.

Scott Barrow helped me see that leadership (and life) is not a ‘got to’ thing but a ‘get to’ thing.

By embracing this mindset, we are ‘making room for who we might be’. I thank Pippa Grange and her book ‘Fear Less’ for this powerful idea.

Once we have made room for who we might be, we can then make space for others to do likewise.

We ‘get to’ craft ourselves and make our own art, not as an outcome-based pursuit, but by following our own imperfect path, and in doing so, make things better.

We then ‘get to’ play a role in the lives of others and help them to make themselves better.

There is never one ‘right’ answer and no perfect outcome. It will always feel uncertain, which is, most likely, the most important skill we learn.

We get to ‘begin again’.

We all need someone like Scott Barrow in our lives.

“Were you ready?” they ask.

You’d think I’d have a ready answer to a question asked so often. One I’d prepared earlier.

Maybe it is less question and more response when people learn I was appointed CEO of the Richmond Football Club at age 24.

This thought comes to mind when I am interviewing Collingwood Premiership Captain Nick Maxwell, the perfect guest “In the Arena” in Grand Final week. Since retiring as an AFL player after a remarkable career, Nick has been Leadership Coach and Mentor of Melbourne Storm in the NRL, Greater Western Sydney and Collingwood, and is now CEO of the wonderful Eclat, where designCEO is proudly located.

The first team Nick Maxwell captained was Collingwood, the biggest and most famous in the country. He was never a captain of any of his junior teams because that honour generally went to one of the better players, which, in his own judgement, was never him.

This judgement prevailed when the hundreds of names were called in draft after draft, but never his. He was good enough to be invited for tryouts over pre-season with AFL clubs, and the effort this asked of him, motivated by hope rather than expectation, only to be rejected time and again.

Eventually, Collingwood did take a chance, but the stakes were low, as were the expectations, selection #15 in the Rookie Draft, which effectively made him the 99th player selected that year.

It took him a season before he won a place in the Collingwood senior team, and after only twenty games, he was asked by legendary captain Nathan Buckley to join the player leadership group.

“Were you ready?” I wonder.

I have never really had a good answer, but as years pass, I now understand when taking on anything difficult, be it a personal goal, ambition or desire, or a circumstance or situation you find yourself, my answer is now:

“You are never ready”.

Nick Maxwell is now In the Arena.

Play on!

‘The Character to Compete’

“You will behave yourself in, or you will behave yourself out. The choice is yours.”

The role of leaders is to create the conditions that get the best from a group with all of its idiosyncrasies. No team is the same and will always require something different from its leaders.

Does your team understand (and believe in) what they are collectively trying to do, and are they profoundly motivated by this potential and making measurable progress towards its achievement? Do they understand their role, and those of their teammates, in this?

Our next guest on ‘In the Arena’ is Todd Viney, who has seen it all. An outstanding 233 game playing career at the Melbourne Football Club, he was Captain, won Best and Fairests, an All Australian blazer, played in a Grand Final, and was selected in their Team of the Century. In my view, he was the fiercest competitor of his generation. But then again, I am a tad biased, having recruited Todd to the Demons from the Sturt Football Club in South Australia all those years ago after he converted to football at age 18 from playing tennis on the world circuit.

It is quite a story.

As CEO of Melbourne FC twenty-five years later, I recruited Todd Viney back to the club. We needed what Todd brought: the ‘character to compete’. Whilst never the plan, he would be required to step up as interim Senior Coach, but the real reason we recruited him was to build the playing list. This he would do, focusing on character and competitiveness as much as talent, and he and his astute recruiters, led by Jason Taylor, would accumulate enough talent to take the Demons to their first Premiership in 57 years in 2021.

My firm belief is that ‘effort’ can be coached, but not in the shouting, red-faced, vein-popping, finger-pointing ‘try harder’ cliche of coaching, so often the expectation. As with all things leadership, the process is complex and nuanced, and will ultimately be the difference maker.

The prevailing belief, so it seems, is that great leaders can ‘extract’ performance from a group, and there is some truth in this. We all need a hurry-up from time to time. But this practice must be used sparingly to retain its impact and value, for it will have diminishing returns.

In my experience, great leaders have the capacity to ‘unlock’ performance from both the individual and the team, often by recognising capability and opportunity they are yet to see in themselves, and then by providing a pathway to achieve it.

Todd Viney is an unlocker.

Play On!

Cam

As leaders, we are defined by our capacity to create the conditions that enable the group to perform at its best, and there is no better measure than building a culture and a common good so compelling that individuals know, accept and play their roles in a team and all of its expectations.

I sometimes wonder about the application of this high-performance mindset beyond the sporting field. Its importance however was emphasised in my conversation with Dame Alison Rose DBE, our guest on episode #007 of ‘In the Arena’.

Dame Alison Rose DBE was formerly the NatWest Group's CEO and the first woman appointed to this role. With operating revenue of £6 billion, assets of £693 billion, 61,500 employees and 19 million customers, she led in one of the highest stakes environments in business.

“It can be a very individualistic kind of culture if you're not careful. And so, for me, it was always about bringing the right team with the right culture on a common mission”, says Alison.

“I used to cox rowing teams. You'd have eight highly competitive individuals in a boat. And if you got them all moving in the same way, this boat would sing, and it would fly. It was amazing. And you could tell the difference between when it was working and when it wasn't. But each of those individual people had to be motivated in a different way. And that's true of corporate teams.”

“It was the thesis I had on the multiple teams I've built throughout my career. Always hire people better than you. A sign of a weak leader is when you push talent down. So, you should never be intimidated by talent. You hire the best people, people who are better than you, because you want collective skills in your team.”

“Be very clear on the culture you want to create. So mutual respect is really important, creating a team that can build trust”.

Grab a pen and notebook, take the time, this is a rich offering from a very generous leader.

Play on!

Cam

‘Lead, or be led’, is how Neil Craig, this week’s guest ‘In the Arena’, describes it. Choose to lead, or allow the challenge of your circumstance to lead you.

In the podcast, he speaks about the two egos leaders need to succeed in high-stakes environments, and I love this insight.

Neil Craig is a man with more experience in the broadest range of elite sport, and has made growth a practice.

Whether it be as the Senior Coach of the Adelaide Football Club in the AFL after a storied playing career, as Eddie Jones’ ‘truth teller’ when Eddie was coaching both England and Australia in Rugby World Cups, or working with legendary cycling coach Charlie Walsh in Olympic campaigns, Neil provides the most profound insights that can only come from someone who brings curiosity and courage to every conversation, and the generosity I so value in our friendship.

As a coach of coaches, Neil Craig is the ‘second set of eyes’ to coaches and leaders seeking to perform at the highest level, as another coach’s coach, Cody Royle, wonderfully describes it in his fantastic book of the same name.

As leaders, we all need a ‘second set of eyes’.

Play on!

Cam.

“Leadership is an external challenge of communication.”

A future vision requires imagination and someone to spark the flame.

Performance Coach Owen Eastwood describes this as the creation of ‘forward memories’.

To ignite, motivate and bond individuals into teams through a shared future and journey they will undertake together.

Imagination, in terms of leadership, clearly requires creativity, but mostly, it is an act of courage.

This thought comes to mind when I am speaking with my brother Brendan Schwab and his vision.

Brendan is the most creative and courageous leader I have met, prepared always to hazard himself for the possibility of fulfilling the promise of the sport, impacting the structure and governance of sport, and the rights of athletes who play it.

Having established the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) fresh from studying law and three decades in helping build the Australian and international player association movements, Brendan spent eight years as Executive Director of the World Players Association (World Players), representing 85,000 players through more than 100 player associations in over 60 countries.

In 2018, he was recognised by the players as the fourth 'PFA Champion' and, in 2022, was inducted into the Football Australia Hall of Fame, the first Australian to receive this honour in any sport for their work as a player unionist.

“Australia is a great sporting nation. We can become a great football nation” was the vision.

Brendan understood that the vision would not be achieved through the embedded frameworks vested with responsibility for leading soccer in Australia. These structures and the power they afforded to the few had consistently failed the game, with self-interest prevailing against any potential of a greater good.

Brendan drew the rough outline of a different future for the game he loved, something that inspired, knowing that others would need to colour it in.

The ‘others’, in this case, were the players themselves.

“I felt that through the players, we could realise that vision of Australia being a great football nation”.

The shared love became the greater good the game so badly needed, and a very special group of players bought in with a collective purpose and preparedness to put themselves at risk for the sake of the game they treasured.

So pleased to welcome my brother Brendan Schwab as our guest, ‘In the Arena’.

I am very proud of him.

Enjoy!

Play on!