Tracey Neville
This week’s guest comes from family a sporting superstars; her dad was a professional cricketer and her brothers were both international footballers, but Tracey Neville transitioned from being an elite athlete to an elite coach, delivering one of this country’s greatest sporting triumphs - winning a Commonwealth gold medal for England netball.
Listen to her stories and secrets of changing a sport forever.
TRANSCRIPT
JAKE: Let’s do it then, and dive into a conversation about living a high performance life with someone who comes actually from a sporting dynasty. Her dad was a professional cricketer, her brothers both professional, international footballers. Yeah, it's our guest whose dedication and talent delivered on one of our nation's most iconic sporting trumps, one that broke records and absolutely moved the dial for the sport that she played and the sport that she loves. So welcome to high performance, Tracey Neville.
TRACEY: Thank you.
JAKE: Nice to have you with us. Let's start with the emotion actually of that remarkable heart-stopping Commonwealth Games win for England's Roses, which is the greatest netball triumph our country's ever had. And it's a sport that is so often in the shadows - finally get this moment in the sun, you were leading that team. So what do you look back on and reflect with hindsight that was the secret to that success?
TRACEY: Um, I've been playing obviously, um, England, netball and part of the system since I was 16. I think when that last shot went in, um, and that goal… winning moment, I think at first it was the athlete come out in me and thought this is a dream come true for an athlete. From someone who has been watching the best of the best take gold medals away repeatedly over a 20 year period, and always been in that third and fourth playoff where we were expected to win, expected to lose. From a coach’s point of view, it was a different feeling. It was a relief because it had been a really tough three years leading up to that. But more importantly it was, it was part of history. Um, and I was just so enamoured to be part of a history, to be part of something that England netball had been striving for, and over so many years and so many coaches had inputted to that, so many players. And it felt good to be in that spotlight in that moment, and, and part of that, that history of the sport and, and particularly we say about taking the sport on. You don't just look at a sport from that moment when we win the gold medal, we looked at, you know, what the impact it had after, and even as a governing body, I don't think we expected the legacy that was left and was created that obviously created the momentum of netball moving forward.
JAKE: What was your biggest bit of learning from that? Because as you've alluded to there we were kind of serial also-rans were’nt we? In the netball world for years. So you went about changing mindsets and changing expectations. What, what was it that you did? I want sort of people listening to this that aren't involved in sport to be able to apply the kind of thinking to the world that they're in. So what were the big learnings for you that we could all do in our own lives?
TRACEY: Um, it's easy for me to sit here as an head coach and say that I was part of that, but there was a huge team around me, who contributed to that. Um, and I remember stalking Damian at a conference one day listening to one of his books and, and I was actually in serious trouble at the time. And you never think as a coach that you, you always think of the glory. You only ever see the shop window. You never see what's actually, as you open the door, the troubles and the torments that you're going to, to try and move a sport on, or change the mindset, what's happened in that sport. I think the first thing that I really wanted to do, and I remember discussing this with Damian over a cup of coffee, in Manchester, was I wanted to try professionalise the sport. I wanted to change the thinking of the sport because I'd sit down so many times and I’d bring back the knowledge of an athlete about where we used to get asked and obviously funding from UK sport, where they tried to make professional athletes, but there was still that mindset that we were never going to get a future within netball. We never were going to grow up as females wanting to be sports stars, because they always said there was no future in it. You know, there was more future in education, in being a doctor and being a lawyer, and I think that was the mindset I really wanted to create, that actually one size doesn't fit all. And you know, I think the real tribute to our programme now is that we have doctors, we have lawyers, but we also have international world class athletes as well. And that's the first thing I really wanted to change, that actually as a sport and as women, you know, we can achieve multiple dreams, but the stages about when you actually approach that, and I think that was absolutely crucial at the start of the programme now, as Damian can probably highlight it was never a smooth road was it?
DAMIAN: No, it wasn't. But that is something that still intrigues me to this day about what you did. Cause it took real courage to go and open the minds of people to achieve that objective, and that’s the bit I'd be interested in you sharing. Why did you want to do that?
TRACEY: Um, you think about a little girl who grows up looking and, and sport was always sport in our household. It was never female or male sport. And it was only probably about the age of 14 that started to see what a dream of being a football star looked like, or a dream of being an athlete looked like and being able to progress in that particular field. And obviously having the highlights of people, Like Philip, Gary, and surrounded by Manchester United through that particular, what I saw was that actually to move a sport on, you have to be invested in it, you have to be passionate about, and it has to take up your daily life and your daily being. That's all you need to think about. I think when you're trying to change a culture or you're trying to change your mindset, it's constantly reminding people about your vision, your culture and where you want to go. And I think sometimes I presumed that people were along the journey with me, but actually we kept a lot of things in house.
JAKE: Right. So you were telling them what you wanted them to do, but you weren’t telling them why you wanted them to do it.
TRACEY: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the vision was I wanted to make a professional programme. But you know, we'd heard for over, what, 20 years that England Netball wanted to win a gold medal, but we'd never been told, you know, how we were going to get there, where we were going to progress to, what our targets were within it. And I think that was probably one of these learnings. And I remember when we decided to turn into professional programme, and there were probably three people involved in this. There was me, my performance director and my CEO, and we basically just sent out contracts to the athletes and expected them to sign it. And that's not how it works, you know. Nobody puts a signature on a piece of paper unless they know what they’re signing up for. What we started to do is we, we learned a huge lesson then because when we started the programme on June the seventh, this day we walked in, we’d sent out something like 20 professional contracts, and only six people walked in on the first day of the training. But what I learned over that particular time was that as long as I had the support of the people around me, that was the board, the organisation, I knew then I had the confidence to progress things forward. And it sounds really easy, but it was probably one of the most difficult times in my career. And what I started to do is I started to become a people person. So I started to change as a coach. Rather than being that more dictator role of telling people what to do, which was at amateur level expected. At amateur level people just turn up, do it, go home, do their jobs. At professional level, people want to know why they're doing it, why they're invested in it, and you know what they're giving up. We constantly kept ringing these athletes, so every single day we were in contact with the athletes on an individual basis, telling them, you know, where we wanted the programme to go, what their role would be involved in the programme, how we wanted to continue forward. And that started to progress, and started, and then messaging started to get round people. There were other people, and I call them influencers. Um, and they're absolutely key, and sometimes that doesn't come from the athletes. It comes from the people around you. So Helen Alfana was really, had a real personal close relationship with some of them athletes. So when she was on one on one time with them, she was actually speaking to them about that. The other person that I involved was a lady called Y Timaru who is very well respected and world netball. I brought her over between England, she's from New Zealand. She looked at the programme, but she also had massive influence on some of the big names out in Australia, New Zealand. And then the third person that I had was Tania Obst who was a good friend from mine, 20 years ago who at that time, was the Australian Under-21 coach, and she was assistant coach at a club called the Giants out in Australia. And she basically was linked to two of our key athletes, our world class athletes. And it was the trust to get messages out about the programme, and about how crucial it was in the journey to being world number one and gold medallists. And I think that was absolutely key. And along that journey then we were able to invest in Damian for a short period of time…
JAKE: … because he's so expensive. Just half an hour.
TRACEY: (laughs) … and he’d got about 30 jobs going on at once. But I think, I don't know what, from your point of view, Damian, were the highlights for you when you come into our programme?
DAMIAN: I loved seeing your transition as a coach. I think that that journey that you describe, of coming in and initially, from what you'd experienced yourself as a player, to actually understand that it was the people. They were people first that players second. And the fact that you made that transition so well is a testament to you, I think. What would you say was the biggest transition you made?
TRACEY: Um, I think the huge one, um, from a coaching point of view was I started to invest in the people and where we were going. The other, the other thing is that when you become a leader, you become set aside from everybody else. So what you start to do is your mannerisms, the way you present yourself, becomes a little bit different. So you become a little bit unapproachable. You become a little bit of a hierarchy. People think that they, they can't be honest or trusting you. And I think one of the key things I said to Damian, when he actually come into our programme was, it's really hard for us to really get an assessment of where we are together as a team. I've seen some really poor, um, support from psychologists. I've seen some really excellent stuff. And I think the poor stuff I've seen is when they come in and they start to target individuals. I think that for me was never on my radar. I wanted, what I wanted them to do is come in, look at the team and then move down to what them individuals could do to be part of the values and behaviours of the team. And we wanted to develop self confidence, we wanted to develop belief that we could win. And winning isn't about - people just think you just win all the time - that's just impossible. Within sport you cannot be successful every single game you go out. And it was a, it was crucial for me that if we lost, we could win again. We weren't happy to lose, but we could come back and win. And you know, we were happy to lose, lose, win. We were happy to win, win, win, win and continue that on.
JAKE: Was winning the only way to develop a winning mindset?
TRACEY: I don't think so. I think, cause you learn a lot of things from losing. And if I look at the mindset of where we started to move as a team, at first it was about winning as a group. So, and about celebrating success, so I think we're a culture or a nation, particularly women, you never want to celebrate the good things that you’ve done, and you’re quite embarrassed to be able to do that. And we had quite an, in our programme we had a lot of hierarchy. So I probably was one of them at one particular time in the programme where when youngsters come in, there's an expectation that that youngster is not as valuable as that senior player. Or they have to do the time on the bench, you know, I hear this a lot. You have to wait for your chance. You have to do that. For me, there's no waiting because at some point someone is going to succeed or flourish. And for us it was about succession planning. So it was about trying to understand the value of every single member of our team. And the way we started to do that was, um, in meetings. First of all, the first meeting we started to congress towards, was, why are we here? Um, because I had been in a room where there's people who've wanted to win a medal, and there's people who are just there for the money. We sat in this room with staff, players, and we're really honest about why we were doing, why we were here, why were we doing netball, where we wanted to go? Blah blah. It wasn't just saying about winning a gold medal. You know, I'll say this, if we had the ball in the dying seconds of this match to win a gold medal, would we, would we be a team that people would perceive would get that shot in? Um, are we the best attacking team in the country, er in the world? Is that what costs to be world class? People say you've got to be fitter, you've got to be faster. Are we perceived as the best attacking team in the world? Because that's what we deem as world-class. And I remember the girls saying, no we're not. And I said, well how can we, what can we do within ourselves to make us the best attacking team? Because at the end of the day, we are 50% possession, so we have to be the best attacking team to win a gold medal. And we started to change things. So that started to become on and off the court. So we if want to be the best attacking team, we've got to have the best shooters, we've got to have the best feeders, we've got to have the best conversion to goal. So they started to come up with what they needed to be better. We've got to be fit because in the dying seconds of the game we've gotta be able to last this game out. You know, our contribution to xxx, we’ve got to practise, our trade. You know a lot of the time is, and I've seen it quite a lot from coaches that the perception of players is, you know, if they’re fit, that means that they can come and play a tournament. Well no, it's that consistency of performance. Are they playing for their club teams, day in, week in, week out? Are they training with their club teams. Cause players that are not doing that are going to be no good to you at World Cup because it's the robustness, it's the clarity of that. So it started to be, go around, you know, what do we perceive as a world class team? And not looking at Australia, New Zealand. It’s, do they perceive as like that? At the moment, believes that we're going to lose, you know, so you know, what's the perception of that? And then we start, so we started …
JAKE: When you first arrived, was that what it was like? Did you feel like in the dying moments of a game, your first couple of months in charge of England Netball, the perception is that we'll lose this?
TRACEY: Yeah, it was worse than that. I think the perception, I remember going out in the game, and I knew as soon as we've made three mistakes, we were gonna lose this game by 20 to 30 goals against the world's best. This is when I was a coach. As a player, I've been in a changing where a coach has gone, we need, we need to win today to sustain funding. That was our incentive. For me, that was never an incentive. You know, everything that was a noose round your neck. It was very fixed mindset. We're working towards that next four years to win a gold medal. For me it was, I'm always going to be in netball. So it was let’s work to World Cup and beyond. So how are we going to develop the next stage of girls? Well that is, means that we don't always have our world class players in the programme. We work on our pathway, we give them opportunities. You know sometimes you have to lose a few to win a few and so it's just making sure that we are continuing the success. And I think two of the things that we did in the programme was one of them was, um we started to celebrate success. And that doesn't mean on the court, because a lot of it is not done on the court. It was when they come to a team meeting, um we really started to applaud anything well that had been done that week, and it could have been down to percentage drop body fat, who won the sprints, er, to having a baby, you know. And it was, everybody was part of that celebration of success. The second thing we started to do is we started to bring him little games like just fun games that different people excelled at. So it was a creative task, it was a a mind task. So you had one girl in our programme who was probably one of the rookies at the team, who our older person was going, I want her to my team. So it become a little bit, so we started to recognise the value, the valuable. Cause you're always going to get your fit people in your team, and you're always going to get those who struggle to do it. And I think just putting it on the court, I think you create can create an hierarchy. The next thing, the last thing we did in the World Cup, we started to do a game. It was five minutes, a game each day, of “We're in it to win it”. It was just a five minute game, you have five minutes to complete it. It was anything, it was either go and get something to do with the Beatles within five minutes, and you had to post it on Instagram. It was a quiz. It was, um, basically a five minutes to complete, and now, winning was important, however if they didn't win what they did is they debriefed and come back to win the game the next day. And the game was completely different, like an opposition. So it really created the mindset. And although we didn’t win a gold medal at that World Cup, I think every single day I never woke up, even on that playoff game, I would have woke up nervous unsure. Are we going to win? We'd never beat South Africa twice. But I never woke up that day feeling that. What I felt is we debriefed it. We were obviously gutted from losing against New Zealand. Um, but we woke up and we wanted to win again. And that for me was absolutely huge throughout that. And you think about how you want to leave a program, I thought, you know, if you want to leave, that's the time to leave.
JAKE: Right, yeah.
DAMIAN: So how important would you say self-awareness is, for a high performance life then Trace? How often would you engage in that kind of re-evaluation?
TRACEY: So, obviously Damian, when you moved on, um, we obviously brought in someone at another company to support us. I knew that my personality is really, can be really difficult to work with, but can be really easy to work with. And…
JAKE: Explain that. How do you mean?
TRACEY: Quite high maintenance, quite demanding…
JAKE: Of yourself, or of everyone else?
TRACEY: Both. I have a quite high expectations of myself, and I have high expectations of particular staff members, and bearing in mind, you know, some of, we are in an organisation that you cannot always have the best of the best. However, what you're trying to do is bring everyone up to a level that you're constantly working with the best of the best.
JAKE: What are you like if you give someone one, two, three opportunities to get to the level that you need them to get to? And they’re still not… cause there are victims in this sort of situation when you’re moving a programme on. Some people don’t come along…
TRACEY: Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, you know. There has been some casualties through that particular programme. However, I think the biggest thing for me is my frustration, that while people don't think or move as fast as me, I think that's one of the pluses of me being the head coach of England. I'm a decision maker and we move forward with that particular decision. The other thing which can create quite a tense environment, particularly if you get me in points where, haven't got that sensitive side, you know. I'm not sat around a dinner table with you. I'm at a Commonwealth Games, or a competition where my answers become very blunt, very to the point. I think that can create a lot of distress within a particular staff group. So what I started to do is I started to work with someone on my self awareness. So he basically assessed me in sessions, assessed the stuff around me. We started to try and understand how we are, and how we work and you know. So I'll give you a clear example. Um, I had a particular staff member who relied on me giving her confidence by saying thank you or that constant conversation or that constant speaking, or she wanted to be near me. And that can be quite frustrating in a performance, in that environment when you're living together. And he, he basically advised me that some of these staff want time with you. They want an opportunity to be able to put their thoughts forward. So what he said is he, he said about creating time for people. So he said, you know, what you can then say is instead of getting frustrated yourself or, um, create an anxiety in an other staff member, you can put meetings within your programme. So you can revert them to that particular meeting. So for example, I could say, we have a staff meeting, or a coaches meeting, or a medical in, today. “Could you bring that to the medical meeting? So, that's a really good point.” And then I could end that conversation straight away. So that really helped me manage my time. I think the other thing was that I lost a little bit of my personality. What you start to do is you start to come in as a hierarchy - you know, you go in, I'm delivering, I'm going. And for me as an athlete, I was always, I was never one of the best athletes, but I was always a little bit like the cement. You know, the team enjoyed me, I made people laugh, my personality was bubbly, and I lost a little bit of that. And basically when that was pointed out to me, I made sure that when I went into them environments that I employed people around me that could bring out that little bit of a…
JAKE: You hadn't noticed it?
TRACEY: No
JAKE: Interesting.
TRACEY: I hadn’t noticed it, and I think it's because I was in this world of just on an escalator going. I have been in a changing room where I probably created more anxiety by my body language or my speech that’s going forward. So it actually enabled me to laugh at myself and players to obviously joke with me as well because I think there's a seriousness within an environment but there has to be a lot of fun and enjoyment, and that is something that our girls really worked on. So there was a lot about myself that I particularly learned. I'm not going to say… Some of it, I still need.
JAKE: It’s good self-reflection.
TRACEY: I think it's more other people's reflection. (laughs)
JAKE: Well, you've listened to it, that’s the main thing.
DAMIAN: One of the key things that has come out in your answer there Trace has been very much around this sense of kindness and a bit of humanity and treating people with respect and discretion. How important is that in high performing cultures?
TRACEY: It’s huge, and you know, I think sometimes when you get one of these head coach’s role, you forget how you’ve been brought up and I come in six weeks before World Cup, one of my good friends had been removed from the role, so there was a lot of anxiety within that. And instantly you're on the back foot trying to prove yourself or trying to win an environment over and you've got a very short period to do it, in a very pressured environment. And I remember going through this particular programme that it got to a point where you were always constantly making the decisions so you'd be always become the bad person or you always become the person that people don't like or you know, you've got the careers in the hand. And what I started to do then is I started to bring in quite key members of an athlete group, key members of staff where you know, these decisions were not always made about, from me. And that I was able to speak these decisions out, although I had an opinion in my mind, it felt that if I spoke them out to these people and then got another side to the story, I got another outlook from different areas. And it enabled me then to make an informed decision on that particular scenario. And what it did is it then within the group it felt that every decision I made, whether I changed the captain, whether I, um, did a selection decision, whether I made a decision on the particular program, it felt that every single person supported me within it.
JAKE: Did it always have to be your decision ultimately?
TRACEY: Yeah, hundred percent. I’ve been in an environment where there's been 12 people around at the table, everyone's got an opinion and then you come away with no decision made. And I think one thing I'm really clear on is I'm willing to listen. It doesn't mean to say I have to agree with you, but a decision has to made ultimately. And that that is one thing I was really strong of within our programme was that, the decision that was made around the table was the decision that everyone had to walk out the room and support. You see it in the past where you see bad cultures or bad environments and I, I've been in one on them while I’ve been in the England programme where particular staff members have been putting into athletes about, they didn't agree with particular decisions. Then you start to create a little bit of friction through your group and you feel like no one's buying into stuff, so now I'm really clear. The other thing is about transparency. And I feel that within the Roses, a lot of management feel that by not telling people information, protects them. And I've learned in the environment actually by telling them the information they feel well armed to go into battle or go in…
JAKE: What about people that are brilliant athletes, uh, or in any other walk of life, are brilliant at their job, but they're also not the kind of people that that can take that brutal honesty?
TRACEY: I’ve had a lot of wars through this particular job. You know, a lot of athletes who have not liked the values and behaviours of the programme. You're in an environment where I think real central values and behaviours are really important. And you feel that, you know, there could be a world class athlete who doesn't agree with my decision. However they conform with the decisions of the other 11 teammates that they have. And that was absolutely important. So if I take an example, we had a world class player once who was making a real poor decision in respect to coming into a competition. And basically for me, my decision was that she had to come into this competition, and then it becomes a real personal thing between me and the athletes. So what I did is I took it to the leadership group. I said, what are the values of this team? What are the behaviours? What is your expectation of this particular player? And what you did is, you got a view then of what they thought that particular player and then they made a decision on it and they basically said, you know, that is not a decision that conforms with the team. And what happens is then you can then be supported.
DAMIAN: What you’re describing there, is textbook about you removing ambiguity from the culture. So everyone knows where they stand and what’s expected. What would you say were the trademark behaviours of a high performing culture that you developed in, xxx the Roses?
TRACEY: Um, what we started to do, and we started with you Damian, we come up with, I think the team come up with, three words that they wanted. That was the initial stage as we started to develop our own words within that. And one of the important things within that was they wanted fun. They wanted to have fun together. So we had to make changes within the programme. We have to make things where they felt that they were doing that throughout. And that could have been a five minute fun together, or it could have been a whole day fun together. They were able to believe in that. So we, I used to have the captain or a leadership member of the team at every staff meeting actually speaking some of them behaviours out. So they acted them out. They showed examples of where people have done it. They started to measure each other on them examples. And I think one of the things that, it's like rules of netball, you know. If I'm taking a ball down the court and I do, I step three times - I've done foot work – it’s a clear rule within, within the sport that you know you're going to get penalised for. Likewise within our play group. What they started to do is, you know, if people were, you know, bringing the group down, not having fun, not joining in, they could actually say something to that person cause that was one of their behaviours. And that was absolutely crucial within our environment because it's hard to say to someone you're being miserable, you’re really bringing the negativity down of the group. It's really hard to do that. So what, what it used to do, it used to be a team thing. Like, you know, one of our things is fun together. So you have to, you have to make an effort here even if you're having a bad day.
JAKE: Do you personally have to be careful about being constantly intense, because if you are constantly intense it no longer has an impact, they go, oh there's Tracey being intense again. You almost have to get your own balance right, so that people know when you are deadly serious and you’re having a conversation that you really want them to listen to, and maybe when you're just trying to improve the mood of the group, you know. Working at different levels personally, which I maybe I don’t know I sense it might be tricky for you because you are, you're either 100% or you're not, you know?
TRACEY: Yeah.
JAKE: Is that fair?
TRACEY: Yeah, totally fair. It's hard as a head coach not to work at 100%, but that is where these values and behaviours come in because you start to understand what you’re like when you're under pressure, when … and one of my things was I needed space to see my family or to go to the gym. So if someone turned round to me, said, Tracy, you need to go to the gym, I knew probably I was being … (laughs).
JAKE: Time to go to the gym.
TRACEY: And you know, it becomes a, and then you start laughing and it starts to bring you down, it starts to bring a little bit of humour out, that. So you know the, there were words that we had that we could say to each other that actually create a little bit of laughter. The other thing that I found that was really, really important around that was learning something personal about everyone within my team because there's nothing worse that if I’d had gone into a conflicted situation with Damian, or with yourself, to then, had to then go and have dinner with this person, and we couldn't have that carrying on. So it enabled me as a person to be able to sit down with that person and talk about their kids, their hobbies and their life. And so it enabled me to take myself away from that real leadership, hierarchy role, and put myself into more of a personal role. So I could change my persona within the environment. I wasn't perfect. I'm not gonna say that. Um, but it enabled me to create friendship as well as being able to be a leader to that. And I think that's one of the most difficult things to do as a leader.
JAKE: What would you reflect on as the biggest mistakes that you made?
TRACEY: Probably my…
JAKE: Maybe even the single biggest, the biggest learning?
TRACEY: The biggest learning was, I remember the first conference I saw Damian when I obviously had started to stalk him, because he, you know, he had some huge points that probably there was the mistakes was, he, I remember him saying something significant like a teacher walking into a classroom. You have five minutes to take the room, um, and gain the confidence, because it probably then, if you don't, it then takes you something like three months, was it Damian?, to get that class back. That actually stuck in my head because the way I went in for six weeks prior to that World Cup, I went in as a bit of a dictator. I wasn't really integrating anyone in the decision making. It was me, um this is the way it was going. You know, the high road, so on and so on. And it probably took me a year and a half to get my programme back. And that took a lot of work, hard work, a lot of effort. Would I do the same again? I'm unsure, because when you're asked, you know, demanded to work under them intense conditions, you’re unsure how you would approach that again, because it's very hard to get people on board when there's still a lot of grief and um, dissatisfaction about how someone else exited. He was a good friend of them, particular people. So I think that was probably one of the hugest mistakes I made because it taught me a long, long time to be able to get the trust and the respect, confidence back of that team.
JAKE: One of my big things is I really want people to understand that there are no secrets, right, to living a high performance life. Anyone can do it, I believe. Do you believe the same? Do you believe that anyone can be coached or created to live a high performance life, regardless of the setting or not?
TRACEY: No.
JAKE: Really?
TRACEY: I think a lot of it is natural. I think it, a lot of it is, I think we’re developed as people to have a role in life and that role in life is I don't think suited to everyone. So if I think about and the head coach or a senior coach member that, you know, you become, you know, you have to be willing to be very isolated, um to become, you know, a decision maker, to become someone who is happy to face conflict, who's happy to deal with conflict, who's happy to take something forward, to have disagreements, who's happy to go through a real difficult part point and be able to pick themselves up from that. And if I think about, you know, the people who I'm associated with, I think about my friends or you know, some of the people around me, I think they wouldn't be able to do that because there's a lot of people in this world who want to be liked, who are happy to go along, you know, and be a sheep and just follow, um, and they don't want that particular conflict. They avoid conflict all the time. And I think there's a completely different mindset. However, when you put a team together, you can't have seven of me because that makes it very difficult. So if I think about the team, you know, people will xxx to assess the staff members I actually put together, I have them particular people who you know, won't, are happy to go along with decision, are happy to support that who will work with you, who just want the candles and the easy life. However, and there's other people who bring out the fun, you know, and the characters within a team are so different. And I think sometimes you can make a mistake about when you put a team together, um, that actually it's not the best team, and I think that sometimes is really important. So xxx people have the, the themes in life, but to be an absolute out and out leader I think you need to have a certain character and a persona about you.
DAMIAN: I think you’re right, I think when you talk about it from a cultural point of view. Not everybody can be the leader. Somebody’s got to set the standards.
TRACEY: Yeah.
JAKE: I think that everyone can improve their mindset. I have a real issue with the victim mentality.
TRACEY: Yeah.
JAKE: And, you know, there are things that have happened to all of us in our lives that we're not responsible for. You know, if your wife or husband leaves you, it's not your responsibility necessarily. But it's your, but it's not your fault, but it’s your responsibility to deal with it. Or if you're bullied at school it’s not your fault, but it's still your responsibility to deal with it. If you have an injury and your career gets cut short it's not your fault, but it’s still your responsibility. Do you know what I mean? That’s one of xxx.
TRACEY: I think, if I think about leadership, I think about the question that you asked as well, in respect to that, I think one thing I learned through the Roses, is you can create leaders under leaders. And I think one of the mistakes that we make is, we don't progress the leader with where the programme’s going. So if I think about my particular programme, I had four captains through that five year cycle I was in post. Now, for someone, that would look like I'm not a decision maker or, um I'm constantly changing my decision. I had to move the programme forward and it was, which particular leader was able to progress that program? So that could have been the off court one. So I had a great off court captain, although she wasn't maybe a key starting seven player, or you know, someone was all, you know, she wasn’t on the call all the time, what she did is she progressed my programme off the court. Where we started to move into then, as we started to come into the World Cup, we needed, you know, a leader took over who was progressing our programme on the court. And that was absolutely essential because we were without 40% of our key players in our training camp leading into the World Cup. We were going to get them late. We needed someone to really battle these plays out on the court through this particular centralised programme. So I think one of the major mistakes is it's an expectation that you make that person captain. But actually what you need is you need to choose a leader. It’s absolutely essential to be able to move your programme forward so that can change through that.
JAKE: It’s almost like you job gets header the more successful you are. You’re having to make bigger decisions. Disappoint people xxx.
TRACEY: And you've gotta be a lot more adaptable. Um, but you have to create that situation. I think sometimes like a leader, just sporadic, you know, I've made a mistake where I've just suddenly made a leader, a leader. And then I’ve realised it's actually been the complete wrong decision. So what I made sure is within our programme that, you know, through the competition that we had a different leader went to them different competitions into different environments. So people were used to other people delivering around that and around the particular programme. And that was absolutely key. I even sent different coaches. Now, one of the things you do as a coach is you feel threatened and that you don't want someone to be better than you or, but for me, for having someone better than me was absolutely essential because that then made me better person.
JAKE: Brave though.
TRACEY: It's very brave in my particular role. But you know, I sent people to senior competitions to represent the Roses as a head coach. So one of my assistant coaches went, “I won a gold medal at the Fast Five out in Australia”. That in my mind was a reflection of the programme and not reflection of me. And that that was something that I, I am quite analystic pro person. I don't feel, you know, I don't feel undermined by that. I feel that it's a team decision to be able to do that. And that's what's really crucial for me.
DAMIAN: So, we’ve got to finish off, Trace. We’ve got some quick fire questions.
TRACEY: These are the worst ones.
DAMIAN: No, you’ll enjoy these. The first one. What are the three non-negotiable behaviours that you and the people around you must buy into?
TRACEY: Not being late - that's one of my bugbears. Um, training xxx. Um, and the last one is respect.
JAKE: What advice would you give to a teenage Tracey, just starting out?
TRACEY: Um, if I was to be a teenage Tracey again, um, I think what I would say is that, um, I think there were aspects within my life that I didn’t enjoy. I think I was very reliant on people to assist me going forward. So I think from now on, I think I would make myself a little bit more independent and ensure that it was actually something that I really wanted to do.
JAKE: I think you managed that, don’t you?
DAMIAN: Definitely. So how did you react to your greatest failure?
TRACEY: The way I react to failure is probably, um, a long time thinking on my own. I’m a very thinking person. I like to have space. I don’t like to have people around me, I don't like a lot of noise. So for me it's about trying to make that situation better. And a lot of people think when you fail, you should apologise. But a lot of it is, it's about learning from that particular failure. So the key thing for me would be what were the positives of that failure? What were the negatives? How could I take that on? How can I correct it? But not in a apologetic way, more of a strategic way of, you know, working with people to make that situation better rather than just becoming a, well, you know, wallowing in myself.
JAKE: How important is legacy to you?
TRACEY: Hugely. I think one of the things I first said, which the girls probably didn't buy into when I come into the programme is, we have never won a gold medal. However, we will do everything in our power to try and win one. And this is not just about a medal round our neck or it being gold. It’s also about what we create within it - how people perceive us, what threat we perceive, how we can bring the programme on, how we can make each individual person better? And I think that was hugely important.
DAMIAN: And the last question, what’s you one golden rule to live a high performance life?
TRACEY: Taking time out. I think if I look back on the particular programme and um, is that I very rarely went on holiday without thinking. I very rarely enjoyed, um, the external environment that I lived in. And I think that was hugely important now. Um, and you talk about high performance coaches, about taking time out, and I look now that I am taking the time out, and I genuinely did really need that because of the intenseness that I put into the programme going in. So I can really thoroughly understand why people do take a sabbatical from that environment cause it’s very hard environment to live in.
JAKE: It's a strong answer, that. Thank you so much. Absolutely fascinating. You've done all that while continuing to grow a baby in your stomach. Quite a remarkable performance.