Mastermind: Eddie Jones

With the 2021 Six Nations on the horizon, I thought I'd share some insights into the mindset and leadership style of Eddie Jones. A few years ago, I received the call from Eddie to deliver sport psychology support for the England Rugby team and went on to support him and the team during the first 18 months of his tenure. During that time, they equaled the world record, winning eighteen games in a row including their first Grand Slam in 13 years.

Eddie’s ambition is infectious, and I learnt so much from him and the other coaches about creating a high performance culture.

Eddie kindly shared his insights with Jeremy in an exclusive interview which now forms part of the Sporting Edge's digital library. We explored a range of challenges across leadership, coaching and mindset, and he shared so many valuable insights. Perhaps most powerfully, Eddie gave several pieces of practical advice on how to become a better leader, things that can help you get the most out of your team on a day-to-day basis. We hope you find them useful in navigating the current challenges we all face.

This interview is available in my Apple top 10 podcast ‘Inside the Mind of Champions’ 

1.      Understand your team culture

Every team develops its own culture, and understanding and elevating that is a critical part of leadership. Eddie has worked all over the world in different countries and cultures, each bringing its own unique challenges. In this first piece of advice, he explains his approach to creating a cohesive team environment when you join a diverse new organisation.

 “I think whenever you go to a culture, there's always going to be one predominant culture and you've got to do some do some research it. For instance, when I went to Japan - now I'm half Japanese and I've got a Japanese wife - but to make sure I understood the culture, I got a friend of mine to do a thesis for me on the samurai culture. Because I wanted to understand what was underpinning of Japanese society. So I got the research paper and three things came out that were really important for Japanese: loyalty, hard work and trust. So when I went into creating the team environment, I thought, these are the three things I've got to work really hard on, and they became the underpinning values of what we spoke about all the time.

 The other thing with Japanese is that punctuality is such an important thing. So for meetings at 10am everyone's there at 9.50am. We had six to seven New Zealand players, and a New Zealand player, generally, for meetings at 10am, their aim is to get there one second to 10am. So potentially we had a rift in the team already. If eighty percent of the team was coming at 9.50am and the other twenty percent of the team was coming at 9.59am, there's a rift in the way they behaved. And those little things can count for a lot. So I spoke to the New Zealand players and said, look, if we've got a meeting at 10am, it means you're going to try to get there 9.50am if you're not there by 9.50am, you've got to be there by 9.55. And if you’re later than that you’re late. So I consider it to be late and then there'll be consequences. And that solved that problem almost immediately. And whilst it might seem like a very simple thing it helped the team to gel and to get great understanding amongst the group.”

Insight - Small issues like this can create rifts in teams so Eddie confronted the issue early and got each cultural group to understand each other’s perspective. This meant that the players could come to the meetings to learn rather than to get frustrated by their teammates. What is the equivalent in your team and how can you tackle it head on before it creates resentment?

2. Never set limitations on people

One thing elite leaders and managers often talk about is growth mindset. It’s easy to make presumptions about how much we can achieve, and we put mental ceilings on ourselves and others, preventing them from reaching their potential. Here, Eddie talks about how we can avoid these traps and push our team to achieve more. It's so relevant as we navigate change.

“The only advantage you have in any sort of competition is your ability to learn quicker, and I think when you've got people with fixed mindsets, it's one of the most difficult things to change. And I think the only way you can do it is through education. You know, you've got to expose them to people with with different ideas. You've got to sometimes expose the limitations of their fixed mindset. So you've got to get them to reflect accurately on where they are and understand where they can go.

And I think, you know, having coached particularly Japan, one of the things it made me understand is to never set limitations on people. We've got no idea how fit we can get in rugby. We've got no idea how skilful we can get. It’s the old story of Roger Bannister, you know, he runs a mile in four minutes. The next year, eight people run it. When someone runs a two hour marathon that next year eight people will run it. Because then that that that fixed mindset of this is what you can run is broken. So as a leader, you're the one who always wants to be looking at ways of how you can break those those fixed limitations that are placed on people.”

Insight - Have you spoken to the members of your team about their aspirations and the contribution they could make? Understanding what is possible and encouraging them to map out a development pathway could create a new level of performance across the team.

3. Conflict is normal - but resolve it quickly

No matter how good you are, life doesn't always go smoothly. In Rugby especially, dealing with so many highly charged competitors isn't easy. But Eddie's advice on managing conflict is relevant for any team, and I think many leaders fail precisely because they do the opposite.

“I think conflict should be seen as being normal. In a team that's striving to get better, you're always going to have conflict because some people think one thing and other people think another thing. I think there's a couple of things you need to do. Firstly, I think it's really important for any coach to make sure there's a framework in place. So basically within that framework, the players should be able to show a disciplined initiative to create solutions to how you want to play. If they go outside that framework, then they then they causing a conflict. And your job is to show why that's causing a conflict and then resolve it quickly. Never go to bed on a problem. Go to that problem straight away.

In the World Cup in 2015, we had our last game against America and it was a game we were expected to win. I remember in our last training session we had big Tongan our number eight trying to punch the living daylights out of our little halfback who was a cheeky little bugger. And so, yeah, they were they were at each other and it almost split the team. So we had to work really hard that night to solve it. I got the captain, a couple of senior players involved. We spoke to both the bodies, got them together and by the end of the night it was solved. Now, if we had allowed that to fester, then it becomes an even greater problem. And some people say, oh it’ll go away. But those sort of things don't go away. You've got to solve them there and then.”

Insight - Eddie’s strategy was spot on, with tensions boiling under the surface, the volcano could explode under pressure when you need it least. Proactively confronting the situation allowed the dust to settle before the team were back in competition. What do you need the courage to confront?

4. Feedback is critical

Finally, Eddie explains the importance of actively watching your team perform and giving regular feedback. I asked him specifically how he managed balancing praise and criticism, something that I know many of us are unsure about.

“Praise definitely gives you more stimulus than criticism, and whilst criticism is important because it gives you balance in what you're doing, I think it's very important to reward players, reward their hard work and make them understand that people are watching what they do

You know, it's like the old story, strength and conditioning coach asks a player to do 10 push ups. He does ten push-ups and the strength and conditioning coach is looking in the other direction. So the skill of coaches is, if you ask, a player to do something - and basically we’re coaches because we make the players do what they don't want to do. So if you ask a player to do something, then you watch him do it. And then you give him some feedback on that performance.

And I think those small things are really important. And sometimes they get lost. Like nothing irks me more than the coach asking a player to do something and then not watching him do it and not giving him any constructive feedback on it.”

Insight - With remote working becoming the norm, leaders and managers need to pay extra attention to praise and recognition to keep their virtual teams emotionally connected. What can you do to celebrate the sacrifice and efforts that your team are making through these challenging times?

So these are four fantastic insights from a coach that’s won trophies at the highest level of elite sport. They are practical strategies that you can apply to your own situation, whether you’re a manager, a coach or a business leader. Thanks for taking the time to read and share this article.

The full interview with Eddie Jones is available in our Members Club where you’ll be able to watch all of Eddie’s video insights and to apply the practical takeaways that the Sporting Edge team have created.

The Sporting Edge Members Club is currently inspiring hundreds of elite coaches and execs around the world. Join this high performance community here and use discount code INSPIRE21 at checkout to get 30 days access completely free. Good luck.