Why Great Practitioners Still Make Bad Decisions | Nathan Spencer

Nathan Spencer's Journey: Athlete to High-Performance Coach Welcome back to the Behaviour Gap podcast. My name is Carmen Columer and this podcast explores the space between what we know and what we actually do in high performance sport. Today's guest is Nathan Spencer, a coach whose career has taken him from the West Tigers and Illawarra Hawks to the Orlando Magic and now into leadership consulting and research. In this conversation, we unpack what really happens when theory collides with reality, from transitioning between sports and countries to navigating data, decision making, mentorship, organizational culture, and the human side of high performance. This is a conversation about context, complexity, and why the best practitioners are often the ones who are willing to challenge what they think they know. I really enjoyed this one, and I think you will too. Here's my conversation with Nathan Spencer. Nathan, you chased a plain career seriously enough that the door closing actually meant something. At what point did you realize you were going to be working with athletes rather than being one? And looking back, do you think that the experience of wanting it and not quite getting there made you a better practitioner than if you'd gone straight into coaching? Speaker 2 That's a good question. Yeah. I think most people in part of me in our industry have some element of a failed athlete would agree. And I think that what it allows you to do is just have a greater understanding, appreciation of what, what, what actually happens from the athletes, athletes perspective and being able to then build relationships, which is an integral part of what we do, because it's obviously knowledge gained, But then knowledge transfer is an important part. I think that's a that's a big case of what we can, of what we can do. So, and it was, you know, background in track and field, like, you know, runnings are an integral part of, you know, most sports that we play. So it's, it transfers quite nicely to most of the sports that I've, you know, worked in, with the exception of water polo, obviously. So, yeah, I think it's it gives it's given me the a bit of an ability to have a a certain level of let's say, you know, in the game. But in the same breath, I earned the right to have the conversations of what can I do to help, to help you? It's probably the biggest, the biggest thing that's enabled me to do. And yeah, to be perfectly honest, like the my initial career ambition was to work in like bio mechanics and Podiatry. But then after going and spending time, you know, practice experience and, and work experience as a, as a podiatrist, you kind of realise that you start out on most of the time spent clinically, you know, doing general treatments and toenails. And that really didn't, that really didn't interest me whatsoever, you know, consciously making that shift to work, but try to work in those environments. And again, still early careers started as a, as a clinical EP as well. So I think that also allowed me to develop that understanding of relationships with medical professionals. And you know, those skill sets transfer into our performance environments because you understand how doctors and how insurance companies, you know, work as well. So it gave me the the chance to, yeah, develop a few skill sets that the action can apply a lot later on in those environments as well. Speaker 1 Do you think the athletes that you work with could sense that you were previously also an athlete yourself? Speaker 2 Yeah, to us, like to a certain degree, like what, like one of my mantras is a SNC coach is like you, you know, you never asked an, an athlete to perform an exercise that you can't do or haven't attempted to yourself. And from a learning perspective, like especially nowadays, most athletes are visual learners, you know, so being able to demonstrate well is important. So I think having having an athletic, an athletic background and having a better level of competency with technical demonstrations and what have you definitely earns the right to again, build, build trust and they can see that you sort of know what you're talking about, I guess, to a certain to a certain extent. But but like, I'll still say that I've you'll never see me demonstrate a single leg thing on my on my right side because it didn't beat the injuries that I've had. And it's always left side. It's one Rep only and sort of can the boys can take the OR athletes can take the Mickey out of me for that. I'm happy to have that happen. But yeah, yes, in, in, in the shortest possible answer, definitely it's it's it's helped. It hasn't ended. Navigating the NBA: Cultural Shifts and System Evolution So a little bit about your backgrounds W Tigers below, Wara, Hawks, Orlando Magic and Swiss Now Strength, IQ, IQ and Shaw across a couple of sports you haven't played. But there are a lot of environments and a lot of athletes and a lot of moments where the theory you're you arrived with got tested against reality. Which of those transitions required the most uncomfortable revision of something you thought you knew? Speaker 2 Every, every shift, whether it's been sport that I've moved from or even organization and, and you know, basketball to basketball from NBL to NBA was, was huge. The the, and you can probably attest this as well. I don't know if it was the the same feud making a jump from working in, you know, Australia to the US or for me, culturally, it was a huge eye opener. And the first six months just handling the, the life stresses of, you know, Social Security number card, bank account, house, like all those things and just, you know, which, which might sound easy on paper, but they're actually not, they're quite time consuming. And so I don't think the quality of work that I've produced at that point in time was what what I thought it was going to be. But in in the same breath, I was probably distracted by a lot of those things and it didn't allow me to come in and observe and in conversation that I had at a later time with my boss at the time, Dave Tenney, like, I probably could have been a little more proactive rather than fly on the wall and and observe because he was looking for for a bit more change. But at that point in time in, in my career, I definitely thought that I, you know, like the classic Danny Krueger, like you'd, I knew more than what I really did on how to apply it. And whether it was, you know, ego or just the, the perception that what how Australian high performance operates versus at the time, the US, you know, my role was to come in and help, you know, evolve, evolve systems. But I really didn't, I really didn't appreciate the historical nature of the NBA and the roles of the people and the differences between athletic trainers and physical therapists. And then I'm in there originally as a performance and rehab coach. So you've got three people effectively vying for the same influence over athletes. And you know where that sits in the hierarchy and, and pecking order of decisions. And that took me a long time to, to, to work out. So it wasn't necessarily the the XS and OS, but it was more, you know, operations, ways of working and, and even culturally, the people that you work with. You know, we called ourselves the United Nations of high performance because with the 12 or 13 of us that were on staff for the 15 players, I don't think there was any, you know, there was a, you know, an African American athletic trainer. We had a number of, you know, females on staff from all over the globe. We had, you know, Japanese, Indian, so also appreciating their learnings and their beliefs and their contributions to the team, not just within a typical, you know, a typical organizational structure where everyone's sort of evolved within the same, you know, the same learnings was also a big thing for me too. And then I'd say that the other one was definitely the jump back into back to Australia and working with women's water polo. And I was certainly more conscious of that having never worked with female athletes prior to that time. So that was a proceed with caution. And I the biggest thing that I knew that I had to change, but I actually changed more than what I would that I anticipated was coaching style. And, and, and not to say that I'm dictator or authoritarian or I'd say, you know, strong and affirmative when you're trying to command a, a white room of, you know, 20 pro male ego, testosterone driven players. But then you step into an environment where you've got, you know, the age range of those girls was from 14 through to 32, managing that of a morning and getting the desired outcomes that we wanted at that point in time with that session was, was largely driven by, you know, how, how they were responding at the at the time. So again, it wasn't the the X's and O's, but it was adapting to the environment that they presented to me, which took me a bit of time, but I think overall really helped me along the way. Challenging Assumptions: Professionalism and Data in the NBA So when you let's just go back to you transitioning from the NBL in Australia to the NBA, for example, you probably arrived with like some preconceptions, for example, that, you know, they're all professional basketball players. It's going to be the same thing, but potentially just on a on a bigger scale. What were some assumptions that you had when you walked in that you're potentially a little bit embarrassed about now, such as how to periodize, where to lift, you know, what what a strength program should look like for an NBA player? Speaker 2 God, there's a there's a lot that come to mind straight away. There's a few key, key lessons and I think the we tried to embrace what was there and there was a simple, a simple rule. The only rule KPI from like a strength dosage perspective or any sort of periodization, if you will, was, you know, 8 sessions a month. But there was no, there's nothing else to, to dictate when we're pregame, postgame, on certain days, on the, on a back-to-back, not any of those things that we eventually, you know, rolled into. But what we found when we went back and looked at over the past couple of years before, you know, I arrived in 2018, was that most of the playing squad really, yeah, there wasn't a great lifting culture. And they would leave their eight sessions to the last week. So they do 3-3 weeks of almost nothing and they do 2 lifts a day. You know, if if frequency wins out that frequency, you know, and consistency of 1 1/2, two sessions a week, well, that's the first shift that we had to have to sort of make. But I think even Bible in that just because, just because they're professional and professional in the sense that they're paid and paid astronomically doesn't mean that they're professional with behaviour. And it became pretty, pretty clear early on what motivates these guys. And motivation is incredibly different from individual to individual. And the other point of appreciation was really, really taking a backward step to understand the drivers and influences between different cultures of African American, European and then white American players. And managing those guys and building their relationships with them was considerably, considerably different. I think the yeah, I know I'm in talking to, you know, the the HPM later on about that, you know, that his decision to hire the staff that he did was was partly driven by that. And knowing that, you know, there are some social construct issues and that exists in the states with, you know, people of, you know, that that might be an authority. And you know, that that's come from, you know, the history of and slavery and civil war and those sorts of things that, you know, some players hold on to still. So having the having the understanding that took a long time that that sort of stuff really, really surprised me. And I, I'll never forget either the, you know, I was also, I say, fairly narrow, I'd say narrow minded in the sense that if I was given a directive on something to, to achieve and that was my one and only goal and sort of lost at times lost the lost the bigger picture. And one of the first tasks that I was given was to, you know, implement A neuromuscular monitoring strategy. And we had, just like most NBA clubs do all the bells and whistles and, you know, Tri axial birth, take plates and all the software. And, but there was no regular CMJ or any sort of neuromuscular fatigue monitoring going on. So that was, you know, project #1 and before moving over, you know, reached out to a few other, you know, Aussies had worked in, worked in the league. And, you know, they're, they're one key piece of advice for this, you know, get the big dog on board. But then stepping into the to the team, understanding pretty quickly that publicly who's perceived to be the, the star player versus, you know, privately who the star player and who the, who the influential, who the influential player is, is 2 very, very different people. And even managing that has its own, has its own issues because he's still going to cater to the guy who thinks he's the the superstar, but actually cater to the one who who is the superstar. But you know, the guy who was, was very reluctant, very cautious around wearables and data and contract year. And but, you know, educate and, and say we can help make better decisions on load and, you know, look after you and, you know, don't think of this as a we're going to hinder you. It's a contract hindrance. But if we can help manage training load, game load, it could be an extra two or three years of the contract and an extra 50 million. Well, then that's the, that's the sell. But, you know, we're collecting information and we get into a meeting 1 morning and say, we think, you know, this guy's trending in the in the wrong direction. We need to, you know, do something. And I'm quietly giving myself a pad on the back because I've done my job. So go and have a conversation with the coach. And the coach just stops and looks down and says you're asking me to take our best player out. We play five games in eight days. We're not training. You know, we were not very good with him. We're terrible without him. He gets paid 80 million a year or 80 million / 4 years and you're asking me to give him a break because he's tired. He said he should be tired. He's played 50 something games. That was the real point of realization of like, you know, where, you know, wasn't aware of those other contextual factors and organizational needs, team needs, coach needs. But I was so, so driven by my goal and lost, lost sight of organizational team goals. And from that point, it still holds with me today that I was, you know, as you move up the chain and you're making, you're not making the best decision, but you're making the least, the least worst decision. If I was to move into a position of a performance manager at some point in time, like in any career, then it's your job to decipher all or make decisions on, on all the information that you have available, not just on the one piece of information that you're searching for. And that was a real, a real light bulb moment for me early on. Why Data Changes Uncertainty, Not Removes It So from you're obviously collecting a lot of data and as you said, you've got all the bells and whistles in the NBA and you're trying to make decisions on that and you think you're doing the right thing. Was there anything you were measuring that turned out to just be the complete wrong thing? You know, I mean, probably walked in thinking I need to do CMJ on everyone, let's just say. And then it turns out that that's completely irrelevant in your environment. That's just an example. Speaker 2 I don't, I don't know if there's any one particular thing that I'd say we'd ever collected that was that was wrong. But I think that the turning point wasn't necessarily that discovering like that good data can still produce bad decisions. And that's probably a, you know, case in case in point. And it doesn't necessarily remove uncertainty, but it just changes the shape of it. And I've, I think where we make a lot of errors in judgment is that we collect an abundance information. Because the reality of that environment, in particular in most high performance professional sporting environments nowadays is that there's an expectation to have information today for problems that arise tomorrow. So we rely on objective, objective information without maybe understanding the context or how that you know how those measures are actually derived. So when data's an abundance of data is tied to, you know, selection status contracts, you know, that's when behaviour, behaviour changes. So I think it's in, in those instances, it's, you know, addition, addition by subtraction. And I, I, I go back in maybe a long way to answer your question, but I'll go back to, you know, that, you know, book thinking fast, thinking slow. And across the different environments that I've worked in by and large pro and NSA institute postface, you rely so much on fast decisions because it's so fast-paced. And again, you have to have an answer now for for the problem that's just just arisen. And the quickest and easiest thing to do is to turn to a dashboard because the what you believe to be objective information, we feel it gives us certainty and it gives us clarity. But without understanding, you know, truly what that information tells you with all the contextual, you know, contextual constraints around that. I think all that all that does is actually give clarity and confusion. So, you know, early career, I suppose more technology and more certainty and more certainty gives better programming, better decisions. But I think we we cling to that as practitioners because we like to live. We like to live in a black and white. And I think the evolution of sports science, strength conditioning, high performance sport, whatever you want to call it, we've, we've definitely moved towards more of a reductionist approach in decisions rather than being able to take a, an elevator, you know, high up, consider all different, you know, contributors to it. So, yeah. So I don't, I don't think there's anything that we were collecting that was that was terrible or poor. But, and I it makes more sense to me now that of made mistakes and we all do and I'll continue to make mistakes is one of the first things, you know, Dave Tenney, who was pretty, pretty influential to me, said was a great athlete management system. You know, when we're looking at new technology or new data collection stream, whatever it is, you're really not making any decisions on it for, you know, 6 to 12 months. You just collect, observe in the background, look retrospectively and then if you can make if you could have made better decisions at it. But if you don't, well, then you know, but also too, if you do add it, well, what has to come out because you want to be cautious of how many inputs you know you're having into your into your decision tree. And that definitely makes a lot more sense, I think with with how much tech is available now. And you know, that's only continuing to get more and more more as you know, we move even away from from wearables to markerless and you know, information isn't, is available more quicker, more quickly than we can process it. Sometimes less is more. So I think that's the the more critical thing is understanding what you need to take away to actually add. How Organizational Systems Influence Practitioner Behavior and Outcomes What's the what's the difference between an organization that uses data well and then one that drowns in it? Do you think it's knowledge or do you think it's something else? Because I really like what you said that that Dave Tenney said about, yeah, we'll collect, but we're not actually going to not going to use it to make any decisions just yet. Speaker 2 I think it's, it's about, and we, you know, people will say this all the time that it's about starting with the right question first, not with the right, not with a method. And I think organisations that use that, well, there's a, there's a real sense of clarity and certainty around what that question is. And those that don't and, and there's, I'll say, I'll use the, I'll use the word buying, but I don't know if that's the right word in this context that you know, the, the answer to the question that you're, you're trying to answer with, with a piece of adjective info or data that you're collecting actually resonates with all stakeholders. A lot of the time it, it won't. And I think in our space, you know, with physical determinants being a large driver to performance outcomes, it's still and in, in, in, in the NBA more so than any other sport in the world, in my opinion. Like those guys are the, the basketball is a skill game and the physical capacities are incredibly important to it, but they don't they don't dictate decisions. Whereas I think and you, you might have experienced a bit of this too, when you talk to the, the analysts and rotations and player combinations in, you know, pick and roll situations and you know, your coaching strategy sometimes can be dictated and, and minutes are dictated by the analysts, not necessarily by player availability or injury. Because you know, player A and player B are the second most effective high pick and roll combo in the league. So they're going to get an abundance of minutes if you're playing depending on how the opposition will defend. So I think that becomes pretty hard and, and again, if the coach doesn't believe that's, if that's not his philosophical approach to to coaching and to winning, then ultimately no one wins. So we can collect a bunch of information, but if it doesn't resonate with every stakeholder, the outcome is ultimately poor, whereas the good ones it resonates with everyone. Speaker 1 So I've heard you say previously that it's the environment and systems built around the technology that determine its impact, not just the technology itself. I assume the insight comes from having been inside organizations where the system was broken and watching technology fail as a result. What do you think a poorly designed environment actually does to the practitioner? Behaviour over time? Let's just say so. Not just athlete outcomes, but the people who are delivering that program. Speaker 2 I think first like athletes, they're, they're adaptive, but they're adaptive to incentive structures. And so if you're creating, if you're creating an environment where the incentive is to meet KPIs that don't align again with every, with, with every stakeholder, yeah, it can, you can game a fire training, you can game a fire the outcomes of, of, of games and that could lead to avoidance and disengagement. And you can kind of create a say what, what I would call, you know, test behaviours. So, you know, the data you're collecting actually doesn't inform practice and athletes don't see, don't see any connection. So yeah, there's a there's a case there where there's a better reluctance to provide any information for you to make decisions. And it's you get lost in the lost in the weeds. And I think if the culture, if the culture is poor, then tech just increases noise and increases surveillance. And, you know, it gives again, anxiety or stress that doesn't bring clarity in any decisions that you're making. But if it's strong and tech data streams, whatever, whatever we're talking about improves clarity and creates, you know, alignment and shared language between the departments. And if you, if you take, if you take basketball again, our performance department is incredibly large. We, we had 12 full time staff and then you add the 15 coaching staff. There's all, there's an alignment between nearly 3030 people that are shared understanding across effectively 2 departments. Then when you throw on, you know, front office general manager, you know, president of OPS, a welfare logistics, you know, there's a lot of a lot of ways that I can that can go wrong. I think that the technology that you bring in or, or you really have to complement the environment and the existing behaviours rather than try to try to change it. And as environment changes, detect changes to, to support it. Because ultimately we talk about complex systems, but human beings and behaviours like they're complex and they're probably the biggest things that that change first. And the hardest things to, to adapt forward is when we rely on, have a tendency to rely on more objective information. There comes a big sense of rigidity and stability because we like, we like that, but it's not as adaptive as what we think it is to behaviour and environment. And there's I don't, I don't think I've ever worked in an environment that is as I won't say reactive, you know, as fast-paced as up and down as, as the NBA. But one of the, the best things that that told me was going in other teams for we play one game a week because you can hold on to a loss for three or four days. And you know, the, the behaviour or influence on training on say a + 2 or a + 3 in the NRL can be driven by the result on the weekend. Whereas the NBA, you've literally got two or three hours to process and move on because you're on the plane and play in the next day. So you have to, you know, Ted, last that line, think like a goldfish and just forget about it and move on, which can be it, Which in some instances is a good thing, but sometimes not, not as well, but it depends like everything. Speaker 1 You mentioned before like an incentive structure. Can you give an example of that, an incentive, incentive structure for athletes that you've seen, maybe one that worked well and then one that didn't work well? Speaker 2 Yes, I'll use the the classic one, I guess of high speed running exposure and you know, saying athletes just because it's an injury preventative or, you know, great for having resilience and all the rest of it that we can argue about if we really wanted to. But like ultimately you can achieve that in a different ways of junk running and and in talking to different people, I think yeah, different organizations achieve high speed exposure differently. That's whether you, you prescribe it or you, I'd say react to it if you want to achieve it in skills. So you know, you know, you know, rugby league context. Do you put that in a kick chase drill early on? Or do you prescribe wicket running and high speed exposure as one of your first drills? And then you're panic because someone's hit a 95% and they've racked up 200 meters of high speed running when I'm meant to be 150, but I haven't even started trying yet for the day. So the incentive for the athlete at that point in time is to hit a performance KPI. But a training session's been dictated by metrics that also hasn't helped them train. I think is what what what I would get at get out there and you're all in basketball, ultimately, it's irrespective of where you play, what position. You know, basketball in its purest form is about putting a ball on the hoop. So, you know, in some of the our best players had the had the lowest work was a work rate that they were efficient. They were they were technically sound. They understood the tactics of the game and they were so important for us. But they they didn't need that amount of work or they just could coast. I suppose so you can look at the, you could look at the information presented and think, well, hang on, you know, they need to be doing more. But if they're achieving again the the team outcome, then it's like is, is that OK? So understand that you don't need to create the incentive. So they've got to work hard because they're efficient. Is is important. Prioritizing the Right Questions Over Specific Tests in Practice So I hope that if that's given a bit more breadth and depth here. But I say, I think the the running one's an easy one to to wrap your head around and talking to different people. There's a lot of different ways that you can that we can do that. Speaker 1 So going back to just secondly, back to something you mentioned before about rather than starting with the test, so you said to do you prefer to start with the question that you're trying to answer and not necessarily the test itself? Because like, the reality is that a lot of programs I see often start with the test. So there's an argument that some practitioners would default to what they were trying to do, which is the tool they were taught to use. Like let's just say someone's straight out of uni because they haven't actually been in an environment where getting it wrong was the real consequence. Is that what you've seen in your experience? What do you think pushes practitioners towards what's the best test in sort of instead of what am I actually trying to know? Speaker 2 Yeah, I think, I think we've evolved that way. And I'd say it's, yeah, ultimately sport and professional sport, irrespective of, of who you are, like it comes down to to wins and losses, you know, and in our roles, most places are, you know, 2-3 year contracts. And so I think there's a there's a case of a staff you feel pressure to show success. So you rely on on what you believe to be true on your own system. Yeah. Typically any job interview or any conversation, like you'll get asked how do you operate anything. And it'll be I, I stick to this. People that stick to methods, I think more prone to failure rather than sticking to principles because their principles are few, but but methods are methods are many. And having strong principles that can transfer between organizational sport, you're going to have a better, better, better success. And I think that where we get the where we lose the inability to ask the right question is that we might step into a role on a short 2 year, three-year fixed term contract. But it might actually take you 2 years to to evaluate appropriately to ask the right, the right question. So we come in with a fix and a fix to a part of the system rather than try to address the system as a whole. And in those environments, having the ability to ask the right question and get that shared language and understanding across the multiple stakeholders. When price boarding is becoming as as big as what it is with more and more staff, shared language, shared understanding, time to do that is limited. When you know, it's not that easy to go and grab a coffee with someone for 30 minutes and get their understanding and belief on a particular problem and, and how they would they would solve it. And I think you then get into meeting structures where you'd spend time talking about who's making the decision, not actually talking about how you're going to action a decision to affect the problem. And when you get to those conversations early on, you then have a greater understanding of where that's where that solution might fall short of someone else's, you know, perspective for the same for the same problem. So I think in a long way, we, we kind of need to shift to, you know, moving away from, you know, places having staffing for two or three years and, and the same breath, not being around for 20, but giving a period of time to, to ask the right, to ask the right question and have that shared understanding alignment between every organization. And ultimately, I think that's a, you know, that's the department leaders role responsibility. And when, where I think it works, it's worked well or worked better is when the person in that position isn't on the tools. You know, if they're expected to ask the right questions and create shared language with coaching, you know, coaching staff, you know, board, marketing, media, whatever. But they're on the tools on field, in the gym, you know, time is precious. Time is critical. And their focus has become more, you know, bottom down, not, not, not top up. So the, the, the person and the former director, half former's manager, whatever you want to call them, you know, if they're managing, if they're managing their staff down, but also influencing athlete outcomes directly because they're on, they're on the tools, it takes away from their ability to influence out and influence up. And I think that's really that's really important. So if if good organizations or good departments, I think they have that really clearly delineated. Speaker 1 So do you think that's because I'm So what you're saying and I and I do agree it's hard to be strategic and manage and lead and so on when you are expected to do quite a lot of the operational work as well. Do you think it's more prevalent in the US where there's larger budgets and they can afford to have, say, an additional practitioner who sits above all the operational staff? Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think even yeah, I not that I was here like in Australia during COVID, but my understanding of how COVID influenced you know, soft cap for AFL, NRL, a league and staff budgets and operational budgets and where those things sit. I think that's, that puts a limit on it. One, the number of staff that you can have any support, you support staff. So as a result, yes, you have to have someone who can do who can do both. But I don't think it should be someone who does it, you know, every day of the week. But in the, in the, yeah, conversely in the US system, I'd say most, most people who knows in those environments, you know? They're probably more of a medical background and that's probably to make sure discussions with, you know, player agents around drafts and doctors and you know, you know how it works at the moment you scan you, you lose the right of reply to to make decision because it goes to the player and the player agent. So I think having a person in that position to influence the right decision is, is really, really important. Or do you, your director apply health or whatever you whatever you want to call that that person. But yeah, resources are, you know, are incredibly, incredibly important to allow that to allow that to happen. I'd say where I think there can be improvement in in those in those settings is that having having a person in that position whose technical background still comes from say medicine versus someone who comes from say SNC, your support science that shapes your decisions and influences out enough as well. So, you know, I'd say, yeah, I think the great ones in those places, they're more generalists, not specialists who have moved up into leadership management positions. Speaker 1 Yeah, distinctly remember a conversation with my my old boss Simon Rice at 76ers, who's been on the podcast. He actually did an undergrad in SNC before then going on and doing physio and then sports physio and so on. And so his theory is that there are three mainstreams in a performance department. So there's your your clinical medical, there's your SNC and there's your sports science. And he believes the person who said that sits at the top needs to be really well versed in two of them, but not all three, but it has to be two. So it could be SNC in sports science, but then you'd have to hire someone who's really good at the clinical side to work very closely with you. But in his case, he's very good at the SNC and at the clinical medical. And then he hires someone who's really good at the sports science to work closely with him. And I really liked that model. And I thought, you know, rather than trying to be just a pure generalist, like he said, it's a sort of generalist specialist where you can be really good at the two. Now, I'm sure there'll be plenty of people who don't agree with that philosophy, but that seems to have served him quite well up until. Speaker 2 This point, yeah, a lot I like that. I think maybe to add to that is the person that that complements your weight, your technical weaknesses with the strength. If you're in that position, you know, that working relation, that working relationship has to be really, really, really tight and have, you know, challenging or confrontational conversations with no personal biases and agendas. And if that if that doesn't happen, that's where you know, alignment doesn't happen either. So that that that dynamic is really, really critical for well run organizations as well. Identifying Key Influencers to Navigate Organizational Change That's a really good point. And like my next question was going to be going back to that that testing system. So you've obviously gone into a lot of new environments and you've had to adopt, you know, you've inherented, let's just say existing testing systems. How have you gone about changing it without destroying that that buy in from the coaches or that the athletes, the athletes that are already existed in that environment? Speaker 2 It's. I think it's a fine line between I think you've got a very whenever you move into a new organization, generally you're there because there's they're looking for change, right? They're looking for change in some to some degree. Now, whether that's as a result of you have wins and losses or a change of philosophy from, you know, the coach or whatever, whatever it might be. So I think you've, you've got a small window of time to, to influence and you have to have an appreciation for what has gone on. But what I think you'd need to do well, and what I try to do in all those environments is get a sense of readiness for change. If you know, if you're the only, if you're the only staff member coming in who's new, well, then the environment that you're stepping into might not be ready for the the change that you think it is. So if you if you come in and be swinging and want to implement a lot of different new systems, well, it's probably not going to go down too well. But if you can add, you know, recommend or provide one thing to complement and make positive impact in a short period of time, well, then that's a win. But if you're stepping into an environment where you've been given the directive that you the whole system needs a total overhaul, well then you probably earned the right to make the changes more, more quickly. So having the ability to assess environmental readiness and organizational readiness for change, I think is step number one. And then once you've made that decision, identifying two or three key people to ask the right questions of where's the most impact, you know, and in in interviews or in any, if you're in the position in front of a general manager of coach. And yeah, before stepping into a role, that's always a question sort of asked. Like what does not not does? What does success look like? Because success is again, ultimately winning and looking, but what does impact look like? Or how can I take, how can I make your role? How can I make your job easier? And understanding the tools that you have to bring in, how you can achieve that within that short time period. I think stepping in for a new role is really is, is a sweet spot. Yeah. Because on the flip side, if you, if you don't make change and change is needed, or if you you, you'll never get that window again. Speaker 1 When there has been, which I've seen, there always has been some resistance to change. And again, just using the test selection as an example, do you think that resistance has been more intellectual, political or an identity based resistance? Speaker 2 Oh, it's, it's it how you say this, but it depends. I'd say, I'd, I'd say organizational in in different sports culturally, you know, rugby league is blue collar NBA, you know, athletes vary right. So understanding, you know, cultural resistance or educational resistance or sorry, educational, you know, barriers to, to change to how you then educate on the process, on the test, on the outcome, on the influence changes between player to player, obviously. So I think, yeah, I don't know if I don't, I don't know if I could definitely say it's one thing or I think it's it's it's organizational and and athletic dependent. But I think you need to identify what's the hierarchy the the players dependent on the organization or is the organization dependent on a player? I think NBA, most teams who have success, you know, their models are driven around a an out and out superstar when the playoffs can score you 40 points. And then you've got a number of really good role players around them from positions or numbers 2:00 to 6:00. And then you've got a bunch of guys who can come in and fill between 3:00 to 3:00 to 12 minutes again. So every decision is probably driven. They probably centred around that one, that one athlete, you know, in our role where your roster size is, you know, 40. And most of those players, you know, they come from backgrounds where they don't, they don't value education. Rugby league is a way way for them. It's an app so they don't have to go to school. And you know, whereas rugby union is, you know, considerably different. So how you educate, how you influence those different types of athletes, even when you know those football cards, they're both collision based running sports, how you get your message across are totally different because of their environment, their of the environments and how they've been with how they've been brought up. So yeah, I don't, I don't think it's honey. It's one thing in particular in any in one particular environment, but understanding where that resistance might come from and why it comes can just help you navigate that. But but surface level, it would be organizational or, or athlete, but athlete a number different things culturally, education and then also the the number of the number of people in their in their pocket. I think you get it. Obviously you test this as well. The NBA, you've got some of those key players. You had 20 other people in there, you know in their management team, so haven't touched points with them. Trying to have a dominant voice, you're probably going to fail. Whereas the eat the path of least resistance isn't actually talk to the players to talk to their, you know, their frat buddy because they're the one that has the most influence over them or their driver you. When you understand who the key person of influence is, I think that's where you can have the most amount of change if it is a fight for resistance. Speaker 1 I like that idea of the the key person of influence. You know, a lot of what's been discussed on this podcast by all the guests has been a lot about relationship building, but no one has specifically mentioned this key person of interest. And I like that idea of going into an organization and I guess identifying who that is. And as you said, it's not the person you potentially think it is as well. So that would that's a new insight And potentially next place I, I work at, I'll, I'll start to consider, you know, one of the first things. Nathan's PhD: Mentorship, Experiential Learning, and Accountability I just want to switch gears because I, I really want to touch on your PhD that you're currently doing. So congratulations on being PhD candidate. As far as I understand you can definitely elaborate more. Your PhD is about mentor mentee relationships for SNC coaches. I really like this concept of skin in the game. So where there's a lot of fields where credentials can accumulate faster than accountability. So Nasim Taleb has this pointed line of the curse of modernity is that we are increasingly populated by a class of people who are better at explaining than understanding or better at explaining than doing. So do you think your your PhD and this mental mentee relationship is going to help increase those applied skills? Speaker 2 That's, that's, that's you kind of, you've stolen a part of my elevator pitch, to be perfectly honest, which is good. It's yeah. The whole preface is essentially, you know, our industry is a big part of not what you know, it's who you know and who, you know, advocates. And, you know, mentorship by definition goes back, you know, decades. And it's there actually is no endpoint to it. But what we've transitioned to is that you know a criterion based on hours, transactional exchange of information between someone of senior authority and, you know, an undergraduate student by and large for 80 hours. And the relationship then ceases to exist where mentorship is the establishment of relationship, the cultivation of a relationship, the exchange of information, and then moving from a hierarchical bidadic relationship to 1 where it's peer-to-peer and advocacy. So in SNC context, isn't there's and this exists a little bit of sport coaching, but nothing too much in, but nothing really in. The biggest thing specifically is there's really 3T stakeholders. It's the mentor, the mentee and the governing body. And having shared alignment for the outcomes of all three, I think can be can be improved. So where where we've got scope to influence is actually develop the skill sets of the mentor and develop their ability to ask the right question to facilitate experiential learning. And what are things, you know, I think we've spoken about a bit today and, and in listening to the episodes you put out already, which I'm really enjoying. Everyone's reflecting on their mistakes. Since you've had a great mentor should ask the right questions to facilitate an experiential learning process. So you understand the impact of the mistake. Because it's it's, it's not the X's and O's, it's the context. But you reflect on the context, not necessarily the methodology that you've applied. Whereas modern mentorship is exchange information on how to apply knowledge, you know, not not necessarily. Those are those other things that I again, I think we need to take an approach to move away from six months, 140 hours to be accredited with the governing body rather than actually build a lifelong relationship with someone can advocate and catch up with in two years and ask ask questions. And conversely, the mentor can learn from the the the mentee. And really the end goal is to develop a larger, more trust in community of practice and, and shared, you know, a shared knowledge base because, yeah, I think you're irrespective of who you talk to, most organizations have got the same questions to ask in the same problems to solve when it comes to managing athletes. And I know you've, you've had Shane on on this, on this podcast. And then I quite, quite tired. And we talk about decisions and, and where emotional stressors arise from decisions. And you will probably, we feel like you spend most of your time and most of your energy making decisions about your top three and your bottom 3 athletes. You know, the ones that you need to keep fit, healthy, available and the ones who are, you know, at risk. And system design a lot of the time in, you know, probably in sub optimal environments are designed around those top three and bottom 3 athletes. Whereas good organizations and good systems are designed around the middle 2/3 because if you keep those guys, OK, well, then you know, you got less stress about the Bonky, the Bonky squad and you make trying decisions on on your top of bottom 3 and sometimes neglect, neglect this little 75% of your playing of your playing group. So having, having someone who can share that insight when we go to talk to anyone from a, you know, in the same position at a different club, it's how do you solve, how do you solve those problems? That mentor mentee relationship is sharing should be sharing that insight. Not saying that they're not sharing an insight to a training methodology because it's that can be learned. The behaviour, the behaviour you have to be exposed, have to be exposed to. I think part of the role and responsibility of the mentor is to ask the right questions though, on who they should be reading, watching and listening to. And that's something that I ask any student or or mentee that I'll that I'll work with. And I'm I'm continually surprised at where people turn to for information. And when I attempt to point them in a different direction, generally the feedback is pretty positive of of where that actually resonates with them. Speaker 1 Can I ask where most people turn to for information? Speaker 2 Social media, unfortunately, I've, you know, people want, people want the answer now. So I've, I've been, I, I won't give any names, but I've been surprised at who people turn to for advice on strength training methodology. But then when I throw alternative names out of people who I think do a really good job that maybe don't have the the social media profile with 100,000 followers, they actually, oh, that make that makes a lot of sense. That's really informative. It's like, well, yeah, because it's not, you know, it's not a 32nd snippet of of someone doing a rubbish squad. Like, yeah, I'm not going to go into that. But by and large, it's, it's, it's social media or, or Google and even, you know, yet the I'm continually surprised at the lack of academic rigour that people apply to, to answering scientific questions at an undergraduate level nowadays. It's, it's, it's very different. And my learning has changed and evolved. And maybe I'm getting old, but I still think first point of course, go back to the research. And then understand the flaws in it or, or again, ask the right question or ask how it applies to a context. Whereas people nowadays are too quick to turn to Instagram or or Tiktok or whatever it is and to try and find a quick solution. Speaker 1 So it sounds like more of a a knowledge problem potentially than a confidence problem, but it also, and potentially some practitioners are blind to this, but an accountability problem as well where they're actually not exposed to actual consequences if they if they are wrong. Would I be right in saying that? Speaker 2 Yeah, I, Yep, definitely. And it, it can be difficult because, you know, one of the things I find in, in my position now is in, you know, what I would deem to be sort of get middle management. Like one of my first roles is to protect, is to inform, but also protect the staff beneath me and allow them to make mistakes. Because in doing so, I hope that those mistakes that they make resonate with them so they won't make them again because like I was, I was afforded that opportunity. But I need to have the foresight, intuition to know that the mistake that they're going to make is not totally detrimental to the athlete or to the organization. So for me, one of my big learnings right now is, you know, how to actually facilitate that the right way and protect, but also allow failure, safe failure that also, you know, deliver the right message down so they can know where, where things are heading contextually for next week, next month, next year, next decade. I think that's a that's a challenge in those positions, in those positions as well. So yeah, it's by and large knowledge gain as people coming through is getting better and better and better because there's so much information available. But knowing where and when to apply it, and yet not having the opportunity to make the mistakes and genuinely reflect and go through a reflective practice process is where is where we can probably have the biggest influence, which is where the whole PhD is is pitched. Cultivating Curiosity and Scientific Rigor in Practice Yeah, I feel like from a knowledge perspective, it's, it's almost as if people want to start really specific more than than general. So I think my opinion, you can't go wrong with just knowing basic physics and basic statistics. And then when you think of things, think in first principles like it's actually that easy, I think. And then you you use your applied knowledge. But if you just get those things right, you actually almost can't go wrong. Yeah. OK. So, so that's just to say if you sorry, go on. Speaker 2 Go on. Speaker 1 So if someone's listening who is where you were, like say 15 years ago, they've done potentially their degree, degrees, let's say they believe in the science, they want to get to the highest level. What's some honest advice that actually separates practitioners who can do it from those who can only explain it, let's say? Speaker 2 I'll take a line from someone who else has been pretty influential in a in a very short period for me was Alex Natera. At my time in Swiss, he always challenged curiosity. His thing was to be to be curious even with what you already knew. And this he knew a principle or a method to be true. He wanted you to prove it. So yeah, he knew that 5 by 5 would increase, you know, a backscot one RM by X percentage. We'll then go through, you know, go through a protocol process and prove it on yourself, answer your own questions. You know, I think success in the industry, people, people who have long, you know, long sustained careers, they have the right balance between scientific knowledge and rigour and their own heuristics. And where we can make mistakes is where we think, where what we think be true is an absolute truth, when it might be only absolutely true in a specific context. So challenging your own beliefs early on is really, really important because if all that you do being being curious is reaffirm what you already know, then great. But if you do get any different insight as to how it can be applied somewhere else or a limitation so that when you go into conversations, you're aware of an additional level of uncertainty around it, well, then that's just going to make you a better practitioner. It's probably the one of the biggest, the biggest things I would say. So being incredibly curious about what you do and why and why you do it. And the second question that I, I asked of myself and the people that I work with is it could be better if, yeah, don't, don't frame things with critique, but assume that there is a flaw. And how could it be better to a, to a principle, to a method? And I think in asking that question just continues or, you know, allows you to always refine to be able to to both explain and apply a principle in practice really, really well. Speaker 1 I guess it has to be falsifiable for it to be considered scientific rigor, right? Speaker 2 Yeah, certainly. Speaker 1 All right, Nathan, look, we are over the hour now and this has been such a good conversation. You have so much knowledge and so much value in what you're saying, all your experiences, and then now also doing your PhD. Is there anything else you want to touch on that we didn't get to discuss today? Speaker 2 No, not particularly. There's a, there's a lot. I think they can probably go over 1000 different rabbit holes, but those rabbit holes are good for this for the moment I think. Speaker 1 All right. Well, I want to thank you so much for your time, Nathan, and I will link to your LinkedIn, any of your socials below, and anything else we've discussed today in the the show notes. Thanks for your time today, Nathan. Speaker 2 Thank you.