Decoding Excellence: Frank Dick OBE's Perspective

His talent for inspiring athletes and inspiring teams and getting the highest level of performance out of organizations is second to none . The book this is the first one of his I Read Winning Matters . I luckily got to meet him in 2016 . We did a conference together in Wales .

Years and years of detailed research into individual and sporting team success and he's going to give it to you today in spades . Great storyteller Frank Dick , my guest today on the Big Success podcast . Well , it is my absolute pleasure , buddy , to have you on here . 2016, . We first got to meet in Wales .

I've always wondered , with such a resumé of success , how will you answer this question ? What is success to Frank Dick ? What is your definition ?

The day before the finals , the Scottish 4x100 and the British League team had qualified absolutely against all odds because you're talking about Jamaica , canada , england .

Sorry , there was no chance , but we were in the final and I went every night I used to go for this job down , run the lake and get back in to get rid of all the crap from the day and this Canadian coach was running towards me . He said hey , frankie , all the best tomorrow , mate . I said thanks very much .

And the next day , would you believe , against all the odds , they not only got the gold medal , they got the game's record . And I was doing the same run the next night and you can imagine it was really pretty cool . And I went round the same lake and there's the same coach running towards me and he said Frankie , you were great today .

And without even thinking . I said I know it must have sounded so arrogant . But I didn't need anybody to tell me , and you know the same feeling , right ? You don't need people to tell you when you know you're correct .

It was a freezing , cold winter , one of the worst Scotland I've ever had , and it was the very first international conference that ever run , you know , so you can imagine I was really nervous as a kid and the weather had been so bad , but the university had closed the heating down on the 1st of December and the conference was on the 4th of January and they

only switched it back on again on the 3rd and it was minus 14 out there .

So the people having info all over the world , the Russians were there with their funny hats on , you know , guys are wearing coats up to the neck , steam coming out of the mouth all over the place and I was more divided Now when I see my boss , bob , and he said don't say anything more

.

I mean it's it's living up to your standards and in our coaching role and leadership roles , or even a member of team getting other people to live up to them too . So I mean that that's kind of the feeling yeah .

And there was a school match coming up against another school and I got a hold of one of the guys who was ahead of me in that race and because I knew he was a hardler , and said , look , I think you should concentrate on the hardles , and I know you don't , you don't like half miles , I'll do that one for you . And that was it .

This delight had gone on at this point . Yeah , I didn't be anything other than first , not second best .

But just to linger a bit on the making it happen and I'm quite sure you remember the guy chris had fueled the , the canadian astronaut who went up to space- and he signed ground control to major tallies and floating around in the capsule .

Um , when he came , when he came back down again , you wrote a book , the astronauts guide to life on earth , and the book really focuses on the fact that astronauts are trained to expect it not to go . Well , they're . They're trained to make it work . It's your job . Don't expect it , don't expect it the airlocks to be working , don't .

I mean , which is kind of scary . You know you're gonna go out of space , but it's down to you to make it work . And that that made me thinking good , think all the way back in time and what .

One of the things I had to understand is I couldn't win everything to begin with , right that , and , but I could get better and in in track and field and swimming . These are nice objectives for you know we , we work from the very outset on encouraging kids to improve their personal best .

So you focus first of all in their life journey to be towards success or whatever . You focus first of all on performance . You you're not in total control of results in life , but you are in total control of your performance . You know , own that , own that and make it happen . And if you keep working on it . One day You'll be the best in the world .

And do you stop thinking about it then ? No , you say Bob goes to , to , to , to be jake , right , he whacks the world world hundred meters and two meters record . Next year he goes to Berlin now , at this point in his life , dominic , and touching you know he's , he's over the horizon .

So why did he break the world record in the hundred meters and the 200 meters ? Again , it's about your performance , whether you're in the lead or whether you're following . It comes down to have you prepared for your performance and how you're doing it . And of course , that's the essence of what we do with dealing with in life as cultures .

That's the essence of what we do . It's about helping other people improve the performance . And I remember saying to the first time I worked with Eddie Jones back in 20 , for 20 was with the England team . I remember saying to the coaches , the coaches there , you know what do you want them to do ? Well , we want to win the World Cup .

I said what does that look like ? What do you mean ? What do you have to do ? Well , you have to beat the old black shell . I mean no , no , no , that's a bad answer . You have to look . You're making the mistake of looking at what excellence is like today and thinking that's all you have to do to be excellent tomorrow .

But what you have to understand is what will excellence look like tomorrow ? At that point it was the second of November two thousand and fifteen eight o'clock in the evening at the Yokohama Stadium . What will excellence look like then ? And then can you be better than that ? And you've got to prepare your athletes for that .

But , by the way , as coaches , if you're not going to be the best in the world , how are the athletes going to be the best in the world ? So everything if you're looking for achievement or success in a business or in a sport or whatever , it's everybody you know it's not just a guy who can go out there and fight in the field .

it's not just the sales staff , it's not just the marketing department , it's all of you . And if you're not all willing to improve your performance because you won't all be world class at the moment , we get that .

You might have a couple of guys in the team , but for the others they are trying to make their way and I'll come back to a story on that later .

Take care of the process , in my mind , and you'll take care of the result . Or , as Bill Wall said , take care of performance and the score takes care of itself . It's that kind of thing . Progression , you have to remember , in any process , is non-linear . I mean , it's not like a rocket taking off for the moon and so on .

It goes in steps and sometimes it goes in dips , and you're going to understand that on that journey . It's just part of process . You'll stumble sometimes and you'll fall . You'll also have moments when you fail , but the key is , since we're trying to make progress , the key is to understand that .

I think somebody else came up with the word fail fast If you're going to make your mistakes , if you're going to stumble , get over the line . Why is that a probability ? Okay , it's a really simple question I have to ask some people . Listen , if I'm asking you to change things , change the way you do things .

If I'm asking you to change how we're going to play here , how you're going to sell , how you're going to market , do you think there's a better chance of you making a mistake when you've gone beyond the familiar than if you stay behind the familiar ? Yeah we're going to make them folks , so just accept before you get on the journey . This is part of process .

The key in all of that is can you learn fast ? Okay , I'll modify that , because I used to stick with the quote from Ari DeJuice , and I think the first time you and I met I'm pretty sure I put it up on the screen . Probably the only sustainable competitive advantage we have is the ability to learn faster than the opposition .

Well , I was pulled up short by a guy called Vin Walsh , one of the top learning psychologists in the planet , I think . And he said to me no , Frankie , it's to learn better and faster than the opposition . Learn better , and one of the things that got me thinking about that is wow , you know well how do I learn better .

I mean , I don't remember anyone sitting me down and helping me learn how to learn .

We're going to be back in a moment , we're going to talk about winning and team and leadership , and we're going to get all of his insights .

Well , success , if you're not careful , can be a serious seductress . She can convince you that you've arrived , but the truth is , if you're going to get into the success game , into the success arena , you never arrive . You're chasing the horizon . There's always something else called perfection , beyond the horizon .

Excellence is something we can all work on and we can deliver . We can do that . And then you redefine it . But the truth is , you're on a journey to try to get the perfection , and it's like the horizon it just keeps moving ahead of you . You never arrive , and so we've got to be careful . My mom taught me success breeds success .

Well , I wasn't very successful , so we're struggling with it . But then Alex said success can derail progress . And that's because you can get complacent and you can just say well , I'm there Just why do I have to change a winning formula ?

The truth is you'd better change a winning formula , because other guys are going to come up and be better at that than you .

Frank , you've taught so many coaches what are the top things that you think a coach should learn to be better at ? Coaching and , in essence , business people are coaches of their people too , I guess .

Now the European Cup is the top eight nations men and top eight nations women competing for separate cups and not necessarily the same nations in each competition . But we , the UK team , had a team of both and in this competition just explain the numbers on the thing In this competition there are 20 events on the men's side , 100 meters , 200 meters is on .

There are eight teams taking part . You get eight points if you only one entry for event , eight points at your first , one at your last . So maximum number of points we're looking for 160 . And I did at that point the British team at the very best were a bad third on numbers , and so I did what you would do .

I went through everybody's performance and the other teams in my team on a good and a bad day , and I concluded that we were 14 points away from the big two , the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic . And so I wondered how do I get over to my kids the between today and the tomorrow ?

They individually could do something to create a team success , bearing in mind that track and fields are very individual sport . That can be each other . Go to any business , all the sales guys . People are competing with each other , right , but they're winning the way in the same batch . They're part of the same organization .

So I tried this Today and tomorrow you've got a 14 point mountain to climb . It's a mountain because you can't come back next week . This is the one . It only happens today , and tomorrow it's 14 points , because that's the difference between what you're worth on paper and what the opposition is .

But if you are worth one point to one section of the room , if you're worth one point on paper and you can turn it to two , you give me just the same step up the mountain as you guys who work five points can deliver six . And as for you , linford , christian , colin Jackson , all ever expect from your zakes that don't give you seven .

The kids were going out the room . They looked , they were looking at my papers to see what I had done for them , shaking their head , mumbling about me . But this is just what I wanted them to do . I wanted them to understand that by getting to the top of their individual mountain they would make a difference . They would make a difference .

The scene now goes to the stadium , into the ring for the first event . Hammer was the ghost guy called Shane Peacock , who was a second reserve worth one point on a good day , and he gets in . The kids are all shouting at him come on , shane , give us another point . And he gave them two . He got three points . Chris Ackaboozie was worth five .

He delivered eight . The kids in the warm-up area normally when they saw the blue vests of East Germany or the red vests of the Soviet Union , they were running to the toilet . Now they wanted to tear the tracksuit off . Give , let me out , then I'm going to give you my points now .

After the two days , the men had the trophy , the women the highest number of points ever recorded by West European team . How is that possible ? As a coach , making sure that you create opportunity for your people to take ownership , because once they do that and they commit to that and engage with that , that will make the difference .

This is a people business , brad , and that was the biggest lesson that I've learned from you , I have to say . In addition , in my journey through you have to be good at the technical business . You know which leg do you move , for which back you have to know that .

But you better understand the people business or there's no point of having the technical business stuff at all .

But the fact is you'd better have the test but , more importantly , you'd better have a coach there to help make sure that you've learned a lesson from the test apples . So I don't know if that helps . Another bit about coaching that you may be interested in .

If I can use Daley Thompson as an example , again for business , that was for Daley was double Olympic gold medalist , World Record holder , that coach Daley and the captain .

Just for the viewers and listeners , the captain has 10 events , you know , 100 meters , 400 meters , hurdles and so on , and there are field events , jumps and throws and as a coach I knew I couldn't coach all of the events not to the level that he needed me to be and I always try to live this idea of there are three things you have to know in life You've

got to know what you know , you've got to know what you don't know and you've got to know somebody who does and get them into the party . And so what we did there were five other coaches involved to make sure that Daley had the right development program .

Now my role at that point I figured and we've all got our own definitions of what good leadership is but my picture of great leadership is you're the conductor of an orchestra . You know you've got to have people in front of you who are everything from a soloist to somebody fresh out of college .

You've got strings , you've got grass , you've got woodwind , you've got all of these things going and they all know the role that they've got to play . And it's your job to make sure that nobody's stronger than somebody else that you create . As a conductor of the orchestra . You create harmony from the diversity that's in front of you . I mean that's your job .

Now when you're coaching somebody , an individual like a Daley Thompson , it would be like me coaching you , brad , or coaching a leader or coaching somebody .

There are different parts of your job that have got to be somehow or other be brought together in a balanced way to allow you to get the score that you need to be be performance , to be as great as you can be .

I couldn't allow the throws coach to make Daley so heavy to throw the throws that he couldn't jump or sprint anymore , but I think that's another part of the art , if you like , of coaching is understanding that balance , and a lot of people say to me what should we do now , frankly , is you have to concentrate on the weaknesses .

No that's absolutely the wrong way around , in my opinion . If I've got , if I've brought you into the team , brad , I brought you in because of your strengths . My first priority in life is to make sure these strengths continue to grow .

I'll only make a weakness a priority if it interferes with your ability to deliver that strength or , in a team situation , if it's interfering with other people's abilities to do their strength . Do these things make sense for ?

Why did you call it winning matters ? I think this is important for everyone to understand . Why name it winning matters ?

That's the feeling , part of the whole thing , and I kind of feel that sense of challenge . I mean , you know so many people will talk about motivation and put a price on it . You know you'll get a bonus this year , you'll get this , you'll get a new car and so on . But truly the greatest motivation is the right challenge .

It's having the right challenge in front of you and buying into that , you know , and really engaging with it . I mean I've got some quite a nice garden . I have to say it's mostly down to Linda , my wife and the gardener , but I get involved in there every now and again , and it took me a while to realize this , but I began to understand .

I felt the challenge to make the roses beautiful because I think these are my priority in the garden . It suddenly dawned on me one day it doesn't matter what you do , frankie , they're destined to be beautiful . It's your job to make sure that the things that might stop that happening are dealt with . And so there's a new challenge .

I mean , I just I'm not sure if I've really been clear on this from the outset is that it's about seeing challenges , addressing them and knowing , at the end of the day , that what you did and how you did it is why that's happening in front of you , you know . And is that okay ?

And that journey I think a lot of people get into the head , that what it is is you start off as a Filipino and you finish off as a Ferrari Testarosa and I get that . But the more you get into working with really high achievers , you realize that they are not part of that journey . They fracture it somewhere along the line .

And so , going back to my analogy , what's the connection between a Ferrari Formula One car and a Testarosa ? They may have the same brand , but they're not the same motor and they're not the same . You need different people driving them , and you need different people coaching and preparing them , and so on . And so I think and I did a .

I'll just digress for a second . I did a seminar , a webinar , for India two years ago with a guy called Arne Gulish . I brought him in he's one of the top guys on talent identification and we spent four days , four hours a day , with different speakers and so on .

I'm going to ask you to take a I'm pretty sure it will be an educated guess on this one Of the athletes in the world who get a world championships junior medal . That's 19 years of age . How many of them do you think medal in the senior competition when they get into the more An ?

So something's not happening either . Something's not happening between 19 or something has not been addressed properly before then . And in my simplistic language , when I'm speaking to coaches about this , I say you got to be careful you don't squeeze all the juice out the orange too early .

And what they discovered in the research that Arnie was doing is that if you have people as late as possible doing several disciplines , several different sports , on the foundation of that , they are more likely to medal as seniors than the kids who specialize early on .

Wow , and I don't know how relevant that is to business , but what it made me think about and I've only loosely discussed this with people who do business far better than me and so why , when people come into your business , why do they not get a chance to play other positions or do other roles and not the one that they come in for ?

And as if to support that ? I don't know if you remember the football I called Johan Cruyff .

I had to do a conference across in Spain and we were both on stage and one of the things that he explained to me said you know , when people get selected for the youth team , for the first two years they must learn to play out of position as often as they play in position .

Only in that way do they understand how other players in the team see the game and only in that way can you give them the right level of support to make the team gel properly . Again , I don't know how relevant that is to business , but it seemed to me that it could be relevant .

Frank , I want to dive into the quick fire round and just ask you a couple of very fast ones . Fast question , fast answer . How do you succeed at setting goals ? What's your thoughts on that ?

And but remember , it's coming back again and you've gotten . Of course I can understand that some people can say well , I've got one goal in life , but you don't , you've got multiple goals in life . You might have a grand purpose , a grand vision , a grand mission .

But in between time you've got to give yourself short-term goals , medium-term goals and use these as a bit of challenge and competition , because that gives you the feeling of success . It brings success on the way through .

There's your physical , there's your mental and there's also your emotional . And when you're looking at development , you have to look at all of these things .

And then , at the other end of that , when it comes to recovery , when you're exhausted out there , please remember that there's different processes in recovering from physical fatigue , from mental fatigue and from emotional fatigue .

Mental investment , if it's not properly managed , can be , on the one hand , people can achieve great things , but on the other hand , once it gets negative , you can be dragged down a really deep hole . And one of the most important things I say to coaches is make sure that your emotional corridor is one that everybody understands .

You never go too high , you never go too low . They look to you as a coach for emotional stability and a lot of people miss that empathy , emotional intelligence . We used to think of these as real softy things as a coach , but now I know they're really , really important .

We are what we repeatedly do , because then is not an act , is a habit . I love that one .

Coming back to my earlier point about the people business , I love these words from George Washington Carver how far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young , compassionate with the aged , sympathetic with the striving and tolerant both of the weak and of the strong .

For some time in life you'll have to be all of these , and my final one is one that I coined about excellence , but I'll put it into your world of success now Athletes make success happen . Coaches make success possible . That's what we're there to do .

Hopefully you took a lot of notes and hopefully you're into a bunch and hopefully you're going to take action on it and refer people . Remember , if you haven't subscribed , click that subscribe button now . Be with us every week on the Big Success podcast , bs Brad Sugar's Big Success . Take action , check the show notes for all the links .

I'll give you all the links for everything that you speak ahead . Make sure you follow through and keep the learning going . Remember you've got to grow into your goals . I'll speak to you next time on the Big Success podcast .