The Character to Compete

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

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

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

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

It is quite a story.

Fierce competitors, who get the very best from themselves, are rarely lost to the game when their playing days finish, such is their appetite for the contest. After retiring as a player, Todd would soon be coaching. His old Demon teammate, Alastair Clarkson, when appointed coach of Hawthorn, second last and struggling, turned to people he could trust to share the journey with him. Todd Viney would be his midfield coach, and Damien Hardwick, another ‘take-no-prisoners’ competitor, would join them.

Four years later, in 2008, Hawthorn would be Premiers, and three more would follow. Damien Hardwick would steer the Richmond Football Club to three Premierships as their Senior Coach in 2017, 2019 and 2020.

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

This team would, of course, include his son Jack, an acorn that didn’t fall far from the tree, taking on his father’s mantle as the fiercest competitor of his generation and Vice-Captain of the Demons’ Premiership team and one of the most respected players in the game.

A break from football for Todd and time on his farm followed, but he was soon urged back into the game by Alastair Clarkson when appointed coach of North Melbourne FC two years ago, a team that has won only fifteen games in the last five seasons.

Yes, Todd Viney is a man who loves a challenge, but mostly, he loves to compete.

And with the Kangaroos, the message is clear.

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

When listening to commentary surrounding elite team sport, the many post-mortems seeking to explain why one team won and their opponents lost, who performed well while others disappointed, the conversation will inevitably deal with notions of ‘effort’.

You heard it on the weekend, the first week of the AFL Finals, with three of the four games mostly dominated from early in the game by the eventual victor, despite a season so even that picking a winner of any of these games was fraught.

Can you coach effort?

I think of ‘effort’ in straightforward terms. Talent does not fluctuate, whereas effort does. An individual and team’s capacity to give maximum effort consistently provides access to the full range of individual and collective ability and potential.

Differences in ‘effort’ in elite sport are doubtless marginal, but so is everything. The cumulative differences, as small as they mostly are, separate all teams and are enough for one team to be Premiers, whilst another will be condemned to the bottom rungs of the ladder.

Yes, all the marginal differences add up, and while we can reconcile if a team is a little more skilled, experienced, faster and stronger, and this results in victory, we find it hard to make peace when the difference relates to ‘effort’.

I spent thirty years in elite sport, and without fear of contradiction, that while the narrative used to explain wins and losses can miss the mark, effort is often the difference.

Clearly, we are talking about comparative effort, when one team manages to outwork its opposition and win the game.

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

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

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

Todd Viney is an unlocker.

Notebook ready….

Play on!

Cam