Managers like Jim Gavin and Brian Cody have tremendous talent at their disposal, but it is their players’ talent which is the most important asset

JIM Gavin has moved Dublin on hugely since Paul ‘Pillar’ Caffrey brought the ‘Sky Blues’ back into the winners enclosure.

In taking the Dubs to two All Ireland titles and four National League titles in a row, Jim’s calm, disciplined approach marks him as a man of character, who praises his players in public and encourages others to do the same.

Other GAA men of character include Brian Cody, Mickey Harte and Joe Kernan.

The journey that Claudio Ranieri has taken Leicester City on in their premiership winning season shows the affable Italian, also, to be a man of character endorsed appropriately by his answer to the question, “What’s the secret of Leicester’s achievements? Claudio answered, “The players, the heart, the soul and how they play.”

The All Blacks’ philosophy was, “Let someone else praise your virtues.” Nowadays, elite sports teams look for ‘Character before Talent’ in their players. Successful leaders, players or otherwise, balance pride with humility: absolute pride in performance, total humility before the magnitude of the task.

The challenge is always to improve, to always get better, even when you are the best; especially when you are the best. That’s why the best All Blacks swept out the dressing rooms after training/games, eg, “Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done.”

This is an example of personal discipline, ie, don’t expect others to do your job. If you have personal discipline in your sport/life, you’ll be more disciplined on the field.

If you want players to pull together as a team, you must have personal discipline, otherwise you’ve a ‘group’ of players not a team. No one looks after Dublin or the All Blacks – they look after themselves.

A collection of talented individuals without personal discipline will ultimately and inevitably fail. Character triumphs over talent.
Vince Lombardi, legandary American football coach (Inches) said to players seeking success, “Only by knowing yourself can you become an effective leader.”

From self-knowledge, Lombardi believed that ‘we’ develop character and integrity. From character and integrity comes leadership.

Remember his great phrase on self-knowledge – ‘I AM’ which is a fundamental understanding and appreciation of one’s personal values. For me, character is what you think of yourself, reputation is what others think of you.

Legendary USA basketball coach, John  Wooden, taught players to put their socks on without wrinkles. ‘Wrinkles’ cause ‘blisters’ cause ‘loss of playing time; which if a good player gets ‘blisters’ and can’t play, the coach might lose his job.

So Wooden was about getting basics right, taking care of details, looking after yourself and the team. Really it was all about humility (eg, sweeping out the dressing rooms). Wooden said, “Winning takes talent. Repeated winning takes character.”

Another successful American football coach, Bill Walsh believed ‘you get nowhere without character. Character is essential to individuals and their cumulative character is the backbone of all winning teams’ (think Armagh 2002).

Collective character is vital to success. Focus on getting the ‘culture’ right and the results will follow.

Wayne Smith, a former All Blacks coach said, “Talent is irrelevant. We carefully picked players and used matrices to back intuition because there are certain stats in rugby that determine a player’s character and that’s what we were after.

“So we picked high work rate, strong body movers, players that were unselfish and had a sacrificial mindset. So we selected on character not talent.”

Ethos is the Greek word for character. Ethics is your team’s beliefs, principles, values, codes and culture. Your values decide your character, your character decides your value (worth).

Put simply, it’s ‘the way we do things around here’ – the unwritten rules, the moral character of a particular group or team, eg, Dublin, Tyrone, Crossmaglen, etc.

A values-based, purpose-driven culture, like Dublin, Kilkenny, Tyrone, Crossmaglen is the foundation approach for sustained success. Words like integrity, sacrifice, determination, imagination, innovation, persistence, responsibility will be used in doing so. But the challenge is always to bring these ‘words’ to life and into the lives of your players.

Thus, coaches must be masters at turning vision into everyday action, purpose into practice.