E11 The Unlock Moment: Tony Walmsley – Leadership Lessons from the Touchline

Tony Walmsley 0:06
My family were in the crowd, they’d come over, which was wonderful. And they got to see my giant head on this giant screen and all of that kind of stuff. Anyway, we were two-nil down after about 15 minutes, then my goalkeeper gets red-carded. So I’m putting an 18 year-old on for his debut to hopefully try and save a penalty, which he doesn’t do. So they’re three-nil up after 20 minutes, and we’re down to ten men. And at that point, my massive head gets captured on this screen. And I remember, I can put myself back in that moment right now. And I can actually remember what was going through my mind which is, which is, Wow, like, a) how big are these screens? They are huge. And this could get really messy, like this… it maybe might not get worse, any worse than this. This is what I was thinking of, so 20 minutes in. Microphone in your face. Tony, its Mark Bosnich, ex-Chelsea goalkeeper. Don’t you think it’s time you resigned? That was the first question.

Gary Crotaz 1:19
My name’s Dr. Gary Crotaz. And I’m a coach and author of The IDEA Mindset, a book about how to figure out what you want, and how to get it. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. When I’m in conversation with my coaching clients, these are the breakthroughs that are so profound that they remember vividly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking when their Unlock Moment happened. In this podcast, I’ll be meeting and learning about people who have accomplished great things or brought about significant change in their life, and you’ll be meeting them with me. We’ll be finding out what inspired them, how they got through the hard times, and what they learned along the way that they can share with you. Thank you for joining me on this podcast to hear all about another Unlock Moment. Hello dear listener, and welcome to another episode of The Unlock Moment podcast. This is an episode I’ve been looking forward to recording for a while. Tony Walmsley was one of the first names on my team sheet when I was listing the guests I wanted to convince to come on the podcast. We met last year and discovered a deep connection around the similarities between the elite sporting arenas of the football pitch and the ballroom dance floor. You’ll be surprised at how much they have in common. Tony is a performance specialist combining a multi-championship-winning football career and senior leadership advisory with the psychology of motivation to develop fast results for leaders and teams in multiple sectors. He’s worked in ccademy technical director and coach roles for some football clubs you might have heard of, including Manchester United, Sheffield United, and for the Central Coast Mariners in Australia. And he’s also had a successful career in the corporate world and now in inspiring world-class leaders who influence performance. Tony and I share very common ground in how we describe our ideal clients. He says they know they are not yet world-class but instinctively know they can be. They think about it a lot and are determined to face what’s holding them back, however hard that is, to do what it takes to reach the highest possible level. I know you’re going to learn a huge amount from this conversation. Tony, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to The Unlock Moment.

Tony Walmsley 3:37
Gary, wow. Thank you very much. It’s, it’s absolutely my privilege to be invited on as a guest, I look forward to this conversation very much.

Gary Crotaz 3:46
Thank you so much for, for joining the team. So let’s start off with, tell us a little bit about your upbringing. What formed the person you are today? How did you first get into football? How did you first get into the corporate world?

Tony Walmsley 3:58
Yeah, I’m born in, Manchester-born, 1966 which is not a bad year for football for us Brits. And I was, was sporty, not so academic. My brother’s an Oxford scholar, my sister’s a PhD like yourself, you know they went down the academic route and both been successful in their own right and for me, it was, it was really an unknown of what I was going to do. I pursued football and cricket with, with huge enthusiasm I would say more than ambition. And it was only when I first did a coaching course at the FA that somebody pushed a button of inspiration and I think they said something along the lines of you’re, you could be really good at this if you applied yourself to it. So that moment and, and all of the experience around that where I was suddenly seeing the game through a different set of eyes and seeing that actually there’s more to it than just, just rocking up and and talking about the the team sheet on the wall before the game, that there’s there’s so much more nuance to it. And I found myself very quickly and at a young age, having an affinity with this ability to transfer information and help people to improve whatever it is that they were doing. And I think that thread has run through my whole, my whole life. So at 18 years old I was, I was a qualified coach with no idea what I might do with that. And again, no ambition really, until by chance I got an offer, an opportunity through a cricket connection, an Australian, so I played Grade cricket, a decent level of cricket. We used to get professionals over each year from Australia or the West Indies to play in that league. So it was a decent standard. And in one of my conversations with, with Roger Brown, who was a Sheffield Shield cricketer and on the fringes of the Australian National Team, he talked, he’s a Tasmanian, he talked about in his off season, he played football and I thought that meant Australian Rules Football, but he was talking about soccer. And through that connection, he, introductions were made. And at 21, I was flying off from Manchester to Tasmania to coach and manage in the second tier of Australian football, which was a thrill and exciting proposition. Really entering into the unknown with really no coaching experience, I was going to manage a men’s semi-professional football team on the other side of the world, it was quite fascinating start to my, you know where we end up having this conversation today.

Gary Crotaz 6:56
And you were 21 years old, and you’re travelling to the other side of the world?

Tony Walmsley 7:00
Yeah, and it’s interesting, you know, through the years when I’ve coached in academies, and I’ve worked with 19, 20, 21-year-olds, at a good standard, I would often reflect on who did I think could take that step? I don’t know why I would reflect on it that way, but would be asking the question, not outwardly, to myself, who would have the capacity, or the will, or the intent, or the motivation to do that? And I didn’t come across many that I thought, I thought would do that. So the way I look at that is, is just from the perspective of uniqueness and, and as I’ve matured through life, I realised that my journey is certainly unique. And I can tell stories about lots of aspects of that journey that sometimes surprised me where I’ve been, you know, you forget things and then you go, Wow, you know, did I really have dinner with Harry Redknapp under Sydney Harbour Bridge? It’s like, these things that crop up, you think, Oh, yeah, I forgot about that! That was, that was an interesting, what I learned the more I’ve worked with with people is that everybody’s got a fantastic story, that everybody’s unique. And I’m really enjoying operating in the space where bringing that uniqueness to the surface, to understand it, and optimise it, is where the biggest performance gains are. Boy, I wish I knew that at 21 when I was, when I was flying out to Tasmania. However, it went okay.

Gary Crotaz 8:35
Did you feel young then, in yourself? Or did you feel just like this is, this is the thing to do? You know, were you conscious of your relative youth?

Tony Walmsley 8:46
I was conscious of, of being younger than everybody else, in the context of what I was, what I was doing and who I was managing, that there was some sense of uniqueness. I think there’d always been a sense that I was a bit quirky growing up, but I think also in terms of life experience. So you know, from a family perspective, some things had happened where I was sort of thrust into a an almost parental role for my, for my young brother for a period of time. Where you assume a role of, of maturity before perhaps you’re ready for it, that grounds you in different ways. So I had that experience. You know, I was already taking a little bit of pain of that, of that with me, so you’ve got that to fall back on. But for me, I was always, my eyes have always been really wide open. I’ve got this enthusiasm and passion for experience. So that was what was driving, I had no idea whether I’d be any good, had no idea that I would make a career out of it, I wasn’t driven by ambition, I was confident, I was self-confident. I was, I knew I could engage people, I knew people would like me. I was fortunate that I landed in a part of the world where I was because I was a playing coach as well, I was, I was competent at the level that I fell into, so I was able to operate at or above the standard of my peers at the time. So that level of competence was, you know, I was quickly able to feel comfortable in, in the role, and, knowing how much I respect autonomy, and everybody’s not just mine, some people need more than others. I had, I was free to, free to explore this new world that I was entering into. If I think about that from a sort of psychological coaching perspective, I was super-motivated. Didn’t see it as motivation… you know, people think of motivation often, you know, that drive and you’re pursuing this, you’re pursuing with vigour, this objective, singular objective with determination – wasn’t like that, I was just purely motivated to experience this thing, whatever it was going to be. And I think that being the case, by, by nature, it produced some positive outcomes, and began a series of new experiences, other… you’re successful, the club wants to retain you, other clubs start to show an interest. And each time that happens, your, your interest is piqued again, and your experience has grown by another 12 months. So you’re getting stronger. And you’re getting fueled.

Gary Crotaz 12:05
And I’m hearing as you’re describing that, there’s something about sort of instinct and, and passion. So you’re making quite instinctive choices about, about what you love, and what you know you’re good at. But also, there’s that sort of, I hear something about the youth, in terms of, you know, you’re not held back by thinking too hard about something, you know, you’re taking an opportunity for something that’s very exciting ahead of you. And I think that comes through quite clearly. So what happened next, where did it go from there, you know, the 21 year old player coach?

Tony Walmsley 12:44
I can only say that for a long period of time, I had a lot of success. So Tasmania is quite a small place, you know, it’s the size of England with the population of Manchester. But it’s part of a much bigger country, and you don’t really know being in Tasmania, how big Australia is until you actually go there and think you can drive from Sydney to Brisbane and not, and realise that that’s going to take rather longer than you expected! But I was involved in youth development at this time, you know, three or four years into this journey I was working with, with state teams and academies and elite kids and then getting exposed to the broader and higher talents that, that were operating around Australia, and took one of those teams to an unprecedented level of success. So Tasmanian teams at national level would always typically be at the bottom along with the Northern Territory, you know, population-driven and all of that type of thing. And we finished third, in a tournament that had Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, famous Australian players that graced the Premier League and did very well for Leeds and Liverpool and so forth. And that got me noticed and recognised, and I got the job – I was the inaugural full-time women’s coach, which is amazing. This was 1995. I was head of the Olympic Athletes Programme in New South Wales, at this stage, I’m probably 27, 28. So again, really young to be holding a position of authority at that level. And we won, you know, I was responsible for the Australian National Team players that that resided in New South Wales at that time, and also had my own academy and intensive training centre around that, where I’ve tapped into all of the, you know, the Australian Institute of Sport elite athletes services so you get to learn about, you start to get more insight into sports psychology and strength and conditioning. And at that time, the Australian Institute of Sport were pioneers in global sport, how to prepare athletes. So that was, that was fantastic. And that team then went on to be successful, we won the national championships. And it’s funny, I’m coaching a women’s team, now I’m coaching the team one step below National League, I’m doing it as a volunteer. And on the one hand, it’s amazing to see in that period, you know, the 25 years that have passed, how, how much growth there has been in the game, and yet, there’s such a long way to go in, in all of that – it’s not a conversation we really should get into today. But it’s a nice reflection to, for me to be operating at this level that I’m operating at now and recognising the great strides that have been taken, but also to acknowledge that a long time ago, I was doing some pretty serious stuff, and some some pretty good, pretty good things too, and I’ve often looked back and, because I look forward, and I’m optimistic, and I’m seeing what’s next, I rarely look back and take too much credit for it, or acknowledge for myself, you know, people many times have said, Oh fantastic, what an amazing thing that you did. And it’s like, I’d say it wasn’t bad. I’ll take that, it was quite good, it’s okay. And I’m working now, I’m coaching an Olympian, a former Australian Olympian who’s now a senior lawyer in a big organisation. So I do some, some coaching with her. And that’s, so I’ve got these, it’s almost this, this, this loop, this, this circle of my, my coaching life is right in play at the moment, which I’m, which I’m really enjoying.

Gary Crotaz 16:50
I often talk about a particular story for my own career in, in ballroom dancing, and people say, you know, what’s, what’s a piece of advice that you were given that you remember, and I always talk about somebody that I’d known for many, many years as a sort of coach and mentor, who, one day at the British Championships, called me and my wife over from the, from the side of the dance floor, and, and he said, I have a piece of advice for you. And it’s for all these things that you’re trying to achieve and travelling the world and, you know, pushing for results in competitions, he said, my advice is don’t forget to enjoy the journey on the way along, because he said he’s seen so many couples who have been so intense about trying to achieve their goals, they get to the end of their career, and they don’t really look back on any of it with, with pleasure, because it felt so intense and often frustrating at the time. And so what you’re saying here about, you know, being able to look back and reflect on something that maybe in the moment you didn’t fully appreciate what, what you were doing, but actually, with the benefit of hindsight and looking at that 25 years, it’s in context, and you can see, you know, what you were starting.

Tony Walmsley 17:57
Yeah, I agree with that. That’s a great, great way to summarise. And I think when I put myself, I’ve got an ability to put myself, because I’ve got I would say a strong feeling preference as, you know, high sensory needs, I suppose, for want of a better term. And I think that, that’s why I’m so enthusiastic about, I get a buzz out of, out of things. So it’s very easy to put myself back there, when I’m feeling a certain way with a certain memory, and go, Wow, you know, I can get goosebumps on the back of my neck because of a particular experience. And it’s very easy then to recollect what was happening at that time, sometimes the details are blurred as my memory fades, but the, the emotion of it and therefore the relevance that, that it, that it has for me. It’s something that I can latch on to. So if I’m working with somebody about a future state that they are aspiring to, then I can help them. What I’ve tried to do is help them. And it’s not easy for some people. For me, it’s relatively easy, try and help them to, to visualise what it will feel like when they get there. Not the goal itself. What will it feel like if you achieve that? And if somebody had said to me what what will it feel like if you win the National, if you’re the coach of the National Women’s champions in 1995. Somebody then asked me that maybe five years before, I think it would have filled me with a sense of excitement and a sense of Wow, perhaps even a sense of, I don’t know if that’s possible. And that wouldn’t be through any lack of confidence, it would be, I’m thinking out loud now, I don’t even know what that would be. But the whole ability to be conscious in the moment, I think has been somewhat innate with me on the way through, now that I’m aware of how that works, how it plays out, I can help others that maybe don’t have that so naturally to work out how their experiences, you know, to be able to describe their experience more, more fully for themselves, for other people.

Gary Crotaz 20:36
So this building success that you were, that you were finding, and you were demonstrating, started at some point to get you on the radar of some big clubs?

Tony Walmsley 20:46
Yeah, and it was, so early 2000s, I was working in Brisbane at the time and had a journey through, I became a director of, the director of football, which, I left the women’s job to be a director of football, which was taking an opportunity, it was a more stable role at the time, it was a more, it was a broader role. I was concerned I might get pigeonholed as a women’s coach, I wouldn’t mind that at all now, but back then it was such a new thing. It was a different landscape, so it was a decision that, it was the first decision I really made that I think that I wasn’t so sure about. But I knew why I did it. I took it to broaden my experience, which sort of makes sense. So after that, I moved to Brisbane, I was, I was about to walk out to training and I got a phone call. The year before I’d seen this newspaper called The Australian British Soccer Weekly. So it’s where I used to get all my, all my, what was going on in the UK football world. And there’s a big half-page ad in there with a big Man United badge on it that said, We’re setting up an academy in Australia, looking for Technical Director, and I thought that’s, I’m a Man United fan, born in Manchester, the genuine article. I thought, That’s got my name on it. I’m going for that job. That’s, that’s me. I got interviewed, made the shortlist, didn’t get the job. A year later, I’m walking out to training, I got a phone call. One of the directors of the club said the guy that took the job is is leaving. How quickly can you move back to Sydney? And I was like, Two, two weeks I can be there. So yeah, took on the role of Academy Director and Technical Director of Manchester United’s Youth Development Partnership in Oceania, which was, which was brilliant, obviously, because of its affiliation, very strong links, they were investing money and wanted to find the next Kewell and Viduka and, you know, they wanted to get on that bandwagon. Don’t think the model was, was right. But part of the role was to expand the centralised model into a national group of satellite quality-assured academies. So it was quite a big, again, another big project and a great brand to be associated with and, you know, trips to Manchester and working closely with the staff, meeting Sir Alex and all of those things, they’re, they’re a really valuable part of my, my experience. And you know, there’s a lot, there’s a, there’s a hundred football stories that, that, that I could tell between that and, and where I ended up as the head coach of the Mariners having worked previously as an assistant in the Asian Champions League. And, you know, we’re talking now about serious professional football. You know, everything had been successful, I hadn’t not experienced success. I didn’t know what it was like to fail. And yeah, I don’t even know how to describe it other than that I had this, this long history in the game in Australia of, of, of being a successful coach. Without really knowing how, I didn’t really know how it worked. I knew how to coach football, I knew who I was bringing into that environment, and players responded to me, but it’s not until you actually, till it stops working that, that you, you really start to understand more than you did before and that’s what I love about what I do now is that, you know, with, with maturity comes that, that, that deeper knowledge that how, however much you grow and learn and continue to grow and learn, you recognise that the chasm and void of stuff that you don’t know, is, is way greater. So for somebody is curious as me that’s like, that big pit over in the future is absolute gold for me. So there’s real beauty in that. So, so failure when it came, as brutal as it was, was the best, the best thing.

Gary Crotaz 25:35
And how old were you at that time where you’ve been on this run of success? You’d worked for these amazing clubs and you, and you, you hadn’t yet seen the other side? How old were you then?

Tony Walmsley 25:49
Well, we’re only talking. I wa,s I was late 40s by this stage.

Gary Crotaz 25:54
Right?

Tony Walmsley 25:56
Yeah, mid to late 40s. This is, this is, this is probably worth, worth sharing. So in two, and there’s a couple of reasons to share it. So we left, my family and I left Australia, in 2012, I took on a job with Sheffield United, Head of Recruitment. Another big club, fantastic club to be associated with, a club with a great vision that I bought into. And wanting to be part of that, there were, at the time the game, especially at Academy level in the UK, was transitioning from, I suppose old school mentality, to a more modern approach to developing kids, which was, which was fantastic. So I took that on. And a big part of that, that was, we had a, we had a, one of our children, we’ve got two children, Charlie and Sophie. Charlie was born with a disability that was undiagnosed. And we’d exhausted the landscape of support in Australia. And further afield, we tried India and China and all sorts of places to try and find some, some solutions. Charlie’s condition, he was undiagnosed for the first 12 and a half years of his life. So along with the, I guess, the pain of having a disabled child, and I mean, profoundly disabled, so needing 24 hour care, non, non-verbal and not walking so, so we had this situation at home, I was skipping off to football every day. And carrying around the weight of, of life, with this opportunistic, forward thinking enthusiasm that I had for the game, and treading what is, you know, a balance of finite resources that we’ve all got, this is the resilience to, to, to get through the emotional, personal challenge over an extended period of time, and the pursuit of sporting objectives, career objectives, family sustenance, building, you know, a career that’s going to work for everybody. So anyway, after a good few years of exhausting the system, this opportunity came up in England. And there was, there was the question, well, do we take it, you know it was a big cut in salary. But perhaps the services and support and opportunity for Charlie might be better. So we took this, this, we made the move, so uprooted the family, came back to England, which was great for me – suddenly back in the English game. Charlie, we found a great place for him to live after a very long court case. That’s a whole other podcast that one. But I had, this is, this is a great moment for me. I met a guy who’s, I would consider him a friend now and a mentor. He, he had got to know me when I was at the Mariners. This was before I was Head Coach at the Mariners. This is when I was Head of Youth, been a really successful period for me. I had this personal thing going on in the background. Moved to Sheffield, he came over to Sheffield, he was working for a big supply chain, UGL Unipart engineering supply chain business, maintaining the whole of Sydney, Sydney rail network and so forth. Went for lunch with him and I had a curious question, which was, What would somebody like me do in a business like yours? How would, how would my skills play out in your world? Explain to me what that was? It was one of those moments where he put his knife and fork down and said, We can’t get people like you in our business, we would, we, we’d need people like you in our business. Anyway that, I didn’t really know what that actually meant. We went for dinner again. Cut a long story short, within a couple of months, I had a very significant offer to go and work for this rail maintainer with no previous experience other than the football. And the two parts of this, one was, at this time we had this big legal case going on, for Charlie, which was starting to cost more than my salary was perhaps going to cover if it was going on for any extended period of time. And I had an offer of maybe five or six times more to go and work in a big, a big enterprise in a, in a business, in a sort of black art of business development. And the two things came together, it was like a perfect storm, as I stepped outside of football into a serious senior leadership role in a business that I knew very little about, and I give so much credit to Glen Everett, the guy that took me in, because I didn’t really know why. There wasn’t, I wouldn’t call it imposter syndrome. Although I knew I knew nothing about what it was that I was going into. But I went in with my usual state of curiosity and ability to ask questions, check for understanding and work out what was going on, my ability to engage, my ability to, I suppose, win people over. And they almost just gave me my wings. And I floated around this place with my, not really knowing what I was doing. But I found myself fitting nicely in the niche between a customer who’s spending a billion dollars and a supplier who was scratching around trying to meet contractual obligations, and all of the conflict that was going on in there, I found myself helping people to improve their understanding of each other’s position in order to get to a better place. And that was amazing, amazing.

Gary Crotaz 32:27
There’s something very transferable between being the football coach and being the corporate leader?

Tony Walmsley 32:34
Absolutely, you know, so I tread that line across, across both, and thankfully have, fortunate to be able to speak from experience in both and to understand it from an applied sense, or a practical sense. The difference that, there are some differences. The pursuit of the objective is the same – in football, you score one, one more goal than the opponent to win, that’s it, it never changes. And the business objective may be, whatever the, whatever the shareholder returns need to be, let’s say. So some of the differences are, in football, it’s relatively straightforward to get a group of unique individuals to identify what that collective goal is, and how we’re going to agree to pursue it. It sounds simple. It’s, it is complicated, but it’s easy to go right. We’re all together, this is where we’re going, does everyone agree? Yeah, off we go. You get into a complex business, and the team… So in football, the players are sort of, it’s about face, the players are at the pinnacle of the, the organisation. Whereas in, in every other organisation, the people that play the game, the people that score the goals, are sort of at the bottom of the chain. So the hierarchy is on its head. So connecting that team to the objectives of the business is a much harder, more complex challenge. In effect, it’s the same. Where the similarities are, people often get, if you’re a great player you get bumped up into a management position. And suddenly there’s a big skills deficit that, that catches people out. And it happens in the sectors that I work in all the time where high performance get moved into management roles and then start to flounder. Because they just, they just don’t get it and why would they. So helping people to get it is, I think I’m okay at that.

Gary Crotaz 34:47
It’s a really powerful thing you say. They don’t get it, and why would they? And I think that’s, that’s the thing that people forget all the time that, that as you move from one role to another, I always remember the title of Marshall Goldsmith’s book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. And I, sometimes when I’m coaching people, I just show them the cover of the book. And I say to them, you may find reading this book really helpful. But as a minimum, remember the title! And actually, it unlocks something in, in people, just to remind them that high performance in one role doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily in any way prepared for, for the next role up the chain.

Tony Walmsley 35:26
Yeah.

Gary Crotaz 35:26
So you’re in your late 40s at this stage. And, and, and you touched on earlier, where you start to make this transition from, in the football world, success after success after success. And then it started to be more challenging. So bring us into that phase of your, your career and tell the story.

Tony Walmsley 35:44
Okay, so we’ve had the golden years, I’ve gone to Sheffield, bit of family drama, to summarise, and moved into the rail sector, going okay, paying really well. And while I was there, so this was, this included a shift back to Australia. So I started to do, I started to help the Mariners as an associate, as a, as a consultant, with some strategic recruitment. It’s like an extra bit of time, in my spare time, great to be back involved with the club and all the rest of it. And they, the manager got, got sacked with about six games to go. And the owner of the club said, do you think you’d be able to take the team for the six games to the end of the season. Now I’m working in this corporate, corporate world as a well-paid individual, but I knew that my heart said, Oh wow, you know, wouldn’t that be fantastic? I don’t really think I can because I’m in this situation at work. Anyway, went to see the CEO Glen, my now friend and mentor. And he was brilliant. This is such a, I forget this story until I’m telling it like I am now, this is coming straight off the cuff! They, they billed me out to the football club for corporate rates for the six or seven weeks that, till the end of the season. So I, there’s, there’s no, no lie. I left work. I’d already taken the day off on the Friday. So I left work on the Thursday, took training on Friday, was on TV on Saturday, and was back in the office, at UGL Unipart on the Monday, and even I think, I look that as, in third person and I think, I can only imagine what, what many people were thinking about, about that whole scenario. There’s a lot of incredulity around at the time, people were mesmerised, fascinated, angry, confused. This is people in, in my day job. And I’m going this is fantastic. What happened? How exciting is, is this?!

Gary Crotaz 38:16
And for my listeners who are not necessarily football aficionados, what’s, what’s the UK equivalent of being the manager of Central Coast Mariners?

Tony Walmsley 38:26
So it’s a, I would say in terms of crowds, probably the Championship, so second tier of English football. At the time, the league was perhaps stronger than it is now. So the top teams may be lower end of the Championship, League One standard, so decent, you know, some, some reams…

Gary Crotaz 38:44
It’s a big deal.

Tony Walmsley 38:45
Yeah, it’s a big deal, so 20,000 crowds at Sydney, Melbourne, you know, and sometimes more. We were, we were pulling an average crowd of about nine or ten thousand, at home, in a small community. So yeah, big deal, live TV, every game televised live, salary cap league at $2.5 million. So, you know, a decent size operation.

Gary Crotaz 39:12
So you’re on TV, you’re on the touchline, you’ve got these bigger players than you’ve ever managed before, on the pitch. And you were excited by that.

Tony Walmsley 39:21
Yeah. And it started great. So, so there was an upturn in form, the bounce-back as people call it, and, and then I was helping them to recruit the long term replacement. My intention was to stay in the role and, and this is where… the reality was, the club was, was in a bit of a pickle. You know, it was going to take, it was under, underfunded in the context of the competition. So the likelihood of being competitive was, was slim, but nothing like there is ever… I’ve never looked at football, and perhaps this is reflective of… to some degree at this point in time, the seriousness of family life, you know, and I do think about this – at the time when I was at the pinnacle of where I got to in football, I was also perhaps at my own lowest ebb as a person. So these two things collided, where I had this dissonance all the time, you’re living this outward experience as a football manager, and this inner experience as, as a father, husband, who was struggling with the realities of all of that. So it was, it was, it was interesting. Anyway, they offered me the job on a full-time basis, which was, like at what point do you, at what point do you, do you say, No? And this was a great lesson to me. In hindsight, I would have probably said no, thinking rationally, but you know me by now, to the listeners, I don’t necessarily think rationally, I think about opportunity. And I’m such an optimist that I think, You know what, we, maybe I would have made the same decision again in hindsight, because it actually is possible, what was in my head, this vision of what success looks like, is amazing, like, if we can do something special as a group together, that’s going to be amazing. And I can say that, I can visualise it. But what what I’ve learned is that, hey, not everybody shares my optimism. And even though historically I’ve been able to get people to buy into what I was doing, and where we were going, at this particular time I was asking too much of an inexperienced group too soon. And I know that now, and I didn’t change my approach. I didn’t change… If I’d changed my approach, we might have done a little better, I might have sustained the role for a little longer. Not that that really matters, the lesson for me in hindsight, or the lesson for me now looking back, is that you know what I am … delusionally optimistic at times. It doesn’t hurt to just check over your shoulder and see if everybody’s coming with you. Because I think the longer I went into it, the further people were fading into, into the background, which, which is an interesting reflection, but nevertheless, I ploughed on with, with enthusiasm, and people would comment on my disposition after a game, my positive outlook, my ability to articulate the vision and the story in the press conferences and so forth. And I was… I think with optimism, you, you do tend to, you know, you can think of it as, as resilience, that ability to bounce back quickly, that I tend not to focus on, on the result, it’s, it’s such an out of control thing, that spending too much time stressing about the result itself didn’t have a great deal of utility for me, so I would already be looking ahead. So by the time, the game might have finished, 10 minutes later you’re into a press conference with all the emotion of the game and the anger of the fans and the passion of the dressing room. And you’ve got the media people wanting elegant answers to pointy questions.

Gary Crotaz 44:08
And did you feel prepared for that environment? You know, being in that sort of high profile goldfish bowl kind of environment? Or do you look back and think, I didn’t have the skills, the experience I needed to handle some of those situations?

Tony Walmsley 44:27
I think the thing I’m most proud of of that time is the way I did handle all of that. That I, in the face of a team that was really struggling, I think I was able to, to stand up really well to the scrutiny and had a level of, a level of comfort with it that I would say is quite, is quite rare. I observe a lot of coaches behaviour as ongoing learning for me and I try to understand what, what it is that they’re experiencing when I see Frank Lampard speaking the other day after Everton lose and Thomas Tuchel after Chelsea lost, I find it fascinating. You know, and to see Jose Mourinho at his peak, and Jose Mourinho in more recent years, that, the way that these things articulate and I like to think that, and I don’t by any means suggest that I’m at their level and nowhere near it, but I think I am proud of how I, how I fronted up.

Gary Crotaz 45:40
And we’re here to, on the podcast one of the things we want to talk about is this Unlock Moment and, and for you, there was a moment in one of those live TV interview scenarios. So bring us into this moment. What was happening? And what was the lead in to this moment of realisation for you?

Tony Walmsley 45:59
Well I’ll talk you through the experience. So we’re playing at Sydney Football Stadium against one of the biggest clubs in the country, Sydney FC. So 44,000 seat stadium, maybe just less than half full or something like that. It had giant screens at the end of each ground. If you’ve ever been in a room where the TV’s too big for the room that’s it’s in, it was sort of like that. Anyway, I’ve got a bunch of… the, the squad at this stage was, there was a real toxic dressing room. It was very fragmented. So it was very, it was the most challenging time for me as a coach in my experience. A lot of young kids playing, I had a goalie making his debut. No sorry, goalie on the bench, 18 years old making his debut, a young kid in goal. Anyway, young players, not expected to win, nobody’s expecting us to win. But there’s always a chance, it’s a game of football. My family were in the crowd, they’d come over, which was wonderful. And they got to see my giant head on this giant screen and all of that kind of stuff. Anyway, we were two-nil down after about 15 minutes, then my goalkeeper gets red-carded so I’m putting an 18 year old on for his debut to hopefully try and save a penalty, which he doesn’t do. So they’re three-nil up after 20 minutes and we’re down to ten men. And at that point my massive head gets captured on this screen. And I remember, I can put myself back in that moment right now. And I can actually remember what was going through my mind which is, which is, Wow. Like a) how big are these screens? They are huge! And this could get really messy, like this, it’s, it maybe might not get worse, any worse than this, this is what I was thinking of, so 20 minutes in. Anyway, the game plays out. I think we lost four-one in the end. So it wasn’t a bad result under the circumstances. But we went straight to live interview after, after the game. I think we’d had six defeats on the bounce. So if you if you do follow football, or even if you don’t, that can often be troubles brewing for the, for the, for the bloke in charge. So sometimes they would stick a set of headphones on you and you’d go straight to a live studio interview. So no problem. Yeah, ready to go, put the headphones on. Microphone in your face. Tony, it’s Mark Bosnich, ex-Chelsea goalkeeper, Australia goalkeeper? Don’t you think it’s time you resigned? That was the first question. And this was the, this is this moment that we’re here to talk about. My immediate, my awareness went to, I need to answer the question. What a fascinating question. I couldn’t make assumptions about the agenda or where it was coming from. So I answered the question. I answered the question, No, and here’s the reason why. And the follow up question was, Can you tell me where, this was the second studio pundit, Can you tell me where the team’s improved in the last few weeks? And I said, Well, if you’ve been following us for the last few weeks, you’ll have seen we haven’t improved a great deal. However, here’s what we’re doing. Here’s the direction we’re going. So it was future-focused, answered the questions honestly, but in a state of absolute calm and presence and curiosity about, Who are these guys? And why would they be asking me these questions? Now what, the breakthrough moment for me was, in sharing this story with a former colleague of mine, who’s, I would consider him a world-class coach, an outstanding coach, not a football coach. A coach coach, if you like, a people coach. He spoke to me about how he loved my fascination. And he explained to me that you can’t be stressed and curious at the same time, you can’t occupy the two states at the same time. So then I go, okay, that, explain that to me. So he explained it. We talked about me looking at the screen, seeing myself on the screen and the fascination that goes with that. And, and I think about how I’ve related some of these stories to you today, how my trip to, that first trip to Tasmania was full of curiosity, open mindedness and fascination about, Wow, I’m a coach flying halfway around the world to do this thing. So when I’m in that headspace, there’s no possible way that I can be concerned about what that means, what the implications are, what the pitfalls might be. And it’s such a fantastic explanation for me to recognise that, throughout this career that I’ve had and continue to have, I’ve had a non-anxious presence. I can walk into the most conflicted situation, and people have fed back to me that, You just put everybody at ease, you have, they’ve used terms like, You’ve got, you’ve had an aura about you. And I’ve felt that myself sometimes, I know that I’m calm when there’s chaos going on around. I actually thrive in chaos, because I’m curious about it. I’m seeing people explode, and things falling apart. And I’m, I just feel that it’s okay. And that’s, there’s been an innateness to that throughout my life, personal life, career, you know, I go back to situations, you know, early in life, when I became that, that, that, that father-figure there was that, it was like the go-to guy to be, to smooth things over, to help things out, I go to my career in rail, where I was finding myself between an irate customer and a subject matter expert who was really angry about, about this thing, it’s like, what is that? And, and that ability to stay curious by nature diffuses any anxiety that I might be feeling. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it, but I don’t feel it at the same time.

Gary Crotaz 53:19
And I think that that image of you with the big screen is such a great one, because it’s really bringing to life that you are able to observe the situation, and yourself in it, from the outside in, which is a, is a rare skill. And I know a lot of coaches work with their coachees, senior leaders very often, on exactly that skill, you know, look at that conversation that you’re in, as if you were standing at the side of the room, that sort of Gestalt model of coaching. And actually, you were in a real situation, seeing your face on screen, that enabled you to put yourself outside that situation and not only see that you are calm under pressure, but that you understand why you’re calm under pressure and this is this curiosity coming through. I think, I think that’s a really powerful learning. And you use that today when you’re, when you’re working with senior leaders on their high performance now, is that a theme that comes through for you?

Tony Walmsley 54:19
It is a theme, yeah, there’s there’s a couple of themes. One is, one is to, I like to work around resonance, so what is resonance, especially from a team perspective, and helping them. So I know what was interesting. A former colleague of mine’s now managing in the Scottish Premier League. And I went up there to watch, watch them play Celtic a couple of weeks ago, which was, which was great for me to be reconnected and watching a game again, and I enjoyed it. And what was beautiful for me was spending hours with these elite coaches and listening to their approach and them explaining how they seek results and pursue results and train the team to do it. And my contribution to the conversation is so much different than it, than it would have been if I hadn’t pursued this broader field outside of football, or maybe it would? Because I’ve always gone outside the game to grow my, my experience. But yeah, I can, I can help people just, just have a different, I look at it through a different lens. And the focus everywhere is so results driven, I can watch, I can go to a football match. And I can see the people emotionally attached to the result change their behaviour in an instant, the crowd, the coach on the sideline getting irate. And it’s like, Wow, that’s a, that’s fascinating. I mean, I’m intrigued. And it’s like, there’s no, the anxiety that exists around that focus on the result is significant. And it’s to the detriment of performance. So if I’m, if I’m a coach who’s anxious about we’ve conceded a goal, then how does that translate to the group, and the group already identify with me to varying degrees from day one, some that are more like me and get me, we’re going to get on well from the start, and there’ll be a, there’ll be a drop, if you imagine there’s a 25 person squad, the person at the top is most likely, and everybody else to some different degree, I rubbed them up the wrong way, depending on how far away they are from some of the things I like to do. So my environment, a small adjustment to my environment, may make a big difference for more of the squad and bring them closer to an optimum level for example. I don’t think coaches know this, I think coaches walk into a new team on a, on a, in a dressing room and, and perhaps with all the good intention, outline their vision, their methods, their approach, how, how they’re going to work, and want people to buy into that and only that. And I get that’s the thing, and that’s a way to do it. I just think there’s a greater opportunity to learn how to make, as the leader, some small adjustments in how I function with each of these people, and how I tweak my environment to suit the people that I’ve got, that can be the difference between relegation and not, that can be the difference between me getting fired or not, you know, the average tenure for a football coach in England was something like 130 days 12 months ago. So that, imagine if you could double that, then that’s got to be a good thing. And that translates to business, it’s the same.

Gary Crotaz 58:24
One of the reasons why I always love our conversations is, is your level of, of, of self reflection and awareness around these drivers of success. And there’s something you said in there that I wrote down. The focus on results is sometimes to the detriment of performance. And I reflected on that story when you were talking about when you first took on the big role, and you went for it with enthusiasm and drive and everything you’d got, everything that made you successful up to that point. But then you sort of look behind you and realise that not everybody was quite with you. They weren’t, they weren’t following you. And I think I’m hearing now, you know, the learnings over the years of the successes, but also critically, the failures. And this is what makes you such a powerful high-performance coach, you’ve seen both sides, you’ve lived both sides. Things that leaders think are the route to success aren’t always, sometimes to the point that they’re actually actively destroying the success of, of the team or the organisation. And not because they’re trying to destroy it, but it’s the inadvertent consequence of the way they lead.

Tony Walmsley 59:34
Yeah, yeah, that’s fantastic Gary, and you know, and I know we have to wrap up. I think of that time and my, I suppose, no fear and optimism in the face of a really complex challenge. Why would a 20-year-old centre half in his debut season be willing to go on that path with me? You know what? They may be fearful of just stepping over the line and fronting up, never mind trying to go to the level that that I was asking them to. I think that’s really important because we have to, we have to operate at, Yes, we want people, people grow from, from facing challenges and breaking through them. And, you know, I’m proud that, that we did that. I was asking way too much though. They could have done it in smaller steps. And we could all have had more success together had I, had I got my act together.

Gary Crotaz 1:00:38
It’s amazing. And I thank you for your openness and your authenticity in which, with which you’ve, you’ve, you’ve told these, these amazing stories. So Tony, what’s next for you? What’s coming up this year? What’s ahead?

Tony Walmsley 1:00:50
Well, I’m building a platform, I’m really excited. So I’ve studied personality for the last couple of years, qualified with the British Psychological Society. I’m really interested in how, I think, I think understanding our identity is where our greatest strengths lie. So if, you know, when I first started out on this path, thinking about the 98% of academy footballers that don’t make it, for example, so what is deemed success and what is deemed failure, surely 98% of people are not failing. So who are they? And then when a player gets to the end of the career, and I’ve only ever, I am a footballer, they’re suddenly no longer a footballer and have an identity crisis, there’s a whole, there’s a whole field of work in there. And the same happens in business, that they identify by what they do. And it comes with consequences. And I think that this platform that I’m developing will be more granular than a DISC profile and a Type profile. Using the Big Five, but I’m making it very, very granular. And in the performance context, so I’m really, it’s maybe a month away from completion. And I’m going to apply it into sport, which I’m really excited about. And I’m going to continue to use versions of it in, with the business clients. And the purpose will be to bring insights to the surface that help managers, coaches, leaders, make the adjustments they need to make to motivate their people the way they like to be motivated, and there’s some significant gains to be had there. And I’m really excited about that.

Gary Crotaz 1:02:42
That’s fantastic. And where can people find out more about you?

Tony Walmsley 1:02:46
I’m on TheLeadersAdvisory.com. And I’m on LinkedIn.

Gary Crotaz 1:02:53
Fantastic. Thank you, Tony. The Unlock Moment is that flash of remarkable clarity, when you suddenly know the right path ahead. For Tony, it was a provocative question on live TV that changed his perspective of how he played his role at his best. Seeing himself from the outside in, he could see the power of his curiosity as the antidote to stress. We’re all desperate to learn the secrets and habits of high performance. It’s been fantastic to be able to tap into Tony’s mind today and draw on his wealth of experience, both the highs and the lows, to discover that path to fulfilling your ultimate potential. Tony, thank you so much for joining me on The Unlock Moment.

Tony Walmsley 1:03:31
Gary, thank you very much, it’s been an absolute pleasure.

Gary Crotaz 1:03:35
This has been The Unlock Moment, a podcast with me Dr. Gary Crotaz. Thank you for listening in. You can find out more about how to figure out what you want and how to get it in my book, The IDEA Mindset, available in physical book, ebook and audiobook format. Follow me on Instagram, and subscribe to this podcast to get notified about future episodes. Join me again soon!