The date that Andy Robinson first learned about Footdown’s leadership mentoring groups is seared into his brain. It was Sunday 26th November 2006 and Andy had just received the call from Rob Andrew telling him that: “the RFU management board had lost faith in me and were going to ask me to leave.” Being sacked for the first time in his life, and so publicly, was a terrible shock.
Andy and Andrew Mercer, Footdown’s chairman and founder, were both watching their children out riding that Sunday morning and Andrew, unaware of the call from the RFU, began a conversation with Andy about leadership. “He asked me what was going through my mind during the last 4 or 5 weeks (during the test matches against South Africa) and how I was managing my team”. This began a series of conversations about leadership that, in January 2007, inspired Andy to join the Bath Fifteen, Footdown’s first leadership, coaching and mentoring group.
How Footdown helps Andy Robinson be a better leader
Why did he do it? “I was in turmoil but I knew I had 6 months, I had time to look after myself, something we seldom have time to do.” He also recognised that participation in the group would be a two way process and he was confident in his ability to add value to the group.
His first experience of meeting the Bath Fifteen, whose members include an eclectic mix of successful entrepreneurs, corporate CEOs and singer Midge Ure, was that it was somewhere safe where he was able to: “talk about his experiences”, receive honest support, but also be challenged in a constructive way. By sharing his experiences with the group, he realised that most successful people have been through tough times. He also saw “that people within the group had great relationships. They all had completely different businesses but there was a bond there.”
This experience of being challenged continued in the subsequent one-to-one leadership coaching sessions with Andrew Mercer in which Andrew encouraged Andy to examine: “who I was and what I stood for”. In particular, Andrew dared him to state: “what my real values are.” With better self knowledge has come better communication: “really understanding me, and what I’m about, has made me a < a href="/?page_id=3624" title="better leader"/>better leader; able to communicate to anyone.”
And “knowing my values helps me through tough times.” But, as Andy is quick to point out, you must also live your values daily: “There’s no point in saying something and then not being that person. It’s really helped my integrity as well.”
Through his membership of Footdown’s leadership mentoring group, and his coaching sessions with Andrew, he was challenged about what he should do next. Asked the question: “what am I passionate about?” it was clear to Andy that his passion was still coaching and that his desire was, and still is, “to be the best coach in the world” by creating a coaching model that would ensure his success. He’d never articulated this passion during his 6 years with England and when things turned sour at the end he responded by sticking out his chest and “acting like a warrior”.
Once it was clear that Andy should not abandon coaching because of his bad experience with England, his Footdown group helped him to use his renewed sense of self and purpose to secure his next role with Edinburgh in the summer of 2007. “I was able to communicate who I was to the CEO and to make clear to him what he would get if he employed me.”
This support included helping Andy to refine his coaching model, or coaching philosophy, in particular articulating his belief in empowering “people to perform. No coach has ever won a game; they’re not in the arena. Players need the responsibility and the accountability for their performance.” He also believes that the seeds of greatness are within all of us and he tells every player he meets that “it’s in their control to become great.”
By understanding why other members’ businesses succeed, Andy also learned the importance to an organisation of having a core purpose, and a set of goals, consistent with its values and aligning people to this shared purpose and goals.
“Before I went to Edinburgh I was able to think about what I wanted and how I wanted to approach the role.” Then upon securing the head coaching role he was able to describe clearly how he saw the team and the management working together and implement that vision. He repeated this approach when, after success with Edinburgh, he subsequently took on the position of head coach at Scotland in 2009.
Agreeing a shared set of values with both players and management was an early achievement in both roles and his experience of living these values daily with his team has only made him more evangelical. The values he shares with his Scotland team today are:
- To improve
- To respect and earn the respect of the people you’re playing with and against
- To inspire
- To enjoy the challenge.
He attributes Scotland’s ability to come back from a disastrous start to the 2010 Six Nations to everyone understanding and living the core values. “If it wasn’t for the core values everything could have been ripped apart.”
And shared values don’t just help Andy with the big events; he uses them daily. “When I speak to a player about why they’ve not been selected I can talk about the values and say that I don’t think you’ve been improving or the way you acted there was disrespectful. Our values provide a context and also allow them to challenge me.”
Interestingly he doesn’t believe the value “to improve” applies only to a player’s performance on the pitch. He speaks proudly about one of his players, Kelly Brown, who, in a King’s Speech moment, set about tackling his stammer and helped a friend in Newcastle do likewise. Today Andy regularly asks Kelly to speak in public on behalf of the team. Something neither would have considered before.
He also leads by example and views his continuing membership of a Footdown leadership coaching and mentoring group – and being regularly challenged by both the members and the group’s leader, Mike Roe – as being critical to his continuing commitment to be a better leader. Indeed he has taken Footdown into Scotland by undertaking a Footdown Executive Insight session with his team just before the 2010 Six Nations.
Andy believes the exercise worked really well and “some of the issues identified by the process could potentially have remained hidden from him.” He also believes that having done the exercise once with his team (and he plans more sessions in the future) they are more open and more willing to “speak their mind when they have an issue.”
So looking back on his decision to join a Footdown group Andy believes it helped him become a better leader; “it has been a life changing experience” it has also helped to put into context all of the good things in his life before he left England and helped “me to understand who I am”. “I always had total belief in myself, even before I met Andrew (Mercer). But I didn’t totally understand who I was. Footdown has really cemented my belief in myself and what I can do.”