The joke I always use is I'm the world's ugliest bridesmaid. People see the athlete, people see the coach, but they should never see me. We are a guy in the background who's doing a lot of the work and driving things forward, but we ain't that important.”“And high functioning means that you're able to actually be honest with people, be open with people and them to be open with you too. It's not to respect a hierarchy or anything else. It's like, you have to be open to that critical question asked in the right way, you know, in order to really reflect on what you do and are you doing the best and is there a better way of doing it?”“I tell my staff, like, we're all going to make mistakes. The goal is not to make the same mistake twice and try to make the mistakes less egregious as we go. So I think part of it is like understanding that it's an okay environment to make a mistake in and we're going to learn from it.”“But I look at what I call the hat scenario. So the very first exercise I do with my guys is, you know, we understand what hats people wear, right? So there's the blue hat, which is the process hat, right? And there's the green hat, which is the ideas hat. And then there's the red hat, which is the emotional hat. And then there's the yellow hat, is the pleasing people hat. And then there's the black hat, which is, it won't work. And so we explained this, and I use the hats a lot in my scenarios, but the first thing I said to the guys is, just like that, what's your preferred hat? There's no right or wrongs here because each of those is a strength.”“I think being much more deliberate in terms of creating that environment and realize that my job is to set that up and then stay out of way of it. I've never been good as what I would call the cheerleader coach. I think I've always told players, if I've got to bring the intensity, you're in the wrong job.”SHOWNOTES1)Clive and Loren’s update since last episode on the podcast and their new roles at University of Notre Dame2)Coaching philosophies and how they have evolved over time for Loren and Clive3)How to frame questions for constructive feedback and the importance of creating an environment to own mistakes4)The difference between an inter- and mutli-disciplinary performance team5)The structure of the Notre Dame football and Olympic sport performance staff organisation6)Tailoring tasks and workflow to staff strengths and the hat analogy for different staff different strengths7)Demonstrating impact in new environments and obtaining trust through consistencyPEOPLE MENTIONEDJohn WagleDuncan French