Stop a man in the street, ask if he has heard of Sir Steve Redgrave or Sir
Matthew Pinsent, and he would probably be surprised that anyone would waste
their breath asking. Of course he has heard of them. But mention the name of
Jurgen Grobler and you would probably be met by a shrug of the shoulders.
Yet this quiet, unobtrusive coach has been the indispensable influence behind
the scenes during the past 14 halcyon years of British rowing.
The limelight doesn’t interest Grobler. Only his athletes getting gold medals
does. “I see my job as a service, helping young athletes, motivating them to
the podium,” he said. “If you read the newspapers, you will see only the
athletes’ names. That’s right. I have no problems there.”
Public recognition does come along sporadically. In 2000, Grobler won the BBC
Sports Personality of the Year coaching award and four years later he was
given a lifetime achievement award by the UK Coaching Foundation. He was
awarded the freedom of his adopted town, Henley, on his return from success
at the 1996 Olympics. But after each award, Grobler returned eagerly to the
background.
Grobler’s business equivalent is not the charismatic, rent-a-quote chief
executive so beloved of the media, but rather the unsung middle manager who
devotes his life to extracting the last drop of potential from the human
resources at his disposal.
At least, that’s what a corporate middle manager should be doing. The
conclusion from recent research based on Gallup interviews with more than 1m
employees across a broad range of industries in different countries leaves
no doubt as to the value of good managers: “Talented employees need great
managers. The talented employee may join a company because of its
charismatic leaders, its generous benefits and its world-class training
programmes . . . but how long that employee stays and how productive he is
while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate
supervisor.”
Grobler certainly knows this. “To be successful again and again, I think every
athlete needs a coach,” he said. “You notice when a good athlete wins, the
first person he thanks will be his coach. He knows how important the coach
has been to him, setting the right programme, preparing everything.” And
Redgrave, speaking after yet another Olympic gold in Sydney in 2000, knew it
too: “Without his (Grobler’s) support and help we wouldn’t be here.
”
Too often business ignores the lessons of sport, epitomised by the likes of
Grobler. During our conversation at the history-laden Leander Club in Henley
he repeatedly referred to an overriding desire to help young people make the
most of themselves. The history of sport is shouting at business that teams
can only achieve excellence under the guidance of a talented people manager
who forfeits the pursuit of his own achievements to dedicate himself to
helping others achieve.
Professional sport, the most competitive environment there is, has not only
long recognised the sheer power of effective and committed people managers;
it also understands that such individuals don’t grow on trees. Whereas
companies continue to promote people to management positions just because
they happen to be good at what they do, sport has learnt that true
managerial skill is much less common than functional expertise, the ability
to perform well doing the job or playing the game.
So, in Grobler, who never even attempted to forge a career as a rower for
himself, we have the embodiment of some of the key messages sport can convey
to business. He is a type of individual you will rarely come across in the
business world — a man asked to do nothing but get the best out of others.
FROM as far back as he can remember, as a youngster growing up in the rubble
of post-war Magdeburg in communist East Germany, Grobler was both fascinated
by the sport of rowing and resigned to the fact that he would never make it
as an athlete. “I just didn’t have the right body shape to be a successful
international athlete,” he said. “But I was always interested in the sport —
the teamwork, trying to find out how far you can push your body. I knew I
couldn ’t do it myself but I wanted to help young people achieve their
goals.”
So he enrolled on a five-year degree in sports science in Leipzig, then the
leading university in that field in the country. On graduating, he returned
to his local rowing club in Magdeburg and first attracted attention in his
mid-twenties when he won the club its first medal, coaching Wolfgang
Guldenpfennig to the bronze in the single sculls at the Munich Olympics of
1972. He then went on to coach the coxless pair Bernd and Jörg Landvoigt to
successive golds in 1976 and 1980.
His record now is remarkable. He has a haul of 15 Olympic gold medals, eight
with crews he has coached personally and seven as head coach or technical
director of the rowing team, first with East Germany and then, since 1991,
with Great Britain. Redgrave won three of his five Olympic golds under
Grobler’s tutelage and Pinsent all four.
Add on countless World Championship golds, and you start to wonder what it is
about this seemingly unremarkable man that makes him such a supreme manager.
What differentiates the average managers from the Alex Fergusons and the
Jurgen Groblers, men who achieve success consistently over decades, with
different organisations and despite changing personnel? According to
Grobler, it is “how much you love the job, how motivated you are as a
coach”. This might, at first glance, seem trite, but many businesses still
ignore the essential truth contained in it. To be really good at anything,
you surely have first to love doing it. But any ambitious individual who
wants to ascend the corporate heights normally has to push early in his
career to become a middle manager of some sort, whether he has any desire to
manage people or not.
The result can be uninterested, weak management and a consequently sluggish
workforce, as workplace surveys bear out with disturbing regularity. A
paltry 2% of UK Human Resources professionals interviewed by Personnel Today
in 2003 stated that the people management skills of line managers in their
companies were “excellent”, while 74% blamed ineffective line managers for
low morale.
Grobler’s love of coaching has two primary effects. First, it enables him to
think nothing of working flat out for all hours to go that extra mile,
examining every last detail to prepare his athletes for victory. His own
work ethic, enthusiasm and total commitment, he believes, also produce
far-reaching knock-on effects. They are in themselves a galvanising force,
rubbing off on the athletes and making them strive harder to achieve their
goals.
“As in any other business where you want to be successful, this is not a
40-hour-a-week job. You have to devote all the time necessary to make the
young athlete achieve. You have as a coach always to be in front, in the
driving seat. You have to say to the athletes, ‘Look guys, I can’t do the
training myself, but I will be there an hour before you so that everything
is set up. I will help you.’ I always think that’s a big motivation for the
athlete. They know there is someone there who will really help them and
believe in them right through the tough times.”
The second consequence of Grobler’s passion is that his thirst for more work
destroys any potential for complacency, prevents him from resting on his
laurels and pushes him forward to strive for future goals.
When I asked him if he had any regrets, there was a telling silence.
Eventually he shook his head and said: “I’m always thinking about the next
one. Always looking forward.” And right now he needs to do plenty of looking
forward, to 2008 certainly and possibly to 2012.
Redgrave retired in 2000. Out of the four who won the coxless four Olympic
gold in Athens last year, Pinsent and Ed Coode have also now retired, and
James Cracknell is taking a year out. There is clearly much rebuilding to be
done before the Beijing Olympics in 2008 if the British rowing team is to
continue its remarkable run of success.
Grobler said the monumental task of sustaining the level of achievement in the
face of the departure of these rowing legends has provided him with a
renewed sense of mission, and, if he needed any, yet more enthusiasm. “This
is a big challenge. I am maybe even more motivated than I was at the Athens
Games,” he said.
GROBLER’s doubters should remember that the German is a proven master at
bringing change and improvement. First he revitalised the ramshackle rowing
club in Magdeburg, putting it on the Olympic map with a hotel and
state-of-the-art fitness centre.
When he arrived in Henley in 1991, invited to replicate his East German
success by the British rowing establishment, “it was just like Magdeburg 20
years before. A boathouse and a river, and nothing else”. With the help of
lottery funding and driven by Grobler’s vision, the Leander Club now boasts
the best training facilities and a refurbished boathouse, decked with
trophies and myriad memories of triumph.
Dilapidated facilities were one fundamental difficulty he faced on his arrival
in Britain. The other was a dearth of the professionalism to which he was so
accustomed in East Germany, where sport was “the Mercedes-Benz”, the prized
asset of a dysfunctional system. “In my first Olympics here, it was all
about ‘taking part’. I didn’t understand ‘taking part’. This was something
totally new to me. I had to go there and win,” said Grobeler.
He might have learnt in detail the methodology of sports science and fitness
training in East Germany, but coaching for him is much more than reading
from a manual. It requires combining technical knowledge with a profound
understanding of the mental and physical attributes of the individual he is
dealing with.
“A coach might have a training programme to follow, but he will have a feel as
to whether the athletes have to back off or push on. You need to find that
line, that ceiling. Not to go too far. Push them two steps forward and then
back off a little bit. That’s feeling.”
Each athlete is an individual and no coach can afford to ignore that, he said.
“Matthew (Pinsent) and James (Cracknell) and Steve (Redgrave) are not
copies. They are totally different. In one way, you have to bring them
together as a crew. The result has to be the same, going as fast as possible
from A to B with each rower. But to motivate them, to bring them to the same
level of performance, you will have to go a different route with each
athlete.”
Because Grobler treats each individual in a different way, there is always the
chance that some may consider that others are receiving preferential
treatment. This is where mutual trust comes in. The coach must know, on one
side, that the athlete will not shirk any effort to achieve. On the flip
side, all athletes must learn that the coach only has the good of the team
at heart — there are no favourites. “The coach has to establish a
partnership with the athlete. Like all good partnerships, it has to be based
on trust. Nothing should be kept under the table.”
Grobler constantly conducts one-to-one discussions with athletes so he can
gauge the mental state of his charges. “A successful athlete-coach
partnership must be coach-driven but the coach cannot function without good
feedback from the athletes. An important part of the coach’s job is to
listen.”
Few people like confrontation and the amiable Grobler is no exception. But he
forces himself to engage in honest criticism: “It’s never nice. But you must
always start from a base of trust, partnership and openness. We shouldn’t be
shy of bringing things out on the table. We could just make every day nice,
with no problems. But you will never improve that way.”
Grobler normally reserves his sharpest criticism for one individual — himself.
If an athlete is underperforming despite his or her best efforts, he takes
it personally, and he challenges himself to come up with a more effective
strategy for that individual. “I feel responsible and always say that we are
in the same boat,” he said. “If the athletes win, it’s their victory. If
they lose, then it’s the coach’s fault. I feel a lot more down than the
athletes sometimes. I am always first say to myself, ‘Maybe I made a
mistake’.”
It is difficult to imagine Grobler losing his temper. But if an athlete
threatens the trust that has been painstakingly built up between the two of
them, then self-criticism and constructive feedback fly out of the window:
“If I see they are cutting corners again and again, then I get very upset .
. . I always say the last stroke counts. The last stroke last year made us
Olympic champions. They all have to learn that in training.”
That last stroke in Athens won an Olympic gold for the coxless four crew of
Pinsent, Cracknell, Coode and Steve Williams by the margin of 45 centimetres
— or 0.08 seconds. This victory was particularly sweet for Grobler, because
it came in the wake of a highly controversial and widely criticised shift in
selection policy in the weeks before the race.
Pinsent and Cracknell were originally down to compete in the coxless pairs.
But Grobler decided that the best chance for a British gold would require
them to switch to the coxless fours, displacing a devastated Rick Dunn and
Toby Garnett.
The ruthlessness of the decision inevitably created considerable tension in
the squad. Grobler was again prepared to sacrifice a cosy atmosphere in the
pursuit of excellence. “I don’t do things just to make trouble or show how
powerful I am,” he said. “But nor do I run away from the job.”
The German is happy and settled in Henley, describing himself as “more British
than the Brits”. Filled with energy by the prospect of the rebuilding
process that lies ahead, he hopes shortly to get the nod to continue in his
current role until the London games in 2012. Doesn’t he want to start to
wind down, to relax a bit? “I relax in the morning when everyone comes in on
time.”
Jurgen Grobler's leadership lessons
Love your job. Enjoy helping others achieve their goals
To be a good manager, you have to love managing. This passion will ensure your
dedication to the job. It will also be infectious, increasing the commitment
of others and inspiring them to attain their own goals.
Mutual trust and openness are key — guard them jealously
No manager can operate effectively without trust. The team must believe that
the manager treats them with honesty and integrity and hides nothing. For
his part,
the manager must know that each team member shares his goals.
Question yourself before you question your team
You are responsible for the underperformance of any member of your team.
Always analyse your own performance as a manager before criticising others
Don’t run away from tough decisions
It is easy to sit in your ivory tower and avoid confronting awkward issues.
Some decisions might antagonise certain individuals. That doesn't mean you
shouldn’t make them. It’s your job. You’re a manager.
No two people are the same — deal with them differently
If you deal with everybody in an identical way, you will not get the best out
of your team. It is your responsibility to find out what makes each
individual tick and then manage them accordingly
No criticism means no progress
For your people to improve, they have to know where they are going wrong.
Criticising others might not be pleasant, but having a nice, cosy life
should not be your goal
Managing others is not a one-way process. Always listen
Listen to what your team is telling you. If you don’t, you won’t understand
them. And if you don’t understand them, you can’t manage them
Shun all favouritism. Performance is all
There is no room for cronyism in any team or organisation that strives for
excellence. Who is best able to carry out a specific task or fulfil a
particular role? That is the only relevant question in selection and
recruitment.
David Bolchover is the co-author of The 90-Minute Manager, which outlines
the lessons that business managers can learn from football managers. His
next book, The Living Dead: The Shocking Truth about Office Life, will be
published by Wiley-Capstone in October.
