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Eddie Jones16 December 2021

Lessons In Elite Leadership - Eddie Jones - #411

3Frameworks
16Insights

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Frameworks in this episode

Communication4 steps

Repetition Without Repetition

Drive a message home by repeating it enough times, but never the same way twice

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Leadership5 steps

The New-Team Takeover Playbook

Change a team's direction fast by reading players, not rebuilding skills

Read →
Peak Performance4 steps

The Trademark Game

Chase a repeatable floor of effort and control, not brilliance every week

Read →

Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Hot Take· 2

Hot Take

Respect matters more than harmony in a team

Jones makes a pointed claim: respect for diversity of opinion, background and gender is almost more important than harmony. Homogeneous teams produce no new thoughts and no creative conflict — diversity is what keeps the ball moving, and it works because it delivers better outcomes, not for its own sake.

  • Respect for difference beats a harmonious but uniform group
  • If everyone thinks and behaves the same, you get no creative conflict
  • Diversity isn't for its own sake — it produces a more effective team
  • Bad leaders want everyone to be a copy of themselves

“that respect's almost more important than harmony in a team organization”

Eddie Jones

“everyone thinks the same way, everyone behaves the same way... you don't get any creative conflict”

Eddie Jones
#diversity#leadership#team culture
Hot Take

You attack to reach the final, but defend to win it

Reflecting on The Last Dance, Jones notes that NBA playoffs look like they're all about attack, but the finals turn on defense — Jordan's defensive intensity stood out most. He says the same pattern holds across most sports, including rugby: tight, 50-50 games are won by the team that makes fewer errors.

  • A good attacking team gets you to the final
  • Winning the final takes a good defensive team
  • Jordan's finals defense was what stood out most
  • In tight games, the side making fewer errors generally wins

“You can be a good attacking team to get to the finals, but to win the finals, you've got to be a good defensive team”

Eddie Jones
#strategy#defense#sport

Explainer· 5

Explainer

Why modern coaches guide players to solutions instead of commanding them

Jones argues leadership has shifted from commanding to facilitating. Players increasingly find their own solutions, so the leader's job is to set crystal-clear performance standards and then guide players toward them rather than dictating every move.

  • Athletes are more individualistic, so coaching has more parts to it than 30 years ago
  • You can no longer just stand at the front and say 'this is what we'll do'
  • The leader sets clear standards of performance for everyone
  • Then guides players to reach those standards instead of commanding

“it's more about the players finding their own solutions. I think coaches are more facilitators now”

Eddie Jones

“guiding the player to where they need to go to achieve those standards rather than commanding the players to do it”

Eddie Jones
#leadership#coaching#standards
Explainer

The constant battle between supporting and challenging your people

Jones describes high performance as continuously appraising a tension: supporting versus challenging players, and keeping them comfortable versus uncomfortable. Push too hard and they're overwhelmed; let them settle and you must make them uncomfortable again. The leader is always reading where to sit on that dial.

  • There's a constant battle between supporting and challenging a player
  • People need to be comfortable sometimes, but not for too long
  • When they settle into the chair, it's time to make them uncomfortable
  • The skill is continuously appraising where you need to be

“when they start sitting comfortably on their chair, then you've got to make sure you make them a bit more uncomfortable”

Eddie Jones
#high performance#coaching#motivation
Explainer

How fast a player adapts predicts how good they'll become

Jones says the speed at which a player learns and adapts when stepping up a level is one of the most distinguishing markers of future success. He cites an English cricket rule of thumb: a player who couldn't make a fifty in his first three test innings was unlikely to adapt into a top player.

  • Ability to learn quickly separates players who rise from those who stall
  • Stepping up a level is a stress test of adaptability
  • English cricket theory: no fifty in the first three test innings signalled low adaptation odds
  • Adaptation requires an open mindset, curiosity and humility

“players who go from one level to the next, their ability to learn quickly is one of the most distinguishing factors”

Eddie Jones
#learning#talent#adaptability
Explainer

Using press conferences to talk to your own players

Jones highlights how coaches like Ralf Rangnick use media appearances to reinforce messages to their squad. Every press-conference statement about how the team will play is really aimed at the players, echoing what was said in the team room so they hear the message repeated through another channel.

  • A press conference is a second channel to reach your own players
  • Rangnick was clear and consistent about how his team would play
  • Media lines reinforce the messages already delivered in the team room
  • Players hear the standard restated publicly, which strengthens it

“every time he talks to a media conference, he's talking to his players. So he's reinforcing the messages”

Eddie Jones
#communication#media#leadership
Explainer

The staff's job is to make a complex game simple

With 22 staff members, Jones stresses that a new player must build many relationships and can drown in mixed messages. Because the brain can't perform while overloaded, the staff's job is holistic, concise, aligned communication — and channelling most tactical input through one group head, NFL-style, so players face fewer degrees of freedom.

  • A new player must form relationships with 22 staff members
  • Conflicting messages breed confusion and hurt performance
  • The brain can't perform on the field while overloaded with thoughts
  • Communication is channelled through four group heads to keep it simple

“our job as a staff is to make it simple. We've got to make this complicated game simple for the players”

Eddie Jones
#communication#simplicity#team structure

Story· 3

Story

Why every leader needs a neutral truth-teller on their shoulder

Jones deliberately placed Neil Craig beside him to give honest daily feedback on whether he's coaching too hard, too soft, too much or too little — meeting over coffee at 7:30 each morning. He argues you're the worst witness to your own mind, and tells of a similar unnamed note-taker embedded with the Milwaukee Bucks head coach.

  • You're the worst witness to your own performance under pressure
  • Craig sits alongside Jones and feeds back on his balance daily
  • A 7:30am coffee is the fixed feedback ritual
  • The Bucks' most important person was a note-taker who told the coach it straight

“you're the worst witness to your own mind. But to have someone there who's on your shoulder”

Chris Williamson

“he writes down everything I do well, he writes down everything I don't do well, and at the end of the day he gives it…”

Eddie Jones
#feedback#self-awareness#leadership
Story

The plan behind encircling the All Blacks' haka

Jones details a full week of psychological strategy against New Zealand: stirring up their media with the 'fans with keyboards' line, signalling England were coming after them, and finally getting the crowd's attention off the haka by forming a V around it. Joe Marler pushed past the allowed line, creating a confrontational buzz that reframed the match.

  • A week-long media strategy designed by long-time aide David Pembroke
  • The 'fans with keyboards' line was engineered to stir New Zealand's camp
  • Encircling the haka aimed to redirect the crowd's enchantment
  • The captain adapted the coach's idea into a V; Marler took it further

“we came up with that line of they're just fans with keyboards to stir that up a bit”

Eddie Jones

“you do that in other games and it doesn't work and you look like an idiot mate”

Eddie Jones
#psychology#strategy#rugby
Story

Alex Ferguson's advice: stop reading it

Jones says public criticism hurt him as a young coach until Sir Alex Ferguson told him at an early lunch in England to simply stop reading any of it. He hasn't since. He notes how one negative comment among hundreds of positives can consume an athlete, and calls dwelling on it a waste of time.

  • Criticism stung early in his career; praise felt good in equal measure
  • Ferguson's advice was blunt: don't read any of it
  • Jones now stays deliberately ignorant of media coverage
  • One bad comment among 700 good ones is where athletes waste their energy

“he said, mate, don't read any of it, stop reading it. And from that day onwards I haven't read it”

Eddie Jones
#criticism#mindset#resilience

Tool· 2

Tool

Jones's leadership routine: deep work blocks and a daily reflection journal

Jones credits Cal Newport's Deep Work for teaching him to find his most profitable hours, do his hardest work then with distractions cut off, and treat other periods as lighter. He pairs this with deliberate end-of-day reflection in a high-performance journal, recording what he did and didn't do well.

  • Deep Work by Cal Newport reshaped how Jones structures his day
  • Identify your most profitable hours and do the hardest work there
  • Cut distractions during peak blocks; keep other periods light
  • End each day recording what went well and what didn't

“understanding when your most profitable periods of the day are. Make sure you do your hardest work there”

Eddie Jones
#productivity#routine#reflection
Tool

At halftime, deliver two messages at the absolute most

Jones says the rousing 'any given Sunday' halftime speech is dead. Because a stressed player — carrying physical and tactical stress — absorbs far less information, coaches are told to get across one or two points at the very most in any high-pressure, time-sensitive window.

  • Grand halftime speeches no longer happen
  • Stressed players absorb much less information
  • Limit high-pressure communication to one or two points maximum
  • Applies to any time-sensitive, high-stress moment

“those old on any given Sunday type speeches don't happen anymore mate. It's one or two points”

Eddie Jones
#communication#pressure#coaching

Takeaway· 4

Takeaway

Know yourself, coach to your strengths, hire the rest

Jones's core leadership lesson is self-knowledge. Young coaches think they know and can do everything; experienced ones learn their strengths, coach to them, and deliberately bring in people who complement and supplement what they lack.

  • Early-career leaders overestimate their own range
  • Maturity is identifying your genuine strengths and leading from them
  • Surround yourself with people who add what you don't have, not more of what you do
  • More of your own qualities isn't what the team needs

“know your strengths, coach to your strengths, and then bring other people in that complement, supplement and add to the team environment”

Eddie Jones
#leadership#self-awareness#team building
Takeaway

The great ones stay humble and never think they've made it

Jones warns that players often think reaching the next level means they've arrived and can stop improving. The truly great, by contrast, stay humble and curious. He points to Roger Federer, still working with a coach at 40 and returning each season with a new variation to his game.

  • Reaching a new level tempts players to stop improving
  • Humility keeps you always wanting to get better
  • Federer kept a coach at 40 and added a new stroke every season
  • Imagine every player developing a new part of their game each off-season

“if you're humble, you always want to improve”

Eddie Jones
#mindset#growth#humility
Takeaway

Loving the work is the real defence against burnout

Asked how he avoids burnout at 61, Jones says the passion, desire and enthusiasm of genuinely loving what you do prevents it — he never feels he's doing a job. His earlier mistake was expecting everyone else to share that exact intensity; experience taught him empathy for the different ways people carry the same desire.

  • Real love for the work sustains passion and prevents burnout
  • Jones never feels like he's doing a job, even at 61
  • His young-coach mistake: expecting identical desire from everyone
  • Maturity meant more empathy for how others express the same drive

“if you really love something... you don't get burnt out because the passion's there, the desire's there, the enthusiasm there”

Eddie Jones
#burnout#passion#leadership
Takeaway

No conversation is neutral — you're always adding or taking away

Jones relays a quote from a sports psychologist who worked with England: every interaction with a player or staff member either adds to the business or takes away from it. Even passing someone in the hallway counts. The skill is keeping every exchange additive.

  • Every conversation either adds to or subtracts from the team
  • No exchange is neutral, including brief hallway moments
  • The team culture is a trickle-down of the leader's personality
  • Keeping interactions additive is a core leadership discipline

“every conversation you have with a player or with a staff member, you're either adding to the business or you're taking away from the business”

Eddie Jones
#communication#culture#leadership