Populism started with focus groups insists leadership guru Ric Charlesworth

Tess Ingram
Mar 24 2017
AFR
Ric Charlesworth marches into the Indian restaurant he has chosen for our lunch. The coaching great is short, dressed in a red polo shirt and every one of his movements smacks of energy and purpose.
It is a Friday but he has an AFR Weekend tucked under his arm and is wearing a watch on each wrist. Before I can ask why, we dive into a conversation about India, where he worked for the best part of 2008 to try to revive hockey in the country before leaving, frustrated that “off-field difficulties” were preventing him from succeeding.
But he hasn’t fallen out of love with the food, of which he orders a colourful mountain for us to share.
Richard “Ric” Ian Charlesworth is a sporting legend. He played in the Australian hockey team at four Olympic games (five if the team he’d captained hadn’t been forced to boycott the 1980 Moscow games), was a member of three Sheffield Shield-winning West Australian cricket sides alongside Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh, and went on to coach the national women’s and men’s hockey teams to Olympic medals.
He is a high-performance consultant, sporting strategist, author, an Order of Australia recipient and a father of five.
Unlike today’s sports professionals, his on-field career ran in parallel to his work as a doctor and then as the federal member for Perth for 10 years from 1983 in the Hawke and Keating governments (he backed Keating’s challenge for the leadership).
Great leaders are authentic
But it is today’s government that dominates our conversation. I am keen to know how Australia’s “coach’s coach” – sought out for his advice on leadership and excellence – rates the performance of the Turnbull government and others globally dealing with the rise of populism.
“I see populism’s origin in what was starting to happen when I was leaving politics – the focus groups and polling to find out what the punters want and give it back to them,” he says as we snap and crunch papadums. “My view of leadership is you should never lead like that. You should ask ‘Ok, where do we think we ought to go, let’s persuade and convince people this is what we want to do’.
“Win the argument, rather than resorting to the lowest common denominator by asking ‘what is going to make a difference for this group of people who might change their vote’.”
Charlesworth, 65, speaks with a great deal of intensity, often leaning forward and fixing his searing gaze on me when he wants to make a point: United States President Donald Trump will disappoint his supporters. Western Australia’s new premier Mark McGowan was a diligent opposition leader but faces a big challenge in tackling the state’s “huge bundle of debt”. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is lacking authenticity and a vision for the country.
“I was really optimistic about Turnbull. For me, he was a breath of fresh air compared with [his predecessor Tony Abbott] but the really sad bit is he is trying to be something he is not.
“He clearly doesn’t believe in a number of positions he is trying to put and you can see it, people can feel it. The most important thing about leadership is being authentic.”
‘The captain’s pick is nuts’
Charlesworth says his vision hasn’t changed much since his time in parliament. He thinks Australia has created a “sickness-care system” instead of healthcare, has an education system detrimentally driven by choice and competition rather than quality, and is frustrated by the government’s “ideological stance” on issues he thinks can be quickly and simply righted such as an Indigenous treaty and the transition to renewable energy.
Charlesworth disputes the world needs a specific kind of leadership during this period of volatility and says the “antidote” to populism is simple – it will right itself.
“Your suggestion is that there is a silver bullet and I don’t think there is,” he tells me. “I think there are lots of people out there who are working for a different agenda; they are just not as vocal, they are not as loud yet, or they have been asleep.
“Or maybe they didn’t make enough noise when they should have and there will be a movement whereby those people will rise and assert their view. Is this a sine curve? I suspect so.”
His key piece of advice for leaders? Avoid the “captain’s pick”.
“The captain’s pick is nuts. I don’t think one person with authority is what we need. In sport, we have got this wrong for a long time. One of the most progressive things I did in the 1990s was stop having a captain for our team.
“We had a leadership group because in the end, if you are playing in a team, everyone has to be thinking like a captain. In politics, this reliance on a leader or a perceived need for a strong leader is misplaced – what we need may not be embodied in one person.”
To Mars and back
We are talking politics as our food arrives – two salads, paneer skewers and Kashmiri naan – which Charlesworth declares is “probably too much” as it lands in front of us. In contrast to the pace of our conversation, we take our time working our way through it and come close enough.
Charlesworth’s brain clearly operates very quickly. Many of his sentences suddenly shift focus mid-way through, as if he starts in a certain direction and then changes his mind about how to finish. In his most recent book World’s Best (it came out last November, was published by his company and posted to me for research before our lunch), a chapter penned by a colleague says some of the players he coached referred to his thinking style as “life on Mars”.
Over the course of our two-hour feast I understand why – we regularly journey down long tangents that touch on a number of subjects before Charlesworth loops back to answer the question. In one instance, it took him 18 hours to complete the loop – with an email the following morning explaining he had just realised he had not properly answered a question on his fascination with Shakespeare, who he often quotes and has penned a book about – Shakespeare the Coach.
“He was the first psychologist in English literature,” Charlesworth says, explaining that the Bard’s great insight into human nature and motivation provides valuable inspiration for leaders.
The great ‘Rictator’
When it comes to coaching, there is a fine line between support and relentlessness. Charlesworth is known to be a tough taskmaster – some of his players have spoken publicly about his intense demands and scrutiny, and even his youngest sons’ high school sports teams call him “the Rictator”.
But if there is anyone with the personal success and coaching track record to inspire athletes, it’s Charlesworth. The players who have toughed it out under his mentorship have been victorious at the Olympics and Commonwealth games, World Cup and Champions Trophy. To him, that’s what matters.
“You are not anybody’s friend,” he says. “You are in a position where your job is to challenge them, make it difficult for them, discover their weaknesses and hopefully help them solve those problems. For many, that is not a very pleasant experience but unless you do that, you don’t do the job well. In the end, my job was to help them be their best selves.”
Charlesworth says he is semi-retired but it is clear he is not slowing down. Companies employ him to speak about higher performance, vigilance and team building; in the past month he has addressed employees of ANZ, Rio Tinto, Pilbara Ports Authority, Thrifty and the Association of Financial Advisers.
He has had roles with the Fremantle Football Club, the New Zealand cricket team, Cricket Australia, Australian Institute of Sport and Indian hockey and is mentoring AFL coaches as part of their level-four coaching program.
“Sport does training better than business does,” he says. “It understands training and sports teams spend a lot of time preparing for the competition. People in business say to me ‘we can’t afford that because we can’t take them away from work to train them’ and my response to that is, ‘every situation, every day at work is a training opportunity’.”
A man who pulls no punches
Charlesworth has strong opinions and isn’t afraid to share them. It sometimes lands him in trouble. Shortly after the 2016 Rio Olympics, Charlesworth’s comment that Australia’s gold medal in the women’s rugby sevens competition was a “soft” victory because the sport was still developing attracted serious backlash.
When I called him this week to touch base before writing, he said he had been caught in another “media storm” after weighing in on former hockey champion Danni Roche’s bid to become the next Australian Olympic Committee boss.
“I am happy to contest my opinions,” he tells me over lunch. “It seems to me at some stage or another you better stand for something. I think that is important.”
Two of his three grown-up children from his first marriage – Jonathan and Kate – are also doctors while the third, Elizabeth, is a lawyer. His youngest sons – Oscar and Hugo – from his marriage to his present wife Carmen are still in high school. The family live opposite the Karrakatta graveyard in Perth’s western suburbs and Charlesworth says he often walks his dogs through the tombstones, reading their inscriptions as he passes.
“They are heart-rending. There are small children and people who live long lives. I always imagine what their life was like or what their experience was.”
As we wrap up I finally get around to asking about the old newspaper he carried in with him. It’s for cricket training he says, he gradually reads the weekend paper over the week while Oscar and Hugo play sport. And the second watch?
“No it’s not a FitBit. My son said they talk to you and tell you what to do and I didn’t want that. It is a heart rate monitor. I am keen on mitigating my risk. My father died when he was 63 and my brother died when he was 70, so I’ve got bad form. Although, touch wood, I am doing okay.”
Before moving to leave, Charlesworth leans forward, giving me another intense stare and tells me he is driving cardiovascular research fundraising for the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research.
It is a busy job, he says. “The world is an infinitely fascinating place, isn’t it. There is stuff happening everywhere you would like to be part of. My frustration is you have to sleep for eight hours.”
And then, with the newspaper under his arm, he is gone.
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